kevingdrendel

The Reconciliation of Science and Religion

October 15, 2015October 15, 2015 kevingdrendelLeave a comment

The reconciliation of science and religion may seem unlikely to some. Though the Renaissance period grew alongside the Reformation, and advancements in science during that time were largely pioneered by men of faith, science began to deviate from faith during the Enlightenment period. I suppose that the divergence of science and faith that began in the Enlightenment period is somewhat like the Protestant movement separating from the Catholic Church.

As one grew alongside the other, however, and both having roots in the same soil, it is inevitable that separation cannot be complete or total.

To the chagrin of modern materialists, the connection cannot and will not be severed.

Many atheists would of course embrace the idea that science can falsify religious claims. However, if this is the case, then religion may fall within the purview of science. The claim that religion and science may overlap is a claim that atheists have fought vigorously in the courts to reject. The reason for this is that if science can falsify religious claims, then it is also conceivable that it can give evidence for the truth of religious claims.

It is also maintained that science deals only with the physical world as its subject matter. While this is a methodological statement, many believe that science only deals with the physical world because that is all that exists. However, this is not a statement of science; instead, it is a philosophical statement that can neither be verified through the senses nor falsified through reason. Alvin Plantinga, J.P. Moreland, and several other philosophers of science have written extensively on this understanding of science. The problem with this materialistic criterion is that it fails its own test. That is, definitions are not physical, concepts are not physical, and meaning is not physical, and these things are what the materialist uses to define science. Therefore, if definitions, concepts, and meaning exist, then not everything that exists is physical.

Of course one could believe that non-physical reality exists, but claim that science merely deals with the physical attributes of the world. That is all well and good, but would merely suggest that religion and science do not talk to each other. Yet, as shown above, one could clearly use science to show certain religious beliefs to be false. And, as I also mentioned earlier, if one can used scientific fields to disprove religious claims, science may also be used to justify the beliefs of many religious claims.

From the blog post, Is Science the Enemy of Religion?, written by Shannon Holzer.

Open Apology to My Children and Wife

October 13, 2015October 13, 2015 kevingdrendelLeave a comment

Symmes Chapel in the Blue Ridge Mountains, SC by Dave Allen Photography

The wages of sin is death. We all know that. But, who has not sinned? I am painfully aware of my own sin, yet I continue to fall into sin, wretched man that I am.

I have prayed to God for His forgiveness, as all of my sin is ultimately sin against God, and I know that God forgives me. He placed all of the sin of mankind on the shoulders of His son and allowed Him to be crucified, sacrificed for – sacrificed for me. God shed his glory and became man to take on my sin and the sin of the world gladly to rescue us from ourselves

I do not deserve it, yet I know He freely offers me that forgiveness, and I dare not reject such a sacrifice.

At the same time, I am keenly aware that the sin I have committed, the sin that has affected me, does not affect me alone.

Continue reading “Open Apology to My Children and Wife” →

Valuable Consideration

October 11, 2015October 12, 2015 kevingdrendelLeave a comment

The Planned Parenthood videos have exposed the soft underbelly of the abortion industry. Some would say it is much ado about nothing, but methinks they doth protest too much.

The defenders and supporters have focused on the “lie” that Planned Parenthood profits from the sale of aborted fetal organs (“baby parts”). They do not call them human remains, though that is what they are. So much of the battle ground in this debate is over words, as if a rose by any other name is not a rose.

The defenders would like shift the focus on words and whether there was “profit” and “reasonable consideration”, never mind what we saw. A perfect example is found in the popular factcheck.org article, Unspinning the Planned Parenthood Video. The article goes to length to explain that Planned Parenthood does not “profit” for the sale of the fetal body parts. In the process, it directs our attention to the cold words in in the federal statutes:

The video itself highlights a portion of title 42 of the U.S. code, which reads: “It shall be unlawful for any person to knowingly acquire, receive, or otherwise transfer any human organ for valuable consideration for use in human transplantation if the transfer affects interstate commerce.” The law does include fetal tissue in its definitions. It says that the term “valuable consideration” doesn’t include “reasonable payments” for removal, transportation, preservation and other associated costs.

The statute referenced provides as follows:

(2) The term “valuable consideration” does not include the reasonable payments associated with the removal, transportation, implantation, processing, preservation, quality control, and storage of a human organ or the expenses of travel, housing, and lost wages incurred by the donor of a human organ in connection with the donation of the organ.

While the Pro-Life activists and politicians who are opposed to abortion have tried to claim that Planned Parenthood is illegally profiting from the sale of “baby parts”, and Planned Parenthood and their defenders have claimed those accusations are “lies”, the discussion entirely misses the point. I will come back that, but let us look at the profit issue.

“Valuable consideration” in general legal parlance means, simply, something of value, anything of value really. It means quid pro quo, an exchange of something for something, without quantifying the two somethings. In other words, “valuable consideration” does not depend on whether the exchange is proportionate or fair; it only matters that something of value is given and gotten.

The federal law that addresses the sale of human tissue, however, uses “valuable consideration” in a more unique and specific way. The definition excludes “reasonable payments” (essentially covering costs). We could argue whether the $30-$100 Planned Parenthood gets for the fetal organs it sells is reasonable or covers costs, but that would be an exercise in missing the forest for the trees.

Technically, Planned Parenthood does not make any profit, regardless of the consideration received for its services and sales. Planned Parenthood is organized as a nonprofit corporation. It does not have profits and never will. All of the funds it raises go back into the organization (including payment of the salaries of its employees and officers). There are no “profits” for a nonprofit corporation.

The shocking aspect of the Planned Parenthood videos is not the consideration they obtain for the brains, livers and other organs and parties of babies that are aborted in their clinics, but the callous, cold, clinical, even joking way they talk of dismembering, crushing and cutting into babies to “harvest” their parts.

We should not be distracted by mere verbiage. Watch the videos. Listen to the way the Planned Parenthood executives talk about what they are doing. If we are not alarmed at how callously and coldly they chit chat about what they are doing, we should also be alarmed at how much our consciences have been seared by ignoring and trivializing the killing of human life.

Living Under a Nuclear Cloud

October 11, 2015 kevingdrendelLeave a comment

canstockphoto3097815 — © Can Stock Photo Inc. / haak78

[B]y His word the present heavens[1] and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. 2 Peter 3:7

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works[2] will be burned up. 2 Peter 3:10

I had a poster in my room of a nuclear explosion with a classic mushroom cloud when I was a teenager. I am not sure why I had that poster, other than it was my reality. I lived in the days of the cold war. I was a teenager in the ‘70’s, and the possibility of a nuclear strike or nuclear holocaust was real to me.

Those days seem like long ago now. I had forgotten about that poster until reading this passage recently. It strikes me that the possibility of nuclear catastrophe is even more “real” now than ever before. The Soviet Union has splintered into disparate countries, and who knows where all the nuclear bombs have ended up. Many of those countries have unstable governments, with people who have cowboy mentalities and segments of radical Muslim populations. The exposure to capitalism and destabilization after the Soviet demise have produced black markets for many things that may include nuclear weapons

Those black market weapons may find ready buyers in the various radical Muslim groups like the Taliban, ISIS and others who would certainly not hesitate to use them on the West. The Middle East has been a hornet’s nest of for more than a generation, and the fighting seems to be escalating. Israel, with nuclear capability, is in the middle of that hornet’s nest. Add in North Korea and Iran which may have nuclear capability.

Yet, people no longer talk about nuclear annihilation like they did when I was young. I no longer think much about it.

I am reminded of the frog in the boiling pot. If the frog is tossed cold into the pot of boiling water, it will immediately be alarmed and leap to safety. But, if the frog is put into a pot of cold water that is slowly heated up to boiling temperature, it will not be alarmed; it will remain until it is boiled to death.

The threat of nuclear holocaust is not something we can escape like a frog in a pot of boiling water, but we have gotten used to it. At least, we have learned to ignore it.

The passage in 2 Peter 3 referenced above is a reminder that, not only is nuclear holocaust a possibility, the end of the earth as we know it is inevitable. Whether by nuclear holocaust, or a large asteroid, or global warming, or simply by long, steady degeneration, this world will not last forever.

We may not die in a nuclear holocaust, but we will surely die.

The dichotomous uses of the Greek word for heaven (or heavens) remind us that there is more to reality and existence than this physical world. The present heavens (and earth) that will pass away mean the universe that we live in and know. In verse 13 of the same chapter, Peter says “But, according to His promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth….” The reference to “heavens” in verse 13 is figurative, corresponding to something that is more than this physical space, time and matter existence that we know.

This is nothing new. Peter actually alludes to the prophet Isaiah who speaks of new heavens and a new earth. (Is. 65:17; 66:23) “Heavens” (plural) for both the Jew and the Greek meant possibilities that we cannot imagine, spiritual reality in which God dwells outside of this space, time continuum that we know. John also describes the new heavens and a new earth that he saw in his encounter with God described in Revelation 21.

We may be closer than ever to this new heavens and a new earth. When Peter spoke the following prophetic verse, he had no idea about the power of nuclear energy or the destructive possibility of nuclear holocaust:

The heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! 1 Peter 3:12

The “heavens” here is the literal, physical universe that we see. How could Peter have even imagined the sky, the planets and the stars burning and melting? We might not even imagine nuclear capability that could do that; Peter certainly could not imagine the nuclear capability that could ow destroy our earth.

The point of all this is not that we should live in fear of nuclear holocaust, like living under a nuclear cloud. But, we should not be unmindful of the fact that we are temporal, and this life we live is passing. What do with this life, however, has eternal significance. When that Day of Judgment comes, will the work we have done in this world survive? Or will it all burn off like impurities in the fire?

“The earth and its works” will be burned up. What, then are the works that will last? The word of God (Is. 40:8: Matt. 24:35; 1 Peter 1:25), and the work of God will last forever. The work of God, however, is not something we do. The work of God is the work God does, especially the work He does in us. We do the work of God when we believe the word of God (John 6:28-29) and obey (James 1:22-27). The work of God in us bears fruit in what we do in trust in Jesus and His word.

According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. (1 Cor. 3:10-15)

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[1] Ouranós – heaven (singular), and used as a plural (heavens) nearly as often. The OT backdrop for creation indicates the plural (“heavens”) refers to the sky, atmosphere, stars, planets, outer space, etc. (See also 2 Peter 3:10); whereas 2 Peter 3:13 conveys the typical meaning of ouranós (plural) in the NT – corresponding to the infinite levels of the Lord manifesting His presence (glory).

[2] Literally, the text reads: “the works in it”.

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Pay Attention to the Signs

October 7, 2015 kevingdrendelLeave a comment

[T]he appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away. 1 Cor. 7:29-31

We fit church into our busy weeks. We find time most days to pray for a few minutes and to do some reading of Scripture. On bad days, we might go the whole day praying only in passing as we hustle from one preoccupation to the next.

I do not know what all followers of Christ do in their every day lives, but the description above could be said about most days in my life; and, from speaking to many other people, I think it might also describe the lives of many (most?) other self-professed followers of Christ in these modern times more or less.

We live in a world that is constantly demanding our attention. The words Paul spoke to the Corinthians above seem out of place in our harried, modern society in which we fill most moments of our day with work or some form of entertainment, including the very phones that we all carry. But, if the world was passing away in Paul’s day when he wrote to the Corinthians, how much more is it passing today?! How much closer to the end are we?

Recorded history goes back thousands of years. We celebrate the monuments to that history, from the Egyptian pyramids, to the gigantic heads on Easter Island to modern skyscrapers. We live with the illusion that humanity and life as we have known it will go on forever. We know that it will not, and it can not, but we live our everyday lives as if we have all the time in the world (except to meet our work deadlines, put away retirement money and plan for the next car purchase, vacation or college for our children).

If Paul were preaching today, I wonder what he would say? Would it be any different?

Surely a man goes about as a shadow! Surely for nothing they are in turmoil; man heaps up wealth and does not know who will gather! Psalm 39:6

These words in Psalm 39 was penned hundreds of years before Paul was born. The words of the Psalmist were old when Paul said “the world is passing away! Paul would have been in similar relation to the words of the Psalmist when he spoke of the world passing away.

like a flower of the grass [the rich man] will pass away. James 1:10

James was citing Psalm 102 when he spoke of the fate of the rich man. These words were poignant to the followers of Christ that James addressed within a generation of Jesus walking the earth in person. Now, thousands of years later, have those words lost their poignancy?

[F]or ‘All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls….’ 1 Peter 1:24

All flesh, rich and poor alike, everyone who was ever born – in fact all humanity – all the people who have ever lived, are like the lower of the grass: here today, gone tomorrow. God keeps bringing me back and back again to the same theme.

My son and I visited a new church last weekend. Two new churches in fact. We promised some friends who are members of a “Harvest” Church about ten miles east of us that is forming a new congregation where I live that we would visit them. We asked what time church began, but I did not bother to ask where they meet because I thought I knew.

On Sunday morning we headed out to where I thought we were going. We got to the place where I knew we needed to turn, and there was a sign that said “Harvest Church to the right” with an arrow. Except, I thought we needed to go left, so I turned left.

We arrived a few minutes later at the Harvest Bible Chapel to a full parking lot, and we caught the last half of the sermon. Clearly, church started well before the time we were told. We also did not see our friends anywhere. I did not think about the sign I had ignored until after the sermon was over.

The sermon was about signs!

My son and I spoke immediately after the sermon was over and concluded that this was the wrong church. We should have turned left at the sign. So, we left and made it to the other church, Harvest Church, the one we were supposed to be visiting, the one that was left when I went right, and caught the second half of that sermon too.

I guess I was supposed to hear the sermon at the first Harvest about the signs of the “last days” out of Mark 13. I thought I knew where I was going, but I was wrong! Even when I saw the sign, I took the path I had already constructed in my head, ignoring the sign, and continued stubbornly forward to the wrong place.

Even I can understand the message God was showing me. Do not ignore the signs! Jesus said,

No one knows the day or the hour (Mark 13:32), but when the signs appear we should recognize that Christ is near, “right at the door!” (Mark 13:29)

The Old Testament Prophet, Isaiah, said,

Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look at the earth beneath; ofor the heavens vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment, and they who dwell in it will die in like manner; pbut my salvation will be forever, and my righteousness will never be dismayed. Isaiah 51:6

The signs are everywhere. We have not arrived to our ultimate destination. We are sojourners and travelers in this temporary sphere that travels through time and space that did not always exist.

“The world is passing away…” (1 Cor. 7:31), “but the word of the Lord remains forever.” (1 Peter 1:25 (citing Isaiah 40:6, 9)) “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” (Mark 13:31)

If this is true, and I believe with everything in me that it is, then this reality should affect every moment, every thought and everything that we do, but I confess to you that I often do not live as if this were reality. God is faithful, though, to continue to remind me. Even when I ignore the signs and follow my own path, God is there – even at the “wrong destination” – reminding me to follow the signs. What a gracious God we serve!

And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. 1 John 2:17

Why would we not want to serve a God like that! We look forward to the day of the Lord, and we should live like it. Peter tells us

the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. 1 Peter 3:10

The possibility of heavenly bodies burning up and dissolving is something that Peter probably had a hard time imagining. Today, with our knowledge of nuclear science, it is not that hard to imagine. Weapons of mass destruction are capable of wiping all of humanity out within hours. We even have novels and movies about the apocalyptic idea that, today, certainly is within the realm of possibility.

All of Scripture tells us that this is not just a possibility; it is the inevitable.

This world, this life is not all there is. The Christ-like figure holding the sign reading, “The end of the world is near”, is a cartoonist’s joke. It is the reality of this temporal life we live and a reminder that there is something else to come.

The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded…. 1 Peter 4:7

The world may or may not end tomorrow, or the next day, but it will end. Your life, my life, will end. Let us live the reality of that truth and devote ourselves all the more to God who loves us.

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