Bases of Atheistic Faith

From three questions in a conversation on Quora.

“what evidence does an Atheist base his belief on that God doesn’t exist?”

It depends on the Atheist. There’s a new book out by an Atheist about the seven types of Atheist. Each type is a rather broad category, and there seems to be overlap. The author criticizes five of the seven types.

According to current wisdom, the typical Atheist’s belief has two parallel bases. One is the motive, and the other is the intellectual side.

The thinking atheist claims that the evidence for God is inadequate and the universe does not need a God; but the jump from not needing God to actively judging or rejecting God requires blind faith.

The smarter Atheists know they cannot prove there is no God, so to escape having to prove a negative, they’ve begun equivocating by importing the definition of Agnosticism into what they claim Atheism is. They revert to an obsolete definition of Atheism which meant “You don’t believe in my god(s).” Then they claim they merely believe in one less god than monotheists, and monotheists are atheists, too because they don’t believe in all gods. They also claim (falsely) that they’d be open to proof.

The deception is revealed when they stop their ears to Theistic arguments and when they set ridiculously high levels of evidence that would be needed for them to move from Atheism to Theism. (And even if they received such evidence, they’d explain it away as delusion.)

The motive can be

1. negative experiences (such as mistreatment by “Christians”)
2. attachment to sins
3. defensiveness (taking offense at having their disbelief pointed out, having been reared without religious training or having later rejected God)

Negative experiences actually become an attachment to sins such as anger, bitterness, jealousy, and unforgiveness against “Christians” or daddy issues. Defensiveness also becomes an attachment to the sins of unbelief and “suppressing the truth in unrighteousness.”

The foundation, the basis underlying the bases, is the “the Fall,” “sin nature” or “original sin.” We all start out in rebellion against God, and Atheism is just an expression of that rebellion.

That people may have gone through a religious phase does not mean they left the faith. They may have had a misunderstanding of The Faith, shallowness of understanding or faith, or priorities that made idols of “the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the boastful pride of life.” Man judges by the outward appearance, so they and we are easily fooled by counterfeit belief. They may seem to us to have lost salvation, but what they lost was superficial; it was counterfeit.

God is not so gullible. He sees the hearts, and He sees the future thoughts and actions that the hearts will produce. He’s not going to turn a goat into a sheep just to let the sheep turn himself back into a goat again. Either He will preserve that sheep, or He will never turn the goat into a sheep in the first place.

I’ve heard many stories of people who spent their lives in good churches but only late in life actually were converted. How much easier it would be for people to deceive themselves or others and then abandon their counterfeit faith.

“what is his experience or is it that he takes pride in his ability to reason?”

Both. His experience is a lack of encounters with the supernatural. He may have prayed without receiving the requested answer or seen a miracle that he later decided was a con job. By (flawed) reasoning, He then projects that lack of experience onto all of history and adds that to many other flawed arguments. Most then close their minds to protect their pride and to resist admitting to their underlying rebellion.

“….then his ability to reason doesn’t validate his faith (how does an atheist prove that his faith is true?)”

• In engineering and business, verification is a check that you did something correctly. Validation is a check that you did the right thing.

The Atheist thinks his ability to reason verifies his faith, but it is a false verification because a mixture of flawed information and reasoning can only produce wrong conclusions.

Validation happens when the end result meets the underlying needs. If the underlying needs are forgiveness, relationship with God, and everlasting life, and the Atheist’s faith blocks the way to fulfilling those needs, then his ability to reason and his faith are invalidated. The invalid nature of his assumption that he does not need forgiveness, God, or life meet there ultimate, tragic invalidation when he follows Richard Dawkins into hell.


Usual disclaimer for something I've already poste elsewhere: Please give credit where credit is due if you copy this.

The Looking Glass Is God's Verbal Revelation

Response concerning the looking glass in 1 Corinthians 13:12 

(Author's name withheld to prevent embarrassment)

1 Corinthians 13:12

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

Barnes said in his commentary that Paul here may have referred to the imperfect and discolored glass which was then in extensive use in his era, for we have no reason to suppose that it was then as transparent as that which is now made. It was, doubtless, an imperfect and obscure medium, and, therefore, well adapted to illustrate the nature of our knowledge here compared with what it will be in heaven.

But then - In the fuller revelations in heaven.

Face to face - As when one looks upon an object openly, and not through an obscure and dark medium. It here means, therefore, "clearly, without obscurity." 

That would be a great illustration, but in this case, Albert Barne’s work is outdated. Mr. Barnes died 31 years before Agnes Ozman spoke in tongues and 37 years before the Azusa Street scandal began. Wesleyan teachings had evolved into a Holiness movement, but Charismatism was not on his radar. That affected his interpretation because there was, in his time, no need to respond to various interpretations of the passage. Plus, Greek scholars have learned more about the language since then.

1. The glass in 1 Corinthians 13:12 was a looking-glass rather than a window. 2072. ἔσοπτρον (esoptron) -- a mirror (i.e. an object for looking into). A completely different word is used for transparent materials such as glass and crystals (e.g., in Revelation).
   
2. The same word is used in James 1:23–24. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.
   
3. The mirror is a metaphor for the verbal revelation which reveals our sins and our foolishness. Since 1 Corinthians was one of the first New Testament epistles or books written, the metaphorical mirror comprised the Old Testament, plus bit-by-bit revelation through the gifts of the Spirit (knowledge, prophecy, tongues).
   
4. 1 Corinthians 13:12 sits in the middle of three chapters focused primarily on verbal revelation, so interpreting the looking glass as the Word is consistent with that pattern.

This informs a correct interpretation of verses 9–10. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. Paul has not taken a detour into eschatology; he’s writing about verbal revelation the whole time.

The infant and juvenile church had need of special gifts of revelation because all they had was the Old Testament and the addition of the 27 books of the New Testament over the 60 years after the resurrection. But as the complete collection of written revelation became available, it was time for the church to mature and put away the showy things. When the complete writings became available, the hypothetical “I” would “know” through access to the full written revelation, even as the earliest believers had access to revelation when “face to face” with an apostle.

Bonus tidbit: Gifts of prophecy and knowledge would be done away with (passive voice) by an external condition 2673. καταργέω (katargeó) -- to render inoperative, abolish, and tongues would simply cease themselves (middle voice) 3973. παύω (pauó) -- to make to cease, hinder. This is stated in the context of a paragraph about the written revelation, the mirror, the Word, reaching completion.


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The Ten Commandments Reveal God's Grace

In what ways do the Ten Commandments reveal the grace of God?

The commandments of the Old Testament are called The Law. The Law is One Law, with two top-level commandments:

• ‘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)

The Ten Commandments add the next level of detail. The next level of detail adds over 600 more commandments. (And the Jews wrote commentaries with thousands more, just to avoid breaking any of the over 600 that people might not have understood. This one Law is an earthly application of the objective moral standard, which is God’s holiness. If you break one point, you’ve broken the Law. And if you would keep even one of the commandments to justify yourself before God, you have to keep the whole Law with all of its hundreds of commandments. You must do this not only from the time you decide to start, but also from the time you were born.

The Ten Commandments reveal the grace of God, but they primarily reveal the holiness and justice of God. The Ten commandments (and over 600 others) were given primarily to show us our need for God’s grace.

• Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law [self-righteous people], so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God; because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin. (Romans 3:19–20)
• Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. (Galatians 3:24)

Since we need God’s grace, telling us about our need is a gracious act. It is shocking to learn that you have cancer, but it is gracious to inform somebody that they have a disease and they have access to a cure. Likewise, it is shocking to learn that we are already condemned, but it is gracious to be given that diagnosis so that you will turn to the remedy that God offers, namely, salvation by grace through trusting faith (Ephesians 2:8–9).

The message that we need God’s grace is one way the Ten Commandments reveal the grace of God. Another way they reveal the grace of God is by laying down rules by which we can love our neighbors.

• If we do not blaspheme and commit idolatry, our example does not lead our neighbors away from God.
• If we do not murder, we support life and justice.
• If we do not commit adultery, we do not spread diseases, break up families, and leave children in broken relationships.
• If we do not steal, we do not take away portions of others’ lives that they invested in acquiring their possessions.
• If we do not covet what belongs to our neighbors, we will not be tempted to take what is not ours or create jealousy that disrupts our relationships.
• If we love God, we find freedom from guilt and maintain a reservoir of power to love ourselves and others.
  
• The one exception to the Ten Commandments is the requirement to do no work on the Sabbath, which is Saturday. It is the one command that was strictly ceremonial rather than focusing on morality in relationships. The early church met in synagogues that the Jews already used on Saturdays, so there was a practical need to meet on another day. Moreover, two elements of symbolism came into play. First, the seventh day (Sunday) was the day on which the Lord had risen. Second, the Sabbath symbolized resting from working to earn salvation. It represented approaching God in faith without self-righteous works. Since the New Testament teaches that mature Christians esteem all days alike, the early church met on Sundays instead of on Saturdays. 

By keeping the Ten Commandments -- or more correctly, using the Ten Commandments to help us decide how to love God and others -- we exemplify and enact God’s grace, both for ourselves, and for those around us.

I originally posted this as an answer to a question on Quora. If you copy it, please give credit where credit is due.

Separation from God, and Reconciliation

How was Adam separated from God?

God is perfectly holy, and His presence is sacred. Think about what it means for something to be sacred. It means that a thing is dedicated to holy purposes and not to be used for an unholy purpose.
We’ve seen Muslim extremists in Iran riot and kill after somebody allegedly defaced a Quran or drew an image of Muhammad. While we can judge the reaction as unacceptable, we can recognize that they respect the concept of sacredness in a way that people in the West no longer recognize.

We can see respect for sacredness in Roman Catholic churches. During communion, the priest allegedly turns the communion wine and wafer into Jesus’s blood and flesh. That makes the wine and wafer sacred to Catholics. To prevent defiling Jesus’s body by letting it fall to the floor, an assistant holds a plate at mid-chest level in front of the person receiving the wafer to catch Jesus in case his alleged flesh falls. This prevents defiling the sacred.

Through Adam and Eve’s disobedience to God, they did, as God had warned, die. It was not a physical death, although it made physical death inevitable. It was a spiritual death. Whereas physical death is separation of a person’s spirit from their soul, spiritual death is separation of a person’s spirit from God.

We inherit that condition from our ancestors. Although we are all born physically alive with functioning spirit and body, we are all born spiritually dead with spirit separated from God.
Separation from God means that fellowship with God is broken and needs to be restored. Sacred, holy God cannot just ignore sin. The Bible describes the situation several ways.

• Sin incurs a debt that we cannot pay. We owe obedience and all good deeds to God, so we cannot pay for sins with what we already owe. That would be like paying the bill from last month with what we saved up to pay for this month’s bill. That is why our good deeds could never cancel or outweigh our sins.
  
• The penalty for sin holds us for a ransom that we cannot pay. (Contrary to myth, Satan does not hold us hostage; God’s justice does.) The penalty is proportional to the importance of the one you offend. If I lie to my wife, I might have to sleep in the doghouse. If I lie to the government, I might go to prison. If I lie to infinite God, the consequences are infinite or everlasting.
  
• Sin defiles me, so if I stood before God without having been redeemed, then I would defile God’s presence, which God will not tolerate.
  
• Sin’s defilement changes my nature such that if I were thrust into God’s presence without having been redeemed and reconciled, I would try to flee from His presence.

This is why Jesus’s time on the cross is so crucial to us. When God created the universe, that included creating time and space. Having created time and space, God chose to experience time and space as three centers of consciousness or “Persons.” Each Person voluntarily took on a distinct role: Father, Son, or Holy Spirit.

The titles Son of Man and The Word: God the Son is called the Word because His role was to be the expression of God to human beings. When the time was right, the Son donned a human body and lived as the man, Jesus of Nazareth. As the Son of Man, Jesus experienced all the temptations and torments of life and death as our representative.

The title Son of God: Being God, Jesus lived a perfect life, never sinning. Thus, He had no sins to pay for. This kept Him free to become our substitute. Like a big brother taking the whoopin’ for his little brother and sister, Jesus took our place and bore sin’s penalty.

The title Savior: Whereas the penalty for sinning against infinite God would have destroyed us, Jesus could not be held by death. He rose from the dead, proving that He was divine, that God was satisfied with the payment, that God would restore us to spiritual life, and that God can one day raise everybody from the dead. Thus, God offers this gift of redemption to all who will receive it as a gift. Those who receive the gift as a gift receive forgiveness and spiritual life, but those who refuse the gift will be sent into separation from God’s presence, forever stuck in their guilt and anger.

You might have been bothered by an apparent redundancy, receive the gift as a gift. The point is important because all the world’s religions depend on achieving or earning something to receive redemption. Within “Christianity,” many denominations swerve off into the world’s religions by teaching that one must do something to earn the gift — which is self-contradictory.

If someone suggests that you have to take part in a ceremony or do good deeds or persevere in the faith to earn or retain grace, their teaching lies outside of explicit biblical teachings. It even lies outside the definition of “grace?”

To receive the gift, you need to do exactly two things:

• Understand in your heart your need for the gift,
• Trust God to endow you with the gift.
• Any more than that turns the gift into something you could never earn in a million lifetimes. And God will not stand for having His generosity insulted.

One of the characteristics of separation from God is a lack of His immediate presence and influence in one’s life. When one is redeemed and restored to relationship with God, God sends the Holy Spirit. Before Jesus’s resurrection, the Holy Spirit came “upon” people to achieve a specific purpose such as prophesying, giving strength and skill in battle, or leading a nation. Since the resurrection, the Holy Spirit has indwelt believers to begin transforming them into holier people, give them insight when reading the scriptures, empower them to serve God and each other, and intercede for them when they don’t know how to pray.

To summarize what “separation from God” means, it means that a person who has not received the gift of redemption as a free gift has none of the blessings of forgiveness or intimate relationship with God. Unless he receives the gift as a gift, he remains forever outside of relationship with God.


I first posted this as an answer to a question on Quora. If quoting, please give credit where credit is due.

Sacraments, Ordinances, and Channels of Grace

Sacraments Are Catholic. Ordinances Are Biblical.

A sacrament is a ceremony that both symbolizes something and serves as a conduit for grace. Sacraments are "Christianized" substitutes for the Jewish religious practices that the Catholic hierarchy restored after God had fulfilled and abolished them. So sacraments are "good works" by which Catholics think they earn grace.

Earn grace is an oxymoron, of course, because grace means unmerited favor, and you cannot earn something that you cannot merit. In Romans and other epistles, Paul goes to great lengths to explain that faith and works, and grace and wages, are mutually exclusive pairs. By trying to mix the unmiscible, Catholicism

The only conduits of grace in the New Testament are faith (Ephesians 2:8), prayer (Jude 20), and hearing the Word (Romans 10:17). (Calvinist/Reformed may add the new birth, which they believe has to precede faith because they take "dead in trespasses" to be literal, not metaphorical.) These are neither symbols nor conduits. A purely symbolic ceremony such as baptism is called an ordinance, or sometimes, a tradition.

Many churches that descend from Rome retain Romish baggage such as infant baptism and words like "sacrament." If you carefully distinguish between sacraments and ordinances, it will be easier to discount Rome's works-based gospel.


Copyright 2020, Richard Wheeler (Permission granted for non-profit purposes; just give credit where credit is due.)

The Problem of Evil

I'd appreciate comments on this potential explanation of the problem of evil.

Atheists often ask how a good God could allow evil to exist. They usually toss out the rhetorical question as though it were a proof, indicating to me that the majority just parrot each other and don't think nearly as deeply as they think they do. A valid argument could be something like, If God is good, then evil must offend Him. God allows evil, so God must not exist.

Rather than point out the flaws in that, I'd like to show that evil is a necessity. The flash of insight that inspired this fit of writing was that free will requires randomness in the universe, and randomness inevitably causes evil. Since I'm currently reading William Lane Craig's Reasonable Response, I had to develop the idea in the style of a logical argument.

I'm not trained in philosophy, so please be charitable.

Starting assumption

Judeo-Christian teaching that God created man to have meaningful, loving relationship with God.

A. Free will was necessary

1. If actions such as love and praise are to have value, the agent giving them must have free will. 
2. The purposes for which God created man included man loving God.
3. Therefore, when God created man, man had free will.

B. At least some events are random

1. Free will cannot exist in a deterministic world.
2. Man had free will.
3. Probabilistic events occurred.
   

Note: By saying the world was probabilistic, I mean only that determinism was not total. That is, a probabilistic world has randomness, but physical laws or a Creator's part-time interference can influence events.

Lemma 1 -- The current age

Once probabilism is established, it is no longer necessary to use the past tense.

C. Non-preferred events must occur.

1. If events are probabilistic, then some will be disadvantageous to man.
2. Probabilistic events occur.
3. From man's perspective, disadvantageous events occur.

D. Extreme disadvantageous events must occur.

1. If events are probabilistic, some disadvantageous events will be extremely disadvantageous moral behaviors.
2. Events are probabilistic.
3. Extremely disadvantageous moral behaviors occur.

E. Evil must occur.

1. If extreme disadvantageous moral behaviors occur, then according to objective morality, evil occurs.
2. Extremely disadvantageous moral behaviors occur.
3. Objective morality exists.
4. Therefore, evil must occur.

Summary

For God and man to achieve meaningful, loving relationship, evil must occur.

Lemma 2 -- After Judgment Day

Once God has established meaningful, loving relationships with all the people whom He intends to save, the eventual elimination of probabilism and evil by transforming the world into a new heavens and a new earth becomes consonant with God's purpose.


Copyright 2020, Richard Wheeler