Enlightenment

On the bus the other day someone in front of me was using a tablet to amuse themselves as we road. Very common. This one caught my eye, however, because I noticed a simplified version of the Kalam cosmological argument¹ at the top of the screen. So I looked a little closer. It appeared to be a quiz app that gave "standard" arguments for God and then gave the user options on how to reply. You know, "pick the best retort." It was painful to look at. The arguments offered for God were poorly structured, loosely built, and woefully incomplete. But the options for response were almost as horrible. This argument and response didn't appear, but it might have: "Argument: God exists." "Response: No he doesn't." It wasn't much better than that. It was clear to me that this was not a helpful exercise. The app builder wrote a set of minor claims and strawman arguments -- a complete misrepresentation of genuine Apologetics -- and then offered the user soothing comebacks that would feed their predispositions without bothering to question their own beliefs or ideas.

I bring it up not because I found it to be a healthy discussion around theism nor because I wish to point fingers at skeptics. I bring it up because it seems so ... normal. I bring it up because it seems like this is what most of us do -- take a position and then agree with arguments that support it and disagree with arguments that don't. It can be the double standards of the Left. "We demand inclusivity, and we will exclude anyone who doesn't include others!" It can be Christian apologists that reject scientific facts that disagree with their view because the fact claims appear to disagree with their view. We generally start with a premise and defend it rather than go for the Truth (I use a capital "T" there because I'm referring to Absolute Truth) even if it means we're wrong.

In this normal mode, we come to Scripture. By "we" there I mean "we Christians." We've got our beliefs. Now let's interpret Scripture in their light. We typically do not interpret our beliefs in the light of Scripture. "I've been told that the Rapture will occur before the Tribulation, so I will reinterpret any passages that say otherwise to mean exactly that, or I will ignore them." "I believe in Absolute Human Free Will, so if some Scripture suggests otherwise I will mediate it to agree with me." As a couple of examples. Just like that unbelieving bus rider, we select our beliefs and then justify them rather than laying our beliefs out under the blazing light of God's Truth and find out where we're wrong.

This is the kind of thinking we expect from the world. No surprise. No recriminations. It's what you would anticipate from one whose mind is blinded by the god of this world (2 Cor 4:4). But we should know better. We should be transformed by renewal of the mind (Rom 12:2). We should grasp that we have been deceived (Jer 17:9) and in need of change and long for the light in the darkness (1 Peter 2:9; Eph 5:8). Now, certainly the Truth will produce better arguments for God, but I'm not thinking in that direction. I'm thinking that it will make us better reflections of Christ, and that would certainly be a good thing for any follower of Christ.
________

¹ The Kalam cosmological argument goes something like this:
1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause;
2. The universe began to exist;
Therefore:
3. The universe has a cause. (Ending conclusion: That cause can only be God.)