Humans seem to enjoy using symbols for everything in life. Notice the emoticons and emojis used in electronic communication. It is interesting that the use of symbols to convey meaning is an attribute of humans that is not seen in any other form of life. Animals may use sounds or chemicals to alert others of their kind to danger, territory, or sexual availability, but these are not symbols. Sometimes symbols have different meanings to different cultures or even different generations. In my hippie days, holding up two fingers in a “V” meant “peace.” When I was first inducted into military service, the same symbol meant “victory” and indicated an intention to conquer. Symbols convey information, and as the deaf can demonstrate to us, they can even form the basis of complex communication.
Our use of symbols is a reflection of our spiritual makeup. We can create art, express ourselves in music, and worship God because we possess a soul which allows these unique forms of expression. The most mentally challenged among us can use symbols and rejoice in being able to do so.
Sometimes symbols and their use are unique to a particular time in human history. A classic example of this is the use of the cross. In today’s world, the cross is universally accepted as a symbol of Christianity. People wear crosses to express their personal faith. The cross is put on many buildings, Bibles, and along our roadsides. Steven Lemley in an article in Power for Today (January 2, 2017) points out that in the first century the cross was only a sign of the execution of guilty criminals. He reminds us that wearing a cross or having it adorn a place of worship in the first century, would be like us today wearing the image of a hypodermic needle used in executions. Many saw the cross as a stumbling block (1 Corinthians 1:23) or a sign of God’s weakness. Paul used the cross as a symbol of separating ourselves from the world (Galatians 6:14) as well as crucifying our sinful nature (Romans 6:6).
Early on the first day of the week, some women came to the tomb where the lifeless body of Jesus had been placed. It was empty. It had been opened–not by any human hands but by an angel. It wasn’t opened to let Jesus out. The tomb was opened so that people might see that it was empty. The followers of Jesus were not expecting him to be alive again. At first, they couldn’t believe it. Powerful people tried to find the body or to convince the public that it had been stolen. But they could not.
Now, over 2000 years later, there are still those who try to deny the resurrection. The evidence is there. The friends of Jesus were not expecting the resurrection, but after they had seen him alive, they spent the rest of their lives telling others about it. Even when they were tortured and killed for preaching the resurrection, not one of them ever recanted. Without a body, the powerful enemies of Jesus could not disprove the resurrection.
Joseph of Arimathea was a wealthy man who had a new tomb carved into a stone hillside. This was not a pauper’s grave. Only the rich and powerful could afford such a burial place, and it was soon to become a temporarily borrowed tomb.
The first man to use it was not a wealthy man. He grew up as the son of a carpenter and had no home to call His own. He had a small group of friends who deserted Him at the last minute. His thousands of admirers quickly sought to get rid of Him when He didn’t overthrow the Romans as they expected.
The ancient Assyrian army would drive a stake into the chest of their enemies impaling them. Then they would plant that stake in the ground to display their victim. They did this both to frighten and to intimidate those who would oppose them.
The ancient Romans further refined this gruesome tactic. Instead of impaling their victims on a stake, they nailed them to the stake. Impaling resulted in quick death, but crucifixion extended the horror. Crucifixion was slow and agonizing torture that sometimes lasted more than a day. It’s from this execution method that we get our word “excruciating”–which literally means “from the cross.” Crucifixions took place in public where people could see the victim and become terrified to go against the Roman government. This torture was used for the worst of criminals.
DOES GOD EXIST? maintains a Facebook page with daily postings. We often get challenges and questions from atheists and skeptics or those who are seeking for answers. We want to share the following conversation from Facebook. The article we posted was about animals that are ruminants (cud chewers) The article ended like this:
DGE?- …This system of digestion allows animals who are grazers to survive in the hostile world of the wilderness. The balance in nature between predators and those animals that eat plant material is critical. If there are too many herbivores (plant eaters), they will eat all of the vegetation. If there are too many successful carnivores (meat eating predators), they can wipe out all of the plant eaters. The Master Designer has given us a balanced system with many features to allow animals and plants to avoid extinction. Cud chewing is one of those features. Ever since Adam and Eve, human actions have often thrown the system out of balance.
SEEKER- I would call that adaptation or evolution and the fact that you mention Adam and Eve says this was penned by someone who believes in creation. If Adam was the first man on Earth shortly after the creation by God, then where did the dinosaurs come from? Still not had a decent answer on that yet.
DGE?- Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” It does not say when the beginning was or how long God took to create the heavens and the Earth. The verse is undated and not timed. Then in verse 2, we are told that Earth was in place and it was formless and empty. Beginning in verse 3 we see a description of the stages of creation that God used to transform the formless and empty Earth into a planet that was full of life. Finally, on the last “day” of that creation, God brings human beings on the scene. The word translated “day” is the Hebrew “yom” which has four literal meanings in the Bible. It can mean a 24-hour day. It can mean the daylight portion of a 24-hour day. It can mean any portion of a 24-hour day. It can also mean an indefinite, but finite period of time. If you want to say that in Genesis chapter 1 it has to mean a 24-hour day, then you have a problem with dinosaurs and many other things. If you understand it as being an indefinite period of time, then any conflict between the Bible and science disappears. At DOES GOD EXIST? we believe that science and the Bible are friends, not enemies.
SEEKER- That still doesn’t answer the original question on dinosaurs. I have heard some say that the fossils we have were placed by “God” to test man’s faith, but I find this extremely hard to believe. Darwin is still winning. If there is an all-powerful God then why does he allow doubt? Why does he not simply show himself and remove all doubt? I guess a possibility is that if man was made in his image then like the man God too has died.
DGE?- When the Bible says that God made male and female in his image (Genesis 1:27) it doesn’t mean physical image. God is not physical. Jesus said, “God is spirit” (John 4:24). God is eternal and not subject to physical death. If the days of Genesis 1 are long but finite periods of time (as mentioned before), then dinosaurs would have been created on one of the earlier “days” before humans were created. (Probably day 5) Or perhaps dinosaurs roamed the Earth in that untimed period after God created the Earth in verse 1 and the time when it was empty and dark. Perhaps after a mass extinction. Many other creatures are not mentioned in the Genesis account–some extinct and some still in existence. The creatures mentioned are the ones familiar to humans. There was no Hebrew word for dinosaurs or other creatures that people did not know existed.
SEEKER- Definitely getting there now, but all based on “If.” Surely a day was twenty-four hours then as it is now and not millions of years. Also, it seems then that the Bible was written by man if the writer had no word for dinosaurs and never knew they existed. God surely would have had a name for them. I don’t understand if God does exist then why are we not born with this knowledge, why is it not a natural instinct like feeding from a mother’s breast at birth. Why would he want to give us doubt? Darwin still winning but I would so love God to win.
DGE?- There are other Bible passages where the Hebrew word “yom” translated “day” in Genesis 1 is used to mean an indefinite period of time longer than a day. (e.g. Hosea 6:2) If there were no word for the dinosaur in Hebrew and God made one up, how would anyone know what it meant? Hebrew is a language for human communication. If the people did not know what the word meant and had never seen a dinosaur, the word would be nonsense. We can know there is a God by the things he has made (Romans 1:20). I think we are born believing in God, and unbelief is learned. People in every primitive tribe in the history of the world have believed in “gods.” There is something deep in our soul that tells us there is something more—something beyond this life and higher than ourselves. It’s a vestige of an ancient memory of the Garden of Eden that we all long to find again.
SEEKER- Out of all conversations I have ever had on this subject I have to say you have been the one with answers that make any sort of sense. A vicar I once tried to discuss with simply said I must have faith and believe without doubting or questioning the Bible. My problem with that is the fact we mainly read from the King James version which I think Henry VIII doctored a bit. Darwin still holds a very strong argument though, and school did not help as one class was RE (Religious Education ) then the next class had a big poster of Darwin’s ape-to-man illustration. I so wish I could be an absolute believer without doubt as it really does give me one big headache. If there is a God, then can I be forgiven for having doubt or do those with doubt not enter into eternal life?
The first word in the Hebrew text of Genesis is reshith, translated into English as “In the beginning.” For hundreds of years, atheists have tried to dispute the notion that there was a beginning. Until the latter part of the twentieth-century scientists didn’t know that there was a beginning. There is an old joke that says, “What did Moses know that Einstein didn’t?” The answer: “That there was a beginning.” Why was science missing the beginning?
The problem is that if a person admits that there was a beginning, they are faced with the question, “What was the cause of the beginning?” It is much simpler just to deny that there was a beginning and maintain that everything has always been–not necessarily as it is today, but in a form that could change into what we see today.
In the 2003 version of the Humanist Manifesto, the statement was clearly made, “The universe is self-existing and not created.” Older versions had the word “eternal” in the statement. It is obvious that the question of origins is evaded by the use of “self-existing” so the word “eternal” is not needed. Atheists will usually respond to this point by saying that religious people claim God is self-existing, so there is no reason why atheists cannot make the same claim about the universe. Carl Sagan in his book Cosmos said, “Why is it any more reasonable to say that God has always been than to say that the cosmos has always been?”
The answer to this challenge lies in the nature of God and the nature of the cosmos. When we measure light, we measure its frequency in cycles per second. When we measure speed in space, we measure it in meters per second. Force, mass, acceleration, energy, momentum, and inertia are all measured in space/time units. We are limited to understanding things in terms of time and space. Various scientific measuring tools have verified that there was a beginning to time and space. The cosmos is expanding at an ever-increasing rate, suggesting that it has accelerated away from a place where it began.
Since research in all areas of science has made it increasingly obvious that the cosmos had a beginning, science seeks to explain the beginning. The result is that theories are being proposed such as String Theory which suggests that there are multiple dimensions beyond our own. Since String Theory and proposals of multiple universes cannot be tested scientifically, they fail to give an answer to the beginning. We are limited by our inability to devise experiments to measure and test these theories. The biblical term “In the beginning” refers to the origin of all of reality. Whether God created the universe using strings of energy or a big bang is not relevant.
The atheist will say that being unable to explain origins does not necessarily mean that God did it. We are not proposing a “God-of-the-Gaps” argument in which we say, “God did it because we have no other explanation.” What we are saying is that the Bible makes it clear that God is outside of all other dimensions. God is described as the creator of time and space. God is described as a being with no time/space dimensional limitations (1 John 1:5; 4:8,12,16; 2 Peter 3:8; Colossians 1:16-17). Also, the biblical description of God shows a number of properties that are clearly seen in the cosmos and which blind chance would not produce. These include love, care, design, patience, personality, purpose, wisdom, and planning.
Now that science is not missing the beginning, more and more evidence is coming to light showing that our universe was designed and fine-tuned to sustain carbon-based life. Atheists and skeptics may try to counter this evidence, but they have no real alternative to offer.
Many articles that we have posted on the “Does God Exist?” websites have revolved around definitions. Let us attempt to clarify some definitions.
EVOLUTION means different things to different people. Evolution essentially means change over time. We can see evidence of that in dogs and cattle and roses. Some would call those changes within plant and animal types as microevolution. There is also evolution of one type of animal into something completely different. That is sometimes called macroevolution, and it is something we don’t see. When someone says “you can’t believe in evolution and believe in God,” there will be different understandings of what that statement means. There are leading evolutionists like Dr. Francis Collins who are also prominent Christian leaders. Theistic evolution is evolution designed or guided by God. Naturalistic evolution is totally different.
NATURALISM asserts that natural laws are the only rules that govern the structure and behavior of the universe and that the universe at every stage of change is a product of those laws. Naturalism leaves out God and offers a purely materialistic cause and understanding of the universe.
MATERIALISM is the belief that physical “stuff” is the only thing that is real. Anything that is not physical in nature is deemed to be of no value in determining answers to the choices of life. Anything that cannot be measured or tested by science does not exist.
SCIENTISM is the belief that science is the only reliable source of truth. Years ago science was defined simply as knowledge. The modern definition of science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Scientism goes beyond science to make science a god.
DEISM is belief in the existence of a supreme being–a creator who started the universe but does not intervene or show any interest in it. The term is used chiefly of an intellectual movement of the 17th and 18th centuries that accepted the existence of a creator on the basis of reason but rejected belief in a supernatural deity who interacts with humankind.
THEISM is belief in the existence of a deity or deities, but not necessarily the God of the Bible.
There is a great story circulating about a man named Jesse Newton who lives in Arkansas and has a dog. He also has a robotic floor-cleaner called a Roomba. The Roomba is a device you program to run while you are in bed, and it goes all around the rooms you designate sweeping up any dirt and debris on the floor. Last fall Mr. Newton had his robot programmed to clean his house starting at 1:30 AM.
The Roomba was doing fine until it hit a pile of dog poop that was picked up by the brushes and wheels of the device. The robot then spread the feces all through the house, on the carpets, the floors, the chair legs, the baseboards, and the kids’ toy box. Mr. Newton tells the whole hilarious story of how he discovered the mess at 3:00 AM and how he spent the next three hours trying to clean it up. He said the Roomba left the house “looking like a Jackson Pollock poop painting.” The story went viral on Facebook and was picked up by many news agencies, newspapers, and their websites, including USA Today and The Guardian. You can Google it to get the whole story.
That story reminded me of articles we have published in the past dealing with the process of cleaning up the waste that accumulates in nature. There are many living things that exist solely on the wastes of animals and plants. A classic example is the dung beetle, which cuts up chunks of “cow pies” or “elephant pies” into small balls and rolls them to their homes underground. Termites process dead trees into fine confetti which helps aerate the soil. Flies produce maggots which process large carrion in such a way that it is returned to the ecosystem in the form of chemicals. Certain kinds of fish clean up the bottom of rivers and lakes. While zebra mussels are a hazard to water-handling equipment, they filter and clean the water of their environment.
The universe is designed in such a way that things are constantly being recycled, cleaned, and worked back into the soil for future generations. This cleaning operation is highly complex and vital to all forms of life. It was not just a series of fortunate accidents that designed and maintains the system. By the way, iRobot, the company that manufactures the Roomba, says that this problem is not uncommon for people who have dogs or cats. Their engineers have been working on “poop detection technology,” but for now, they recommend not using the device when animals that might make a mess are present. We are glad that God figured out the process a long time ago.
Yesterday we mentioned that various groups are celebrating February 12, the birthday of Charles Darwin, as “Darwin Day.” There are also churches that are designating February 10-12 as “Darwin Weekend” to promote harmony between science and faith. That seems like a positive goal since the purpose of the DOES GOD EXIST? program for over 40 years has been to show that science and faith are friends, not enemies.
As this annual commemoration approaches, we want to reflect on what Darwin discovered and how he interpreted it. People knew that animals could change and the breeding of animals for improved features had been going on for centuries. (See our post on January 28 about goldfish breeding and note what Jacob did with Laban’s cattle in Genesis 20:25-42.) What Darwin did was to suggest a method by which these changes can take place in the natural world unaided by outside intervention. In 1859 he published his influential book On The Origin of Species. He advanced a theory that natural selection acting on random mutations was what led to the evolution of all living species from a few common ancestors, or perhaps only one. He suggested that variations within a species occur randomly. If the variation is harmful, it will lead to extinction. If the variation helps the animal to adapt to its environment, that animal will live and pass on those traits to its descendants. In The Descent of Man (1871) Darwin clearly applied this process to the origin of human beings. Darwin concluded that humans must have evolved from an apelike animal based on comparing the anatomy of humans to other mammals. He also based it on similarities in embryological development, and the existence of what he called “rudimentary” organs which today are often referred to as “vestigial” (such as tonsils and appendix). In Darwin’s words, “In a series of forms graduating insensibly from some apelike creature to man as he now exists, it would be impossible to fix on any definite point when the term ‘man’ ought to be used.” Darwin fully expected that later fossil discoveries would show the gradual progress of evolution. More than 150 years later, the fossil record is still lacking, but today science points to DNA to show evidence of common descent.
From the beginning, Darwin’s proposal was controversial. Many atheists seized on Darwin’s work to show that God was not necessary. Many theologians condemned the idea of humans descending from “some apelike creature” because of its conflict with the biblical account. However, there were and are people who suggest that evolution is the method God used to create all life, even including humans. A noted scientist today who is a firm believer in God and a Christian is Dr. Francis Collins. He believes that evolution was created by God as a method of bringing all life into existence. He wrote in his book The Language of God, “No serious biologist today doubts the theory of evolution to explain the marvelous complexity and diversity of life.” Other Christian scientists such as Dr. Hugh Ross and Dr. Fazale Rana argue for God’s intervention into the process of evolution as demonstrated in the “Cambrian Explosion” and the “hominid explosion” which indicate a geologically sudden emergence of new life forms. They see the emergence of new life forms and the creation of Adam and Eve as cases of Divine intervention. They explain this in their excellent book Who Was Adam? now in its second edition updated in 2015.
At the Passover feast the night before his crucifixion, Jesus broke bread and gave it to his disciples telling them, “Take and eat; this is my body.” Then he took the Passover cup and told them, “Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”
Those words are recorded in Matthew 26:26-29. In the preceding verses (20-25) Jesus is telling his twelve disciples that one of them will betray him. One-by-one eleven of them ask, “Surely not I, Lord?” They were concerned about what Jesus had said. They had not yet been tested, and so they were not sure if they would remain faithful under persecution. If the time came to give their lives for their Lord, would they be able to do it? They didn’t know, but Jesus knew. After eleven of the disciples had asked the question, it was time for Judas to ask. Judas said, “Surely not I, Rabbi?” Notice the difference in his question. The others said, “Surely not I, Lord?” Judas said, “Surely not I, Rabbi.”
To the questions asked by the first eleven disciples Jesus gave a vague answer saying, “The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me.” I suspect that many, if not all of them had dipped bread into the same bowl with Jesus. He then followed with a warning to them, But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born.” That would have given each of them something to think about. But when Judas asked his question. Jesus replied with a clear answer, “Yes, it is you.” Jesus knew who would betray him. It was the one who called him “Rabbi” not the ones who called him “Lord.”
