Judgement and Hell - The False Argument

Often Christianity is lambasted and ridiculed for having to have the crutch of having to have the threat of judgement and fear of punishment in order to keep us behaving morally good.  On the prima facie of it, it would appear the ridicule is justified.

But then there i was watching a documentary by Chris Masters called "the years that made us" And it recounts in the mid 1920's when the police had their first and only public strike for several days. The result was 3 people dead, shops looted and destroyed and a national guard type organistion called in to restore order. And then i thought next of the London riots in 2011, what would have happended if the police and the judicial system had decided to pack up and leave for good would London still exist, would London 2012 games still have gone ahead? 

And atheism scoffs at Christianity for using judgement and punishment as a way to induce good behaviour.  But then  atheism says there is no absolute morality, of which there is no absolute right and wrong, and if true then justice and punishment are figments of relavtivism. 

As Malcom Muggeridge so eloquently said of mankind: 

“The depravity of man is at once the most empirically verifiable reality but at the same time the most intellectually resisted fact.” 

Heck if man has nothing to fear of judgement then he is unshackled to committ whatever act he or she wants to without retribution and punishment. 

And i can hear my colleague yell at me: "how dare you damn me to Hell and judge my life! Who are you to be so arrogant !?" To which i may respond: dear friend, it is not i who do any such thing, that is entirely between you and your maker, if it be true, then take your aggreviance up with a higher Judical power than the one judging you now"

And the flipside is Jesus comes with great news: "God loves you so much that He gave his only son so that any person who believes in me the Son, shall have everlasting life, all judgement, punishment, death and payment will be dealt with by my crucifixion"  (Vaguely from John 3:16). And God says, if I am not just, then the consequences of mankind have no bearing and I just let them slide into nothing - all rape, all violence, all murder, all stealing, all lies and deceit, all hatred and malice..... 

From what I understand of Nietzsche, he understood the judicial and moral ramifications of throwing off God, yet much of atheism wants to have justice without a justice maker and accuses Christianity of having such justice with a justice maker! 

Faith - jumping into the sea of certainty

"Now faith is being sure of what you hope for and certain of what you do not see" (Hebrews 11:1)

Definition of faith

noun

[mass noun]

1complete trust or confidence in someone or something:

this restores one’s faith in politicians

2strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof:

bereaved people who have shown supreme faith

[count noun] a particular religion:

the Christian faith

[count noun] a strongly held belief:

men with strong political faiths

Source: Oxford dictionary online

Faith: not wanting to know what is true.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.

Richard Dawkins

(Personal remark: now if that's not a statement of faith then i am not sure what else would be!)

Today the theory of evolution is about as much open to doubt as the theory that the earth goes round the sun.

Richard Dawkins

A 19 year old man wakes up and decides from his free will to become a scientist.  His rationale and justification has been persuaded by his desire to find truth about the world he sees and science is his philosophical mechanism to uncover that truth. 

To him the only form of belief is through what can be seen and understood. Faith has no merit as it is purely based on a blind assumption and unseen hope.  

He then decides to hop into his car and drive it to the airport, catches a flight interstate to look into various universities he's considering.  During his visitation, he enters and exits 22 elevators, 8 conveyer belts, 5 campus buses and walks across 9 bridges connecting various faculties with a minim height of 15 meters. 

Watch now: "faith is being sure of what you hope for and certain of what you do not see" 

Something tells me this young man is applying faith to very important moments of every day?

Does this young man clearly understand and see the combustion engine at work within his car and how it propels his car? Can he explain and describe the components and laws of physics that are at work within the braking system of the car? 

Would he be adept and confident to describe why he knows the truth about how the law of aerodynamics is keeping his aircraft airborne ? What of the bus, the lifts or bridges he crossed? 

Or maybe he's just "being sure that his hope in the car and plane are going to work and he's obviously very certain that even though he can't see all these natural laws, material components working cohesively, that they do. 

Hang on, isn't that faith? - ' being sure of what you hope for and certain of what you do not see"

You see guys, science and faith are intimately and inextricably linked and dependent on one another. 

As astrophysicist Paul Davies states: 

Just because the sun has risen every day of your life, there is no guarantee that it will rise tomorrow. The belief that it will - that there are indeed dependable regularities of nature - is an act of faith, but one which is indispensable to the progress of science.

Professor John Lennox goes on to say: 'This aspect of the rational intelligibility of the universe is often referred to as the principle of uniformity  of nature. It is an article of the scientists faith.' 

(Has Science Buried God, p 62)

I almost fell out of bed (so to speak of course), when I read this, because what Lennox and other scientists were saying was that the premise of science is based on a faith itself - being sure that their hope in the scientific method and regularities of the natural world hold up and certain that even though they can not see rationality and intelligibility, they are certain of it's truth and order to comprehend the scientific method. 

As Richard Dawkins supposedly said in his propaganda movie with Lawrence Krause called "Unbelievers", "I'm just so in love with science [ at the exclusion to the idea that God exists and created me ]" Great, but you've got a lot of faith riding on that one buddy at the exclusion of evidence for a transcendent cause and purpose of your life. 

You know faith is such a mis-understood term because for so long we have used it as our grandmothers nightgown to cover everything that can't be rationally or coherently explained - that is, 'faith' is the answer that is the generic answer to "everything and anything inexplicable" by the material world. 

One needs to only look at what is in the Oxford Dictionary to see that "based on spiritual conviction rather than proof" - that we have mis-understood and defined "Faith". 

Now one of the more insightful things i was listening too the other day was by William Lane Craig, who made the comment that he is of the persuasion that scientists have no more authority and argues even less so, to make the judgement about God's existence - which of course requires Faith.  Predominately because that is a study of the meta physical universe ( study of the something that describes the physical attributes of the universe but is not material in of itself).  Rather the question of God's existence is more suited to a philosophical perspective because it is based on a reasoning about an immaterial (metaphysical) being. 

Of course the scientific method and scientists can not find God, if so then we would unpack and dissect Him until we could clone him - now that would be fascinating and of an arrogance beyond Everestistic proportions. 

Now here's my point coming back to faith: i have often wrestled with the concept of Faith - that being a blind type hope that God exists and Jesus did rise from the dead, and that my faith in eternal justice and righteousness was found in Jesus death and resurrection. And coupled with the theology that "it is impossible to please God (without faith) because those that come to God, must believe that he exists and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him". (Hebrews 11)

But Faith is actually the most logical, rational and true method of relationship between a material being and an immaterial transcendent being.  How else is a relationship going to ensue without Faith ? (Now faith is being sure of what you hope for and certain of what you do not see).

What other mechanism would one ascribe to such a relationship if faith is not used? 

Furthermore, even on a material person to person level, faith is still very much in action. That is, i am sure that my wife loves me, wants me and longs for me to return home (even on the morning i leave before she gets up to kiss me good-bye) each day i leave the house and i am certain that even though i can't see her during the day, i am 100% convinced of the hope she wants me back. 

Now as the oxford dictionary erroneously states, this faith i have in my relationship with my wife or God for that matter is based on proof and a lot of it. Yes it is spiritual (that is an experience, feeling and sense of connection and power/energy/force/weight/value) but it is certainly NOT founded by a lack of proof. 

Now one might argue that if all of this is true, then why doesn't God make himself plainly evident to us? Why not become a material form or have a booming voice in the sky and say hijack our body to prove He's there? Then this "blind faith" thingy wouldn't be needed and lowers the barrier to entry to belief or faith in God? 

Fair point. But read the Bible, he did that and see what happens. Better still, he did that in various forms and material experiences and even became a human being, and we still say: "ha, that's not enough evidence for me".  We even retort "well, for God to prove that he exists he'd have to yell from the sky and speak my name! Then i'd have enough faith !" Yet he did that time and time and time again. 

And often the person saying this doesn't really want God to exist  because he knows in his heart that the ramifications on his life would be forever changed.  A creation has a creator and the creator wants something from it's creation. 

To take one step further, when Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13, the top 3 mechanisms in life are faith hope and love, you can understand why they are interdependent and necessary. Love without hope and faith is vacuous and can not function, how can i love if i have no hope in that love? How can i love if i have no faith in the truth of love? 

Now let me highlight something here, i am not categorically stating that faith has to be entirely rationally or logically based, if that were so then we are limiting God's ability to work through His Creation. For starters love is not entirely rational - just look at forgiveness and "considering it pure joy my brothers when you face trials of many kinds" (James 1).   God is not bound by reason, he is the author of reason and we as human beings have faith that reason is a correct way to view the world. 

That is reason and logic will only take you so far.  

What i am saying is that faith is not an irrational, blind, uninformed mechanism, but that it's fundamental to all human relationships. 

Gents, my contention is that the world is trying to box Faith into a "non evidenced based" irrational, "hope amongst hope" ideologies that is for the weirdo and that science and material proof are the only forms of obtaining truth. 

Well I think it's clear that this is illogical.  God is the author of Truth, of Faith, Hope and Love. Faith is a very reasonable, rational and true mechanism. IF Faith was not existent then we would have no way to relate to the Maker.   Hence the skeptic, the atheist can't relate, yet still uses Faith pervasively throughout their life..... interesting... 

As one atheist said, "I just believe (have faith) in one God less than you....."