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Articles - God

Articles concerning the existence of God.

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Virtue and the Virus

On August 20, 1775, George Washington wrote a letter to Major General Philip Schuyler. Two months earlier Washington had been appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army by the Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia. In addition to the details of military strategy included in his letter, Washington included these words: “I am sure you will not let difficulties damp your ardour. Perseverance and spirit have done wonders in all ages” (founders.archives.gov).

This statement from the man whom the late Supreme Court Justice, Antonin Scalia, called “the greatest American of them all” implies qualities needed for such a time as this. Perseverance and spirit have done wonders throughout the ages and certainly throughout the history of America. This is a different time, with different details, but it remains a time for the qualities of perseverance and spirit to work wonders again.

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Charles C Pugh III, GodLyn MillerComment
THE POWER AND NECESSITY OF LOVE

I was supposed to be in Memphis, Tennessee, today speaking at the Knight Arnold congregation in Memphis for their annual lectureship, but both I and the doctor decided that we weren’t really in the situation to do that so at least I am glad to be here to fill in for Ferman.

I want to talk today about a topic that I feel very deeply about, and that I believe God feels deeply about. In fact, there can’t be any question about it. I’ve entitled this study: “The Power and Necessity of Love” and the passage which was read just a few moments ago gives the basic information about it.

The apostle Paul made clear the absolute necessity of loving God when he said, “If any man love not the Lord Jesus let him be anathema, let him be accursed, if you do not love Christ” (1 Corinthians 16:22). The apostle Paul here makes clear that no man who does not love the Lord will be saved. Every phase of our lives involves in some way, this matter of love. What we think, how we conduct ourselves, what goals we set for ourselves, and many, many others. In fact, there is nothing in our lives that does not involve this point. Without love, even great things, that is, the things which with love are very great, without love they are not great but with love they are. Those that are without love are worthless.

Paul made clear that without love, first, even great oratorical abilities, men who are great speakers in preaching the Word (they may preach the Word, but there is something missing) become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal; so we learn in 1 Corinthians 13:1. Even if one has spiritual gifts which can result in great deeds, the possessor of those gifts is nothing, that is, not pleasing to God, according to 1 Corinthians 13:2, if he does not have love, and third, even tremendously sacrificial acts of benevolence, giving goods to the poor, giving one’s body to be burned, and so on. We deceive ourselves sometimes into thinking that we are really loving servants of God when we are not. If these things are done without love they profit the sacrificing person nothing. This, God says in 1 Corinthians 13:3.

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Thomas B. Warren, GodPaolo DiLucaComment
Reflections on Mind and God

Humans are in a position, but not a predicament. We are somehow poised in an ontological setting which makes sense if we use sense in evaluating it. By “sense” I do not mean physical impressions, but metaphysical or mind impressions. In other words, if we use judgment, then that to which my mind applies seems rational. There has to be some rational explanation forthe fact of the coherence of the physical universe and for the fact of the relationship that exists between the physical universe and my consciousness of it. There has to be some explanation for the fact that I can reason about the universe and that I can reason about reason.

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Mac Deaver, GodMarcus Stenson Comment
Divine Purpose and Divine Decision

The planet earth is our earthly home. We ask often, “Why things happen as they do?” This is a fair question. This is a deep question. To begin to answer the question, we reason there are several active players. We may not admit all of them, but they all exist. Denying any of the players exist is poor reasoning and produces an unclear picture of the cause and effect in life. Consider the players: First, God who created all things. Second, man is the apex and made in His image (Genesis 1:26-27). Man is created a free moral agent; therefore, man is capable of good as well as bad. God gives man a biblical worldview adapted to the dispensation in which he lives, yet working in harmony to its ultimate end—Christianity. Third, Satan who rebels against God (Revelation 12:7-9) and who opposes God’s plan and man (Genesis 3; John 8:44; 1 John 5:19). He will do so until the final judgment (Revelation 20:11-15).

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W. Terry Varner, GodPaolo DiLucaComment
“In The Beginning GOD . . .”

INTRODUCTION

In order to adequately know himself, man must know God. To know himself, man must know of his own origin. (“How is it that I am here?”)

To know how one is here, he must know of his origin. Was he created or did he evolve from some non-human thing? A proper analysis of and valid reasoning concerning one’s own body, mind, and spirit (including his conscience) will result in the conclusion that he (man) was created by the infinite Being (God).

To know why he is here, man must know God and His Will.

In order to know what to do with his own life (how to be saved, how to live as a saved person), man must know God (John 17:3) and His will.

In order to know of his eternal destiny, man must know God (Matthew 25:46; Mark 9:43-50; 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9; Matthew 7:13-27; et al.). This study is about knowing God.

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Thomas B. Warren, GodPaolo DiLucaComment
The Rights of God

Dr. Barnhart says that he recognizes the essentiality of punishment, but that he doesn’t know what punishment should be given! This is indeed a great admission that the theory of Bentham is false because—according to Bentham’s theory—under these two sovereign masters, pleasure and pain, they will guide you and make you do things because of your natural constitution—what you ought to do and you shall do.

In my closing remarks I want to call your attention to the fact that the great God of heaven has certain rights in regard to man in the world.

According to Luke 13:69, which sets out the parable of the fig tree, there are certain things that we should learn.

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Thomas B. Warren, GodPaolo DiLucaComment
The National “Tradition” of Belief in God

Watching a televised Fourth of July presentation of a “Salute to America” was impactful and insightful. The sights and sounds were impressive. Much of the focus centered on the nation’s military, which should exist to protect the citizenry, especially those who seek to be, and do, good (cf. Romans 13:3-4). The presentation included an array of tanks, precision military units, and powerful weaponry such as multiple aircraft displayed in impressive flyovers performed by units such as the U. S. Navy’s Blue Angels.  Watching those Blue Angels soar above in a six-plane delta formation while unleashing a display of white smoke was a special sight to behold. However, there was more than military prowess on display. Hearing the names of great American heroes, some of whom we have been aware of since childhood, was inspirational. There were such names as George Washington, Betsy Ross, John Glenn, Martin Luther King, and numerous others. Some of the individuals may have been lesser known such as Dr. Emil Freireich whose work in oncology has resulted in successful treatment of childhood leukemia. All were American heroes. Hearing the U. S. Armed Forces Chorus sing service songs adopted respectively by each of the five branches of the United States Armed Forces was powerful.

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Charles C Pugh III, GodPaolo DiLucaComment
A Professor’s Problem

In the March 25 edition of the New York Times, Professor Peter Atterton, in his article entitled “A God Problem,” concluded that the concept of God, as viewed by most in the Western World, is an incoherent one. This is an exceedingly bold claim, and it will here be shown to be an incoherent one.

Mr. Atterton asks, “Does the idea of a morally perfect, all-powerful, all-knowing God make sense? Does it hold together when we examine it logically?” And then Mr. Atterton proceeds to discuss the concepts of omnipotence, omniscience, and moral perfection, but he does so in a glaringly illogical way.

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Mac Deaver, GodPaolo DiLuca Comment
WHO IS THE JEHOVAH OF THE OLD TESTAMENT?

There are a number of passages which indicate that Jehovah appeared to men (in some form) in the Old Testament (e.g., Genesis 18:1ff; etc.).   Yet, there are also numerous passages which say that no man has ever seen God (cf. John 1:18).  What are we to make of this phenomena?  Should we understand such passages to suggest that no man has ever seen the entire Godhead at one time?  Probably not, but this has been suggested.  Should we say that men did not see God Himself, but rather, only some shadowy manifestation of Him, or, some physical manifestation that is not to be identified with Him?  That this is not satisfactory will become apparent in a short time.  Some passages say that men saw Jehovah, and others just as clearly say that no man has seen the Lord.  How should we understand what appears to be a serious problem?

The Problem Stated

            Numerous passages indicate that no man has seen God at any time.  For instance, John says in John 1:18 (all Scripture references are from the American Standard Version, unless otherwise noted):  "No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him."  Scripture is clear to show that those who had seen the Christ had seen the Father (cf. John 10:30; 14:9; etc.).  But, the same Bible is just as clear to point out that the Father has not been seen by mortal man at any time.  In John 5:37, Jesus Himself said: “And the Father himself, which hath sent me, hath borne witness of me.  Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape.”   John says further, in 1 John 4:10-12, 14, 20:
Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.   Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.   No man hath beheld God at any time: if we love one another, God abideth in us, and his love is perfected in us: . . .  And we have beheld and bear witness that the Father hath sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. . . .  If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, cannot love God whom he hath not seen. 

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Dick Sztanyo, GodPaolo DiLuca Comment
My Dad Knows God!

   There is the story of three little boys who, playing as backyard buddies, got into one of those “my Dad is better than your Dad” routines. One of the boys declared, “My Dad knows the mayor of our town!” The second boy responded by saying, “That’s nothing! My Dad knows the governor!” Then the third boy exclaimed: “That’s nothing! My Dad knows God!”

   There is no greater legacy a father can leave his children (son or daughter) than the memory of a father who has lived by faith in, and fear of, God. The Bible reports, “[A]nd the Scripture was fulfilled that says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness’—and he was called a friend of God” (James 2:23; cf. Genesis 15:6). [All Scripture references are from the English Standard Version, ESV Text Edition 2011.] Surely Isaac was a rich son, because he was able to correctly recall that his father was “a friend of God.” Likewise, Jacob could rightfully say, “If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not been on my side, surely now you would have sent me away empty-handed” (Genesis 31:42). What a legacy has been bequeathed when one can say, as Alexander Campbell reportedly said of his father, Thomas: “I never knew a man of whom it could be said with more assurance that he walked with God. . . . Whatsoever good I may have done under God, I owe it all to his paternal care and instruction, and especially his example.”

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Charles C Pugh III, GodPaolo DiLucaComment
An Agnostic Is Neither an Atheist Nor a Theist

Some Simple Definitions

Although these words have been defined with various shades of meaning by some thinkers, I wish to use some simple, brief definitions of three crucial terms: agnostic, atheist, and (Biblical) theist. An agnostic is a person who holds that there is not sufficient evidence available to man to warrant the deduction that men can know that God exists. (The agnostic holds that there is not evidence available so that man can answer either “yes” or “no” to the question as to whether God exists.) An atheist is one who claims that there is sufficient evidence available to man to warrant the deduction that men can know that God does not exist. A (Biblical) theist is one who holds that there is sufficient evidence available to men to warrant the deduction that men can know that God does exist. I am concerned in this article to show that while some men who espouse the basic agnostic viewpoint may classify themselves as theists, such a classification is unwarranted. To be an agnostic relative to, say, X is to hold that men cannot know X. In this article, I am concerned especially with agnosticism relative to the existence of God, the inspiration of the Bible, and the correct interpretation of the Bible.

 

“Kinds” of Agnosticism

Relative to the existence of God, there are at least two kinds of agnostics. The kind of agnostic who “leans toward” theism (such as Blaise Pascal) says that no one can know whether God exists but claims that “it is more reasonable” to believe that God does exist than that he does not. But the fact that this type of agnostic “leans toward” theism does not make him truly a (Biblical) theist. The other kind of agnostic is one who “leans toward” atheism (such as Bertrand Russell). This kind of agnostic holds that no one can know whether God exists, but he claims “that it is more reasonable” to believe that God does not exist than to believe that he does.

 

An Agnostic Is Neither an Atheist Nor a Theist

There are numerous philosophers who claim not that they know that God does not exist, but that there is not sufficient evidence available to men to enable anyone to know whether God does or does not exist. It is manifestly incorrect to refer to such men as atheists, and it is surely the case that at least most of them would resent anyone referring to them as atheists. There is a definite distinction made between being an atheist and being an agnostic. While we thus recognize the distinction between an agnostic and an atheist, we also must recognize that it is incorrect to refer to an agnostic as a (Biblical) theist. If a given person says that there is not sufficient evidence available to men for them to know whether God exists, even if he does claim that it is “more reasonable to believe” that God does exist than to believe that he does not exist, such a person is not a (Biblical) theist–he is an agnostic! This is the case simply because so long as one holds that the evidence available to man is not sufficient to warrant the deduction that men can know that God exists, even if they do say that it is “more reasonable” to believe that God exists than that he does not exist, then they are not theists but agnostics!

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Thomas B. Warren, GodPaolo DiLucaComment
THE ABSOLUTE OF GOD AND MORAL VALUE

In 1943, following his historic BBC radio talks of 1941-42, C. S. Lewis published an essay titled, “The Poison of Subjectivism.” Lewis wrote: “Until modern times, no thinker of the first rank ever doubted that our judgements of value were rational judgements or that what they discovered was objective.” However, as Lewis goes on to explain, today’s modern view is that when someone says a thing is good he is merely expressing his feelings about it. By “judgements of value” Lewis meant moral judgments about right and wrong. He called this “practical reason” and said if we “grant that our practical reason is really reason and that its fundamental imperatives are . . . absolute . . . then unconditional allegiance to them is the duty of man. So is absolute allegiance to God. And these two allegiances must, somehow, be the same.”

Absolute moral judgment goes hand in hand with the absolute reality of God. And, the absolute reality of God goes hand in hand with absolute moral judgment. Without absolute moral judgment there is no absolute truth. Without absolute truth there is no absolute moral judgment.

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Charles C Pugh III, GodPaolo DiLuca Comments
Everybody Has Got Religion

Recently I was told of a college student whose view of life accepted anything except religion, which I assumed, of course, included Christianity. His position is a classic example of our culture that has lost touch with reality, one that T. S. Eliot declared over half a century ago had “left God, not for other gods, but for no god at all.”

   This is the product of the philosophy of Existentialism which infected the nineteenth and twentieth century world and morphed into Post-modernism in the twenty-first. This philosophy essentially views reality not as created by a Supreme mind, but as a mindless, physical accident. The only reality for the true Existentialist is whatever the individual mind perceives.

   In the extreme, understanding of life does not even come from the “thinking” self, but from the “felling and/or acting” self. Such a philosophy casts off anything that controls one’s own behavior; thus, it is imperative to reject the idea of a Transcendent Moral Authority.

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Jim Hyest, GodPaolo DiLuca Comment
PROFESSING SKEPTICISM BEFORE COLLEGE

For the first time in its 382 year history, Harvard University’s next graduating class (2019) has more professed atheists and agnostics than professed Christians. Nearly forty percent (37.9%) of the 2019 class have openly claimed to be atheistic or agnostic.

The Original Rules and Precepts observed at Harvard included “Let every Student be plainly instructed, and earnestly pressed to consider well, the maine end of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ . . . and therefore to lay Christ in the bottome, as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning” (Federer, America’s God and Country , pp. 280-81). The original Harvard motto, which will be 375 years old this coming December 27, is Veritas, which is Latin for Truth. In 1650, the motto was changed to “In Christi Gloriam,” meaning “For the Glory of Christ.” In 1692, the Harvard motto became “Veritas pro Christo et Ecclesiae, ” which means “Truth for Christ and the Church.” In time, Harvard continued down a path into deep secularization. Veritas exclusively became the one word motto to the exclusion of any of the former references to God or Jesus Christ, who the original rules and precepts of Harvard had described as “the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning.”

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Charles C Pugh III, GodPaolo DiLucaComment
Atheism—Our Greatest Foe—And How to Deal with It

SOME INTRODUCTORY MATTERS

  1.  The problem and its importance. In Romans 1:18-20, Paul made clear that the “everlasting power and divinity” of God “are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made.” He further explained that, as a consequence of rejecting that evidence, even though the rejecters professed themselves to be wise, they actually “became fools” and began to worship what had been created rather than the Creator (Romans 1:21-23). In greater detail Paul then explained the consequences of rejecting God. In the remaining verses of the first chapter of Romans, three times Paul says that God “gave them up.” (1) He “gave them up . . . unto uncleanness” (1:24). (2) He “gave them up unto vile passions” (1:26). (3) He “gave them up unto a reprobate mind” (1:28). A careful study of Romans 1:18-32 will enlighten the student as to the terrible consequences of rejecting God. As we survey the situation in our own world, we can see the same results (moral and spiritual degeneration) from the same action (rejection of God).

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God, Thomas B. WarrenPaolo DiLucaComment
THE ULTIMATE CAUSE OF THE MORAL MESS IN AMERICA

While having lunch with a university professor who has taught biblical texts and topics, philosophy, apologetics, and other related subjects for at least parts of four decades, I asked, “What is the major difference you see in today’s students (especially in Millennials) from the students you taught in the early years of your career?” Without hesitation he replied, “Today, especially in Millennials, there is the loss of conviction that there is absolute truth.”

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Charles C Pugh III, GodPaolo DiLucaComment
What The Heathen Understood About Divinity

In Jeremiah 10:2 God warned His people with regard to the heathen. God’s covenant people were not to allow themselves to be corrupted by outsiders who either did not recognize the One true God or who lived as though they did not. And the history of Israel in Old Testament times reveals how the thinking of the heathen at times indeed did corrupt the thinking and practice of the Jews.

But have you ever given thought to the fact that in spite of the ignorance of and the distortion of and the misapplication of ideas exhibited by the heathen, that they did at times reveal “some” correct understanding, which understanding is significant?

Let us list a few of these points

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Mac Deaver, GodPaolo DiLuca Comments
A Nation's Greatest Strength

The book of Obadiah, the shortest book in the Old Testament, was written about the downfall of a nation (Edom). The same things that led to Edom’s fall will lead to the downfall of any nation. For the Edomites, we find no record of God. They claimed no allegiance to a god of any kind.

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God, Charles C Pugh IIIMarcus Stenson
From Christology to Theism: The Resurrection and the Existence of God

here is one conglomerate argument (the total evidence warrants the deduction) for each of the three foundational propositions of the case for Christianity: (1) God exists, (2) the Bible is the word of God, and (3) Jesus Christ is the Son of God. However, each of these three basic arguments contains several constituent elements which, themselves, can be presented as separate arguments for the respective proposition.

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God, Charles C Pugh IIILyn Miller Comment