Starting a new life as a lecturer there, Faithless plans to demolish every faith he has before. Coming back home after his first day of work, he meets his parents. He starts to wonder about them whether they really are his parents. He insists them to give him their blood sample for DNA testing. They are so sad about it, yet lovingly go with their beloved son to the nearby clinic. DNA tests were conducted on these family to prove whether Faithless is their biological son. After 3 days, the results come out and it states that Faithless was really the biological son of his current parents. Faithless did not believe it, he has no faith in the doctor and insists the doctor to teach him how to do the DNA tests himself. Certainly the doctor was enraged and rejects his weird request. Faithless had no choice, and even now he had lost his faith on his parents. He’s afraid that his “parents” adopted him and raised him up since childhood to sell him in the black market someday, and after this DNA tests he’s even more afraid that his “parents” will give him anesthetic and sell him that night. With such a panic, he runs away from the man and woman he knew personally for more than 2 decades.

And so he plans to rent a room nearby to his workplace. To save some accommodation fee, he shared the room with someone else in a double room. He’s quite happy with the new environment. However, on that first night of sharing the room with someone else, with the room lit only by a dim light, he could not sleep. His eye is opened, observing his roommate, afraid that his new roommate will kill him that night. He could not stand the feeling and he flees to the nearest hotel. In the following day, he rented a studio room, so he’ll feel safer during sleeping time. However, on that night, he’s still afraid that someone will destroy the door and shoot him. He hardly slept because he has no faith that he’ll be able to open up his eyes tomorrow. Getting up from his sleepless night, he come down the next morning to grab his favourite Egg & Ham Breakfast. Oops! He’s aware now that this breakfast may contain some poison and he’ll die of it. He wraps his breakfast and brings it to a laboratory to check whether it is safe to eat them. The laboratory test is negative on any harmful chemicals, but he still doesn’t have enough faith on the result. He takes a portion of it and give it to a stray dog, and  observe whether it’ll die or has any disorder. After following the dog for 1 hour and nothing happens, he starts to eat his breakfast with relief. Afterwards, he goes home to prepare for lecturing on the evening.

Being ready for conducting a lecture on the topic of The Fall of Faith, he waited for a bus going to the university. After the bus come, he looks at the bus and the bus driver.

Faithless: Hey Mr. Bus Driver, have you checked all the passenger’s bag and ID card, to make sure that they didn’t bring any bombs or weapons to hijack the bus?

Bus Driver: What?! If you want to take the bus, just come in quickly!

Faithless: Yeah, I want to do so, but I don’t have faith to believe that there will be no bombs or hijacking during the journey. Could you check all the passengers please?

Bus Driver: Hey man, I think you should take bus number 51 going to the mental hospital, it’s not too far from here. If you don’t alight now, I’ll leave!

Faithless: Oh man… okay, just this time… I’m almost late for the lecture.

He takes a seat behind 2 gentlemen discussing about reason. He’s interested in the discussion and introduces himself to them, whose name is Anti-Reason and Christian.

Anti-Reason: Yeah, just join in the discussion, we are discussing about the role of reason in belief system.

Faithless: Okay, so what is your position and assertion here?

Christian: Hi Faithless, I believe that true belief system is supported by reason. Else if there are many belief system that claimed exclusive absolute truth for itself, it will be contradictory because there could not be more than 1 absolute truth that exists in this world. I am an advocate of reason, but also of faith. I firmly believe that reason alone is not enough. In some instance in our life, faith is necessary, but faith must be rational, i.e. I believe in rational faith.

Anti-Reason: And I don’t believe in that. I am very skeptical about reason. Reason is not capable of obtaining truth at all, because there are no criterion to obtain epistemic knowledge. I have problem with epistemology here, i.e. I don’t agree that human could know how he know, and therefore human could not know anything even with building up argument through reasoning.

Faithless: I agree with Christian here in the sense that reason is capable to obtain truth, but I don’t agree with him that faith is necessary. And for you Mr. Anti-Reason, I believe that human has a set of basic belief that is obvious to all of us, e.g. I know that to murder people is wrong and I know that the law of logic is true. Without these basic belief that forms criterion for sorting out knowledge, we won’t have anything to equip.

Anti-Reason: Yeah, I think we don’t have anything to equip and we could not know anything.

Christian: Mr. Anti-Reason, I agree with Mr. Faithless that we have obvious set of basic belief. We don’t have to know how we know them. I don’t agree with your skepticism on reason because skepticism could not hold its position and defend it. In fact, it is self-defeating. How could you know that nothing could be known if you don’t have any basic belief to build up arguments? How could you know that we could not know how we know?

Anti-Reason: … Yes, you are indeed right, Mr. Christian. I don’t know how to prove it, but I just know and believe it. I think it is my faith.

Faithless: Faith? No, I don’t agree in faith. If you do not know how to defend your position by reason, it is definitely false.

Christian: I agree in faith, but only reasonable faith. Mr. Anti-reason, would you hold a faith in something that is illogical and irrational?

Faithless: I won’t have faith in both cases, Mr. Christian, rational or irrational faith doesn’t matter.

The bus has arrived at the University of Evidentialism. Faithless said goodbye to his two new friends, and he went in to the lecture theatre. He gives a 2 hour full-passion lecture on The Fall of Faith to the students. The next 1 hour will be a discussion session. One brilliant student, Faithful, arise a question to him.

Faithful: Dr. Faithless, I have one objection to your objection on faith. In all your lecture, you build up your argument against faith using reason, but how do you know that our reasoning is reasonable? How could we know that every faculty of reasoning on human beings is working well and they are all building up the same argument?

Faithless: What do you mean dear Faithful? Could you rephrase your words?

Faithful: What I mean is whether we could believe that human’s faculty of reasoning is trustworthy. Isn’t it a faith to believe that it is trustworthy? If it is, then we are having faith in a faculty of reasoning, and we are using our faculty of reasoning to abolish faith. Isn’t it like cutting off the branch on which we sit on? Isn’t it self-defeating? Even further, you mention that we could gain epistemic knowledge by having a set of basic belief that forms a criterion for knowledge. If we could not prove them by reason, then we accept it by faith, isn’t it?

Faithless: Yes, exactly Mr. Faithful. However, they are just too obvious for us to hold on. Without presupposing and believing in them, we could not build up any argument and we could not gain any knowledge. I would not categorize them as faith, but as presuppositions that is rationally defensible.

Faithful: But it depends on how you define faith. If we are talking about faith in daily life, I define faith as believing something that is more rational as compared to believing something that is more irrational, e.g. I would have faith that when I sleep, I’ll wake up in the next morning. However, if we are talking about faith of the supernatural things, I define faith as something that we know is true, although the proof for it could not be locked by reason. I think this is because those belief that needs faith falls outside the boundary of reason, and not because reason is fallible. Reason in this case is trustworthy and limited. Further, to believe in presuppositions is faith isn’t it?

Faithless: … You have given a weighty argument here, Mr. Faithful, I really appreciate it, and I’ll think about it. We’ll end up the lecture for today and I’ll see you next week.

Faithless feels uncomfortable about his position on faith after the lecture. He thinks that Faithful was right that he actually has faith in basic belief and human’s faculty of reasoning. Pragmatically he’s also uncomfortable in having a life without faith at all, i.e. he hardly slept and ate. He agrees now with Mr. Faithful that every human beings is having faith. He planned to deliver a lecture titled as “Life is Faith” for the following week. Faithless is happy now that he is no longer faithless and he could enjoy a faithful life, a reasonable faith of course.

Well, he still didn’t believe that those footprints is caused by a duck, maybe someone put a duck-like footprints there to make fun of him. He traced the footprints all the way down and it disappeared in the river bank. After carefully documenting the evidences, he came back home and took a rest. In the following day, he came back to the same place and he spot a duck! He’s surprised in unbelief and without patience grab that duck and analyze the feet characteristic of the duck and weigh the duck. His data showed that this duck was most probably the duck making the footprints the day before.

Yeah, you guess rightly, he still didn’t believe that those footprints he spotted was caused by that duck. He still didn’t believe it, he believed that someone making fun of him spotted him yesterday and put that duck to deceive him. He insisted that for him to be convinced that those footprints was caused by that duck, he needed to see it by his own eye. And he waited for the technology to build a time-machine for him, so that he could come back to the past to see how those footprints emerged. He waited and waited but time-machine was not invented during his lifetime and therefore he never knew…

The great atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell was once asked what he would say if he found himself standing before God on the judgement day and God asked him, ‘Why didn’t you believe in Me?’  Russell replied, ‘I would say, ‘Not enough evidence, God!  Not enough evidence!’ Well, I think the argument of God is more than enough. It is indeed enough to be rational but surely not enough to be coercive. It is different from the argument that 1+1 must equal to 2. I firmly believe the argument needs a little leap of faith, as to believe the footprints is made by a duck albeit we did not see it by our own eye. Although evidences of God is not coercive (as it will violate our free will), it is rational just like it is rational to believe the footprints is made by a duck.

God has given clear evidence for those who earnestly sought after him, but also vague enough so that it will not be coercive especially to people who rejected God (as it will be divine rape). Although the evidence is clear, people rebellious to God could always avoid it irrationally, e.g. Stephen Hawking who made the absurd theory using imaginary time to avoid a beginning point in Big Bang, avoiding first creation point and hence avoiding God. Scientists rejected creationism and replace it with evolutionism despite the accumulating evidence pointing the other way. This is just like hypothesizing that someone wants to make fun of you by putting the footprints of the ducks in the illustration above.

I believe that in their knowledge, they know that the belief in God is rational, but the problem lies on their heart, i.e. they reject God.

“There are only two possible explanations as to how life arose: Spontaneous generation arising to evolution or a supernatural creative act of God…. There is no other possibility. Spontaneous generation was scientifically disproved 120 years ago by Louis Pasteur and others, but that just leaves us with only one other possibility… that life came as an act of supernatural creation by God, but I can’t accept that philosophy because I do not want to believe in God.  Therefore, I choose to believe that which I know is scientifically impossible, spontaneous generation leading to evolution.” Dr. George Wald (Professor Emeritus of Biology, Harvard), Nobel Prize winner in Biology, 1971

The quote above is more commendable as compared to atheists which formulate irrational theory to justify their belief, as it is really an honest statement. There is a stark difference between believing that there is a God and believe in God. You could believe that there is a God, but your heart have to make the choice whether to believe in that God. I believe the evidence is clear enough for truth seekers. For me, when I see the duck footprints in the illustration above, I don’t have enough faith to believe that someone wants to make fun of me by putting the footprints of the ducks, but I just have a little faith to believe that a duck make that footprints although I don’t see it with my own eye.

Human who uses his/her rational thinking is therefore superior, and they utilize their brothers who is enslaved by their body. They treat their brothers as properties. This is just like human beings who breed cattle to take advantage of it. A cow raised for its milk and meat will not rebel, or try to organize a plan to escape, even though it has seen its brothers slaughtered. Those cows simply does not care and just receive its fate. In the same way, whenever physically enslaved, humans who is enslaved by his/her body will be desperate and do nothing. On the other hand, humans whose soul enslave his/her body will organize a rebellion to attain freedom. For them, death in freedom worths more than life in slavery.

Physical slavery is an inhumane act and was mostly abolished, though some illegal slavery still exists now. However, in this 21st century, are there still any self-slavery of soul? Just look whether humans are thinking or finding reasons for what they are doing. How about those who is enslaved by online game? Isn’t it too obvious that online game will kill their precious time? There are no good reasons for one to be addicted and enslaved by game. This doesn’t mean that playing game is bad. If we play games as a means to an end, with awareness, that’s perfectly fine. The end here is to get relaxed and get pleasure to be more productive afterwards. If we play game as an end in itself, without awareness, that’s foolishness. How about in the college/university? If a student is studying just because he/she wants to get a degree, just because his/her friends is there, just because that course is the easiest, just because getting a degree gives him/her more pride, without a logical reason, it is slavery. Whenever one is doing something without a rational consideration or full awareness of what he/she is doing, isn’t that slavery because he/she is no different from normal animal?

I study science not because it sounds noble, not because I was trapped in it since university, it is simply because I want to contribute to the advancement of science in the world, exploring God’s majestic creation in this natural world. I become a Christian not because I was used to it since primary school, not because my friends are Christian, not because it gives me spiritual bolster, not because I want to find a society to interact with, it is simply because I found it to be true. I go to the church not because I am a Christian, not because others do so, not to avoid feeling of guilty, not because it is a constant habit, not because I don’t have any other thing to do on weekend, it is simply because I would like to have a fellowship with Christ together with others. I work as a researcher not because there are no other job, not because the salary is high, not because I want to save money for retirement, it is simply because I like it and through it I can make a contribution to the world. I write this post about slavery not because I don’t have any other thing to do, not because I like to write, it is simply because I would like to abolish self-slavery of soul. There is reason for everything, isn’t it?

Although physical slavery has been abolished, self-slavery of soul (which is the first and simplest form of slavery) remains intact. To be free from this slavery of soul, we need to dethrone our body from dictating our soul, and starts to be a rational human. Else, we are no different from animal. When we did this, we could find reason for every of the thing we do. We make an action not based on animal instinct, but based on rational consideration of our soul. With this, we are free.

I firmly believe that when we do science with a humble heart, science will direct us towards God. When we see the magnificence and grandeur design of nature, along with its complexity yet ordered, we’ll bow down in awe to the genius creator of this universe. Scientists who have integrity and honesty, should follow where the evidence of science leads. The evidence with no doubt points out to the supernaturalistic explanations, such as the singularity points in the Big Bang, 2nd law of thermodynamics, any many others. It is more rational to believe that God is the creator of this singularity point along with a burst of massive energy and informations in our DNA, as compared to all the irrationally improbable theory that try to exaggerate beyond science. In my opinion, the problem with all the scientists is merely the mother of all sin: Pride. I find a coherence between the claim of scientism and the claim of Lucifer in Isaiah 14:12-15. Both are the claims of pride, Lucifer boasts its beauty and wants to be exalted more than his creator, whereas scientism boasts its discovery and wants to be exalted more than the creator of science itself. Science found the same thing (Big Bang Theory, Evolution Theory, etc), but what makes the difference is its interpretation. Those prideful scientists interpret them as their success and abandon God because they claim that they are able to explain everything and they don’t need God anymore for any explanation. In contrast, humble scientists interpret them as the fascinating and intriguing intelectual objects that makes them bow down in awe of its creator. When the Human Genome Project was finished, Bill Clinton in his speech said: “Today, we are learning the language in which God created life. We are gaining ever more awe for the complexity, the beauty, and the wonder of God’s most divine and sacred gift.” After that, the leader of the project, Francis S. Collins added: “It’s a happy day for the world. It is humbling for me, and awe-inspiring, to realize that we have caught the first glimpse of our own instruction book, previously known only to God”. Again, the sin of scientism falls on human pride and human rebellion against God.

In conclusion, the ’conflict’ between science and religion was not a conflict of truth. It was a conflict deep in human heart that either rebels against God or bow down to God. It is again a classical war between the mother of sin (Pride) versus the mother of virtue (Humility). God creates us with a scientific mind for us to be able to stand in awe of his creation. Science should not go beyond its boundary, as it is no longer science. Pride in science will only bring us to destruction, but humility in science will lead us to our creator.

“If Scientific equations are a form of poetry written by Nature’s creator, then scientific discovery is an act with spiritual overtones.” – C. N. Yang.

“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind” – Albert Einstein.

Science has also boast itself that it could explain how human beings comes to be, i.e. by means of evolution. However we have to remember that this is only a theory, i.e. theory of evolution, and not a law. Theory means that it is not proved yet, whereas law means that it stands firm with proofs. A shift from evolution as knowledge to evolution is a leap of faith. Either evolution theory is true or false, it speaks nothing about the nature of its creator. Let’s say that one day evolution gains a sophisticated proof, one should also ask the question of who creates this mechanism. Isn’t it very plausible that God creates the evolution mechanism to bring forth humans? If we find a watch in a desert, and later find out that this watch was produced by a factory operated by dozens of robots, we should also ponder out who created that robots. Whatever the coclusion of evolution is, it will points out to the first cause. But the evolution theory is now defective of evidence. Dr. Collin Patterson, author of the book Evolution and a lifelong macroevolutionist, once asks the geology staff at the Field Museum of Natural History this question: “Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing, any one thing that is true?” The answer was silence. When he asked the same question to the memberes of the Evolutionary Morphology Seminar at the University of Chicago, a very prestigious body of evolutionists, one person answers: “I do know one thing – it ought not to be taught in high school.”

Even further, all this time we have been taught half-truth in the high school. Science itself has admit that the miller experiment, Darwin’s tree of life, Haeckel’s embryos, the Archaeopteryx missing link, any may be even more, are altered and partly fabricated. There is even now the term “Haeckel’s sin” to point out his deception in the evolution theory. The analysis of these findings was made with a strong tendency towards naturalism or evolution. Innocent high school students are deceived to believe that the proof of evolution was ample, whereas the truth is the opposite. This in my opinion was a human pride that they are able to explain everything scientifically. As a scientist, there is a self-satisfaction when seeing that we have an explanation for what we observe, making the open question of the origin of species an open-ended question. I myself feels this sense of great satisfaction when I do scientific research and able to explain what is previously unknown to humans. This is indeed the task of all scientist, but coercing a theory that is totally lacking of evident was naive.

Some people hold that science is the only way to obtain the truth, which is called scientism. Its implication was the undermining of religion, philosophy, as well as ethics. It is obvious that science could not tell whether murder is ethical or unethical, no scientific experiment can tell us. However, this scientism is incoherent and self-defeating. The claim of scientism itself is not a statement of science, and therefore could not be proved in the laboratory, hence it contradict itself. Science itself is not sufficient for humans to find the truth. We definitely need revelations to know the things that humans will never be able to attain by any means. John Lennox gives a vivid illustration on the relation between science and revelation. Science could only investigate what is in nature, but it could not answer the question of ultimate purpose. The ultimate purpose could only be known to us by revelation of God, i.e. if the creator reveal his purpose to his creation. If there is no God, there is no nature and creation, and there will be nothing for science to investigate. In fact science also requires faith, as science is based on logic and no scientific experiment can verify logic. Consequently, in order for science to be sound, it must keep the faith it has in reason, and correct reasoning logically depends upon the existence of a thinking entity (God). Scientism has placed science above God, despite the fact that God himselves is the prerequisite of science. What scientism do is just the same as cutting a branch on which science sit on. It is self-defeating.

Lastly, there is a classical question of whether miracles are scientifically impossible. If it is, then the reputation of the Bible full of miracle will be fallacious. Scientific mistrust of the Bible began with the Enlightenment belief that miracles cannot be reconciled to a modern, rational view of the world. Do science have the rights to scrutinize miracles just because it is scientifically impossible? Not at all. Alvin Plantinga draws an analogy: If we drop our car key, and only search for the key under the streetlight on the grounds, it is science. The key may fall in a darkened area that we could not search for. Hence, isn’t it irrational to claim that there is no dropped key just because we don’t find it under the streetlight? In the word of Francis S. Collins:

In my view, there is no conflict in being a rigorous scientist and a person who believes in a God who takes a personal interest in each one of us. Science’s domain is to explore nature. God’s domain is in the spiritual world, a realm not possible to explore with the tools and language of science.

Science is unable to answer the ultimate question such as the purpose of life, morality, etc. Now that we have known the domain, playground, and limitations of science, we may proceed to miracles. Miracles are defined by William Lane Craig as an event which is not producible by the natural causes that are operative at the time and place that the event occurs. It is not a violations of the laws of nature as defined by David Hume. It is merely an intervention by supernatural being into our natural realm. An apple that is not falling to the ground because we catch it was not a miracle, indeed it is intervention. C. S. Lewis beautifully concludes:

But if God comes to work miracles, He comes ’like a thief in the night’… If Nature brings forth miracles then doubtless it is as ’natural’ for her to do so when impregnated by the masculine force beyond her as it is for a woman to bear children to a man. In calling them miracles we do not mean that they are to bear children to a man. In calling them miracles we do not mean that they are contradictions or outrages; we mean that, left to her own resources, she could never produce them.

The laws of nature are not violated when miracles happens, it simply conceives the intervention power given to it. Now, we know that science did not disprove miracles. We should now go to the question of the purpose of miracles. I firmly believe that Jesus did miracles to give authenticity of himself as God. The logic is this: if he is God the creator of universe, then he is capable to rule the nature. The fact that Jesus is able to do miracles implies that He is the creator of universe.

Historically, it is irrefutable that religion gives birth to science. C.S. Lewis put it crisply, “Men became scientific because they expected law in nature and they expected law in nature because they believed in a lawgiver.” Most scientists from the 15th century to the 19th century were all theists, most of them Christians. Their belief in God, far from being a hindrance to their science, was often the main inspiration for it.  The conflict between science, like the one experienced by Copernicus, was merely the erronous interpretation of the Bible by churchmen at that time, for example the earth is interpreted to be flat as the Bible have the phrase ’the four corners of the earth’. Sooner or later it is realized that science bolsters and proves the truth of the revealed Word of God.

At first, science begin with the principle of causality, i.e. there is a cause for an event. Else no scientific phenomenon can be observed if there is no cause for that phenomenon. This traces back to prima causa, which is one of the classical argument for God. The new physics, such as quantum physics, discovered that in the microscopic or atomic world there is no cause in quantum world. This incorrect interpretation of the scientific discoveries is self-defeating in nature, i.e. you start by cause and find no cause. It is just like using pen to write an essay, then claim in the essay that there are no pen. The claim that modern science has been able to dethrone God was mere nonsense. We will see in modern science, more and more discoveries points out towards God.

After the advance of science, some scientists have been intrigued by the wonder of nature, which directs them to the creator of this natural wonder. For instance, there is a marvelous fine-tuning of the universe. Should there be a minuscule difference in one of the physical constants, universe and humans could not survive. This should points out to a wonderful design of our universe, which directs us further to the designer of the universe. Even further, a German physicist, Gerard L. Schroeder, have calculated the time required since the big bang up to now. It was ±16 billion years ago using the current time reference, but even more fascinating it was also equal to 7 days using the beginning of time reference. Even the details of each day strikes a chord with scientific explanation of the evolution of universe. The only Being who could count that 7 days was no doubt the one who stands in eternity, before and after the beginning of time he was there, and he was the God who creates the world. Now, we could only ponder about how terrific the accounts of creation written in the Bible is. We could also found that the earth was claimed to be round (Isaiah 40:22).

The law of thermodynamics also support a theistic worldview. 1st law of thermodynamics states that energy can be neither created nor destroyed. Another way to state this law is that ’the amount of actual energy in the universe remain constant’. It does not assert anything about the origin/source of the energy, but combined with the theory of Big Bang we know that at the beginning there is a burst of massive energy. Who creates that energy? Not enough, 2nd law of thermodynamics also states that the universe is heading towards disorder, which makes scientists throughout the ages wondered about the source of the first order. It also implies that the universe is not eternal, as the universe is running down. Even evolutionists had to admit that they could not explain the source of information that is present in creatures. It is barely impossible with the current knowledge (and maybe will never be conprehended) to understand the origin of information burst that directs the evolution (if evolution is true).

Science has found that in the beginning there is a source of energy, order, information that raises the question of who is the one creating them. Theists attributes this to God, whereas atheists attributes this to either some coincidence or they try to develop absurd theories. Albert Einstein once created a hypothetical constant to make the earth to be non-expanding, or in other words to avoid the beginning of the universe. Later he admitted that it was the biggest blunder in his life. Scientists should not escape from the real fact they discover just to make it looks like what they want. It is absurd. What they found is fact, which points out to the truth, and truth shall never be compensated. At last, the truth will always triumph.

We could see from all these arguments, that science originates from the belief in God and science points out the existence of God. Science does not contradict the Bible, but science proves that the scientific fact of the Bible was indeed true.

When I play a game
My heart is full of joy and I left aside my sorrow
I realize these are just temporal joy that will diminish after I stop playing
But when I play together with God, for eternity my heart will be overflowed by joy

When I see fashion design
My heart shivered with the combination of grandeur and charm of human’s attire
I realize these are just temporal grandeur and charm
But when I see the grandeur and charm of God’s robe, my heart will shiver for eternity

When I study science
I see the might and wonder of God the creator of universe
I realize science is limited and could not reveal all nature’s phenomenon
But when I’m together with God, he will reveal the secret

When I experience human’s love
My heart was relieved with its cordiality
I realize human’s love is limited and temporal
But when I experience God’s love, my heart will find its rest for eternity

When I see  a magnificent masterpiece
I am stunned for minutes
I realize it is just a temporal magnificence
But when I see God’s magnificent face, I will be stunned for eternity

Yeah, these feelings are a glance of something more grandeur, i.e. the feeling when we are together with God. I am ensured that he gives a glance of his grandeur so we can seek and desire him. This glance of feelings is derivatives of the real relationship with God.

Romans 1:20 “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”

Paul mentions that the evidence of creation is enough and each of us is of no excuse. Bertrand Russell was wrong when he make the statement that God did not give him enough evidence for him to believe.

Why did I choose Christianity in the midst of these vast beliefs? Is it just affected by culture, family, societies that coerce or raise me in the Christian culture? If this is the case then my faith is groundless. Let us start a journey to find the truth in the midst of so many religion that claims the truth. For sure there will be only 1 that comes out to be true, as if religion A claims itself to be true then automatically it claims all other religions to be false. And if religion B claims itself to be true, automatically it will claim all other religion including A to be false. It is impossible that there are 2 religion/belief that is true, relativism is just a nonsense from those who is philosophically challenged.

God equips us with a weapon to distinct the right and the wrong, and that weapon is the law of logic (the law of identity, the law of secluded middle, the law of non-contradiction, and the law of rational inference). God creates humans to be logical and therefore God himself must be logical. God couldn’t be illogical as logic is his intrinsic nature. Look at the diagram below:

For an argument regarding natural and supernatural, you may want to read the previous post: Supernatural

First of all, humans are in the circle of natural plane. In the natural plane, humans can only argue with his logical basis that God exists, but he could not have knowledge about God as the knowledge of God lies in the supernatural plane. Creation could not have a perfect knowledge of its creator. Therefore, to have the knowledge about supernatural things or about God, God himself has to reveal that knowledge to human beings. This revealed truth is denoted as the red arrow (fully red).

This revealed truth asserts things human didn’t know such as the concept of sin, good, evil, the nature of God, God’s relation with human, why are there humans like now, etc. This is the authentic truth revealed by god. However there are also another arrows that claim themselves to be true (green arrow) besides the red arrow. These green arrow are the imperfect truth and  fabricated by humans. Maybe there are several arrows that contains truth (blending of red and green), but they are the absolute truth. This may happen as there are imitations from the absolute truth (red arrow) that will lead humans astray, for example: the creation of religion to gain political power, etc.

Red arrow are absolute truth, just like 5+5=10. Mixed arrow of green and red are the belief that contains truth, but still false just like 5+5=11. Truth could not be compensated. 1 false dot in the midst of truth will make the whole thing false.

In this world that claims to get many arrows of revelation from the supernatural plane, how do we distinct the truth from the false? Here is where the law of logic become a filter for every arrow that claims to be the absolute truth. If a religion claims to have the real absolute truth, then every aspect of it must be logical. The concept of predestination, free will, the redemption of sin, love, et c that is claimed by Christianity must be logical for Christianity to stand true. 1 small aspect will undermine the whole thing. Beliefs which contain contradiction on its teaching are not logical and therefore not the absolute truth. As an example, religion that claims that God is impersonal is illogical, as God must be personal for him to create the world along with all the personal human.

John Lennox gives an elegant analogy about the role of revelation. Aunt Matilda made a cake. We could investigate the structure, ingredient, properties, etc of that particular cake. However we will never know why Aunt Matilda made that cake, just like we could not know why the world is created. We could only know if aunt Matilda reveals why she made that cake. Next Aunt Matilda states that she made the cake for her son’s birthday. Definitely we could not receive this statement as true without any tests. We should find out whether aunt Matilda really have a son an whether the date of birthday are true. If these 2 facts are false, we could reject the false revelation from aunt Matilda. But if these 2 facts are true, then we can accept the revelation from aunt Matilda and receive her assertion. This is the role of logic to tests revelations.

With this reflections, we are invited to evaluate every aspects of our belief. With the religion that we embrace, we put all of our hope. Out faith on our embraced religion worths more than gold. Gold was tested with fire for its purity. In the same way, if out faith is really pure after facing through the fire of logic, it will ensure us further about the purity and truth of our faith. However if that faith is totally burned to ashes, and we put our hope on ashes, isn’t that futile?

These have come so that your faith–of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire–may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. (1 Peter 1:7)

And I found out that Christianity is the real true revealed truth according the logic God has given.

I could see 2 knowledge of a person:

1. Outer knowledge, i.e. what is known about some facts of that person. For instance: birth date, hobby, his school, body height, weight, etc. Simply: studying the facts/biography of that person.
2. Inner knowledge, i.e. what is known about feelings, souls, and that person itself. This inner knowledge could only be obtained by meeting of communication with that person himself. This knowledge is transferred from heart to heart, and could be different to each person.

Outer knowledge won’t arouse us to find out about inner knowledge.

On the other hand, inner knowledge will arouse us to find out more about the outer knowledge.

No matter how much we learn about outer knowledge, we could not obtain inner knowledge.

For example:
I would like to know more about Albert Einstein. What I can do is to buy his biography, books he published, testimony about him, his letters, etc. With this I shall obtain outer knowledge regarding Einstein. However, still I won’t know about the heart and feeling of Einstein that is covered in inner knowledge.

Let’s say one day I met einstein face to face (whatever the way is). When I’ve obtained outer knowledge about him, I’ll be very happy to meet him directly. If I haven’t read outer knowledge about him, I’ll start to know him and surprised to know that he is so genious in science. Moreover, I’ll know that he is so loving and caring for others. All of this will encourage me to know mroe about him, both outer and inner knowledge.

Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the LORD out of the heavens. Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, including all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land. (Genesis 19:24-25)

How about the people of Egypt punished by God with such a devastating calamities as well as sinking their soldiers in the red sea?

And the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring the Israelites out of it. (Exodus 7:5)

How about the Amalekites?

So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword. Then the LORD said to Moses, “Write this on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that Joshua hears it, because I will completely blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.” (Exodus 17:13-14)

How about murdering of Israelites themselves like Moses command?

So he stood at the entrance to the camp and said, “Whoever is for the LORD, come to me.” And all the Levites rallied to him. Then he said to them, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor. ‘ ” (Exodus 32:26-27)

which is caused by the golden calf the Israelites build when Moses isn’t around:

Moses saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control and so become a laughingstock to their enemies. (Exodus 32:25)

How about the order of God to slash off completely the people of Sihon?

The LORD said to me, “See, I have begun to deliver Sihon and his country over to you. Now begin to conquer and possess his land.” When Sihon and all his army came out to meet us in battle at Jahaz, the LORD our God delivered him over to us and we struck him down, together with his sons and his whole army. At that time we took all his towns and completely destroyed them—men, women and children. We left no survivors. But the livestock and the plunder from the towns we had captured we carried off for ourselves. (Deuteronomy 2:31-35)

but this is caused by the king of Sihon that disallowed the Israelites to pass through their city, and:

“Let us pass through your country. We will stay on the main road; we will not turn aside to the right or to the left.  Sell us food to eat and water to drink for their price in silver. Only let us pass through on foot (Deuteronomy 27-28)

God’s command to kill?

and when the LORD your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. (Deuteronomy 7:2)

and so on…

For the town of Sodom and Gomorrah, when we see through the previous chapter, we know that these 2 towns are really immoral, sinning heavily, and live unrighteous in the eyes of God. But we know from the conversation between Abraham with God that even if 10 righteous man exists in that town, then God won’t destroy that town:

Then Abraham approached him and said: “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? (Genesis 18:23)

Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?” He answered, “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.” (Genesis 18:32)

We have to realize that the town destroyed by God is because all (completely) people in that town is guilty and unrighteous. None of them could stand rigteous representing their community. This is really apparent when we see that God forbade the Israelites to destroy the Amorites:

In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure. (Genesis 15:!6)

There are still a bunch of righteous people over there, and God didn’t want to destroy that place yet as God love them and they may save some people in that town. It is proved that it could stand up to 4 generations before that town is totally unrighteous. God never kill the righteous. But why did he keep eliminating the unrighteous people? This could be caused by:

• In order that other nations may know that God is with Israelites, and God of Israelites is the only one true God.

And the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring the Israelites out of it. (Exodus 7:5)

Hence other nations may come and worship the true God. When other nations come to Him, He will receive them with joy just like what Rahab did.

Before the spies lay down for the night, she went up on the roof  and said to them, “I know that the LORD has given this land to you and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you. We have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed. (Joshua 2:8-10)

But Joshua spared Rahab the prostitute, with her family and all who belonged to her, because she hid the men Joshua had sent as spies to Jericho—and she lives among the Israelites to this day. (Joshua 6:25)

These people eliminated by God are the people who know the true God already but still reject to come to Him.

• God eliminate the community of unrighteous people because of His love towards humans.
  Love?

Imagine what’s going to happen if this community is not eliminated by God: they will breed to the next and next generations, where their offspring will be raised in such a wicked community and therefore they will grow up as unrighteous people. If this chain is not stopped, many more souls will be lost.

Isn’t it rational that God’s heart is moved when thinking about this? But remember that God eliminate only the community where 100% (not 99.99%) of the people are unrighteous (Genesis 15:16) where there are no hope for them. Even they should have heard about the almighty God that gives victories to Israelites, but still they neglect the true God and worship their own idol.

Children could be saved, as they haven’t been polluted with sin from that unrighteous community. Children is a symbol of pureness of Heaven’s inhabitant. When David’s child passed away, he said:

But now that he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me. (2 Samuel 12:23)

When a child haven’t reached the age of accountability, they’ll go the kingdom of God:

And your little ones, who, you said, would come into strange hands, your children, who now have no knowledge of good or evil, they will go into that land, and to them I will give it and it will be theirs. (Deuteronomy 1:39)

Yeah, God will do the best for His beloved creation.

In the new testament, no more we see this things because God has sent His own son to die, substituting our sins. This gospel have been shouted to almost every corner of the world and almost in every community exists righteous man and hope. Jesus come to bring hope to each man in this world.

With respect to several things discussed here, then we should change this post’s title:

God’s “cruelty” in the Old Testament

God’s mercy in the Old Testament