Faith Well Grounded

Things are looking bleak in America, and all indications are that it will only get worse. The economy is broken and breaking, people are losing their houses, it's becoming almost too expensive even to drive to work. It's getting scary.

But glory to God that He has provided us His Word, which gives us the answers to all of our problems. Praise Him, that He loves us enough to have given us the framework for successfully living this life He's gifted to us.

Well, I’m back. I’m hoping to be able to post more often, and I apologize for the lay-off to anyone out there who may enjoy reading my posts. As excuse, my college-age ministry has been taking quite a bit of time. But anyway...

"In the beginning, God…” Genesis 1:1, excerpt.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God…” John 1:1

I love these verses, great beginnings to the stories of beginnings. Both start with the utmost central subject of our existence: God. Both begin the Creation story, in which God creates with Word as deed. By Word alone, He creates from nothing. In Him is existence with such perfection that He can give existence as gift.

I’m thinking lately on the problem of pain-- that of evil, that of misery, that of the overarching “wrongness” of the human condition. I’m tending to agree with C.S. Lewis that the problem of pain is a problem strictly for the Christian (in the philosophical sense, anyway).

“Pain” is not a problem for the naturalist/atheist, since it could not be expected that a random, self-created, amoral Universe would be mindful of its product. It shouldn’t be expected to care for its creation, or provide comfort as such. It can’t be expected to be mindful of us at all.

Part two in the e-dogg questions:

What follows is a second response to honest inquiries into the gospel. It has been "built" more than written- hopefully "led" more than built. Unfortunately, I fear that the heady subject and the "building" of the response may make it seem a bit choppy and disjointed, since I've gone from point to point to point within the overall subject. There is a lot to fit in here, and much more left out for the sake of brevity.

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. Albert Einstein

I saw the below article at cyberkitten's blog. I decided to form a brief response to each point of the article, as originally seen:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-harris24dec24,0,3994298.story?...

10 myths—and 10 Truths—About Atheism

By Sam Harris for The Los Angeles Times

December 24, 2006

The Vatican released a document stating that any church apart from the Roman Catholic Church is not a true church. Protestants everywhere are outraged. Story here...

Why?

All that the Vatican has done is restate the tautology that they have always held. If Protestants look to the Roman Catholic Church for assurances that we are the Body and Bride of Christ, then there are bigger problems here than mere perception and theological ego.

Some of my most prized possessions are the pretty pictures that my kids have drawn for me. My son draws pictures of us on the golf course or a picture of himself on the ball field. They all end up on my wall even though none of them look exactly like their objects—at least I hope not. (If they do, then I am extremely overweight, have a tiny head, and only three fingers per hand.)

What makes them important is two-fold. He cares enough to want me to have them, and he cares enough about the object (us together, playing golf) to memorialize them.

I’ve written quite a bit heretofore about modern science and naturalism’s failures to either recognize or admit to the implications of the modern scientific support for various arguments for God—specifically the cosmological and teleological arguments for God. With the implications of modern science, it is a good time to be a Christian apologist and/or philosopher.