theology

Tony

/ Minimalist Christian / Leave a comment

Tony was a man of action.  He had always enjoyed sport as a boy, and loved adventure books.   At work he would be frustrated by rules and regulations, red tape put in place just to avoid being blamed in case something went wrong.  Why didn’t people just get on and do what was needed?

Tony had committed his life to Christ.  He was convinced of the truth, read his bible daily and tried his best to follow Jesus teaching.  Jesus was his hero, and he was constantly challenged by what Jesus taught – but liberated too!  He went to church each week.

But somehow he often wondered what church was about.  He found the songs would have him singing words that didn’t represent how he felt towards Christ; love songs and adoration of Christ’s beauty, songs more about being ‘in love’ than selfless love.  He would look around at others who appeared in raptures of delight and wonder what was wrong with him.  He couldn’t help drifting off in the sermons, and couldn’t see what they had to do with his day-to-day life.

He often came away saddened; if church left him cold he presumed that he can’t have been a very good Christian!  Satan smiled, but Jesus led Tony to the verse:

Those who obey my commandments are the ones who love me. And because they love me, my Father will love them, and I will love them. (John 14:21)

“We love you Tony” he whispered.

Things that a Minimalist Christian does not have to believe – The Bible is the complete and perfect truth

/ Minimalist Christian / 9 Comments

I struggled to phrase the title of this post, but I’m talking about the attitude that because something is written in the Bible it must be taken as absolutely accurate and true. The Bible is often called the ‘Word of God’, and Christians are encouraged to study God’s Word, but the basis for such assertions is seldom presented.  St Paul referred to scriptures being ‘God breathed’, but if we think about it, what isn’t ‘God breathed’?  Can anything exist without God?

Bible study often takes the form of taking each sentence and trying to interpret it. This can lead to lengthy discussions about the translation of a particular word. It is trying to understand by dissection, but then risks missing the whole. It is similar perhaps to trying to understand the human being by examining each molecule, or ‘The Scream’ by examining a single brush stroke.

If we view the Bible as a collection of documents that were written by human beings describing their journey with God then we can understand why, for instance, different accounts of the same event may differ. We can understand that the meaning of any part must be discerned in the context of the day. We can understand that the writers might simply have got some things wrong. It was men who decided what the best books were to put in the Bible, and they made their decision based on sober judgement. But we should not now view the book as somehow having a magic spell on it that says that ‘this is God’s complete and unchallengeable word’.

There is immense value in the Bible, but I fear that modern Christians have been led to worship the Bible rather than God. It contains wisdom and encouragement, and is correctly used to support our growth rather than constrain it.

The Shamu Show

/ Minimalist Christian / Leave a comment

The crowd assembles for the Shamu show. Children eagerly seek out seats in the ‘soak zone’ whilst anxious parents cover up all valuable belongings to keep them dry.

Shamu is a killer whale who does marvellous tricks with his trainers, but the biggest thrill is when the whale leaps out of the water and splashes the first 12 rows of spectators.

Seats fill up quickly for about half an hour before the show. To keep people entertained there is a 50m x 20m screen behind the pool – a massive TV screen. There is a simple quiz, with questions shown on the screen whilst a camera (who knows where) picks out a member of the audience who then hold up one, two or three fingers to indicate the right answer.

The quiz is fun but trivial. What fascinates me is the response of the people when they see themselves on the big screen. Many smile and wave. The shy little girl slowly slips behind her Dad. The man idly picking his nose suddenly sees himself 10m high – starts – and whips his finger out of his nose and back down to his side.

How different it would feel to see ourselves live on the big screen. How differently we would behave. Yet perhaps we are already on the big screen – God’s big screen. How are we going to behave now? Which of our actions are going to please him and make him happy? Which are we going to stop in embarrassment? Are we going to wave and smile with joy, or are we going to crawl away and try to hide?

Let’s imagine we are always on God’s big screen, and let that help to guide what we do.

Stereoscopic vision

/ Minimalist Christian / Leave a comment

A few years ago there was quite a craze about magic-eye pictures. When you first see one of the pictures there are usually interesting colours and shapes, and you might like it just for that.

Then someone tells you that there is 3D picture of a train (or such thing) hidden in the picture.  You might respond with “don’t talk rubbish”, or you might look and look at the detail, turn it upside down, look at it in the mirror.  But you can’t find anything by yourself!

Your friend might give you some hints on how to find it.  You might follow their suggestion and still see nothing.  You challenge them that they are mistaken, but they insist that there is something there.  If you didn’t trust them or if they weren’t your friend then you’d give up looking.

But maybe you still trust them enough. You try harder, but that doesn’t work.  Then you just relax and gaze at it – and catch a glimpse!  Slowly you learn how to hold that glimpse and suddenly you can see there is a whole picture.  You learn to explore it, and see its wonder. Then something distracts you and it’s gone again.  But now you know…it’s waiting there for you to find next time.

We all see the wonder of the world, but we go through much of life not realising the big picture behind it.  We need someone to tell us it’s there, and to help us find it.  But we need to trust their intentions, and to be willing to feel embarrassed in our searching or else we will give up and perhaps even try to ridicule those who claim there is a God behind it, who claim that there is truth in Jesus’ teaching, that the holy spirit can guide and change our lives for the better.  If we are not ready to take the risk then we may dismiss the whole thing, but if we are ready to risk then perhaps we will indeed find something of great worth.

We need two eyes to see the magic eye picture.  If you look with only one you will never find it.  Perhaps we need two eyes to see the big picture of the universe:  The ‘material’ eye that sees the material world, the scientific discoveries, the wonder of life itself.  And the ‘spiritual’ eye that listens to the message of the love that God has for us through what he reveals to us, that discerns truth from falsehood, that sees another spiritual being in everyone we meet.

An argument for, and definition of God.

/ Minimalist Christian / 12 Comments

I have started reading Anselm; interesting stuff. Not sure I’ve really got my head round it yet, but nevertheless let me try to paraphrase my understanding of his argument so far in a modern context:

We are all aware that there are ‘non-material’ things: love, justice, purpose, hope, belief, to name a few.  An act of love is carried-out through ‘love’, and an act of justice is carried-out through ‘justice’.  If love did not exist then one could not carry-out an act of love. And it is through ‘goodness’ that we are able to carry-out an act of love; without goodness we could not carry-out an act of love, or of justice, or…  Apart from goodness, all other non-material things are carried-out through goodness, and therefore goodness is the ultimate non-material thing, or ‘essence’ and it exists through itself.

We can also perceive that some acts are express more love than others; there can be great love, or great justice, or great goodness.  And we can imagine that for any great goodness there could be a goodness that is just a little greater … until we reach infinite goodness.  And so everything that is good in any way is within that infinite, or supreme goodness.

Everything exists through something, and we have seen that of things immaterial everything exists through supreme goodness.  But everything must exist through one thing.  If we imagine that there were more than one thing, then either there would be one thing through which the more than one thing were able to exist – which would then be the one thing, or they might exist through a ‘power to exist through oneself’ – which would then be the one thing, or they would exist mutually through each other – which defies reason.

The universe exists, and so it exists through something. Non-material things exist, and they exist through supreme goodness.  Therefore either the universe exists through supreme goodness, or supreme goodness exists through the universe.  But can supreme goodness exist through the universe?  We can conceive that there are other universes, but it is inconceivable that those other universes exist without supreme goodness; being non-material supreme goodness cannot be constrained within a material context.  Therefore it is impossible that supreme goodness exists through the universe, but the universe must exist through supreme goodness, and there can only be one supreme goodness –  which we define as God.

Related posts

https://philhemsley.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/proof-of-god/

https://philhemsley.wordpress.com/2012/12/29/the-god-of-science/

 

Can God answer prayer in a universe that operates according to the laws of physics?

/ Minimalist Christian / 9 Comments

We believe that the universe operates according to the laws and equations of physics.  And then we ask, “if the behaviour of the universe is predictable according to the laws of physics, then is there any way in which God can ‘do’ anything; how can God answer prayer?”

Perhaps in the same way that we ‘do’ things?  As I type this, I am influencing the material world with my mind, with my will.  Although we all speculate based on different quantities of data, nobody knows how we do it.  We can trace pathways through the brain, down nerves and so on, but we still don’t know how ‘we’ operate with free will or exercise that free will.

Some claim that we don’t, that free will is a delusion.  But they don’t really believe it – we all behave as if we have a degree of free will.  Clearly we don’t decide everything our bodies do, but we still do decide some things.  We exercise our free will daily.  How could it be otherwise?  If free will were a delusion, then if we were truly able to believe that it were an illusion we would realise that there is no point to anything at all and we would give up all our searchings, all our science, all our religion  Yet we would not be able to give it up, because we would not have the free will to be able to!  And if someone claims that free will is a delusion, how have they come to that conclusion?  If they are correct then clearly they cannot have come to the conclusion themselves, but only had the delusion of coming to that conclusion …. So the claim that freewill is a delusion is contrary to all evidence, and by as outlined above completely un-provable.  It is outside of science and outside of reason.  Therefore if pursuit of the truth is to have any meaning then we must conclude that we have free will.

So in the same way that we, with our free will  can operate in the material world, controlled by the laws of physics, God too can operate.  There is thus no scientific reason to suppose that God cannot answer prayer. (If he exists of course!)