Gregory Koukl's Blog, page 82

What Does "Change of the Law" in Hebrews 7:12 Mean?

By explaining the context, Greg clarifies the capacity in which the law referred to in Hebrews 7:12 changes.

 

Arguments for God | Burden of Proof

Brett’s and Alan’s newsletters are now posted on the website:

Not Just Any Ol' God by Brett Kunkle: “The cosmological argument points to the beginning of the universe as evidence for God as the Great Beginner and gives us reason to think He is an all-powerful being because He can create a universe ex nihilo (out of nothing)…. Teleological or design arguments give us more information about God…. Not only does a finely tuned universe point to a Fine Tuner, but it also demonstrates care and concern for the flourishing of His creatures…. The moral argument points to God’s good character and His social nature…. If these arguments for God are successful, not only do we have powerful evidence He exists, we also have knowledge about His nature and character. He is a transcendent, necessary, and personal being. He is an intelligent agent using that intelligence to the benefit of His creation. He is a powerful being capable of amazing acts and capable of getting His messages across. He is moral in nature, a Being of incredible goodness.” (Read more)


How Did You Come to That Conclusion? by Alan Shlemon: “The person that makes the claim bears the burden of proof. In other words, if someone offers a point of view, it’s their job to give reasons for it, not your job to defend against it. Too often, though, believers bear the burden of proof when it’s not their responsibility. They try to answer every objection that is mustered against their view. This keeps the Christian in a defensive posture the entire conversation. It also makes sharing your faith a difficult and unpleasant experience. If I felt responsible to respond to every wild objection or story that someone could spin, I’d feel hesitant to share my faith as well. It’s time to stop giving free rides and begin enforcing the burden of proof rule. Whenever someone raises an objection to your faith, ask a simple question: “How did you come to that conclusion?” This question is not a trick. It’s not unfair. You’re simply shifting the burden of proof back where it belongs – on the person who made the claim.” (Read more)

You can subscribe to their monthly newsletters via email here.

New Quick-Reference App

Our popular quick-reference guides on tactics and same-sex marriage give succinct summaries of the arguments involved with each of those issues. And now we’ve put our quick-reference material into a nifty app for you—not just with text, but also with videos. The topics currently included in the app are the Ambassador Model, Tactics, and S.L.E.D., but more topics are on the way and will be added into the app later.

Plus, it’s free! 

Human Rights and an English Priest

Probably like most people, I wasn't interested in history when I was a child. My interest began as an adult. But there is one historical fact that has stuck with me since childhood, but not because of my history textbooks. The Magna Carta was signed in 1215 AD at Runnymede. That fact has stuck in my mind because of an episode of My Favorite Martian – Tim and Martin accidentally ended up witnessing the signing of the great document because they dialed the year rather than the time in their time machine.

The Magna Carta is foundational human rights document because it was the first in history that imposed on the sovereign to respect the rights of citizens and limit the ruler's arbitrary will. It covered the rights of noblemen, not all citizens – but it was a beginning. It is the cornerstone that most modern constitutions are built on. It influenced the U.S. Constitution. The first clause of the Magna Carta protects the freedom of the church, and one of the key people responsible for the document and its signing was the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Stephen Langton was born in the 1150s and probably grew up aware of the conflict over religious freedom between Thomas Beckett and Henry II. These events may have planted ideas that influenced him later in his career. Langton became a priest, studied, and later lectured and wrote on theology in Paris from 1181 to 1206. He would have seen Notre Dame being built. He wrote commentaries on the Old and New Testaments, and is most likely the person who determined the chapter markers in the Bibles we use today.

He was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury in 1207 and returned to England in the middle of strife between King John and the English barons. He told the barons of a document he learned about in Paris signed by Henry I in 1031 that the king agreed to recognize certain liberties of the barons. With this precedent in mind, he and the barons drafted the document that would become the Magna Carta. After the rebels took London in 1215, John signed the Magna Carta and Langton's is the first signature of the witnesses. By this time, Langton was actually siding with the king and used his influence to get John to agree. He continued to act as a mediator finding peaceful ways to resolve disputes and protect the rights the king had agreed to honor. He later authored constitutions that became the basis of ecclesiastical law that have been used for centuries.

Langton died in 1228 and was buried at Canterbury Cathedral.

We Are the Body of the Wounded Healer

Because of the tragic death of Robin Williams, I’ve seen people out there commenting on suicide and depression who, I can tell, have not loved someone who was devastated by them.

But then I came across a post by Ann Voskamp, whose mother battled mental illness, and who attempted suicide herself:

We could tell you what we know.

That — depression is like a room engulfed in flames and you can’t breathe for the sooty smoke smothering you limp — and suicide is deciding there is no way but to jump straight out of the burning building.

That when the unseen scorch on the inside finally sears intolerably hot –  you think a desperate lunge from the flames and the land of the living seems the lesser of two unbearables….

You don’t try to kill yourself because death’s appealing — but because life’s agonizing. We don’t want to die. But we can’t stand to be devoured.

Her words to you and me as part of the church:

Don’t only turn up the praise songs but turn to Lamentations and Job and be a place of lament and tenderly unveil the God…who wears the scars of the singe. A God who bares His scars and reaches through the fire to grab us, “Come — Escape into Me.” …

I once heard a pastor tell the whole congregation that he had lived next to the loonie bin and I looked at the floor when everyone laughed and they didn’t know how I loved my mama. I looked to the floor when they laughed, when I wanted them to stand up and reach through the pain of the flames and say:

Our Bible says Jesus said, “It is not those who are healthy who need a doctor, but those who are sick.” Jesus came for the sick, not for the smug.

Jesus came as doctor and He makes miracles happen through medicine and when the church isn’t for the suffering, then the Church isn’t for Christ….

I wanted us to turn to the hurting, to each other, and promise it till we’re hoarse….

“We won’t give you some excuses — but we’ll be some example — and that will mean bending down and washing your wounds. Wounds that we don’t understand, wounds that keep festering, that don’t heal, that down right stink — wounds that can never make us turn away.

Because we are the Body of the Wounded Healer and we are the people who believe the impossible — that wounds can be openings to the beauty in us.”

We’re the people who say: “there’s no shame saying that your heart and head are broken because there’s a Doctor in the house. It’s the wisest and the bravest who cry for help when lost.

There’s no stigma in saying you’re sick because there’s a wounded Healer who uses nails to buy freedom and crosses to resurrect hope and medicine to make miracles" [emphases in the original].

Amen, and God help us.

Links Mentioned on the 8/12/14 Show

The following are links that were either mentioned on this week's show or inspired by it, as posted live on the @STRtweets Twitter feed:

In, but Not Of: A Guide to Christian Ambition and the Desire to Influence the World by Hugh Hewitt
Being Good: Christian Virtues for Everyday Life – Chapter on forgiveness by Douglas Geivett
The Sin of Forgiveness? by Greg Koukl
Is Forgiveness Always Right and Required? by Justin Taylor
The Dawkins Letters by David Robertson
How God Answers Our Prayers by Amy Hall
How Green Was My Valley?
reTHINK Student Apologetics Conference – September 26–27 in Southern California
The Heathen and the Unknown God (CD/MP3) by Greg Koukl
Sinners in the Hands of a Good God: Reconciling Divine Judgment and Mercy by David Clotfelter
The Holiness of God by R.C. Sproul

Listen to today's show or download any archived show for free. (Find links from past shows here.)

To follow the Twitter conversation during the live show (Tuesdays 4:00–7:00 p.m. PT), use the hashtag #STRtalk.

Webcast Tuesday

Ask your question. Share a piece of your mind. Call with your question or comment at (855) 243-9975, outside the U.S. (562) 424-8229. Today 4-7 p.m. PT. Greg is live on the broadcast. 

Listen live online. Join us on Twitter during the program @STRtweets.

If God Can’t Do Anything, Is He All-Powerful?

“Can God do anything?” I asked an audience of Christians at a recent apologetics conference. I gave my answer and offered an explanation. Apparently, my answer was not well received by everyone, as one man in the audience was so incensed that he stood up shaking his head in disgust. He turned for the exit and walked out of the auditorium, but not without glaring back at me one last time, continuing to shake his head in anger. So what did I say? No, God can't do anything.

Clearly the Bible affirms God’s power. Job 9:4 says, “His power is vast.” Psalm 24:8 refers to the Lord as “strong and mighty.” Isaiah 40:26 says that out of His “great power and mighty strength” God brought forth the universe. Don’t these passages indicate there is no limit to God’s power?

Many Christians mistakenly think God’s omnipotence means there is nothing He cannot do. However, a few questions demonstrate the problem with this view. Can God sin? Of course not. Sin is contrary to God’s moral nature. Scripture affirms this when it tells us that God cannot lie (Hebrews 6:18) and cannot be tempted by evil (James 1:13). God is holy and therefore, He cannot sin because that would be a violation of His own nature.

Moreover, can God create a square circle or a married bachelor? Of course not. Square circles and married bachelors are logical contradictions and, therefore, are contrary to God’s rational nature. Can God create a rock so big that He cannot pick it up? Again, the answer is no. God cannot carry out two mutually exclusive alternatives. The question poses a logically impossible scenario, which just means the question is incoherent. God’s own rational nature, in which the very laws of logic are grounded, sets the boundaries of what is possible and impossible.

But if God is limited in these ways, does this undermine His omnipotence? No. We just to need to correctly define this attribute of God. When it is properly understood, the difficulties fade away. So simply put, God’s omnipotence means He can do all that is consistent with His nature. This definition affirms God’s vast power while preventing us from affirming logical absurdities. The great evangelical theologian Carl F. Henry summarizes it this way:

That God will not alter his own nature, that he cannot deny himself, that he cannot lie and cannot sin, that he cannot be deceived, and that, moreover, he cannot die, are affirmations which historic Christian theology has always properly associated with divine omnipotence and not with divine limitation or divine impotency, because the 'possibility' as stated is a logical impossibility. Any conception of omnipotence that requires God to contradict himself reflects a conjectural and ridiculous notion of absolute power. (God, Revelation, Authority, V:319)

Now, what did God’s omnipotence have to do with my talk at this apologetics conference? I was answering a serious challenge to Christianity: “If God is all-powerful, why is there evil in the world?” There’s a hidden assumption in the question, and here it is: If God is all-powerful, He has the power to create a world free of evil. “God can do anything, right?” comes the challenge from the skeptic. Answering this objection demonstrates the importance of properly defining God’s omnipotence.

Our answer, known as the free will defense, affirms that God cannot do the logically impossible. God cannot create genuinely free creatures and at the same time cause them to do only what is right. If He causes them to do what is right, they have not done so freely. Human freedom just means that moral evil is possible. However, this does not undermine God’s nature. As philosopher Alvin Plantinga states, “The fact that free creatures sometimes go wrong, however, counts neither against God’s omnipotence nor against His goodness; for He could have forestalled the occurrence of moral evil only by removing the possibility of moral good.” And that’s one reason why it’s vital that we think carefully and correctly about the nature of God.

Would It Be Ethical for a Christian to Work in a Casino?

Greg brings clarity to the ethical dilemma of deciding whether or not to work in places like casinos or bars.

Chronicle of Higher Education: Stop Accrediting Christian Colleges

An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education argues that accreditation ought to be denied to Christian colleges that require professors to sign statements of faith or otherwise “draw lines around what is regarded as acceptable teaching and research.” This seems like an obvious next step in the current march of secular intolerance, so I expect we’ll be hearing more arguments like this in the future:

Why does accreditation matter? Aside from the traditional goal of conferring legitimacy on colleges and their programs, accreditation has taken on a far more consequential role: Students attending institutions that are not accredited are ineligible for federal financial aid, money that is indispensable to the budgets of most American colleges….

By awarding accreditation to religious colleges, the process confers legitimacy on institutions that systematically undermine the most fundamental purposes of higher education.

Skeptical and unfettered inquiry is the hallmark of American teaching and research. However, such inquiry cannot flourish—in many cases, cannot even survive—inside institutions that erect religious tests for truth. The contradiction is obvious….

Students giving tours at Wheaton College in Illinois are said to describe it as the Harvard of evangelical education. But unlike Harvard, Wheaton is one of the colleges that oblige their faculty members to complete faith statements. In other words, at Wheaton the primacy of reason has been abandoned by the deliberate and repeated choices of both its administration and its faculty.

Wheaton is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools…. I asked [Wheaton] to justify the manifest disconnect between the bedrock principle of academic freedom and the governing regulations that corrupt academic freedom at Wheaton…. The process administrator’s explanation, in full: "Federal regulations and commission policies require that the commission respect a wide range of institutional missions and belief systems in its accrediting processes."

This, in my view, can only be described as a scandal. Providing accreditation to colleges like Wheaton makes a mockery of whatever academic and intellectual standards the process of accreditation is supposed to uphold. If accrediting agencies are playing by the rules in this continuing fiasco, then the rules have to be changed—or interpreted more aggressively, so that "respect" for "belief systems" does not entail approving the subversion of our core academic mission by this or that species of dogma.

Right. Because secular colleges have no worldview dogmas whatsoever. And they never draw lines around what is regarded as acceptable teaching and research.