Will Lost Souls Be Tormented Forever in the Lake of Fire?

The two most prominent trees in the Garden of Eden were the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life. God said to Adam and Eve, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die" (Genesis 2:16-17). A loving and generous God gave them everything freely except one thing.

Satan makes his first appearance in chapter three, giving us a picture of his modus operandi of maligning God and twisting His words. "Indeed, has God said, 'You shall not eat from any tree of the garden?'' (Genesis 3:1). Was that what God said? No. Eve didn't fall for that. So Satan tried again: "You surely will not die!" (Genesis 3:4).

And Eve believed that lie, as have many other people. Most Christians will say that everybody lives forever; it's just a question of where. I believed that myself until recently when I studied what the Bible actually says. The Bible states very clearly that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23), not eternal life in torture. God told Adam that if he sinned he would die. Psalm 37:20 says, "But the wicked will perish; and the enemies of the Lord will be like the glory of the pastures, they vanish--like smoke they vanish away." Malachi 4:3 talks about the Day of Judgment when it says, "'You will tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day which I am preparing,' says the Lord of hosts." They will be completely destroyed--dead forever when God ushers in "the new heavens and new earth in which righteousness dwells" (2 Peter 13). No sin or evil can mar His perfect new creation where He will live among His people (Revelation 21:3).

After Adam and Eve sinned, God forced them out of the Garden of Eden so they would not eat from the tree of life and live forever. This was an act of mercy because to live forever in a sinful state would be eternal torment. So God specifically withheld eternal life from fallen humanity, until He could purchase our redemption with His blood. To His redeemed, He will grant access to the tree of life (Revelation 2:7), and they will live forever in a glorified state, crowned with glory and majesty (Psalm 8:5).

The idea of an inherently immortal soul was alien to the ancient Hebrews. They believed that the dead went down to Sheol, or the grave. Psalm 146:3-4 says, "Do not trust in princes, in mortal man, in whom there is no salvation. His spirit departs, he returns to the earth; in that very day his thoughts perish." And Ecclesiastes 9:5 says, "For the living know they will die; but the dead do not know anything."

Did the New Testament change this perception? No. In Acts 2:29, Peter quoted Psalm 16:8-11, and explained that David was talking about Christ. “Brothers, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day.” And Acts 2:34: “For it was not David who ascended into heaven.” David is dead and buried and will rise again at the resurrection. John 3:13 states clearly, "No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man."

The Bible does not teach that disembodied souls live forever in heaven or hell, because a soul is not inherently immortal. The words "immortal" or "immortality" are only used in the context of God and the redeemed on the day of judgment (Romans 2:7, 1 Cor. 15:53-54, 1 Tim. 6:16-17, and 2 Tim. 1:10). The soul that sins will die (Ezekiel 18:20). 1 Timothy 6:16 says that God alone possesses immortality. If He alone possesses immortality, and the redeemed will receive immortality when Jesus comes again, then immortality is not something we all possess. It is a gift of God's Spirit.

Instead, the Bible teaches that Jesus will come in glory with the angels for the Great White Throne Judgment, and the dead will rise from their graves. 1 Thessalonians 4:16 says, "For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first." If they rise, they are in the graves. All the dead will rise and stand before Him. "Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment" (John 5:28-29).  Matthew 10:28 says that God is able to destroy both body and soul in hell. If the soul is destroyed, it ceases to exist. "Our God is a consuming fire" (Hebrews 12:29). How does a fire consume? It destroys completely and leaves nothing except ashes, which is consistent with Malachi 4:3. 

Where then did this idea come from that souls are immortal and we will all live forever in eternal bliss or eternal torture? Greek mythology taught that the immortal souls of the dead go down to Hades, and when the Hebrew Old Testament was translated to Greek in the Septuagint, the word "Sheol" was translated "Hades." Also, the Greek philosophers like Plato heavily influenced a number of the church fathers. So hell came to mean conscious, unceasing punishment in a lake of fire. When we think of it that way, we read "death," "destruction," "perish, "consume," etc. to mean something other than what those words actually mean. They have become euphemisms for eternal torture.

Now, of course the idea of hell as eternal, conscious torture is the traditional view, and there are a couple of passages that have given me pause because they have convinced many that hell is conscious suffering, in spite of all the parts of the Bible that tell us the wages of sin is death. They are the story of Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16:19-30, and the account of Judgment Day in Matthew 25:31-46, where Jesus separates the sheep from the goats on the basis of what they did or didn't do for the least of His brothers.

Before I begin to analyze these passages, I would like make one general observation. In both of these passages, the lost souls were not terrible people by any stretch of the imagination. The "goats" may even have been professing Christians, because they called Jesus "Lord." (It's not much of a stretch to conclude that since Matthew 7:21 says that only those who do the will of God will enter the kingdom of heaven.) The text doesn't tell us one way or the other. The only thing we know about the rich man and the "goats" is that they lacked love. In other words, they failed to do God's will to love their neighbor as themselves (Matthew 22:37-40, Galatians 5:14, James 2:8). The rich man didn't kick Lazarus when he walked past him. He just ignored him. Likewise, we don't get a laundry list of the sins of the "goats"--all we know is that they didn't seem to care about those who suffer.

So if we want to ignore everything in the Bible that say that the wages of sin is death in order to focus exclusively on these two passages, we have to face the fact that lovelessness will put us squarely in the goat camp. If we don't feel tremendous relief at the idea that nobody will be eternally tortured, we should examine our hearts and ask ourselves whether our relationship to a God of love is what it should be.

This reminds me of the story of Solomon and the two women who fought over a baby because one the women's babies died. When Solomon suggested that they cut the baby in two and give one part to each of them, one woman readily agreed and the other one asked Solomon to give the first woman the baby instead of killing him. Solomon immediately knew that the baby belonged to the last woman because of her love for him.

Likewise, our love for other people (or its absence) should tell us if we really belong to Christ. If the idea of the vast majority of people suffering excruciating pain forever and ever with no relief doesn't trouble us deeply, we either don't really believe it, we don't want to think about it, or we know nothing of love. If it's the latter, Matthew 25 and Luke 16 give us no assurance that they are not describing us.

However, I think these two passages are consistent with the rest of the Bible, and do not teach unrelenting conscious torture for the lost. In Matthew 25:46, Jesus says, "These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." The same word for "eternal" is used in both instances, so the argument goes that if the righteous will live forever, the others will also be alive and punished forever. However, the word for "eternity" is "aion," which according to Strong’s Concordance means 1) for ever, an unbroken age, perpetuity of time, eternity 2) the worlds, universe 3) period of time, age. So it doesn't definitively mean forever and ever. In fact, the word "aion" is used in Hebrews 11:3: "By faith we understand that the worlds ("aion") were prepared by the word of God." And the Bible clearly states that this universe is not forever. 

A form of the word "aion" is also used in Jude 1:7 when it says that Sodom and Gomorrah were an "example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire." But Sodom and Gomorrah were completely annihilated. The inhabitants of these cities are not still being tortured in an unrelenting fire. If, as Jude said, these cities were an example for us, and the traditional view is correct, then we would expect to read about screaming ghosts in the fire after they died. But all we know is that the "smoke of the land ascended like the smoke of a furnace," and that "God destroyed the cities of the valley" (Genesis 19:28, 29). This is how the Bible illustrates what it means by destruction by eternal fire.

As for Luke 16:19-30, it is important to remember that since Jesus always taught in parables, this is also a parable. And that means that we have to think about what it means rather than taking everything at face value. All the parables contain symbolism. If we read this in the context of the rest of the Bible, we know that this does not represent something that has already happened. Why? Because nobody except the Son of Man has gone to heaven (John 3:13). This means that Lazarus is not a real person who went to heaven. But some say that "Abraham's bosom" is a pre-heaven for the redeemed, a place where they stay in a disembodied state until the resurrection. However, Hebrews 11:8, 13 tells us that Abraham was a great man of faith who has not yet received the promise. He is still awaiting its fulfillment, like all those who are symbolically in the bosom of Abraham, the man of great faith. Like David (Acts 2:34) and Daniel (Daniel 12:13), he is dead and buried--or rather "asleep" and awaiting the resurrection. Most likely this is a picture of Judgment Day, and the rich man would not be quite so loquacious in the real lake of fire, because, like all the examples in the Old Testament of death by divine fire, it would be sudden and complete (for example, Leviticus 10:2 and Numbers 16:35). There is no example of slow torture anywhere.

Speaking of Abraham, he said, "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?" (Genesis 18:25). Most of us fallen creatures would not torture an animal for even a few seconds. Would the God of love, who is the source of the moral law written on our hearts, torture billions of people throughout all of eternity, just for failing to receive His gracious gift of eternal life? Job 4:17 says, "Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than his maker?" The obvious answer is no.

This is the conclusion I have reached after studying for myself what the Bible has to say on the subject. But my objective is always to get you to think and never to indoctrinate. Although the word of God is infallible, I am not, and I invite you to study this subject for yourself. I welcome your thoughts, and any correction, in the comments.

A Skeptic's Guide to Faith

In the comic strip Bloom County, Oliver Wendell Jones was the child prodigy who would sit on his roof and ponder the cosmos when he wasn't busy hacking into computers. 

One night the stars suddenly formed the words, "REPENT OLIVER."

Oliver said to himself, "Bloody difficult being an agnostic these days."

Difficult, maybe . . . but not impossible.

A skeptic asked me to do a post about rational steps to faith, and the Bloom County comic reminded me of something not to do: If we start out with a philosophy that excludes the possibility of the supernatural, it is impossible to find evidence for God's existence. This may seem self-evident, but it's easy to lose sight of, and if we do we will commit the fallacy of begging the question without even realizing it.

We may decide that we will not believe without evidence, but whenever "evidence" comes along, we'll interpret it in light of a naturalistic philosophy (the belief that nature is all that exists). So if we start out with the conviction that nature is everything, we will always reach the conclusion that everything, no matter how vanishingly small the odds, has a natural explanation. The issue of whether God exists is a yes/no question, but if we operate from this conceptual framework, the answer will always be no, even if He does in fact exist. It is circular reasoning.

In our scientific age, this is a very easy mistake to make because we are used to explaining things by science, but its scope is limited to nature--it cannot tell us whether anything exists beyond nature. Science never gives "God" as an answer. It tells us how the world came into existence but not why we are here. So the dichotomy is never between theism and science, but between theism and atheism. Science is simply an explanation of how things are, but it doesn't tell us whether it happened by design or as a result of a cosmic accident. If we allow science to become synonymous with atheism in our minds, we posit a false dichotomy: science versus religion.  But the Creator of this universe would have used quarks, genomes, and the elements of the periodic table as His building blocks, leaving us with the task of discovering and naming it all. He has to be the Great Scientist. Everything around us would reflect His qualities, and the natural world and its laws would be one great miracle even though it operates in highly organized ways. 

This doesn't mean that we cannot look to science to make the determination whether the Bible is true, but we have to keep two things in mind: First, we may have a faulty image of God as a distant, alien deity who occasionally intervenes by breaking the laws of nature, and if we do, we will never find evidence of such a deity because he doesn't exist. The biblical God is always present in His creation and He never breaks the laws of nature; He only redeems nature and exercises dominion over it. In the Gospel accounts, He restored the brokenness in nature by healing the sick, and He exercised dominion over it by walking on water, turning water into wine, multiplying bread, and calming the storm. This was in keeping with His mission as Redeemer and as the Second Adam who would have full dominion over nature (Genesis 1:28). But He refused the suggestion of Satan that He turn rocks into bread (Matthew 4:3-4). That would have been a radical breach of the laws of nature. Still, the works of Jesus were true miracles by any definition; they superseded the laws of nature. So although God created nature and declared it "good," He is not limited by its laws.

Second, instead of looking for "evidence" without defining what we would consider evidence, we would be better off asking two thing: whether the Bible is logical and whether it is consistent with reality. This is a question that takes a while to answer because it means asking a lot of different questions within this framework. But this is the general approach I take when I comment on Atheist Central. In my opinion it is the only way to prove that the Bible is more likely true than not. We cannot conclusively prove that the Bible is true any more than we can conclusively prove a scientific theory. But we can determine whether the evidence fits.

Everything we can experience with our senses or test scientifically is within space and time, and the Bible tells us that God exists outside of that (1 Corinthians 2:7, Titus 1:2, Jude 1:25, 2 Timothy 1:9). So the universe is like the underside of a dome that contains all of nature, and all the rest of reality is outside of the dome--unknowable except through revelation. But never fear; since this blog post is about a rational approach to faith, we will examine the revelation of the Bible critically to see whether it lines up with science.

And in making this determination, it makes sense to start at the beginning and look at the greatest miracle of them all: creation (or if you prefer--the origin of the universe). And then we can examine the revelation of the Bible (the outside of the dome) and science (the inside) and see if they match up.

Genesis 1:1-3 says about creation, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. Then God said, 'Let there be light'; and there was light."

What, then, does creation look like from inside the dome, from a scientific perspective? When I said that scientists never give "God" for an answer, I might have lied. After the NASA satellite Cosmic Background Explorer confirmed the Big Bang theory in 1992, George Smoot, who led the thirty American astronomers who made the discovery, said, "What we have found is evidence of the birth of the universe. It's like looking at God." Geoffrey Burbridge, an atheistic member of the team, complained that all his colleagues were rushing off to join the "Church of Jesus Christ of the Big Bang." Psalm 19:1-2 says, "The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hand. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night reveals knowledge." So it seems rather prophetic that astronomers are the ones flocking to the "Church of Jesus Christ of the Big Bang."

How does the biblical creation account line up with science? First, astronomer Robert Jastrow said that the universe began suddenly "in a flash of light and energy." So this fits with the biblical description of God saying, "Let there be light."

Second, most scientists believe that the Big Bang marked the beginning of time. Since God exists outside of time  and created the heavens and the earth "in the beginning," this is also consistent.

Third, cosmologists tell us that the universe emerged out of nothing, and Hebrews 11:3 says, "By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible." God created ex nihilo, or out of nothing.

Fourth, the fine-tuning of the laws and constants of the universe is such that it led astrophysicist Michael Turner to say, "The precision is as if one could throw a dart across the entire universe and hit a bulls eye one millimeter in diameter on the other side." I discuss the Big Bang and fine-tuning in more detail here.

Fred Hoyle, the astronomer who is most closely associated with the steady-state model of the universe (which posited that the universe had always existed), said: "A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question." He was an atheist at the time of this statement but was "severely shaken" by the suggestion of a guiding hand, and abandoned his atheism.

And astronomer George Greenstein said, "The thought insistently arises that some supernatural agency--or rather Agency--must be involved. Is it possible that suddenly, without intending to, we have stumbled upon scientific proof of the existence of a Supreme Being?"

Fifth, science tells us that the laws of physics break down at the Big Bang, so this ordered universe was born out of chaos. The split second after the Big Bang was a state of "lawlessness" which is inherently unpredictable. Anything could have emerged out of it. Some say that this evidence goes against the design argument. But does it? It certainly goes against the idea that the universe is wholly deterministic, but that is not the same thing.

In 1799, physicist Pierre Laplace gave copies of his Treatise on Celestial Mechanics to Napoleon Bonaparte, seeking to explain the universe purely in terms of natural gravitational forces. Napoleon asked him what role God played in his theory, and Laplace reportedly replied, "Sire, I have no need of that hypothesis."

Laplace believed that the universe was completely deterministic, an idea that has been overturned by quantum mechanics. Traditional physics said that the laws of nature are fixed, and therefore miracles are impossible. Quantum physics says that nothing is impossible--some things are just very, very improbable. There is a very small, non-zero chance that we can walk through walls. Danish physicist and father of quantum mechanics Niels Bohr has said, "Anyone who is not shocked by quantum mechanics has not understood it." Physicist Alvaro de Rujula of Cern was asked whether there was a possibility that the Large Hadron Collider could produce a world-ending black hole. He replied that it was extremely unlikely but "the random nature of quantum physics means that there is always a minuscule, but nonzero, chance of anything occurring, including that the new collider could spit out man-eating dragons."

So the universe is not wholly predictable and the God hypothesis is back.

If we once again picture the universe as a self-contained dome where the underside represents science and the physical universe, and everything above is eternity, then that moment of "lawlessness" would correspond to God creating by fiat. And physicists hope to someday understand it better by using a combination of general relativity and quantum mechanics called quantum gravity. If quantum mechanics says that nothing is impossible, is it so farfetched to say that the lawlessness may represent the physical properties of the miracle of creation? Physicist Paul Davies said that the Big Bang "represents the instantaneous suspension of physical laws, the sudden, abrupt flash of lawlessness that allowed something to come out of nothing. It represents a true miracle--transcending physical principles."

So the revelation of the Bible tells us that the moment of creation was a divine miracle, and science reveals that the normal laws of physics break down at that moment. Something else was at work in that apparent chaos, but from it emerged a universe that still rests on a razor's edge of finely tuned laws and constants. And science would only be able to detect the lawlessness, but not the Guiding Hand.

The question of creation is of course fundamental, but we should evaluate all theological questions on the basis of whether the Bible is logical and whether it corresponds to reality. It is within this context that I will next discuss what the Bible says about the nature of a soul.

Why is Faith Necessary?

Mark Twain said, "Faith is believing what you know ain't so." And that is a common perception: faith is the ability to tenaciously suspend incredulity, to maintain one's convictions in the face of pesky things like facts. I've even heard it said that faith is not so bad as long as believers just acknowledge that it's not reasonable. These individuals seem to be telling us that we should concede Twain's point.

But there is absolutely no reason to believe what ain't so. I never understood the effort some parents go to in order to keep their children believing in Santa Claus. Or all the Christmas movies that hail "faith" as a virtue in and of itself. Faith is only as valid as the object of our faith. This means that we should only believe in the truth. Anything less is misplaced faith.

According to the Bible, faith is the means by which we arrive at the truth about God. But that seems somewhat backwards, because generally we determine the truth first and then believe. Seeing is believing. But the Bible turns that around and says that believing is seeing. Why is that? Because in our natural state we are cut off from God, and none of our faculties can bridge the gap. 1 Corinthians 2:14 says, "But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised." Faith means a spiritual awakening that removes the veil from our eyes, so that we can perceive spiritual realities.

Why is this spiritual rebirth necessary? Let's look at some of the other ways we might go about arriving at the truth about God: science, experience, and reason.

Science: The Bible is God's message of salvation rather than a science textbook; however, it does clearly state some things about the universe. Genesis 1:1 says, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." So the Bible says that it had a beginning. And Hebrews 11:3 says, "By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible." God spoke the universe into existence out of nothing. He created space, time, and matter by fiat.

In our scientific age, we have an advantage over prior generations in that we have substantial evidence to support the biblical account. The big bang marked the beginning of time, the universe emerged out of nothing, and it was finely tuned for life. It appears to have been purposefully created with us in mind.

So does this dispense with the need for faith? No, because one can always argue that we simply don't know enough yet. Maybe there is an infinite number of universes, and this one just happens to be the one where everything went exactly right. Never mind that there is no evidence for that; if we have a naturalistic mindset, we will choose any explanation rather than the supernatural, no matter how improbable.

Experience: I've heard non-believers say that they would believe in God if they witnessed a miracle. But is that really true? C. S. Lewis said the following:

In all my life I have met only one person who claims to have seen a ghost. And the interesting thing about the story is that the person disbelieved in the immortal soul before she saw the ghost and still disbelieves after seeing it. She says that what she saw must have been an illusion or a trick of the nerves. And obviously she may be right. Seeing is not believing.

For this reason, the question whether miracles occur can never be answered simply by experience. Every event which might claim to be a miracle is, in the last resort, something presented to our senses, something seen, heard, touched, smelled, or tasted. And our senses are not infallible. If anything extraordinary seems to have happened, we can always say that we have been the victims of an illusion. If we hold a philosophy which excludes the supernatural, this is what we shall always say.

A miracle is by definition a supernatural event, but unless we know everything about the limits of nature, how do we know if something was supernatural? If a person is healed of an incurable disease, we will most likely interpret the event according to our preexisting philosophy. So if we assume naturalism, we will either try to give a natural explanation, or we will just accept that we don't know. We will not consider the event to be evidence for the existence of God.

Reason: I am a firm believer in critical thinking and sound logic, and I believe it reinforces faith. Critical thinking cannot destroy true faith, which has to be built on truth. Of course, if we craft an idol out of select parts of the Bible and mistake that for God's revealed truth, that idol can easily be shattered by a well-aimed argument. But the word of God itself, understood accurately in context, can withstand intense, honest scrutiny.

Logic is a useful tool, but one problem is that none of us are pure rationalists. Most of the time there are certain things we want to believe and other things we don't want to believe. We are invested in our philosophies of life because they define us. So if we lose a debate, we don't necessarily modify our views--we just walk away. And next time we'll come up with better arguments.

Another problem with logic is that it is very difficult to arrive at the truth by way of deductive reasoning because we don't always recognize our own assumptions. Like I said before, people often assume naturalism, which means that their conceptual framework excludes the possibility of a God. So deductive reasoning will never lead them to conclude that God exists whether or not He does.

Bertrand Russell said: "The question is how to arrive at your opinions and not what your opinions are. The thing in which we believe is the supremacy of reason. If reason should lead you to orthodox conclusions, well and good; you are still a Rationalist." As a relativist, Russell had no problem with this, but if rationalism can lead us to all kinds of different conclusions it is not the ideal tool for discerning truth. Most of us are not capable of the kind of objectivity that would lead us step by step toward truth.

In light of all this, it makes sense that God would choose a method of revealing Himself to us that transcends our intellects and our senses, because these are fallible. That is why the Bible talks about being born of the Holy Spirit, who leads us into all truth. 1 Corinthians 2:16 says, "For who has known the mind of God that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ."

When Christ died on the cross the heavy veil keeping all but the high priest out of the inner chamber of the temple tore in two, symbolizing the penalty for sin having been paid, granting us free access into God's presence. But it also symbolizes the "veil" being removed from our eyes, so that we may see God.

Isaiah 25:7 prophesies: "And on this mountain He will swallow up the covering which is over all people, even the veil which is stretched over all nations." The veil is that which blinds us to God. But 2 Corinthians 3:16 says, "whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is removed."

Back when I experienced this spiritual rebirth, I became very conscious of God in nature, like I was seeing everything for the first time as part of God's creation. Nothing had changed, except the lens through which I viewed the world. I saw that God is indeed present in His creation.

Someone might argue that my experience was subjective, and that would be true. Everything we perceive with our minds and through our senses is subjective. But we can still know that they are very real. The times when Christ was closest to me have left no doubt in my mind that He is real. C. S. Lewis says in his novel Till We Have Faces: "I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice? Only words, words; to be led out to battle against other words."

However, faith is always a matter of degree, so in order for it grow stronger we have to allow it to be tested. We should embrace truth of every kind, and never hide from challenges to our faith. Faith is not a fragile object to be hidden away someplace safe. We have to reinforce it with reason, experience, and truth, knowing that "this is the victory that has overcome the world--our faith" (1 John 5:4).

Does God Hide in the Gaps of Science?

Atheists often claim that God is merely a stopgap for the next scientific discovery. Science has demystified the marvels of creation one by one, forcing God out of the narrowing gap of knowledge. In spite of the frenzied efforts of theists to stop scientific progress, they argue, God is disappearing in a puff of science. 

Scientists have traced the biological chain of causation back with only one remaining frontier: the origin of life. And since they are nowhere near discovering how life could emerge from non-life, it is tempting for Christians to stake a flag of victory in that scientifically barren ground. 

But why should we peg our hopes on scientific ignorance, when an entirely different picture is emerging in the field of cosmology? Biologists may be plugging in gaps, but cosmologists are creating a mosaic that is looking a lot like the face of God. Self-described agnostic astrophysicist Robert Jastrow said in God and the Astronomers: "Now we see how the astronomical evidence leads to a biblical view of the origin of the world. The details differ, but the essential elements are the same; the chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy."

Compelling scientific evidence supports the Big Bang theory, which says that the universe began approximately 14 billion years ago as an infinitely dense point of pure energy that marked the beginning of time. But the laws of physics break down at this point, so scientists do not know what caused it or what came before, or if it even makes to sense to speak of "before" the beginning of time. According to Jastrow, it looks like they will never know, because "in the searing heat of that first moment, all the evidence needed for a scientific study of the cause of the great explosion was melted down and destroyed."

However, we do know that the laws and constants of the universe had to be very precisely fine-tuned for it to come into existence. Francis Collins, director of the Human Genome Project, said:

When you look from the perspective of a scientist at the universe, it looks as if it knew we were coming. There are 15 constants--the gravitational constant, various constants about the strong and weak nuclear force, etc.--that have precise values. If any of those constants was off by even one part in a million, or in some cases, by one part in a million million, the universe could not actually have come to the point where we see it. Matter would not have been able to coalesce, there would have been no galaxy, stars, planets or people. That's a phenomenally surprising observation. It seems almost impossible that we're here. And that does make you wonder--gosh, who was setting those constants anyway. Scientists have not been able to figure that out.  

 Jastrow confirmed this:

Suppose, for example, that the density one second after the Big Bang had been less than the critical density by one part in a million, then the elements of matter in the Universe would have flown apart too rapidly for galaxies, stars and planets to form. That means we would not be here today. Suppose, on the other hand, that the density of matter at that early time had been greater than the critical density by one part in a million; then the expanding Universe would have come to a halt and collapsed on itself too rapidly for life to evolve on any planets that formed. Again, we would not be here.

What we have here is positive scientific evidence for a Creator. This is not a God of the gaps argument, because that depends on a knowledge gap. Stephen Hawking said in A Brief History of Time: "It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us."

However, none of this constitutes proof of the existence of a God. Science cannot prove or disprove God. It is more akin to the following illustration by Canadian philosopher John Leslie: Suppose a man is sentenced to be executed by a firing squad of fifty expert marksmen. All of them fire from less than ten feet away, and yet they all miss. It is technically possible that all fifty of them would miss, but it is far more reasonable to conclude that it was intentional.

Well-known atheist and biologist, Richard Dawkins, agreed in a 2007 video that the cosmological argument for a God is the strongest:

There may be good reasons for believing in a God, and if there are any I would expect them to come from, possibly, modern physics, from cosmology, from the observation that, some people claim, the laws and constants of the universe are too finely tuned to be an accident. That would not be a wholly disreputable reason for believing in some form of supernatural deity. I think there's a very good argument against it and I developed much of my chapter four to, as I think, refuting that argument. 

So let's examine his arguments in chapter four of The God Delusion.

Dawkins made two major arguments: First, he hypothesizes that there are many universes, which he calls a "multiverse," and we just happen to be in one where the laws and constants were just right. We are like the lottery winner; regardless of the improbability of winning, someone won. Since we are here discussing this, we won. Second, he claimed that God "must be a supremely complex and improbable entity who needs an even bigger explanation than the one he is supposed to provide."

Note that Dawkins hypothesizes the existence of a multiverse. There is no evidence whatsoever that another universe than the one we occupy has ever existed. This is philosophical speculation without a shred of scientific evidence to back it up. (Scientific hypotheses that challenge the Big Bang theory in various ways are likewise merely proposals, unsupported by evidence. Stephen Hawking said of his no boundaries model: "I'd like to emphasize that this idea that time and space should be finite without boundary is just a proposal.")

Dawkins acknowledged this weakness in his multiverse hypothesis: "It is tempting to think (and many have succumbed) that to postulate a plethora of universes is a profligate luxury which should not be allowed. If we are going to permit the extravagance of a multiverse, so the argument runs, we might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb and allow a God."

And this leads him to his second argument, that God would be a complex and therefore improbable explanation. This argument fails for the following reasons: First, the scientific evidence itself points toward a God, and specifically, it is consistent with Genesis 1:1: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." The Bible teaches that God created ex nihilo--out of nothing--and the scientific data supports this. It further teaches that God created the universe at the beginning of time and that he exists outside of time. The data likewise tells us that the big bang marked the beginning of time. Arno Penzias, the Nobel Prize-winning scientist who codiscovered the cosmic fireball radiation that provided strong evidence for the Big Bang theory, said: "The best data we have are exactly what I would have predicted, had I nothing to go on but the five Books of Moses, the Psalms, the Bible as a whole."

Second, the "complexity" of God has no bearing on the probability of his existence. There is no inherent reason why a complex entity is less likely to exist, unless it requires us to make a lot of complex assumptions, which is what Occam's Razor says. So Dawkins's multiverse hypothesis fails Occam's Razor, because it is not the simplest and most logical explanation for the data supporting the Big Bang theory. However, the biblical explanation passes Occam's Razor because it meshes neatly with the evidence, without requiring speculation or complex assumptions. Unless someone presupposes naturalism, a Creator is the most logical explanation.

Dawkins said that those who "succumb" to the "temptation" of raising the aforementioned objection to his multiverse hypothesis "have not had their consciousness raised by natural selection." That reminds me of the following quote by Jastrow:

There is a kind of religion in science; it is the religion of a person who believes there is order and harmony in the Universe. Every event can be explained in a rational way as the product of some previous event; every effect must have its cause; there is no First Cause. Einstein wrote, "The scientist is possessed by the sense of universal causation."

This religious faith of the scientist is violated by the discovery that the world had a beginning under conditions in which the known laws of physics are not valid, and as a product of forces or circumstances we cannot discover. When that happens, the scientist has lost control. If he really examined the implications, he would be traumatized. As usual when faced with trauma, the mind reacts by ignoring the implications--in science this is known as "refusing to speculate"--or trivializing the origin of the world by calling it the Big Bang, as if the Universe were a firecracker."

Jastrow ends his book on the following note:

At this moment it seems as though science will never be able to raise the curtain on the mystery of creation. For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.

Why is the God of the Bible Superior?

I've had a few conversations on Atheist Central about evidence for the existence of a Creator, and that will be the subject of my next post, but the question inevitably then becomes why they should accept that he is the God of the Bible. Why is the God of the Bible "superior to any of the other gods in the pantheon of past religions?" as somebody asked.

That is, of course, a valid question, and to address it I will first briefly discuss some other religions and and why I would not accept them as true. Then I will give a few reasons why Christianity does the best job of explaining what we see and experience, and why it is the best fit from the standpoint of rationality and morality. Of course this is going to be very cursory because the subject matter is so broad, but I would be happy to discuss it further in the comments.

Deism: Deists believe that an intelligence designed the universe, but they do not believe in a personal God who intervenes in his creation. The supreme being of deism simply created the universe and left it alone.

The chief problem of deism is that it leaves so many unanswered questions, like why a creative intelligence would have no revealed purpose. In spite of the problem of evil, this universe is pretty impressive. Would a supremely high intelligence create and then simply not care? I suppose that's possible, but then he would be nothing like us, his most intelligent creatures (as far as we know), because we have an innate sense that our actions should be purposeful and life should have meaning. And most talented creators put much of themselves into their creations, so we would expect that the intelligence behind this universe would reveal himself in his creation, and particularly in his intelligent creatures.

Primitive polytheistic religions: These are probably the easiest to dismiss because most modern cultures have outgrown them. If a religion is true, even the most highly developed intellect would be stretched in trying to understand it. It has to be "higher" than our ways, but not "different" in that it violates the rules of logic or our sense of morality. Since civilization has outgrown these religions, that indicates that they are manmade.

Judaism: Judging from the comments on Atheist Central and Dwindling in Unbelief, I don't expect that Judaism appeals much to most atheists. They often use the Old Testament as ammunition against Christianity, particularly by claiming that it violates a modern sense of morality.

This is a valid argument, because the Old Testament laws were often strange and problematic, and they seemed based on primitive cultures. I recognize, of course, that this is a potential problem for Christianity as well as for Judaism, so the question is how each religion addresses it.

Jews differ in terms of how literally they interpret the Jewish law, with Orthodox Jews taking it the most literally while Reform Jews consider the Jewish law to merely provide guidelines. But what is the point of the Jewish law if it can be watered down however we want? This is moral relativism, and it also conflicts with the nature of YHWH, who had very strict rules and clearly established his holiness in the Old Testament.

Christianity does not allow for watering down of any of its teachings, but the New Testament instructs us on how to interpret the Old Testament. This is a more rational and systematic approach than simply glossing over difficulties.

Luke 24:27 says, "Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, [Jesus] explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures." The entire Old Testament is full of symbolism or prophesies of Christ, starting with the very first chapter of Genesis. Colossians 2:16 says that the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament "are a mere shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ." Jesus said, "Do not think I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill." So even though none of the Old Testament authors understood it at the time, because it was a hidden mystery (Colossians 1:26), they all wrote of God coming in the flesh, and he was the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets. 

Islam: The Qur'an was dictated by Mohammed, who claimed to have received it as a direct revelation from the angel Gabriel. Mohammed is considered the greatest of a number of prophets, including Moses and Jesus. 

There are several ways in which Islam has less of a ring of truth than Christianity. First, it seems unlikely that God would entrust his entire revealed word to one person. The Bible, on the other hand, consists of writings by at least forty authors. (This criticism extends to Mormonism as well, which I will not discuss further.) Second, Mohammed was supposedly the greatest and most virtuous of all the prophets, and close to perfection. Still, he married a nine-year-old girl, which may or may not have been a problem in that culture, but now we know how psychologically damaging that would be to a child.

Compare that to Jesus, who challenged all social convention with a transcendent and timeless morality. In spite of his culture, Jesus treated women with respect (John 4) and children with the love and acceptance they need (Matthew 19:13-15). He had the courage to stand up to hypocritical scribes and Pharisees (Matthew 23). He ate and drank with prostitutes and notorious sinners, but instead of conforming to their behavior he transformed their lives (Matthew 11:19). He was sexually self-controlled without being uptight (Luke 7:37-48).  He was, as Mahatma Gandhi said, "a beautiful example of the perfect Man."

Another problem with Islam is that the Qur'an makes specific scientific allegations that are known to be false while also claiming a high level of infallibility. For example, it tells a story of how a Muslim discovered that the sun sets in a pool of murky water. It also says that the earth is held in place by mountains, and that Allah holds up the sky so that it doesn't fall on us. These are explanations, not poetry, and they clearly indicate that the sky is a hard dome and the earth is flat.

Chapter 1 of Genesis, on the other hand, contains semi-poetical language, and the first few chapters of Genesis are full of deep symbolism of free will, sin, Christ and the church, redemption, and eternal life--and much of the same symbolism continues in Revelation. The message is primarily theological, and any cosmological or biological truths would be secondary. Unlike Mohammed, Jesus never teaches anything about science. All his teaching pertains to the kingdom of God. Nothing in the Bible has been falsified by science because the controversial passages are so highly symbolic.

Buddhism and Taoism: These are more philosophies than religions, in the sense that they do not teach anything about God or gods. So if someone suspects that the universe was created, Buddhism and Taoism do not give further information.

Hinduism: Hinduism is amorphous, in that it encompasses polytheism, monotheism, atheism, and pantheism. I think it would appeal more to someone who is looking for self-fulfillment than someone who is searching for objective truth.

Hindus also either believe that the universe is eternal or that there is an endless cycle of universes. The idea that the universe is eternal is inconsistent with modern science, and the notion that any other universe than ours has existed is not supported by evidence.

New Age spirituality: This is a make-it-yourself religion that retains the spiritual mysticism that deism rejects. Again, there is no objective truth to be found in this type of spirituality.

All of these religions are either a) too rigid and therefore dated, or b) too amorphous and therefore whatever we want to make them. Judaism and Islam are too rigid and they can also seem harsh and legalistic. The others are too soft and let us shape our deity into whatever we want him to be. The god of these religions never offends and never makes difficult claims, nor does he seem to care much.

Why is Christianity more consistent with the evidence?

The moral standard: Jesus said, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 22:37-40). 

So on the one hand, Jesus set a very high moral standard, but on the other hand, it is not rigid or harsh. In other words, we are not to live according to the strict rules of the Old Testament, but by the wisdom that comes from faith in Christ, and that always has as its chief goal the glory of God and the good of others. And the New Testament elaborates on what that means in practical terms. Galatians 5:22 says: "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law." These qualities are indisputably good by any standard.

Furthermore, Christian theology also recognizes that we do not naturally have the power to love like this, so we need to be born of the Spirit of God who will do the good work through us. This is the nature of faith. Galatians 5:6 says, "The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love." In other words, salvation is by faith, but love is the evidence of faith. If we belong to Christ, we will resemble him, because his Spirit will work in and through us.

The combination of complexity and simplicity: The message of salvation is very simple: We are to come to Christ as broken sinners and he heals us by the power of the Holy Spirit. The more humble and needy we are, the better qualified we are to receive this gift of eternal life. Pride is the only barrier.

However, Christian theology is also extremely complex and nuanced. It never oversimplifies what is not simple, and God is not simple, nor is human nature. The Bible is inherently logical, but the logic is not evident on a superficial level. It contains many subtleties and paradoxes that make more and more sense over time, like an infinitely complex puzzle that we will never solve in this life, but which has a very definite order and logic. It mirrors the natural world in this respect, which would indicate that the Christian God is the creator of the world.

A holy God of love: The God of the Bible is holy and he "dwells in unapproachable light" (1 Timothy 6:16), but he loves us so much that he uses the imagery of marriage to describe the fulfillment of his plan of redemption. This begins with Adam and Eve foreshadowing Christ and the church (Ephesians 5:32), it is further symbolized in the Song of Solomon, and it reaches its fulfillment in Revelation (Revelation 21:9-11).

The idea that a god should be loving comes from Christianity. No other religion talks about a personal God whose nature is love, and certainly not a holy God who is so humble that he assumed the role of a servant and washed his disciples' feet.

Freedom: Muslim extremists have come under fire for threatening violence against anyone who draws Mohammed. In defense of Islam, they prohibit drawing any of their prophets, including Moses and Jesus. However, this kind of legalism is antithetical to Christianity, which calls us to freedom, even with the associated consequences. No other church was rebuked more severely by Paul than the one in Galatia, which had fallen from grace into legalism.

2 Corinthians 3:17 says, "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." Where Christianity is practiced the way it should be (i.e., where the Holy Spirit is leading) there will be no coercion, manipulation, or brainwashing. Free will is central to our humanity, and in salvation that humanity is perfected, so we become more and more free the more we become like Christ. But freedom in Christianity doesn't mean lawlessness--it means being governed by an internal law that comes from the presence of the Holy Spirit. Galatians 5:13 says: "For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another."

This premium on freedom is consistent with what we see, and it indicates that the Christian God is our creator. We have free will and recognize its importance, but it is also the source of much of the evil and suffering in the world.

The problem of evil: After Anthony Flew became a deist, Christianity was the religion he considered most seriously, but he rejected it because of the problem of evil. The problem of evil is the major reason why deists believe in an intelligence that created and left us to fend for ourselves. If he exists, they reason, he couldn't possibly care.

But the God of Christianity does care; the entire Bible is about the problem of evil. In the opening chapters of Genesis we see its cause: free will and sin. In the Gospel accounts we see its cure: the cross. And in Revelation 21:3-4 we see the final outcome: "Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away."

Christianity is the only religion that takes the problem of evil so seriously that God himself became one of us and died the most profane death possible so that he could solve it. He satisfied the requirements of the Law on our behalf and paid the penalty for the sins of the world, and in that sacrifice he bridged the gap between a holy God and fallen humanity. This means that we can all receive his Holy Spirit, who will make us like him while preserving our individuality and our freedom.

God has freely chosen to give us abundant life that not even physical death can sever, and some day he will create "new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells" (2 Peter 3:13), where he will fulfill the deepest human longings. Nobody who does any harm can have a place in that new creation (Isaiah 11:9, 65:25), because otherwise the problem of evil would persist. But God has, through the cross, solved the problem forever, and the suffering of this life will become just a faint memory.

Can We Lose Our Salvation?

A number of commenters on Atheist Central used to be Christians and de-converted to become atheists. So the question often comes up whether they were real Christians. Can a real Christian lose his or her salvation? And what is a real Christian?

The Bible uses the word "elect" to describe real Christians, but although this involves being chosen and redeemed, it doesn't necessarily imply determinism. So I will sidestep the perennial debate between Calvinists and Arminians and simply say that God who sees to the end of time and throughout all eternity knows exactly who they are. He has always known who they are, even before he created the world. So of course the elect cannot lose their salvation. That would be a logical impossibility, because if they do they would not be among the elect. 1 John 2:19 says: "They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us." Anyone who leaves the faith permanently is by definition not one of the elect.

However, those of us who are living out our lives in space-time still have to "overcome," according to Revelation 2:7. Matthew 24:12-13 says: "Because lawlessness is increased, most people's love will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved." So most people will not finish the race, and the evidence of that is simply love that has gone cold. No de-conversion is necessary. This makes sense, because Matthew 25 tells us that Jesus will judge us based on our acts of love or their absence.

Does this mean that those who "shipwreck" their faith were never truly converted? Although that is the modern conventional wisdom, I don't think it's biblical, and this is why: In 1 Corinthians 9:27, Paul says: "I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified." So Paul himself was not completely sure that he would finish the race. If he had not finished, it is true that he would not have been one of the elect, but would his conversion have been real?  Well, how many of us saw a flashing light, heard an audible voice, and were struck blind only to have the "scales" physically removed from our eyes upon conversion? And if that's too subjective, he had independent confirmation. Ananias heard an audible voice telling him that Paul was God's chosen instrument. So it is possible to have a real conversion and fall away.

However, although Paul considered apostasy a possibility, he had complete faith in God that he would bring him "safely to his heavenly kingdom" (2 Timothy 4:18). He expressed the same faith in God's work in the lives of the Philippians, saying, "For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1:6). But if we read the context, we see that the Philippian church was thriving and bearing much fruit, so Paul's confidence was well-founded.

The Galatians were a different matter, because they had allowed a spirit of legalism to take root, and it is the most deadly and soul-destroying. We know that they were originally true converts because Paul says: "Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?" (Galatians 3:2-3). They had begun in the Spirit. And yet in verse 4 Paul expresses fear that it would all be in vain. Galatians 1:6 says, "I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; which is really not another." They were on their way to apostasy, and it is no wonder because legalism cannot produce the fruit of the Spirit, and therefore love would be absent. Paul uses strong words like "foolish" and "accursed" in this letter because their danger was so great. Compare that to the affection with which he addresses the Philippians.

The parable of Luke 13:6-9 illustrates this issue of Christians who do not bear fruit: "A man had a fig tree which had been planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and did not find any. And he said to the vineyard-keeper, 'Behold, for three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree without finding any. Cut it down! Why does it even use up the ground? And he answered and said to him, 'Let it alone, sir, for this year too, until I dig around it and put in fertilizer; and if it bears fruit next year, fine; but if not, cut it down."

We have an immediate hint that there is something amiss: What is a fig tree doing in a vineyard? Fig leaves represent dead works in the beginning of Genesis, where Adam and Eve cover themselves with fig leaves after the fall. And Jesus curses a fig tree when he sees only leaves and no fruit. So we suspect that this fig tree in the parable represents a Christian who will not ultimately prove to be one of the elect. But in the parable, Jesus, the "vineyard-keeper," doesn't give up. He does whatever possible to encourage growth. However, in spite of all his efforts, apostasy may be the end result. That is represented by the words, "cut it down." It is no longer part of the vineyard, or the living church of Christ.

So what does this mean for us? If you are an ex-Christian atheist, your conversion may have been every bit as real as it seemed to you at the time. And you may have abandoned your faith because of intellectual questions that were never answered. There is no reason to conclude otherwise. However, as the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin illustrate, Christ is always seeking to bring you back.

And as Christians, we have to distinguish between complacency and faith. Philippians 2:12-13 says, "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you both to will and to act according to His good pleasure." "Fear and trembling" means "no complacency." It's very easy to conclude that there are a lot of false Christians out there, but we couldn't possibly be one of them. If we believe that many will be told "I never knew you" on the day of judgment, it logically follows that we could be among them. We need to ask ourselves honestly whether Paul would use the same words with us as he did with the Galatians.

However, if we feel convicted, that is always a sign that God is at work within us, bringing us to repentance. It means we are not hardened. And true repentance always leads to surrender and trust in Christ, letting him do the good work within us. We can't possibly fix ourselves by deciding to behave better next time. What is in us will always come out, and Jesus deals with what is in us.

This reminds me of our youngest son's solution to the problem of strawberry seeds that were not growing (in the interest of full disclosure, I think we had been forgetting to water). He simply attached some nice ripe strawberries to a couple of chopsticks, stuck them in the planter, and voila! we were "growing" strawberries. However, those strawberries were not receiving nourishment and therefore wouldn't last very long.

We cannot produce good fruit without staying close to Christ. We are only called to abide in him like a branch on a vine, and he will by his Spirit produce within us the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22).

And he alone is able to keep us from stumbling and make us stand in the presence of his glory blameless with great joy (Jude 1:24).

Have We Outgrown Christianity?

Dr. Arend Hintze and I had a conversation on Atheist Central a few months ago about whether or not theology is logical, and we decided to continue it on our blogs. Although this is a fascinating subject to me, it occurred to me that a blog post titled, "Is theology logical?" would probably bore most people to tears, so I decided to take it in a more relevant direction (hopefully you don't mind, Arend). Have we outgrown Christianity, and what role does logic play in making that determination?

The issue of whether we take the Bible "literally" often comes up, but this is a misleading question because nobody takes the Bible completely literally. For example, when we read John 6:61, where Jesus says, "I am the living bread that came down out of heaven," none of us (I think) pictures a winged loaf of bread soaring down from the sky. We all know that it is symbolic, and a literal interpretation would be incorrect. The correct way to interpret it would be to look at it in the context of the whole Bible, and if we do so we will understand the deeper meaning, that Christ is our spiritual sustenance. In the Old Testament, he was the manna the Israelites ate in the desert, and in the New Testament, he is the bread of Holy Communion. But Deuteronomy 8:3 and Matthew 4:4 tell us that bread is just symbolic: "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." We live physically by food, but spiritually by the word of God.

The correct interpretation of that verse was not literal; it was symbolic. And we interpreted it in light of the Old Testament as well as the New Testament--in the context of the whole Bible. We didn't just take it at face value.

So the question really should be whether or not we take the Bible seriously. Is it the inspired word of God? That is, do we think it's objectively true or do we dismiss what we don't like or understand?

That is fundamentally a logical question, because if we don't think it's true, why do we believe it? There is absolutely no reason to believe something false, and the Bible makes significant statements of fact. It says that Jesus was the Son of God and that he rose from the dead. Furthermore, it claims that he is the Way and the Truth and the Life--not just a Nice Idea.

A while back I read an interview of Christopher Hitchens where the interviewer claimed to be a Christian. But she didn't really believe that Jesus was the Son of God or that he had risen from the dead, so Hitchens had to break the news to her that she was not a Christian. And I relate more to his logical thinking than to her mishmash of vaguely Christian ideas. As C.S. Lewis said, "Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important."

So for Christians to pick and choose what to believe in the Bible is not logical because it implies that it doesn't contain objective truth. And if it isn't objectively true, we might as well reject the whole thing.

Is the alternative to take everything literally? No, because not everything is intended to be literal, and some things may be both symbolic and literal, with an emphasis on the symbolic. The New Testament is a fulfillment and interpretation of the Old, which foreshadows, typifies, and prophesies Christ. If we read the whole Bible we will understand the context and interpretation of many difficult parts. There is an objectively correct way to interpret everything and we can find it if we read the Bible, letting the Holy Spirit instruct us.

The question often comes up whether something in the Old Testament actually happened, and although I generally assume that it did, logically that is not the important thing (nor can we prove or disprove it). When Jesus said in his parable, "A certain man had two sons . . ." we don't immediately start asking, "Is this really certain? Who is this man? Are you sure he didn't have three sons? Why no daughters?" Some will even say that if something didn't happen exactly the way it's portrayed in the Old Testament, God lied. But that is a false dichotomy, because a literal interpretation might be incorrect, like the "living bread out of heaven" example. The Bible is exactly the way God wants it, but we have to read it correctly, without logical fallacies. Logic has been defined as "a tool for distinguishing between the true and the false," so of course we have to use good logic while studying the word of God. And when we do, it makes a lot more sense.

If a particular interpretation of the Bible is self-evidently inconsistent with reality, we have two options aside from rejecting the Bible: We can pretend that the problem doesn't exist or we can take that as a clue that our interpretation might be wrong. To me the latter option is a greater expression of faith than the former, because it says that the Bible can withstand our most rigorous and honest scrutiny and will only bring us into a deeper and more consistent understanding of it. The former attitude is to shrink back from what such scrutiny might reveal. How can we insult God by doing that? Hebrews 10:38 says: "But My righteous one shall live by faith; and if he shrinks back My soul has no pleasure in Him."

The word of God has to be fundamentally logical if it is true, and it has to make more--not less--sense the more we grow up intellectually. This is why nobody seriously considers the primitive polytheistic religions when they are searching for truth. Holding to a childish faith after we reach adulthood is like trying to squeeze into the clothes we wore as children. We will look ridiculous and it will garner us no favors with God. 1 Corinthians 14:20 says: "Brethren, do not be children in your thinking; yet in evil be infants, but in your thinking be mature." And mature thinking will, with the help of God, bring us ever closer to the true meaning of his word.