September 10, 2009

In today's postmodern world, skeptics view the miracles of Jesus as fairy tales that can't withstand serious, intellectual investigation. Ironically, the debate whether Jesus could perform miracles wasn't a pressing question in the ancient world. Rather, the Jewish authorities were more curious whether Jesus' powers came from "above or below."

"The role of miracles in the Bible is a stumbling stone for people today," Dallas Theological Seminary Research Professor of New Testament Studies Darrell Bock told thousands of people gathered Sept. 5-6 at Saddleback Church.

In the Flavius Josephus' book, "The Antiquities of the Jews," the 1st century historian described Jesus as a "wise man" who was a "doer of wonderful works" – which in Greek means "unusual or amazing things," Bock told the audience at the sprawling campus in Lake Forest, California.

"What Josephus is telling us is that Jesus was known for the kind of surprising works he did," Bock says. "Now, we also know the Jewish tradition called Jesus a magician or sorcerer. These miracles left an imprint – with some people saying they believed it was from God and others saying they didn't believe it was from God. But there was one thing both sides didn't debate: Jesus was doing miracles."

As part of a series of lectures at the 22,000-member church, Pastor Rick Warren invited some of the "brightest minds" of the Christian faith - Bock, J.P. Moreland, Norm Geisler, William Lane Craig, Dinesh D'Souza and Greg Koukl – to talk about some of the "toughest questions" concerning faith, science and reason. The lectures were designed to equip Christians to "stand up and be counted" for Jesus Christ and learn how to thoughtfully share their faith with others.  

Bock, one of the world's preeminent authorities on the life of Jesus, gave a message on the topic, "What Do the Gospels Really Say about Jesus?" In his presentation, Bock walked the audience through the synoptic Gospels – Matthew, Mark and Luke – telling the story of Jesus from the "earth up" and showing how he exercised authority over humanity. Bock spoke about the healing of the paralytic man, miracles at the Sea of Galilee, the Last Supper and the encounter with the Sanhedrin shortly before the crucifixion – demonstrating JESUS' authority over sin, creation, demons, disease, death and sacred rights and spaces.

These events ultimately lead to Jesus' resurrection – an occurrence Bock argued couldn't be fabricated because of counter-intuitive elements in the story, especially that women – barred from being witnesses in the ancient world – were the first witnesses of the resurrection.

"This is how much God thinks of women," Bocks says. "Now here is my point. You are trying to sell a new idea and you are creating a story and in the midst of creating the story the people you pick as witnesses to start the marketing are people who are not eligible as witnesses. Now are you going to make up a story like that? No."

Finally, Bock argued Christ's resurrection represents God's vote in the dispute whether Jesus' authority came from above or below.

"It's a way to tell the story by pointing out the steps of Jesus' authority one step at a time with the last step taking us to the heavenly presence of the Living God," Bock says.

In the second lecture, Moreland, a professor of philosophy at Biola University in La Mirada, California, spoke on the topic, "Has Science Made Belief in God Obsolete?"

"Has science in one way or another shown that those of us who believe in God are like people who believe in Santa Claus?" Moreland asked. 

Unfortunately, Moreland says a lot of movers and shakers today believe science has shown belief in God to be "false and silly" – a worldview that has filtered down into the general culture, making it very difficult for them to take the Gospel seriously.

However, Moreland says he profoundly disagrees with this view. Rather, he says the claim that science is the only way to know reality is self-refuting and 95 percent of science is irrelevant to Christianity. The remaining 5 percent interfaces directly with Christianity.

"What I'm suggesting is a large portion of that 5 percent that we discover in science has actually lent support to belief in God," Moreland says.

One of these discoveries is that the universe had a beginning.

"It's as though the universe, as one scientist put it, had the entropy or useful energy put into it from the outside in the very beginning," Moreland says. "Ted Koppel on Nightline once said it looks like bangs have bangers."

Responses to Not Your Fault!:

"Not your fault", by Dr. Benjamin Wiker, is very interesting and entertaining. But there's only one problem with it. It completely distors and misrepresents the beliefs of scientists and atheists in general, or even agnostics and non-christians. No atheist or agnostic has ever stated that people who commit crimes are not responsible for what they do (unless they happen to be insane), or that they should not be imprisoned if they commit a crime as far as I know. And I am not an atheist. This article sets up so many straw men it's in danger of becoming a fire hazard ! And it rehashes the ridiculous notion that Darwinism is responsible for the atrocities of the Nazis and other evil regimes such as the former Soviet Union and China. Did Genghis Khan and Tamerlane need Darwin's theories to slaughter vast number of people in the centuries before Darwin ? Or the Catholic church when it slaughtered enormous numbers of innocent women who were believed to be witches ? Or Christians and Muslims to slaughter each other during the crusades ? Or Europeans to slaughter the natives of both North and South America in the name of Christianity? Of course not. People have been oppressing and slaughtering each other all over the globe for thousands of years . To blame Darwin's theories for any of this is not only grossly unfair but ludicrous. - Robert Berger New Rochelle, NY

Dr. Benjamin Wiker responds:

With all due respect, Mr. Berger, there is a direct connection historically between materialism, atheism, and the denial of responsibility for one’s actions. The assertion of complete materialist determinism necessarily means that one’s actions are the result of physical processes that follow laws, and that means, in turn, a human being is no more responsible for its actions than are hydrogen atoms, a rocks, or a trees. This repeated connection between materialism, atheism, determinism, and the denial of free will and moral responsibility is an easily recognizable pattern of modern philosophy from the 17th century down to our own day, from Thomas Hobbes to Francis Crick (the latter of which asserted in his book, The Astonishing Hypothesis, that "You, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules."

And Darwin? As his private notebooks reveal, Darwin was a materialist from a very early age. In his Descent of Man, published about a decade after the Origin of Species, Darwin argued that one’s moral traits—such as they are, good or bad—are the result of natural selection, and he gauged various human “subspecies” (such as the Scottish and Irish) by their evolved moral traits (the Scots were “frugal, foreseeing, self-respecting, [and] ambitious,” while the Irishmen were careless, squalid, [and] unaspiring”). Like every other trait, from hair color to body-build, both “bad tendencies” and “good ones are likewise transmitted.” And, adds Darwin, “excepting through the principle of the transmission of moral tendencies, we cannot understand the differences believed to exist in this respect between the various races of mankind.” He was not a complete determinist (insofar as the eugenic breeding for traits does not produce the desire results every time, but only most of the time). Before you so easily dismiss the Darwin-Hitler connection, I suggest you read Charles Darwin’s Descent of Man, cover to cover; Richard Weikart’s From Darwin to Hitler; and my Darwin Myth. I add the last because I spend some time showing how good Darwin the man was, and how horrified he would be at what Hitler did, but how, nevertheless, how Darwin’s racial eugenics led to Hitler’s racial eugenics.

Now about atheists. It may be quite true that many particular atheists do not deny moral responsibility, and on this, I congratulate them. Nor did I ever state that every atheist does indeed deny moral responsibility. My comments were mainly directed at the Scientific American article that, in reducing our actions, in particular our sins, to brain chemistry, did indeed deny moral responsibility. That is their message, and I was acting as a messenger to a wider audience.

And finally, the topic of sin. The whole point of the doctrine of sin is that sin is everywhere and infects everyone, Christians and non-Christians, theists and atheists, in short, all human beings for all human history. The problem to which I call attention is not the existence of sin, but the effects of its denial. The belief of Marxists that one’s thoughts and actions were entirely determined by the modes of production, that history was ineluctably moving forward according to the laws of dialectical materialism, and that there was neither God nor sin, allowed them to slaughter 100,000,000 human beings who could not be salvaged because they were entirely determined by capitalist modes of production. The enemies of the communist state were not sinners; they were automatons from an obsolete age that needed extermination.

If we have sin in our DNA, and we can't help but have it; then it seems logical that people who talk about "original sin" as if it were wired into our being at birth have been telling the truth all along. We are truly born into sin. The trick is to realize that, having been born into sin, we have no other recourse than to live sinful lives. But we do not. Part of that could be attributed to cultural constraints placed upon us to perpetuate the species. But if people really have turned their lives away from sin and then do sin no more, then we have every right to claim a miracle has happened. I'm not at all convinced that this scientific knowledge is destructive to our faith. If we stay informed, we can understand how to spin new knowledge into pro-deity philosophy. - John White

The science fiction writer Robert Heinlein once wrote, "Sin consists of hurting other people unnecessarily. Hurting yourself isn't sinful, just stupid." -Harry A. Madden - Rancho Cordova, CA

Many of the discussions seem to miss the point and end by talking about the cost of medical care. It would greatly clarify the discussions if they were put in terms of "this procedure costs thus and so", "that procedure costs x and y". Nothing so clarifies the mind as making clear what we talking about. Having agreed on the costs, we can then discuss the quality. - Gabriel Austin