- There are 3 ways of knowing something, rationalism (you can think about it and know it exists, such as consciousness and truth) empiricism (you know something exists because you have experienced it with your 5 senses) and we also have a revelation. We know what we know because God has revealed it and preserved his message to each and every one of us through his word.
- The bible gives us both descriptive, and prescriptive orders, as leaders, it is our responsibility to our families, and community to familiarize ourselves with how to properly exegete scripture so that we are not making God in our own image. It is prescriptive in the sense that it gives you some specific orders in how we ought to act. But it also gives us descriptive commands, meaning that we have to let scripture lead us and guide us in how we live our everyday lives. We have to use God’s as our compass, always referring back to it. The more time we spend in the word, the more you let it influence you. My pastor has put it this way… you may know what you ate for dinner last night, you may even remember what you ate the night before, but you may have forgotten what you ate for dinner last week. But… you know you ate something. It is our spiritual sustenance the same way food is our physical sustenance.
- Trying to obtain knowledge without the existence of God is impossible. Knowledge cannot come from nonknowledge. No matter how hard you squeeze dirt or a stick, you’ll never make it conscious. Our consciousness, our ability to reason at all is only possible because of the existence of a knowledge source, and the only way he can possibly give it to all of us is if he were all powerful, and all knowing.
- Here is an easy example we can hold on to that helps us explain to others why it is necessary that God exists. Think of a computer. Does it make sense that the computer was able to create itself? Of course not, that means the computer would’ve had to pre-exist itself in order to create itself. So whatever it was that pre-existed the computer has to be 1- powerful enough to create it 2- smart enough to do it 3- personal enough to make the decision to do it.
- We learned a little about morality, and the moral argument.
If God does not exist, objective moral duties and obligations do not exist. But objective morals and duties do exist, therefore we can say God exists. If we do not have a transcendent source that defines what is right and wrong, then it is all our own subjective opinion. Now this doesn’t mean that you have to believe in God in order to do good things, rather we are saying without that transcendent authority, we have no way of differentiating what is objectively right vs what is objectively wrong. God has provided us with His word to use as a straight edge, a reference line that we can use to judge whether something is of God or if it is of the enemy. He has also gifted us with a conscious, a way of knowing that some things are totally and objectively wrong, no matter what society says. Example- if the Germans had won WW2 and it became the societal norm to throw Jews in gas chambers, it would still be wrong. Wrong because God has revealed to us that every human is made in the image of God thus each person is worthy of dignity, respect and love.
- What we did not cover on morality is called the Euthyphro Dilemma. This is the question… is something good because god says it is good, or does god say something is good because it is good? If we say something is good because God says it is good, it makes it seem like he gets to change his mind on what is objectively good but we know that he is unchanging, so that cannot be it. The other option does god say something is good because it is good is also not the correct answer, because, we would then be admitting that goodness can be achieve outside of god willing something to be good. Here is where the Euthyphro dilemma fails, we are not claiming either one of those options, rather we say that it is God himself that is the Goodness. God by definition is the greatest being, the highest form of good, thus, worthy of our praise and worship. We do not worship him because we are trying to earn points with the creator, rather we worship and follow because he is the ultimate picture of goodness. He is the source.
- We also covered Does God send people to hell. God is just. He is going to give everyone a fair shake based on everyone’s particular scenario. He isn’t only just and patient with us sinners though, he is also a just father as we covered. He understands how dangerous and deadly sin is, it is an infectious disease, and in order to protect his children in heaven, he is justified in keeping everyone who has not been wiped clean out.
- If I go to a party at my somebody’s house and I get drunk and punch a bunch of holes in the walls, break a bunch of glass cups, and urinate all over their bedsheets would he be justified in kicking me out onto the street? Of course, but our friend Jesus has come to patch the holes, to pick up and replace the glass, and replace the bed sheets. Now it is only out of an act of undeserving grace that the owner of the house would allow us back inside. And if we were to say no, and reject the free gift, then remember it us us who has chosen not to accept the free offering. This is what we meant when we said everyone who is in hell has chosen to be there, the doors are locked from the inside.
- Also remember our picture??? God does not kill anyone in the same sense that we see it. God lives on all levels of existence so he is not killing anyone, rather he is shifting you from one plane to another.
- And then of course we got into suffering, how there is not one answer that fits every single instance of suffering, but while we will still suffer as Christians we have eternal security. Without God, suffering can seem pointless but we know that not only does Gods heart break for us in our suffering as we saw in Acts 9 and 1 Corinthians 6 Christ suffers with us. There is a world renowned atheist philosopher Albert Camus who says ‘The Christ man suffers too, therefore evil and death can no longer be entirely his fault because he suffers and dies too.’ how beautiful of a point is that, our response to a world that says why does God allow suffering, we respond with a God who suffers too.
References and inspiration/influence that were used throughout the teaching included the following…
On Guard- Dr. William Lane Craig
Reasonable Faith (channel)- Matthew Bilyeu, Dr. William Lane Craig
Handbook of Christian Apologetics- Peter Kreeft
The New American Commentary Genesis 1-11:26 Vol. 1.a- Kenneth A. Mathews
GREEK FOR THE REST OF US- William D. Mounce
Heaven Can’t Wait- Cliffe Knetchtle
Inspiring Philosophy (Channel)- Mike Jones
Give me an Answer (Channel)- Stuart & Cliffe Knetchle
Apologia Studios (Channel)- James White & Jeff Durbin
Mere Christianity- C.S Lewis
Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament Vol. 2- J. Botterweck & H. Ringgren