Showing posts with label Southeastern Bible College. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Southeastern Bible College. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Justice and the Redemption of God
Southeastern Bible College asked me to speak for their chapel last semester. Above is a recording. Three things to note:
1. This was given at a college so it was written for an academic setting. So its not technically a sermon and possibly is a bit more "technical" than a message that I might give in a church or to a youth group.
2. I have decided I hate listening to myself. Listening to recordings of yourself lends itself to hearing all the times you mispronounced something or stuttered or said "um" or breathed funny or had an annoying squeak in your voice. Hopefully, none of those things are nearly as distracting for you as they are for me.
3 Please note that I have climbed to the steeple of the roof pictured in this video.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Response to a Debate at Southeastern Bible College
Just saw a debate last Friday on the campus of Southeastern Bible College between Christian philosopher Doug Geivett (Talbot Theological Seminary) and atheist philosopher Bruce Russell (Wayne State University) over the existence of God. It was a very interesting debate, I feel like it was conducted with a good, gracious spirit by both sides and that it was fairly evenly matched.
I feel like the main point in Geivett's favor was the exchange over the "Problem of Evil." Russell attempted to argue that there is an excessive amount of evil in the world, suggesting that God does not exist. Geivett replied with the typical rejoinder that it is beyond our ability to know whether or not there is an excessive amount of evil and thus this is unintelligible claim. I think that reply is persuasive. I will note, however, that there was an interesting point in the discussion in which they agreed that the persuasiveness of the argument rested on the likelihood in other terms of God's existence. If we are convinced that there are good reasons to think that God exists, then we are likely to say there is no unnecessary evil and that we simply do not see the reasons for evil actions or events. On the other hand, if we are not convinced that there are good reasons to believe in God's existence, then the amount of evil in the world certainly seems excessive for a world in which God might exist. I'm not entirely sure what to make of that part of the exchange, but I thought it was interesting at least.
The main aspect of the debate that was of interest to me was the exchange over the cosmological argument. I have to say that I think Russell won this part of the debate quite solidly. The cosmological argument for God's existence runs like this: The universe has a beginning. This event, like all other events, has to have a cause. However, for it to have a spatial-temporal cause would only require another cause, and so on, for an infinite chain. Therefore, it must have a cause that is atemporal and aspatial and yet still capable of causing a temporal and spatial event. We infer from this the existence of a "creator." Now, I have long been suspicious of this argument for two main reasons- I'm not sure (and the way I've sketched this argument I hope demonstrates this) that this argument really describes anything resembling the Christian God. There is certainly nothing in this argument that seems to me to demand an intelligent or personal being (though some have claimed such, I think mistakenly). There is nothing that even requires that the "cause" be a "being" in the sense of a "living being." So I think more is drawn from this argument than is actually implied. My second reason for being suspicious of this argument is that it assumes (like many similar "classical" arguments for God) a particular scientific/metaphysical paradigm that is not universally accepted. The success of this argument rests on the assumption that both sides of the argument share the presupposition that the universe has a beginning point temporally and spatially. However, many physicists no longer hold to the big-bang model of the universe's existence, and thus advocate the belief in an eternal universe. Once the "shared presupposition" is no longer shared, the argument becomes worthless without another argument demonstrating that the paradigm this argument depends on is correct.
None of these reasons, however, were the ones that were brought up by Russell in his critique. Instead, Russell used the concept of an atemporal being to critique the argument and I believe show it to be self-defeating. His response is basically this: an atemporal being is one that has no experience of time, it simply exists. Thus, there can be no change in the existence of an atemporal being. So if there is an atemporal being that wills to be (and is) a creator, then this being is constantly and always willing to create and is constantly/always creating. This would then seem to indicate that there is no time boundary to this beings creation because it is perpetually or eternally being created (these words aren't quite adequate because they are themselves temporal words and thus don't apply to an atemporal being, but form our perspective they are the best that can be done). So given all this, there seems to be a contradiction in the cosmological argument- the beginning of the universe requires an atemporal creator. But an atemporal creator creates a universe with no beginning!
I think it is open to the Christian (such as myself) to respond to this one of two ways: Either we agree with what Russell is saying and claim that the universe indeed has no beginning. I honestly don't see this as especially problematic, but its certainly not the traditional Christian view. Or, we agree that this shows that there is a significant problem with the argument, but we claim the problem can be solved by making a different claim- the "creator" does not have to be atemporal, it can be a temporal being (though I'm honestly not exactly sure how this works with the motivation of the argument for avoiding an infinite chain of causes). Again, this is not a traditional Christian view, and again, its not one I have any discomfort with (though this approach will have larger ramifications on our theology because of the implications it has for questions such as divine immutability or knowledge). Either way, I think Russell has shut down the traditional conception of this argument, a realization that unfortunately for Geivett did not occur during the course of the debate.
I feel like the main point in Geivett's favor was the exchange over the "Problem of Evil." Russell attempted to argue that there is an excessive amount of evil in the world, suggesting that God does not exist. Geivett replied with the typical rejoinder that it is beyond our ability to know whether or not there is an excessive amount of evil and thus this is unintelligible claim. I think that reply is persuasive. I will note, however, that there was an interesting point in the discussion in which they agreed that the persuasiveness of the argument rested on the likelihood in other terms of God's existence. If we are convinced that there are good reasons to think that God exists, then we are likely to say there is no unnecessary evil and that we simply do not see the reasons for evil actions or events. On the other hand, if we are not convinced that there are good reasons to believe in God's existence, then the amount of evil in the world certainly seems excessive for a world in which God might exist. I'm not entirely sure what to make of that part of the exchange, but I thought it was interesting at least.
The main aspect of the debate that was of interest to me was the exchange over the cosmological argument. I have to say that I think Russell won this part of the debate quite solidly. The cosmological argument for God's existence runs like this: The universe has a beginning. This event, like all other events, has to have a cause. However, for it to have a spatial-temporal cause would only require another cause, and so on, for an infinite chain. Therefore, it must have a cause that is atemporal and aspatial and yet still capable of causing a temporal and spatial event. We infer from this the existence of a "creator." Now, I have long been suspicious of this argument for two main reasons- I'm not sure (and the way I've sketched this argument I hope demonstrates this) that this argument really describes anything resembling the Christian God. There is certainly nothing in this argument that seems to me to demand an intelligent or personal being (though some have claimed such, I think mistakenly). There is nothing that even requires that the "cause" be a "being" in the sense of a "living being." So I think more is drawn from this argument than is actually implied. My second reason for being suspicious of this argument is that it assumes (like many similar "classical" arguments for God) a particular scientific/metaphysical paradigm that is not universally accepted. The success of this argument rests on the assumption that both sides of the argument share the presupposition that the universe has a beginning point temporally and spatially. However, many physicists no longer hold to the big-bang model of the universe's existence, and thus advocate the belief in an eternal universe. Once the "shared presupposition" is no longer shared, the argument becomes worthless without another argument demonstrating that the paradigm this argument depends on is correct.
None of these reasons, however, were the ones that were brought up by Russell in his critique. Instead, Russell used the concept of an atemporal being to critique the argument and I believe show it to be self-defeating. His response is basically this: an atemporal being is one that has no experience of time, it simply exists. Thus, there can be no change in the existence of an atemporal being. So if there is an atemporal being that wills to be (and is) a creator, then this being is constantly and always willing to create and is constantly/always creating. This would then seem to indicate that there is no time boundary to this beings creation because it is perpetually or eternally being created (these words aren't quite adequate because they are themselves temporal words and thus don't apply to an atemporal being, but form our perspective they are the best that can be done). So given all this, there seems to be a contradiction in the cosmological argument- the beginning of the universe requires an atemporal creator. But an atemporal creator creates a universe with no beginning!
I think it is open to the Christian (such as myself) to respond to this one of two ways: Either we agree with what Russell is saying and claim that the universe indeed has no beginning. I honestly don't see this as especially problematic, but its certainly not the traditional Christian view. Or, we agree that this shows that there is a significant problem with the argument, but we claim the problem can be solved by making a different claim- the "creator" does not have to be atemporal, it can be a temporal being (though I'm honestly not exactly sure how this works with the motivation of the argument for avoiding an infinite chain of causes). Again, this is not a traditional Christian view, and again, its not one I have any discomfort with (though this approach will have larger ramifications on our theology because of the implications it has for questions such as divine immutability or knowledge). Either way, I think Russell has shut down the traditional conception of this argument, a realization that unfortunately for Geivett did not occur during the course of the debate.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Reflections During Missions Conference
We've just finished a missions conference here at Southeastern with Dr. Billy Kim as our keynote speaker. He is a native of Korea who came to the United States to go to school after the Korean war and then went back to Korea as a pastor of what has now become one of the largest and most influential churches in Asia and the president of the Far-East Broadcasting Comany. He has really challenged and I think on many levels convicted us regarding our often apathetic attitude toward missions and making disciples of other nations and peoples.
He has talked several times about the explosive growth of the church in South Korea. His church, for instance, began with barely a dozen members meeting in a shack. Now it has 20,000 members. Overall, there were less than a million believers in South Korea 40 years ago. Today, there are over 13 million. According to Dr. Kim, the largest Presbyterian, Methodist, and Pentecostal churches in the world are in South Korea along with "probably 20 of the world's largest churches" (not sure out of how many). As I was hearing these stories, a statistic I had heard came to mind. About 100 years ago, 80% of Christians were found in the West (West Europe, North America). Today, 80% of Christians are outside of the west. In Europe, which used to be the major stronghold of the Church, Christianity is all but dead. I wonder if the United States is not headed in that same direction. There are at least some indications that it may be. In twenty years, will America likewise be labeled "spiritually dead and dark" as France is right now and will countries like Korea be sending missionaries to us?
It is somewhat disheartening that Christianity seems to be faltering in the West, but I think in large part that has been by our own making. Our wealth and prosperity has, in many ways I think, made us apathetic towards God. By contrast, when I meet Christians from less wealthy parts of the world, I am always amazed at their zeal and passion. One thing, however, has occurred to me that makes me quite nervous. Many of the Christians in the developing parts of the world are remarkably uneducated. This definitely extends to theological education. Dr. Kim said at one point this week that Korea admittedly does not have the theological knowledge that many Christians in the west have. I've spoken with missionaries this week who discussed regions in the world where new Christians are easily led astray by cult movements like the Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses (some even to the point of making cult leaders the pastors of their newly founded churches). There is a real danger here.
Christianity may be "dying" in the west, but there is still a great wealth of knowledge in the west. The best seminaries and theological schools in the world are primarily in the United States, Britain, and Germany. If Christianity is shifting to other parts of the world, it seems to me it is essential that Christian theological education shift into those areas as well. Yet this seems a fairly neglected need.
I have definitely felt God's calling towards full-time ministry. I desire to work to some extent in a pastoral role, but I also know that my main interests and skills are more academic and related to teaching. I have also felt, to some extent, a desire to work in oversees missions for at least a little while. I am definitely beginning to entertain the notion of going to the missions field to train pastors and teach theology to people in parts of the world where that knowledge is much more scarce.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)