The recent earthquakes and the resulting tidal waves (or tsunamais) in the Thailand the surrounding area, like all seemingly inexplicable disasters or acts of evil and capricious men, always seem to give rise to the skeptics about the existence of God in general and the concept of the love of God in particular. The common question, "If God exists, why does He allow such disasters that kill multiple thousands of people?" is one that thinking Christians cannot neither ignore or offer simplistic answers to.
In Today's UK Guardian Unlimited Online, Martin Kettle in his article, "How Can Religious People Explain This?" states in his conclusion:
From at least the time of Aristotle, intelligent people have struggled to make some sense of earthquakes. Earthquakes do not merely kill and destroy. They challenge human beings to explain the world order in which such apparently indiscriminate acts can occur. Europe in the 18th century had the intellectual curiosity and independence to ask and answer such questions. But can we say the same of 21st-century Europe? Or are we too cowed now to even ask if the God can exist that can do such things?
These are no easy answers to such things, although a variety have been offered in recent years. In his book,Why Bad Things Happen to Good People Rabbi Harold Kushner argued that essentially God would like good things to happen to good people all of the time, but He simply cannot pull it off. All of the complexities of life are just too much for God to contend with, events simply can simply overwhelm Him. For the Process Theologians, who apply the Darwinian Evolutionary theory to person of God; that is, God is in the process of becoming a better and better God; this event was simply too powerful for God to handle. In the current evangelical debate over Open Theism, those propounding the "open" view of God; that is God neither possesses exhaustive knowledge of the future nor does He have in place a particular overarching plan for the world and its events; the answer would be God simply didn't know it was going to happen and thus could do nothing to prevent it.
Of course all of these answers are inadequate theologically speaking. A God who cannot keep up with events, or is not powerful enough to handle crisis or simply is caught by surprise, is no God at all. If God, "can't pull it off" can He be relied to carry out and maintain our own salvation? If God is becoming "better and better" can we really be sure that the Gospel He has presented is really adequate to save, or will He have a "better idea" sometime in the future? If God does not really know what is going to happen in the future, who is to say that Satan will not ultimately be able to thwart Him?
However, God says of Himself in Isaiah 45:6-7 "I am the Lord, and there is no other. The forming Light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating calamity, I am the Lord who does these things." Elsewhere in the same book God declares, "Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable" (Is 40:28. The entire 40th chapter of Isaiah is a great comfort when calamities occur).
Humanly speaking, we cannot possibly know the absolute answer to the "why" of disasters such as this. Our finite minds cannot possibly grasp the total complexity of it all because the "why" for such a disaster is unique for each effected individual, as God has decreed for their individual life (oft-times we cannot even know the "why" in our own life when disaster befalls us). What we can know for certain from the Scripture, is that God is not unable or unwilling to act nor is He ever caught by surprise by such events. These events are decreed, set in motion, and orchestrated by Him for His own purposes.
Naturally, the secular mind rebels at such a notion as it violates their sensibilities, and even Christians, if they have any normal human empathy for a lost and dying world, are often hard-pressed to make their Christian world view come to grips with the enormity of the devastation. There are, perhaps, three general perspectives that need to be remembered when such disasters occur.
First of all, it demonstrates the reality of the power of God. In Romans 1:18-23 we see that the "wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness." The Apostle Paul further states that the creation itself and its ongoing operation is a testimony to the reality and power of God. "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature are clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse." Unbelievers are all too anxious to attribute randomness to such events. They are unwilling to see God's hand in the affairs of life because they know that to acknowledge God in this manner ultimatley leads to a God who is sovereign over their lives.
In his magesterial work, No One Like Him: The Doctrine of God (Crossway, 2001), John Feinberg states, "We are happy for a God who cares, but our contemporaries reject a God who is king" (p. 799)
The power of the earthquake and resulting tsunamis is almost beyond comprehension. One report equated the power of the initial quake to 1 million Hiroshima size atomic bombs going of in one location. Some reports indicate that entire islands were moved up to 100 fet from their original locations. The sheer magnitude and force of the moving water is beyond belief. And all of that is controlled by the God "who created heaven and earth." Who spoke everything into existence (Gen 1-3).
Secondly, these disasters serve for Christians as an impetus of evangelism. In Luke 13:1-5 Jesus comments on two disasters (the seemingly capricious act of a wicked man, Pontius Pilate and his murder of some Galileans who were at the temple for one of the feasts; and the seemingly random act of a natural disaster of a tower falling and killing 18 people in Jerusalem). Jesus tells His disciples not to look for simplistic answers to such events ("Do you think that these Galileans were greater sinners that all other Galileans because they suffered this fate?" and in relation to those on whom the tower fell He said, "were [they] the worse culprits than all the men who live in Jerusalem?") In both cases Jesus makes it clear, "I tell you no." The simplistic answer is often erroneous. Without explaining the "why" for each one of the victims of these disasters, He points to the more urgent issue, to which the disaster lends illustration, "unless, you repent, you will all likewise perish." The end of all may not be a dramatic and tragic disaster, but the end will come and no one can count on another day in this world. Your world and life may quickly and suddenly and without warning come to a disaster or even an end. And then there is no place for repentance and acceptance of the Gospel for eternal life for, "it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment" (Heb 9:27). Click on my links to the right of this article on "Are You a Christian?" for further details.
Finally, such disasters serve as opportunities to fulfill the New Testament imperatives, to "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven" (Matt 5:16). Paul in the Book of Titus especially repeats this theme. Christians are to be "an example of good deeds" (2:7), "zealous for good deeds" (2:14, because in the context of the believers redemption by Christ); "ready for every good deed (3:1, in relation to the Christian's interaction with civil government); Christians are to "engage in good deeds. These things are good and profitable for men" (3:8); and finally, "and let out people also learn to engage in good deeds to meet pressing needs, that they may not be unfruitful" (3:14).
Life is not random and disasters are not haphazard events beyond the purview and power of an omnipotent, omnisciencent, and omnipresent God. It has not been granted to us, as creatures to know all of the ways of God (Deut 29:29), but we can take comfort in what the Bible does declare to us about the person, nature and power of God. Current events and circumstances cannot be allowed to override the inspired and inerrant Scripture in our formulations of the person, nature and power of God. These disasters are humanly inexplicable; but we haven't been called to "explain" the "why" of such things. We have been called, in the face of disasters, to declare the power of God, remember the urgency of proclaiming the Gospel, and the necessity of being ready to participate in doing good works, and especially the preaching of the Gospel, for these are really the things that are beneficial to all men.
In understanding God in the face of these disasters (and the multiple ones that will come in future days) we must determine our view of God from Scripture, not current events. As Feinberg states,
What I have been urging is that we allow ourselves to see the full biblical portrait of our God. When we do so we find a God who is the caring king. Let this picture be seen in all of its grandeur and majesty! Let God be God as he presents himself in the pages of his Word. Only when we let God be himself can we even hope to allow ourselves to be what God intended us to be. Let God be God! There is no one like him! (p. 802).
As a librarian in a theological seminary I'm used to seeing the "big three" news magazines (Time, US News and World Report and Newsweek) arrive each week. I'm also used to, and now somewhat immune to, the obligatory stories that the three always seem to run: stories about the Birth of Christ around Christmas time, something on the resurrection around Easter and usually at least one issue on evolution versus creation and generally one other "religious themed" story, generally about the Apostle Paul, or the Book of Revelation, or the like.
Usually about the only thing that is of interest in the Christmas and Easter articles is the classic artwork that the editors use to illustrate the story. Frankly, in terms of the text of the stories, they could run the same one each year and no one would probably notice. They are bland and uninformative; rehashing tired old theories, almost always quoting a predictable group of liberal scholars and theologians.
This year was different however, at least for the Newsweek cover story, "The Birth of Jesus: Faith and History, How the Story of Christmas Came to Be" (Newsweek 145:24 [December 13, 2004], 48-58). The author of the story Jon Meacham departs from the normal bland, innocuous, albeit liberal, fare we have become accustomed to, to a through-going attack on Biblical Christianity, all in the name of "news."
Meacham's article is flawed at almost every conceivable level; it betrays little actual understanding of the issues involved and an even worse research methodology. Foundationally, he misses the entire point of the Virgin Birth, mainly because he entirely fails to understand why the Virgin Birth is so entirely important, in fact, centrally important, to the Christian faith. One writer, commenting on the Virgin Birth said this:
It is well known that the last ten or twenty years have been marked by a determined assault upon the truth of the Virgin birth of Christ. . . The result is that in very many quarters the Virgin birth of Christ is openly treated as a fable. Belief in it is scouted as unworthy of the twentieth century intelligence. The methods of the oldest opponents of Christianity are revived, and it is likened to the Greek and Roman stories, coarse and vile, of heroes who had gods for their fathers. A special point is made of the silence of Paul, and of the other writings of the New Testament on this alleged wonder.
This statement could easily be mistaken for the outline of Meacham's article; however, it was actually written by James Orr in 1917 as part of a series of articles called The Fundamentals (2:247-48), written to defend historic Christianity against the theological liberalism of the day.
Meacham's article is written in a "news" magazine and portrays as factual information various theories and conspiracies that have been presented, systematically refuted; and then re-packaged and re-presented in virtually every successive generation since Christ walked the earth. Meacham, whose credentials to write this story are suspect, entirely fails to interact with any evidence in support of the Virgin Birth. He mainly relies on the works of the late Raymond Brown, a liberal New Testament scholar, who concluded, that the New Testament, and particularly the gospel accounts were not historically reliable and had all been written with a theological agenda.
No conservative New Testament scholar is either quoted or referenced in the article. Recent works, such as Jesus According to the Scripture by Darrell L. Bock (Baker Books, 2003) or his Studying the Historical Jesus (Baker, 2002) or Craig L. Blomberg's The Historical Reliability of John's Gospel (IVP, 2001) receive no mention. The list of New Testament scholars who could have been consulted is almost endless, the aforementnioned Darrell L. Bock of Dallas Theological Seminary and Craig Blomberg of Denver Seminary, Robert Stein of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Grant Osborne or D. A. Carson of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, or particularly my own colleague at The Master's Seminary, Robert L. Thomas who has been in the forefront of evangelical scholarship in Gospel studies for nearly 50 years.
Meacham also shows no familiarity at all with perhaps the most detailed and definitive presentation and defense of the Virgin Birth written in the last 100 years, The Virgin Birth of Christ, by J. Gresham Machen (Harper & Brothers, 1930) formerly of Princeton Theological Seminary and then professor of New Testament and one of the founders of Westminster Theological Seminary. This work is detailed and definitive in nature and point by point refutes every assertion raised in the Newsweek article.
Meacham seems to hold out that the Virgin Birth could actually be true. "The simplest explanation is that it [the Virgin birth] happened" (p. 54). But this admission is little more than a literary device which every other paragraph in the article sets to disprove. His arguments run along the three normal lines of skepticism: (1) The Virgin birth was an invention of a faction in the early church who were trying to gain prominence over other factions; in short this group invented a "better" Jesus than the others and eventually their theology triumphed and became Christianity. (2) The Virgin birth is simply a parallel of the Greek and Roman mythologies and even the stories about the miraculous birth of the Roman emperor Caesar Augustus. (3) And finally, the Virgin Birth stories were a continuation of "miraculous birth" stories in Jewish history, particularly the Old Testament.
As Machen notes:
The belief of the Christian Church in the virgin birth of Christ is a fact of history which requires an explanation. And two kinds of explanations are possible. In the first place, the belief may be explained as being based upon fact. It may be held that the church came to believe in the virgin birth because as a matter of fact Jesus was born of a virgin. Or in the second place, it may be held that the belief arose in some other way. The task of the historian is to balance these two kinds of explanation against each other. Is it easier to explain the virgin birth on the hypothesis that it arose in fact or on the hypothesis that it arose in some other way? (Machen, Shorter Works, Presbyterian and Reformed, 2003, p. 58).
In this quest Meacham fails most miserably. He begins with a skeptical bias, "we can see that the Nativity saga is neither fully fanciful nor fully factual but a layered narrative of early tradition and enduring theology" (p. 52). He views the New Testament and particularly the gospel narratives of less historical value than extra-biblical literature. He notes that while the New Testament details a slaughter of "all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its environs, from two years old and under" (Matt 2:16), "history records no such Herodian slaughter, though Herod was an undeniably cruel ruler" (p. 56). Biblical "literalism" is set against a "more historical view of faith" (p. 51). The significant objections to his stated denials receive no mention, nor is there any (much less serious) interaction with the conservative or traditional position. In the article he does not really settle on one particularly objection in denying the historicity of the Virgin Birth, apparently hoping that the cumulative force of all of the various objections will carry the day for him.
In a blog such as this we can't possibly detail the points of error or even disagreement we have with this thoroughly useless article. However, there is one point that must be mentioned. Meacham fails to grasp the real significance of the Virgin Birth. The real reason that the Virgin birth been the subject of attack, from Christ's own lifetime to the present day
Again, to quote Machen, "One thing at least is clear: even if belief in the virgin birth is not necessary to every Christian [that is Machen did not believe that a person had to have a thorough grasp of the virgin birth to be saved], it is certainly necessary to Christianity" (Virgin Birth, p. 396). The Virgin Birth is a pivitol and foundational doctrine, not for any of the reasons that Meacham postulates, but because without the Virgin Birth, Christianity is a fraud, it does not exist, it presents a gospel that saves no one.
The Gospel of Christianity is that Jesus Christ, God a very God and man a very man, died on the cross as a substitute, a propitiation for sin (Romans 3:21-30) and that the individual sinner can only be saved by faith in Christ (Acts 16:31). "And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men, by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12). Only the God-man could pay the penalty for sin (1 Cor 15:3, Phil 2:6-8, Romans 5:6-11). Remove the Virgin Birth, if Jesus is just another man, then His death benefits no one and the message of the Gospel is a cruel hoax.
As Orr wrote, nearly 100 years ago
It must be repeated that the belief in the Virgin birth of Christ is of the highest value for the right apprehension of Christ's unique and sinless personality. Here is One, as Paul brings out in Romans 5:12ff., who, free from sin Himself and not involved in the Adamic liabilities of the race, reverses the curse of sin and death brought in by the first Adam, and establishes the reign of righteousness and life. Had Christ been naturally born, not one of those things could be affirmed of Him. As one of Adam's race, not an entrant from a higher sphere, He would have shared in Adam's corruption and doom--would Himself have required to be redeemed. Through God's infinite mercy, He came from above, inherited no guilt, needed no regeneration or sanctification, but became Himself the Redeemer, Regenerator, Sanctifier for all who receive Him. "Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift" (2 Cor 9:15). (Fundamentals 2:259-60).
Meacham wants a Christianity that emulates the words of the angels "on earth peace, good will toward men" (p. 58) while rejecting the message of Prince of Peace, by denying the Virgin Birth and by extension the diety of Christ. Without the later the former is impossible. As Machen states,
Believe that Jesus is simply the fairest flower of humanity, and the infancy narrative of the gospels, despite, its marvelous beauty, will be to you abhorrent; but accept the dear Lord and Savior presented to you in the Word of God, and you will believe and confess, with a heart full of gratitude and love and joy, that he was ""conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the virgin Mary" (Shorter Works, p. 74).
The "Newsweek New Testament" is not a reliable version of the Bible and Jon Meacham, as the "preacher" of this version, is presenting not the Jesus of history, but the Jesus of his imagination and intellectual pride. What J. Gresham Machen wrote in 1930 is even more true today, "A Chistianity dependent upon the so-called "historical Jesus" is gradually giving place to a Christanity that dependent upon no Jesus at all--a Christianity that is content to use the ethical and religious ideals contained in the gospels without settling the question whether the person who is said to have enunciated these ideas ever really walked upon the earth" (Virgin Birth, p. 384).
Well, it is the first week of December and you know what that means, recovering from Thanksgiving, getting ready for Christmas and, for sports fans, enduring another year of the purile inanity of the Bowl Championship Series (or BCS) system.
The BCS was created, in theory, to accomplish two things: (1) have a non-contested national champion in Division I college football; and (2) preserve the football "bowl" system, especially the traditional January 1st Bowl Games. The problem is that these have always beeen mutually exclusive goals. It really goes back to the BYU Cougars winning the national championship when they played (because they were contractually obligated to) in the Holiday Bowl.
This year the controversy is on four fronts (although the media is really just talking about two). First of all, Auburn, who went undefeated, does not get a chance for the national championship, that goes to two other undefeated teams, USC and Oklahoma. Auburn gets to play the twice beaten Virginia Tech in the Sugar Bowl; which leads us to the second problem. Instead of undefeated Auburn playing the also undefeated Utah in a bowl; Utah, because they are not part of a BCS conference gets relegated to to the Fiesta Bowl against a clearly undeserving Pittsburgh team (because Pittsburgh is in a BCS conference and since they won that decidedly weak conference, they have to be in a January 1st bowl). Utah's inclusion is simply a face-saving token by the BCS, they really don't want any non-BCS team in any of the BCS bowl games. This leads to the third issue this year. Cal, even though they were ranked 4th in both of the polls, got jobbed out of the Rose Bowl (which traditionally is a Big 10 vs Pac 10 game). With only one loss (to USC) Cal dropped in the BCS rankings, even though they won and Texas moved ahead, even though Texas has been idle for two weeks. Well, not really idle, their head coach apparently tried to break the school budget working the phones in a successful effort to influence the vote of the BCS. So, the Rose Bowl, instead of getting a much better and much more deserving Pac 10 team, instead gets Texas against Michigan (who only gets the Rose Bowl because of a tie-breaker in their own conference). The Rose Bowl people will put on a happy face, but I expect that there will be more than a few vacant seats at the Rose Bowl this year.
The final outrage, at least to me, is that there is another undefeated Division I team, namely Boise State (who, in fact, have won something like 20+ games in a row) also is victimized by the BCS. Does Boise State get a January 1st game, well no, they get the wonderful Auto-Zone Liberty Bowl, albeit against a very good Louisville team, so it should be an entertaining game, but hardly the financial payoff that Boise State deserves. But with an undefeated season the best Boise State could do is get to 9th in the BCS ranking. They actually dropped a place in the last poll, even though the won their last game by about 100 points. Virigina Tech somehow managed to move from 12th to 8th (ahead of Boise State) by beating the 10th ranked University of Miami. I'm just not sure how that is possible, but it did ensure that Boise State would not play on January 1st.
The BCS system is clearly a dysfunctional creation of the monied and powerful (and east coast) special interests. It is proven itself to be patently unfair and frankly, a thoroughly un-American system. At the beginning of every summer training camp, every, and I mean EVERY Division I coach should be able to tell his players that if they work hard and win, they too have a chance to win the National Championship, but they can't do that, because the BCS is designed to stifle the lesser teams.
Only the teams in the BCS conferences really have a chance to be the National Championship. Oh, I forgot, there is an exception. Notre Dame is an independent school, not in any conference. But of course, when the BCS was put together there were special provisions created to ensure that The Fighting Irish (and all of the fan revenue they can generate) would be included in the system.
Every year it seems that the BCS tinkers with the system so it will "work better." Take last year. Even though USC was Number 1 in both of the polls, they dropped to third in the BCS and were jobbed out of the National Championship game. They got the Rose bowl and disassembled their opponent and were able to claim a share of the National Championship with LSU. Well, of course even though LSU is in a BCS conference, they are one of the marginal teams and can't command the fan base that USC does, so this year the BCS tinkered with the system to make sure that wouldn't happen again.
Do I sound cynical, well, I am somewhat cynical by nature. But one does not have to be a cynic to see that money and special interests have been allowed to run amok in Division I college sports, especially football.
Back to the objectives of the BCS. As I noted they are mutaully exclusive goals, and because of that they system will never work. Unless all of the stars align and USC and Ohio State go undefeated and finish #1 and #2 in all the polls with no other Division I team with less than 2 losses and it's the Rose Bowl's turn to host the BCS Championship game. Then I guess there would be no controversy, but it still would not justify the continuance of the BCS, even broken clocks are right twice a day.
As far as the first goal, an undisputed national champion, the only real (and thoroughly American) solution, is to have a play-off system. Just like they already do in Division Iaa, II, III, and NAIA. For some reason the extra games in those divisions are not a detriment to the "student athletes" and their studies (one of the most banal reasons given for not having a play-off system in Division I). A lot of Division I schools could also eliminate their "non-conference scrimages" where they have some lowly team come in, pay them some money and then obliterate them on the field so their backups get a chance to play. That would free up a one or two game sin the schedule for a lot of schools. This would mean scrapping, and I mean entirely scrapping, the bowl system as it currently exists.
But, if it is more important to have the bowl system retained, and I understand that this creates a lot of money for schools, which hopefully go to more than a coach's salary. If you keep the bowl system unchanged, then let's go back to the free for all coaches and other "human" polls and just live with it, remembering that once in a while BYU or even Boise State might be the national champion.
Whatever happens I hope that the BCS will be tossed onto the rubbish heap of bad ideas as soon as possible.