Science Fiction and Theology - Part 7 - Cryogenics

Time to finish this series up.

Cryogenics is the science of trying to freeze living matter to the point of death but with the ability to revive that matter back to normal life. In science fiction this has been put to various uses.
1. Storage of clones as extra body parts
2. Putting criminals 'on ice'.
3. Use for space travel in that the crew is frozen for long duration while the ship travels.
4. Medical -- store the person until a cure can be found or a donor comes along.
5. Effect a form of immortality. Body is slowed in function, but brain is allowed to roam a virtual world (The Matrix)

Where this crosses into theology is in the field of ethics -- medical and social.
1. Medical ethics - is a clone life? Robert Heinlein theorized in Time Enough for Love, that cloning could get so advanced that an entire body could be cloned without a true functioning brain so that when a person got old their brain could be moved to the new body. Along with other rejuvenation technologies, this could give a person effective immortality. What happens to "appointed once to die and then the judgment" (Hebrews 9:27)
2. Is it really punishment to put criminals in cryo-freeze based on the Bible? Not really, just prolongs things and releases that criminal back into society unchanged. Not really justice from a Biblical point of view.
3. Space Travel has been discussed but what are ethics of volunteering for a trip from which you may not wake up should technology fail on the way?
4. In the case of medical waiting till a cure is found I can see some uses but at what point does it end and how do we determine who is valuable enough for this?
5. Living in a virtual world brings in the whole ethical questions of the what is life and how do we live it? Effective immortality or slavery?

Next: Lest We Forget - Robots.

Apparent Contradictions and the Progressive Revelation of the Bible.

Just a word before I begin about contradictions in Scripture - if you are looking for them you will find them. Some people make a living off of finding apparent contradictions. Like all interpretive techniques once you adopt a certain lens you stick with it, but it should be noted that when I hear people talking about contradictions in Scripture they are contradictions AS THEY SEE IT. To be fair though, some people have a way of reconciling those contradictions and can go to great lengths to do so. They are doing things as they see it as well. What we learn from this is sometimes whether a contradiction is a contradiction is usually in the eye of the beholder. Both sides can be guilty of reading into Scripture what they want to be there.

I want to look at how some contradictions are reconciled by the fact sometimes it is a matter of the writers perspective and aims in his writing in a previous post so what I want to do is look at how the Bible being a progressive revelation of God can affect apparent contradictions. I want to use two examples from the teaching of Jesus in relationship to the Law of Moses: 1) The 'Eye for and Eye' controversy and 2) Moses and Jesus differences on divorce.

1. The Law of Moses is the first place the expression "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth' appears. It does so in three places (Exodus 21, Leviticus 24 and Deuteronomy 19) and every time it is in relationship to the idea of punishment and restitution for the victim of a crime. If the victim loses an eye, justice demands that the person who caused this loss also lose an eye. There were alternative restitution methods in this but the standard was established based on equality. In our language -- 'let the punishment fit the crime'.

Thousands of years pass and Jesus is preaching the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. (Note: this is not the same sermon as the one in Luke 6 although they are similar. Ancient speakers had to repeat themselves often for different groups so teaching would be repeated as the crowd changed. Remember no way to record words and no public address systems. It should also be noted that neither of these sermons say it was Jesus' first time speaking) He says "you have heard it said 'eye for eye, tooth for tooth, but I say to you, do not resist an evil person, but whoever slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also." We could say that Jesus is changing things like he does elsewhere, except he begins this sermon with a bold statement that that is not what he is doing -- that no part of the law will pass away until everything is fulfilled. That being said what is going on here?

The answer lies in the fact that the revelation of Scripture takes place over time. During the gaps people develop interpretations, establish schools of thought and have their own ideas. When Moses writes the law it is about justice. The passage of time has corrupted the interpretation of the idea from one of justice to one of justified vengeance. Also consider that politically the times are different. Israel is free under Moses; Jesus lives under Roman rule. The things Jesus advocates are a direct reaction to that fact. 1)Not resisting is a reaction to the idea of using 'eye for eye' as a justification for rebellion against an 'evil' empire. 2)being struck on the cheek was a common discipline action of Roman soldiers, Jesus says don't strike back but submit to further discipline as the law requires 3) Roman soldiers could compel a non-citizen to carry their stuff for a mile. Jesus says to not only for that but volunteer for a second mile 4) a Roman soldier could demand stuff from people Jesus is saying give them what they want and then some, etc., etc. In the end what Jesus is doing is correcting the bad interpretations of his time that allowed for both rebellion and vengeance in the name of God, but he never attacks the idea of eye for eye being used as a standard of justice.

2. The whole story for this can be found in Matthew 19 where Jesus is asked if it was lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason. Jesus says 'No', giving only sexual unfaithfulness as a grounds for divorce pointing them to the story of man and woman being one flesh. The follow up is where things get interesting where they ask him why Moses then allowed for divorce with simply a certificate. Jesus replies that Moses allowed for divorce because of the hardness of the hearts of people. Which leads to a question: Was the certificate of divorce in the Law given by Moses inspired or just Moses doing something on his own? A similar question comes in 1st and 2nd Corinthians when Paul says he has no command of God on a subject but he speaks by permission. Are these permissions and allowances the Word of God and if not then is it not possible that other parts of Scripture are also not part of THE Word of God but are just nice stuff or fluff.

The thing I think needs to be considered is the nature of God as he reveals himself to people over time. The thing I propose as an open theist is that while God in his essential nature does not change (His character) his experiences with humans do change and require a modification of principles or rules as humanity changes on relationship to God. God may not change but his experiences with us are ever changing. Adam and Eve are one flesh, but sin enters the world and men's heart become hard. knowing this God allows Moses to allow divorce. When Jesus arrives God is working to re-establish true salvation by providing a means to change hearts. There is still an allowance for sin in Jesus' words but now it is about strict infidelity, not any other thing like --'she burned my toast'. The progressiveness of God's revelation to man and the ever changing humanity means the standards change as time goes by.

It is this changing relationship aspect of the God and man equation that factors into a lot of things in Scripture. It does not answer all the seeming contradictions but it does address some of them.

The Second Reformation

Well, you have to hand it to Martin Luther, the guy had guts. In our modern language -- balls. What is needed now is a whole bunch of Christians with the same testicular fortitude. Why? Because there is a second reformation of thought needed in the church in the Western World again. There are several reasons I think this is needed:

1. Religious Experience Has Failed to Prove God to a Secular World: Now my former brethren the Pentecostal/Charismatic types are going to hate me for saying this but your experiences with God don't prove a blessed thing. The problem with religious experience is all religious people have them and that extends beyond Christianity. A Quote by a Christian lady on Facebook to my agnostic friend:"we don't need to prove anything to no one because everyday we wake up we can feel God in the wind, in the sunshine. We know clearly there is a God..." Hmmm. I wonder if a Hindu could say the same thing: "We don't need to prove anything to no one because everyday we wake up we can feel Karma in the wind, in the sunshine. We clearly know Karma exists..." See my point? A religious experience or feelings about spirituality only prove something to the one who has them; change the perspective or belief system and experience can be duplicated in other religions. As proof that a faith is ultimately true personal religious experience is for the most part useless. From my own experience in the Pentecostal movement, I have seen preachers fake an extraordinary amount of things and try to teach me how to do it as well. Psychological manipulation is very real in religious societies and so experiences in that regard are not proof of anything but gullibility or emotional need and susceptibility. One thing Christians need to remember is 1 Peter 3:15 -- 'and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you of the reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear." That means to anyone at anytime. It is not a waste of time to give a reasoned response to why you believe based on what they understand and believe, in fact I would say it is the command of the Lord.

2. Theological Hardness: On the flip side, reformed thought of the Calvinist variety has so dominated for so long it no longer, or perhaps never had, the flexibility to change in the face of new questions. The answers that convinced people of the truth of Christian faith in the last 300 years no longer work. Reformed theology ultimately just adds fuel to the fire of the problem of evil and in the end seems like an arrogant mind that refuses to budge in the face of Scriptural questions. Many, not just in the Reformed camp have got to the point that no new ideas will be accepted about any doctrine of theology. Meekness (see 1 Peter 3:15 above) is needed to realize that no person has God in a box or completely figured out and to not leave room for change in our thinking is just our pride talking.

3. The Increase of Knowledge. Hate to say it there is so much information and options out there it makes your head spin. I would even say there is a new group of religious folks out there that I can only label the "TryAnythings". The move from one faith to another to try it out and see if it fits. One thing this has caused is a despair that a thing called "TRUTH" even exists. This is all made possible because Christianity is no longer the only game in town and the other options are easily found. The Technology of Today makes any religion no matter what or where it is accessible. This has led to a smarter and more knowledgeable population who have seen a lot and while Christianity may claim uniqueness, they can see similarities and that is what they treat Christianity like any other faith.

How is such a reformation going to happen? I don't think a fat monk is going to come along and nail 95 thesis to the door again, I don't think that the second reformation will belong to any single person. It is about a change of spirit so large that is going to be one of those quiet revolutions that is in many ways already happening. The Emergent Church takes a lot of flak from some corners of Christianity, but at least they are listening to what unbelievers are saying and formulating a response. That is however only one response; there are more.

One thing that is also happening is that Christians are returning to their Bibles and reading them for themselves and formulating new beliefs based on their own reading about God, Salvation and Christ. I am going to say this -- it is about time! It may take the passing of an old guard of thinkers in favor of a new one to make these changes. This means an inflexible denominational systems are going to fail to attract new people as more and more people will want a church where they can be free to believe differently than their brothers and sisters in Christ and still be accepted as part of the family of God.

Technology may provide accessibility to other religions but it also means that information about Christianity is also accessible like never before including about the historical questions about the Scriptures and Jesus Christ. It is also leading to a phenomena I and others call --faith without borders where Christians don't inhabit certain countries anymore with dominate cultures; they are everywhere. Those that are embracing this no longer dominating but permeating the world are part of the reformation to come.

It is already happening and like a snow ball rolling down a hill it will grow and then change everything when it reaches full maturity. The only real thing that stands in its way is a Traditional Protestantism but that is dying. It is just a matter of time.

Five Reasons Why the Church is Failing

This post is in part a response to the more common reasons people leave Christianity and partially my own rantings.

1. The Church continues to fail to provide an adequate response to the Problem of Evil when someone has a personal crisis. In part this is because of some very bad doctrines and theological systems but mostly comes down to the fact that there is a very pat simplicity in our answers and an unwillingness to face the fact that maybe our ideas of God may be the problem. This is especially true when someone comes to us and says: "God huh, why did God kill my daughter?" Truth be told, the average pastor and his doctrine cannot answer this one, because the answer they have formulated is based on a certain concept of God they are stuck with. It is one that we have created that is comfortable to us, not what the Bible ultimately says about God or what God says even about himself.

2. Lack of deep thinking on the part of most Christians. The prevailing attitude in most churches, for some reason, is that if you think about your faith or use your brain to engage God, that it will destroy your faith. This is particularly prevalent in churches that are based on emotional experience for their core beliefs but all of them have it. The flip side is a cold intellectualism about faith where God is indeed a mean SOB. This creates a difficult environment for someone who wants both genuine answers by using their brain or common sense. The church unfortunately, seems to have forgotten the lesson of Galileo: "I find it hard to believe that the same God who has endowed us with reason and common sense, would require us to forgo the use of both." As long as reason is a perceived enemy of faith, the church will watch a more knowledgeable and secular youth and young adult population head to the door.

3. A Theological stuck denominational system. What I mean here is that many times people maintain doctrine or theology because of tradition. I have been continually amazed how many clergy and bible college and seminary professors are simply blind recordings of their denominations doctrinal system. New theological ideas are often met with same response as an atheist. There is actually only one root cause for this -- spiritual pride. We apparently think when we described God in theology and doctrine we got it right the first time. I remember when I first purposed open theism (a different way of looking at God's knowledge of the future) to a friend -- "Well that's wrong, because it denies the way we traditionally understand omniscience." Apparently we are so smart we got our understanding of God right the first time.

4. Hyper-fundamentalist Holiness. Simply put, we spend far to much time attacking people for their morals and 'incorrect' view of life and not enough time understanding the real meaning of grace and then putting some love and compassion into action. Between this and the fact that most standards of holiness in churches are too high for anyone to attain and you have to live a double life to fool everyone, it is no wonder people head for the door. We are becoming very good at proclaiming something publicly, but denying it in our lifestyle and yet keeping it covered up. What we are really creating is not holy saints but sneaky sinners.

5. Continued silence on why Christianity is superior to other religions and belief systems. There are two enemies here: 1) Ignorance because most people in Christianity simply don't know the foundation of their faith and 2) Misguided Tolerance -- 'lets just say there is no distinction between us and other religions'. Then why be a Christian, what is the imperative of Christian faith then?

My personal belief is that if these things are not ultimately corrected we will watch the church become nothing more than a footnote in history of the Western World.

Troubling Passages of Scripture -- Part 1 - Marriage and Rape

This post is a response to a friends comments on facebook. In particular the subject was about some passages that seem to show the God of the Old Testament as a mean, nasty S.O.B. In most cases, the bigger issue when looking at these kind of verses is that we judge the people in them by our standards and ethics based on our western culture. In short we paint someone, including God, as a mean because to our culture they are mean but to their culture what they are doing is perfectly normal.

This is particularly true in the cases involving rape and marriage.

Our Western culture and the Ancient Oriental Culture are very different and because of that it is often difficult to understand what is going on in some passages or at best we will misunderstand their meaning:

1. Marriage -- in our culture people choose who they marry, it is a mutually accepted event. In the Ancient Orient culture of the Bible -- marriages are arranged by parents and there is often very little choice in the matter. In that culture marriage meant obligation not romantic love.

2. Sex -- this also creates a difference in the understanding of the purpose of sexual intercourse. In our culture sex is about expression of love and romantic feelings, it can lead to children but when we have sex that is not the main reason we go at it so to speak. In the Oriental Culture, the opposite is very true -- it is about creating children and secondarily it was about enjoyment. Sex was about the fulfilment of a contract of marriage to them so that a man would have descendants and a woman was to provide the womb in which those descendants would be made.

3. Rape -- In both societies rape is something evil, but the consequences are very different. In our culture, the stigma of rape, while still bad for the woman (unfortunately), does not mean that another guy might not marry her and love her. Not so in the orient culture as such a woman is considered 'spoiled goods' and would have only two options for the rest of her life -- begging or prostitution.

4. The Role of Women -- in our society women are equals, heck they are sometimes superior to men as far as roles ands power. In the ancient culture this was not the case -- women we somewhere above cattle and they have very few options. There main things in the culture of the Old Testament that gave a woman value was 1) her ability to produce children and 2) who she was married to. Marriage was something a woman wanted to give her both so she would be respectable. Otherwise her options became very limited.

These things taken into consideration some of the things in the Bible are a little more clear.

Deuteronomy 22:28-29 -- seems kind of harsh to westerners that if a woman who is not engaged is raped she has to marry her attacker. But in that culture this is actually an action to protect the woman. In all other cases of rape the man is put to death because the woman is either engaged or married and thus she has someone who is obligated to take care of her. Not so with the unmarried woman who is not engaged. If the Law had the man killed, the woman would either become a beggar or a prostitute. The man is forced to marry her and thus that makes him obligated to provide for her. He also looses his right to divorce her which means he has to take care of her for the rest of his life. This also meant he would loose face and in this culture that means no other family would deal well with him. He would live with the shame of his actions forever and at the same time the woman is provided for. This is not a mean law but an act of compassion in this culture.

Judges 21 -- Now one thing we need to remember is that the Bible sometimes simply records events but makes no moral judgement and parts of the Bible have no actions by God recorded. Such is the case of Judges 21. The people have slaughtered the Benjamites to the point that the tribe if for all practical purposes - gone. The reason for this slaughter was actually a rape of a Levite's concubine in the previous chapter. When the whole tribe of Benjamin decides to protect the rapists (thus becoming gilty as well after the fact), the rest of Israel decides to go to war with them and destroy them. They succeed. Now at this point THEY are troubled that the tribe is gone but it never says God was troubled. What follows is, in my opinon, the actions of misguided people who feel they are doing God's work but are really just being idiots because they have made rash vows. This causes them to destroy a group of people, so the women could be used be the few remaining Benjamites as well as kidnapping some women from another town.

In this culture, though, the odd thing would have been this -- the women would have accepted it. To them, as long as a man was providing for her and giving her an opportunity to have children, most of them would have been content with this arrangement because neither marriage nor sex was about romantic love but obligation and procreation. Hard to believe to our Western ears but true.

Next: Part 2 - God Goes to War

Is the Bible Inspired and Infallible?

What follows is a typical quote about the Bible from a church denominational statement (in this case -- The Assemblies of God):
"The Scriptures, both the Old and New Testaments, are verbally inspired of God and are the revelation of God to man, the infallible, authoritative rule of faith and conduct"
There are many others like this one but in the end most of them have the following features:
1. The idea of verbal inspiration
2. The Bible is God's revelation to man
3. The Bible is infallible
4. The Bible is authoritative to the point that it defines what we should believe and and do.

Verbal inspiration means that the belief is that God just didn't just give the authors the ideas they used but the exact words to use -- word for word.

Infallibility means that the Bible contains NO errors. Some denominations add the condition -- 'in the original autographs'. This is done to accept the reality that as the Bible has been copied and translated over the years some things may have been changed, altered, etc. by humans either accidentally or on purpose. Textual Criticism (the branch of scholarship that deals with these changes and how they occur) states though as a whole the Bible is the most free of these things of all the documents of antiquity.

Now, I am going to make a statement that I think that this doctrinal statement has some errors in it. Not because I don't believe the Bible is inspired by God or the rule of faith and conduct for the Christian, but I feel the definitions of what it means to be infallible and inspired go beyond what the Bible even says about itself.

What Bible does say about itself is this:"All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be adequate,equipped for every good work." (2 Timothy 3:16-17 -- NASB). Now some translations prefer to bring out the idea of inspiration being "God breathed" which is good as the word in the Greek does have multiple levels of understanding.
Comparing these verses to the doctrinal statement above though there are some discrepancies.
1. The word 'verbal' does not appear in the Scripture itself, not here or anywhere else. The fact is the concept of HOW God inspired Scripture is a debatable point. When a individual or group says that the Bible is 'verbally' inspired they are making a theological statement not a Biblical one. More on this in a moment.
2. The Bible tells people it is trustworthy to lead them to God and can give them direction, etc. but it never makes claims at absolute infallibility. I think there is a reason for this which I will share in a moment.

What is telling to me is how God is conceived in inspiring the Scriptures.
1) In verbal inspiration, God is so fearful that the human writer might get it wrong he literally takes over the writers brain and hand a writes what he wants written. In short the human writer is nothing more than a automation that does not think or write for himself.
2) In a 'God breathed' scenario the image is different. The idea is that God breathes on something and thus animates and exalts its meaning and effect. The idea is the writer is facing a real practical situation and God breathes on that situation and thus animates (gives life) and exalts the final product to a different level. Picture the writer as a candle and God breathing on the flame to make it more intense and bright. This view has both God and the writer working together where the mind of God and the mind of the writer are in harmony but God does not dominate the writer but works with the writer to make their work together inspired.

The implications of this are staggering for the idea of the infallibility. That God may allow the idea He inspires to be taken by the writer and creatively used may mean that the discrepancies that people see in scripture may simply be that God allows interpretive freedom for the writer and that is why the differences and discrepancies. That the Bible is both a Divine and Human work, means that the same event can be looked at in different ways and be interpreted differently by the authors of Scripture themselves.

Probably the best and simplest way to illustrate what I am talking about it is to use the Gospel writers:
Matthew -- tax collector, eyewitness and one of the twelve. Writing to his Jewish brethren
Mark -- eyewitness to some events but not all, disciple of Christ but not one of the twelve, possible one of the seventy. It is believed that Peter was at his elbow as he wrote offering his views. Mark is writing to Gentiles. particularly Romans.
Luke -- Gentile believer, historian, doctor, not an eyewitness but someone who did interview eyewitnesses. Acting as a guy writing a documentary.
John -- One of the twelve and eyewitness, in addition he was one of the inner three disciples (Peter, James and John) giving him first hand experience with some of the events that others did not see. Tells other things the first three do not and offers up details they do not cover as he is writing some 30 years after the other three.

Lets take the the account of The Gerasene Demoniac (Matthew 8:28-34; Luke 8:26-37 and Mark 5:1-20). Picture each author as doing a movie about the life of Jesus.
Matthew's would look like saving Private Ryan -- through an eyewitness lens that is moving very quickly. He notes the main events and moves to the next one without pausing for detail or getting a look at the other parts of the picture. The Demoniac is a Gentile so has little appeal to the Jewish audience he is writing to, so the account is quick and accurate but the details of what happened to either man are unimportant to him-- there are two guys and Jesus casts out the demons into the swine and then leaves -- end of story.
Mark is different -- his is like an up close look at the human side of Jesus and so his details are more specific . Matthew writes like someone at a distance, but Mark like he is right there in the middle of the thing dealing directly with the situation. Peter may be chiming in with the details he remembers as well. The Demoniac is a Gentile and because Mark is writing to Roman Gentiles, he focuses on him for 20 verses as a central character to make his point for his message that Jesus cared about Gentiles. The second guy is missing, but it may be the simple fact that this guy stayed and the other ran off. Mark only really knows about this one, so he doesn't mention the second guy because there would be no point to doing so for his purposes.
Luke is doing a documentary film. Picture interviews after the fact and Luke basically saying --'this is what can be confirmed by all witnesses' like a narrator. No second guy here either, but what Luke is saying is the second guy just dropped out of sight and he simply can't confirm he existed and truth be told from the standpoint of making a point about the accuracy of Jesus' life, the second guy really is just a blip on the radar.

In both the case of Mark and Luke, the second guy may simply have been left out because from the standpoint of significance to the story of Christ he isn't that significant. They are simply editing their film so to speak and leaving him out because he isn't essential to what they are trying to do with their gospel. It does not speak of inaccuracy of anybodies account just that each were allowed by God to tell the story from their point of view with their objectives in mind and thus they are allowed to EDIT the story.

What does this mean for the doctrines of infallibility and inspiration. That we not only need to look at passages of Scripture from God's divine inspiration of the passages involved but that each author put something of themselves into the Scriptures as well. It means the Bible is both Divine and Human in a curious but wondrous mix of God's inspiration and human creativity.

Certain fundamentalist types will object to this (guys I call hyper-fundamentalists) because they feel if the Bible allows human creativity it could lead to error. My point is that if we don't allow for human creativity than God is of divided mind telling different accounts of the same story like he couldn't get it right the first time. By bringing humans in to the inspiration process, it changes what we mean by both inspiration and infallibility that such differences are not only allowed for but expected because each person -- including the Biblical writers -- is different.

The Book of Revelation -- Part 17 -- The Seventh Trumpet

The seventh trumpet ends in climactic fashion as it starts a vision of worship -- all of heaven worships the LORD. The twenty four elders, all the voices of heaven, etc., join in to praise the Lord.

One interesting thing is the mention of the ark in the temple surrounded by acts of power both great and terrible.

The seven trumpet simple ends this phase of the book and open the door to a very different vision.

Next: The Woman, the Dragon and the Man Child.