Absolute Certainty

I spent last week at the Creation music festival, which I was surprised to discover I actually enjoyed. That was partly because I spent most of my time with students, but still, it was great.

There was one speaker who spent some time talking about creation. He spent some amount of time ripping into evolution, Darwin and the Big Bang, which of course are all lumped together when most Christians discuss any of these topics. He went on to other things from there, but I got to thinking about absolute certainty and the modern Christian need to "prove" the existence of God. Here are the problems I see in that:

1. God asks us to have faith. It doesn't require faith for me to believe 1 + 1 = 2. It does require faith for me to believe in an all-powerful God. God seems okay with that, so why aren't we? Frederich Schleiermacher tried to "prove" the existence of God using the modernistic rationalism of his day. Men like Lee Strobel and Charles Colson attempt to do the same thing today with science and history. With either argument, it's like we're trying to prove to people that they either have to believe in Jesus, or they are stupid. Hmm... That doesn't seem like the way Jesus did it.

2. Has anybody ever heard of Galileo? The church went nuts because what he said didn't line-up with the Bible. So there were threats, murders, etc, until finally the church conceded, accepted the obvious, and moved on. Christianity didn't die! So why be afraid? I think there are times when we have to reread our Bibles and be ready for changes to occur. If our foundation is a literal seven day creation, we are in trouble. But if your foundation is Christ, then you are fine. Once again I say that we put more faith in the Bible than in Jesus, and so we fight, threaten, and embrace ignorance in the face of challenges to the Bible.

Was Darwin right? I don't know. But we have to be ready for it. Tony Jones once asked what we would do if they proved homosexuality was genetic. These are the kinds of questions we have to be ready for and have better answers to than either dismissing science or quitting the faith. We are logical creatures who have been given divine revelation. We must bring the two together. Thank-you Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, Tony Jones and Rob Bell.

Peace,
Matt

Currently Reading: The Gospel in a Pluralist Society by Lesslie Newbigen. It also inspired me to start writing this entry.