Category: God

Is There a God

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Atheism, God

Is There a God

People that I have talked to or those that have read my blog, know that I believe that faith in the existence of supreme intelligence or consciousness is a self-evident truth.  A self-evident truth is a truth that a majority of men recognize through natural instincts.  That is, by men who have not had their reasoning corrupted by false beliefs and ideologies.

Some might raise the objection, ‘if the existence of God is self-evident, why are there so many that do not see it?’  Jesus said, “some people have eyes but do not see”.  Sometimes overexposure deadens our sensitivity to a thing.  We are often actually insensitive to our senses until they are impaired in some way.  We seldom think about seeing out of our eyes until something threatens our sight.  When we look out a window, we will not often see the glass unless we focus on it.  The reason being, we have given our full attention to the things we are watching outside the window.  However, if the window is dirty or has a crack in it, we see it immediately.  The problem with modern man is that he is too focused on things to see God.  This lack of sight is encouraged by our capitalistic and materialist culture that focuses people more on the physical than the existential and metaphysical realities.

The source of much unbelief could be contributed to the culture and environment that one grows up in.  Some men grow up in families and cultures that are anti-metaphysical and are dominated by the materialistic mindset.  If one grows up in such a culture, they absorbed a state of rebellion against God as normal or they are simply indifferent towards spirituality, without even knowing or understanding why they do not believe in God.  They literally have had their minds washed of the idea of God; literally they have been brainwashed and immersed in doubt to the point that unbelief seems normal for them.

They are ignorant of God because they have neglected the knowledge of God, (secular culture) and have failed to follow the natural revelation of God in nature that leads people to faith in God.  They trust in exalting reason about what is reasonable.  Reason is a wonderful thing, but it has its limits and it has the propensity to become the handmaid of our passions and our will and for some men, reason has become a sick lady infected with finiteness and sin which has led to total madness.

It was for this reason that the scientific method was created to help keep science honest.  However, we are beginning to see that the problem is too hard to deal with through laws and methods because mankind uses reason to get around the law.  Mankind needs grace to deal with sin and to keep reason honest.

When I give a reason for something, I must subsequently give a reason for the reason and then a reason for that reason.  This regression would be infinite until I came to the end of reason itself.  We have one or two choices; to follow the regression of reason to the end of reason or follow it to a first cause.  If you are an atheist and deny that the first cause is ‘Intelligent’, your problem becomes insurmountable.  You will inevitably end up denying reason or make it the first cause and in that, you have made reason god and might I add, an exceedingly small god.  Moreover, reason will find its end when it comes up against itself, for how can reason explain itself without arguing in circles or chasing its own tail.  “I believe in reason because that is what reason says to believe.” or “I believe in reason because my philosophy professor said I should believe in it and he learned it from Plato, who learned it from reason”.

Am I saying that I do not believe in reason?  No, I am simply saying that reason has its limits and be careful not to ask too much of her.  She is not infallible and without a proper foundation to reason from, she is like a man trying to ride a wild horse, she can kill you.  Reason is a gift from God and was given as a tool to help us find our way on our journey.  If we corrupt her, we do so at our own peril.  If we make her into God, we bring the wrath of God upon ourselves.  “You shall not have any other gods before you.”  We make reason into god when we turn reason into rationalism.  The difference between reason and rationalism is that reason knows her limits, rationalism does not and in this, rationalism is unreasonable and even stupid.

 

God is Self-Evident

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Atheism, God

God is Self-Evident

People that I have talked to or those that have read my blog, know that I believe that faith in the existence of supreme intelligence or consciousness is a self-evident truth.  A self-evident truth is a truth that a majority of men recognize through natural instincts.  That is, by men who have not had their reasoning corrupted by false beliefs and ideologies.

Some might raise the objection, ‘if the existence of God is self-evident, why are there so many that do not see it?’  Jesus said, “some people have eyes but do not see”.  Sometimes overexposure deadens our sensitivity to a thing.  We are often actually insensitive to our senses until they are impaired in some way.  We seldom think about seeing out of our eyes until something threatens our sight.  When we look out a window, we will not often see the glass unless we focus on it.  The reason being, we have given our full attention to the things we are watching outside the window.  However, if the window is dirty or has a crack in it, we see it immediately.  The problem with modern man is that he is too focused on things to see God.  This lack of sight is encouraged by our capitalistic and materialist culture that focuses people more on the physical than the existential and metaphysical realities.

The source of much unbelief could be contributed to the culture and environment that one grows up in.  Some men grow up in families and cultures that are anti-metaphysical and are dominated by the materialistic mindset.  If one grows up in such a culture, they absorbed a state of rebellion against God as normal or they are simply indifferent towards spirituality, without even knowing or understanding why they do not believe in God.  They literally have had their minds washed of the idea of God; literally, they have been brainwashed and immersed in doubt to the point that it seems normal for them.

They are ignorant of God because they have neglected the knowledge of God, (secular culture) and have failed to follow the natural revelation of God in nature that leads people to faith in God.  They trust in and exalt reason about what is reasonable.  Reason is a wonderful thing, but it has its limits and it has the propensity to become the handmaid of our passions and our will and for some men, reason has become a sick lady infected with finiteness and sin which has led to total madness.

It was for this reason that the scientific method was created to help keep science honest.  However, we are beginning to see that the problem is too hard to deal with through laws and methods because mankind uses reason to get around the law.  Mankind needs grace to deal with sin and to keep reason honest.

When I give a reason for something, I must subsequently give a reason for the reason and then a reason for that reason.  This regression would be infinite until I came to the end of reason itself.  We have one or two choices; to follow the regression of reason to the end of reason or follow it to a first cause.  If you are an atheist and deny that the first cause is ‘Intelligent’, your problem becomes insurmountable.  You will inevitably end up denying reason or make it the first cause and in that, you have made reason god and might I add, a very small god.  Moreover, reason will find its end when it comes up against itself, for how can reason explain itself without arguing in circles or chasing its own tail.  “I believe in reason because that is what reason says to believe.” or “I believe in reason because my philosophy professor said I should believe in it and he learned it from Plato, who learned it from reason”.

Am I saying that I do not believe in reason?  No, I am simply saying that reason has its limits and be careful not to ask too much of her.  She is not infallible and without a proper foundation to reason from, she is like a man trying to ride a wild horse, she can kill you.  Reason is a gift from God and was given as a tool to help us find our way on our journey.  If we corrupt her, we do so at our own peril.  If we make her into God, we bring the wrath of God upon ourselves.  “You shall not have any other gods before you.”  We make reason into god when we turn reason into rationalism.  The difference between reason and rationalism is that reason knows her limits, rationalism does not and in this, rationalism is unreasonable and even stupid.

 

Is God Personal? A Letter to a Deist

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Deism, God

Is God Personal? A Letter to a Deist

It would seem it is quite hard to say anything about the deity seeing that the sizes of the universe demonstrate that God is far advanced over us mere mortals.  It would seem presumptuous of us to say anything about him, especially if those ideas lessoned his character in any way. Therefore, to say that he is personal or impersonal would be a presumptuous statement limiting him by imposing a human characteristic upon him. It seems it would be closer to the truth to refer to Him as trans-personal or beyond personality,  personality being a human characteristic. Jesus hints at this when he said that the deity knows every hair on our heads. This would indicate that His personal knowledge must be far greater than any human being. This might raise the question does not a personal knowledge of someone infer in itself a degree of a personal relationship?

The bigger question is, Why would one want to believe that the deity is impersonal? Would believing in a universe with an impersonal God be any different than a universe without a God? It surely is more convenient and comfortable to live in the universe with an impersonal God than a trans-personal one that might hold men responsible for their behavior. It does seem to me that belief in an impersonal God is not much different from atheism on a pragmatic level. The benefit from such a belief or non-belief would simply be to avoid any uncomfortable conclusion about God. It also would give one the convenience and comfort of avoiding some hard questions and decisions about life and death.

Of course, the truth is, if there is a divine trans-personal God like the Biblical God it really does not matter what we believe about Him. We still will be judged by His will and our decisions or even the lack of them. It will not matter whether or not we ignore or dodge the questions. The safe position is to believe in a trans-personal God. If there is no trans-personal god, it really doesn’t matter. Does it? However, if there is that would open the possibility that we share in some of his characteristics like anger and love. It comes back to whether or not you believe that man created God in his image or God created man in his.

Moreover, to say that God is impersonal is to say that billions of people that claim to have a relationship with Him are delusional or simply liars. Such a belief would have to be totally subjective unless you could get into the skin of every one of those people that claim they have a relationship with God. The most that any person could say is I personally do not have a relationship with God. Of course, because an individual does not have a relationship with God does not mean or prove that God is impersonal and has no personal relationship with any humans. It also seems that a lack of faith in a personal God would slam the door shut on having any experience with God. Why would a person want to do that? If a person has the choice of living in a universe where there is a personal God or a universe where there is no trans-personal God why would anyone choose the impersonal? We all have reasons for our beliefs and it seldom reason.

Who made God?

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism, God

 

Who made God?

 When you hear the question, “who made God?” you should notice the first word is always who never what. The Who of the question infers the idea of cause-and-effect. That is that everything must have come from something equal or greater than itself.  We intuitively understand that we are conscious and personal beings, so we infer automatically that if something created us; it must be conscious and personal in the sense of having a personality.

Of course, the answer also depends on one’s definition of God. If you believe that God is simply an idea in someone’s mind, the answer is the person that believes in him made him up. However, if you believe that  God is an infinite being outside of time and space without beginning or end, the answer would be totally different. It would be something like God is the uncreated one without beginning or end and the first cause of all things. So, a reasonable answer to the question who made God? would be, what God are we talking about? This question the atheist cannot answer because they don’t believe in God. To ask a person that believes in an infinite creator the question “who made God?” would be nonsense, because the answer is within  the question and the definition of God.

However, when an atheist asks the question “who made God?” this is a proof that they have an idea or image of God in their minds. You must have an image of something before you can say you don’t believe in it. So, the proper question to the atheist is what god are you talking about? They in turn might say the Christian God or the Jewish god. Now here’s the problem with the majority of atheists whom I’ve talk to, they do not have an inkling of theological knowledge, which means that the God they have an image of is a  figment of their imagination to begin with, i.e. a straw man. In most cases, an intelligent  believer would not believe in the image of the God that most atheist hold in their minds. For the Christian any image of God that an atheist has in their minds is an idol and Christians known that idols do not existence. ” Dear children, keep yourselves from idols”(1 John 5:21).

 

 

The Bottom Line on Atheism

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism, God, Religion

The Bottom Line on Atheism and The Totally Other

For the last few years I have been trying my best to understand the new atheist movement and all of its ranting and raving against God and religion. Then it dawned on me,  that I could not understand them because we were not talking about the same things. The god and religion that they are ranting against is not the God I believe in or the religion I practice.

The majority of them talk about a god that I believed in at one time and a religion I was a part of when I was a young man. However, I no longer believe in that god nor do I practice  that religion. It took a number of years on my journey to find The Wholly Other; or should I say for him to find me and to lead me out of the forest of religious idols I was lost and hiding in.

Looking back on my journey it is hard to understand why it took so long to be found by the Lord seeing that  “We live and move and have are being in him”[1], though he, himself has no being, for He is being[2], i.e. He does not have existence rather he is existence[3]. Therefore, there really is no way to argue for his existence for he does not exist in the way we think of existence. So, what are we arguing for, or against?[4] I will get back to this later.

I found that not only do the new atheists have a different vision of The Totally Other, they (at least the majority) had a different vision of religion, which is as narrow as their vision of the God symbol. They seem to believe that all religion is the same, which in their minds means that all religion is bad. Of course, it does not take much thought to realize that the word religion is a word that points to a concept which is as deep and broad as the ocean. Therefore, when the new atheists start bashing all religion and lumping it all together it makes me wonder how much real thought they have put into their subject. I have found some so allergic to the word religion that they cannot even admit that religion can be good or bad. This strongly points to the level of maturity of so many in that movement. They take a thumb full of the ocean and believe that they have captured the ocean. I am not saying this in malice but I believe that many these people have some deep problems.

You may have noticed that  I have tried to avoid using the word God, the reason being that the word has been so vulgarized and distorted that it has lost any value in helping us to understand the mystery that I refer to as The Wholly Other. The distortion of the God symbol is one of the real problems with religion and atheism.

Religion should help us in our journey to The Totally Other. However, instead of helping it often hinders by giving us false ideas of God, these false images in ancient times were called idols. The problem with idols is that there is no image or thing in reality or in the mind of humanity that can picture The Totally Other. All images of God created by humanity whether in mind or in stone, are idols because they are too small and distort the symbol we use for The Totally Other, i.e. God. The false ideas of God in turn him and him I solicit a false responds e.g. the new atheists.

This means that the atheist that has a pure heart may be closer to having a correct view of God than many believers. That is, if he has no image of God in his mind[5]. You see nothing is better than the something if the something is wrong. This is why I call the something that you cannot image or speak about, The Wholly Other, the uncreated one, I Am or maybe nothingness? I do it to keep people from creating a false image of God that is too small.

Of course, the problem is that for both believer and atheist, religion stands as a mediator between them and The Wholly Other. You see, for the atheist to argue against God he must have an image of that God in his mind. Whatever image he has in his mind is simply an idol. This is the only reason why they can form an argument against it, for no argument can be formed against the Wholly Other for he lies beyond all argument. The majority of men will never get beyond the idols of this world whether they claim to be atheist or theist, i.e. their God is too small. I often wonder how humans could become so corrupt that the scripture would tell us that every imagination of their heart was corrupt, I now know; their God was too small, they were idolaters.

The theist often creates a God in their own image and then projects that image into heaven. The atheist then comes along and says that is not God and they are right. It is an idol that can be manipulated and controlled by man. It is the god of the religious man and the atheist. A god that  is created for the opium of the people; or as a tool to control the herd. On the other hand, the deist created an aloof impersonal God that is somewhere out there beyond everything, located in some distant heaven, too aloof to be involved with his creation. Of course, any god that can be herded into some small corner of space and time is just too small to be The Totally Other. It also is an idol.

The high theists of the world know The Wholly Other, since they know, that they know little or nothing of being. They confess that they are quite ignorant of The Total Other. They understand, as Isaiah the prophet also understood; “His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts.” To them the word God is a symbol which stands for the limits of their knowledge. This knowledge calls for humility and they are careful not to over speak on the subject of the deity.

You may ask, “Are you saying we can know nothing of being?”  No, I am saying that you can only know what He has revealed to you. How does He reveal Himself? One way is through nature and the study of it, that is science. The study of nature has reviewed how great and powerful the Wholly Other is and how different he is from humanity. This knowledge should create awe and wonder in ones spirit, which is true spiritual worship. Unfortunately, many that study nature end up worshipping nature, failing to see that she is an arrow pointing to that which is beyond her. As the seer says when the prophet points at the moon the majority look at his thumb. For many science and religion has become the study of the thumb.

Some may say that this Wholly Other dwells in a cloud of darkness and mystery. Why does he hide Himself? Why does He not reveal Himself? Well, I do not think He is the problem, I think the trouble lays elsewhere. Could it be that He is so awesome and so glorious that in our present form we cannot approach Him without melting into nothingness. This unapproachableness is pointed out in the bible when God tells Moses, “You cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live” (Exodus 33:20).

There is the real possibility that the darkness that hides the Wholly Other is the darkness that is in the human heart. Jesus said, blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God”. Now by pure in heart I do not think Jesus is talking about not having impure thoughts e.g. lust, greed, etc. but rather having the right focus of one’s own being. He refers to this as the single eye. “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light.  But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! (Matt 6:22-23).This may be why children find it easy to see God until their parents or their culture (which includes religion) fill their eyes with darkness and forces them to see the world through dark-colored glasses. It is no wonder Jesus said “unless you convert and become like little children you will in no way, enter the kingdom of God.” So, let’s stop blaming God and the devil for our bad eyes and poor sight.  For that matter let’s stop blaming our parents and culture and accept responsibility for the condition of our own heart. Our hearts are filled with darkness because we have made God too small and are about the business of building idols.

Then, there is the Bible. What is the Bible? The Bible is a collection of writings from men who were searching for The Totally Other. It is the history of their journey and their interaction with the Uncreated One. It records their successes and their failures. It shows them as groping, sometimes searching as a lost children would search for their parent and slowly, in due course growing into adolescence. The Bible also reminds us that the story is not over and that adulthood is still away off.

What about the contradictions and mistakes in it? Would you not expect to find a few anomalies and problems in any writings trying to explain The Total Other? It is a book of symbols that point to something that is on the border of human knowledge, known yet unknown. The Bible itself is a symbol which claimed to be both human and divine. The divine part is perfect in doing what it was created for, which is the building of souls as they journeyed towards the Totally Other.

However, there is a consistent theme and a trend that run though the whole of Scriptures, which connects all of its parts, though sometimes overshadowed, it is always there. It is the central symbol of Scriptures and God’s people throughout the ages. We could summarize that one central symbol with the word ‘someone’. Someone is coming, someone is here and someone is coming again.

The someone of Scripture is the Promised One, the Anointed one, the Messiah or Christ. The one who would save the people from their enemies. Their greatest enemies being sin and death. The Scriptures gave clues to help people recognize this someone. It said that he would be extraordinary and different from other men. His words would be different and his life would be different, he would be Other like the One who sent him.

One man has said that it takes extraordinary evidence to prove an extraordinary claim.[6] the scriptures say that the someone in himself is the extraordinary evidence that the Total Other has given to man. This someone is the final and perfect symbol that points to The Total Other. He spoke like no other man and lived like no other man. When he spoke things happened, people were healed, water was changed into wine, storms were stilled and the dead were raised. No man has ever had so many people believe in him and at the same time has had so many hate him and despise his teachings. He truly is the extraordinary man, the someone sent from The Totally Other. This totally other man is still calling people “To come follow me”.

[1] Acts 17:28

[2] When I say He has no being it might be better to say he is super being. We live and move and have our being in Him, but we are not Him.

[3] Existence is beyond our comprehension though we apprehended it through our own existence and the existence of things around us.

[4] When humans argue for or against the idea of God they are arguing for or against a human construct that at best can only point to the One that stands behind it. Therefore we spend a great deal of time arguing about the idea of God. Now it is true that some ideas of God surely are better pointers than others but all fall short of the reality. This is true in science as well, for there is no theory of reality that is reality. The map is not the territory.

[5] It is unlikely that most atheists have no image of God in their minds, because if so, they would have nothing to argue against.

[6] Unfortunately, Carl Sagan did not define what extraordinary evidence would look like. For some skeptics, there would never be any evidence of any kind or  enough to prove the existence of God.

 

Find Me God

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Atheism, God

Find Me God

 Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, “I find no pleasure in them.” Ecclésiastes 12:1

Have you ever wondered why Solomon told people to remember God when they’re young?  I always thought that as you got older, one should remember God more often because you’re getting closer to death.  However, Solomon says to do it while you’re young, but why?  I think one reason is that when you’re young, you’re pure in heart.  Your mind has not been filled with crazy ideologies and belief systems which make it hard find and know God.  Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.”

One of the greatest insights I’ve read on finding God was written by C.S. Lewis; it’s about God finding us, or us finding God.  The quote is quite lengthy, however, it is rewarding.  “When you come to knowing God, the initiative lies on His side.  If He does not show Himself, nothing you can do will enable you to find Him.  And, in fact, He shows much more of Himself to some people than to others—not because He has favorites, but because it is impossible for Him to show Himself to a man whose whole mind and character are in the wrong condition.  Just as sunlight, though it has no favorites, cannot be reflected in a dusty mirror as clearly as in a clean one.  You can put this another way by saying that while in other sciences the instruments you use are things external to yourself (things like microscopes and telescopes), the instrument through which you see God is your whole self. And if a man’s self is not kept clean and bright, his glimpse of God will be blurred-like the Moon seen through a dirty telescope.  That is why horrible nations have horrible religions: they have been looking at God through a dirty lens.  God can show Himself as He really is, only to real men.  And that means not simply to men who are individually good, but to men who are united together in a body, loving one another, helping one another, showing Him to one another.  For that is what God meant humanity to be like; like players in one band, or organs in one body.  Consequently, the one really adequate instrument for learning about God is the whole Christian community, waiting for Him together.  Christian brotherhood is, so to speak, the technical equipment for this science-the laboratory outfit.”[1]

Jesus gives further insight when he says to his disciples, “If you love me, you will obey what I command.  And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever the Spirit of truth.  The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him.  But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.  I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.  Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me.  Because I live, you also will live.  On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.  Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me.  He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him” (John 14:15-24).

In the context the commandment that Jesus is referring to is the commandment to love one another as he has loved them.  From this, we can gather that it is not the intellectual or the person who knows the most about the bible that Jesus will reveal himself to, but rather to the man who loves his brothers.  We can also gather that there is a knowledge of God in Jesus that is beyond knowing the Bible.  It is the knowledge that comes from having a deep relationship with someone; we could liken that to a man knowing his wife in an intimate fashion.  After being married for 50 years I can say that I know my wife.  I know what she likes and I know her desires even without her telling me.  You could say I know her will; and I know it apart from her writing me a letter every day about her wants and desires.  Knowing God in Christ on this level is getting close to the meaning of what Paul says when he tells Christians to “live by the Spirit and not the flesh”.

Let me conclude by saying if you want to be found by God, or find God, you can begin by loving his image and likeness in other Christians and your fellow man in and through the body of Christ which is his church.  Love is the way to God.

[1] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952; Harper Collins: 2001) pages164-165