I once had a pastor who frequently emphasized the importance of doctrine. He was a great teacher who knew the scriptures. He could open people’s eyes to powerful spiritual concepts.
Before that time in my life, I thought doctrine primarily served as a tool for condemnation and division. People often grow legalistic and proud when they emphasize doctrine too much. Christians tend to criticize and look down on other believers when they disagree on doctrine. Sometimes they even ridicule other doctrines that they think are false, cutting them down with sarcasm. (Ridicule is haughty, by the way—something God hates, according to Proverbs 6:16-17.)
The truth is, doctrine is both important and dangerous because we’re all frequently wrong when we take a stand on disputable matters as I discussed in chapter 2. God wants us to eagerly and diligently search for truth, but we never get it quite right. We can grow tremendously in knowledge, wisdom and understanding, but we’re all far from perfect. We all believe things that are wrong, so we need to remain humble, avoiding harsh criticism of those we disagree with, never looking down on them or ridiculing them.
Evidentialism often puts me in an awkward position theologically. Some traditional doctrines conflict with overwhelming evidence. Others simply aren’t well supported by evidence. When I encounter dogmatic applications of these doctrines, I feel compelled to push back against the dogmatism. Without strong evidential support I can’t justify forceful approaches to doctrine. Key doctrines that are consistent with evidence should be foundational, but other points of theology should be treated lightly, with flexibility.
Literal or Figurative. I already discussed one area of theological departure from traditional doctrine. Scientific evidence overwhelmingly contradicts the theology holding that the first chapters of Genesis are literal science and history. There is a strong case that the author of Genesis intended the first 11 chapters to be understood as divine metaphor, not science or history. The stories seem to have a mythical, fanciful flare containing less detail with more figurative expression than the stories starting in Genesis 12. Many scholars recognize this shift in genre with assessments like the following.
“The creation accounts clearly have a theological, and not a scientific, interest. Since the creation accounts (and the rest of the primeval history [chapters 1-11]) use a high degree of figurative language and interact extensively with the Near Eastern literature, it is an error to read these chapters to discover how God created the universe.”[138]
There are many poetic segments of scripture that use figurative language implying that the earth never moves, rests on a foundation, has corners, etc. Many of these occur in the Psalms and Job. Attempts to understand and apply such passages literally to science and history can lead to error. Fortunately, these passages contain numerous theological messages that are clear whether you assume the passages are literal or figurative. It’s not difficult to find common theological ground to unify Christians on both sides of this debate.
Genesis 1 Creation. The first verse of the Bible proclaims one of the most important messages: God created the universe. The first chapter of Genesis proclaims creation “very good” when it was complete with humans.[139] The first chapter also expounds poetically on the fact that God created everything in the universe in a way that aligns with modern cosmology, adding to the evidence that the message came from the creator.[140] Finally, Genesis 1 reveals that God created humans male and female with authority and responsibility over all living things. Theologians can rationally draw many other ideas out of this chapter, but they are more disputable.[141]
Garden of Eden. The story of Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden creates more disagreement for me with fundamentalist and evangelical Christians than anything else. To justify God’s good and powerful nature, fundamentalists lean heavily on the idea that death and suffering began after “the fall” in the garden. They blame Adam and Eve’s sin for everything bad.
Evidentialism strongly clashes with this theology. Death and suffering are fundamental to life on this finite planet and were obviously part of life before humans existed. In the Philosophy chapter I explored a defense of God’s good, powerful nature that’s independent of this theology. I’d like to explore what the Garden of Eden story speaks to us theologically when understood as divine allegory consistent with evidence revealed by modern science. These points are all valid whether you think the passage is allegory or history.
Love, Not Selfishness. The most important theological point I see in the Garden of Eden story is the contrast between love and selfishness. For centuries this has been overshadowed by the focus on original sin and death.
The garden story illustrates God’s love in the way he cares for Adam and Eve, placing them in a garden where all their needs are met.[142] The idea that God loves us begins here and repeats over and over throughout the Bible.
Adam and Eve show love for their creator by doing what he asks them to do, another concept repeated throughout the Bible and emphasized by Jesus.[143] The serpent turns Eve and Adam from loving God by appealing to selfishness. He says if they eat the forbidden fruit “your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil”[144] convincing them that “the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom.”[145]
When Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, they were motivated by selfish desires, putting their own interests above God’s, and it backfired. Immediately they suffered shame,[146] then fear, [147] and eventually other negative consequences.[148] Selfish choices may give us temporary pleasure and satisfaction, but with negative consequences, and selfishness is never satisfied. Selfish pursuits trap us in an unending cycle of desire that tends to spiral out of control.
I believe God gave us this simple story to teach us the most important truth of all truths. Selfishness (putting our own interests first) leads to destruction, pain and suffering, even death. Altruistic love (choosing to put God first and the interests of others above or at least equal to our own) produces the greatest good.
The preeminence of altruistic love over selfishness repeats throughout the Bible. Several passages make it particularly clear:
“Jesus replied: ‘’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.’”[149]
“… the greatest of these is love.”[150]
“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.”[151]
The Garden of Eden story contains the most important moral of all: forsake selfishness and choose love.
Partnership. Selfish disobedience is the greatest tragedy of the Garden of Eden story, but it’s not the first thing that wasn’t good in God’s creation. Before that, God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.”[152] God created us to be with people.
Marriages, families, friendships, social groups, work teams, … a great variety of partnerships and communities are good. They provide opportunities for love, the greatest good, along with many other positive values. People working together can be more productive and stronger.
“Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”[153]
People working together in harmony with other people can do many good things, but the declaration by God seems to indicate inherent value in community. I believe that is another message of the Garden of Eden story. It’s good to simply be in harmony and peace with other people. “How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!”[154]
Creation Care. The Garden of Eden story repeats the responsibility we have to care for creation as implied in the first chapter of Genesis. “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.”[155] God never intended to give us free reign to use and abuse his creation selfishly. We are to “work it and take care of it.”
Marriage. Genesis 2:21-25 can tell us a lot about marriage. This passage illustrates the importance of husband-and-wife relationships. It speaks to the intimacy, honesty, and trust intended in marriage, with no shame. There are many obvious, uncontroversial messages in this passage. We can also draw more subtle, disputable conclusions from the passage. Ambiguity is one of the frustrations of allegory, but it’s also one of the beautiful things about it. We have some flexibility of interpretation and application.
Some people believe the illustration of God making Eve from Adam’s rib speaks of Adam’s role as protector in the relationship. That’s a subjective interpretation. It seems sensible, but it’s disputable. Couples who find this concept helpful in their marriage can embrace that interpretation. Couples who find it offensive or unhelpful can overlook it. They may be guilty of error, but it’s not heresy.
[138] Longman, page 11.
[139] Holy Bible, NIV, Genesis 1:31.
[140] Holy Bible, NIV, Genesis 1:2-27.
[141] Holy Bible, NIV, Genesis 1:27-30.
[142] Holy Bible, NIV, Genesis 2:8-25.
[143] Holy Bible, NIV, John 14:23.
[144] Holy Bible, NIV, Genesis 3:5.
[145] Holy Bible, NIV, Genesis 3:6.
[146] Holy Bible, NIV, Genesis 3:7.
[147] Holy Bible, NIV, Genesis 3:8.
[148] Holy Bible, NIV, Genesis 3:11-19.
[149] Holy Bible, NIV, Matthew 22:37-40.
[150] Holy Bible, NIV, 1 Corinthians 13:13.
[151] Holy Bible, NIV, Philippians 2:3-4.
[152] Holy Bible, NIV, Genesis 2:18.
[153] Holy Bible, NIV, Ecclesiastes 4:9-12.
[154] Holy Bible, NIV, Psalm 133:1.
[155] Holy Bible, NIV, Genesis 2:15.
Ambiguity. The Garden of Eden story, like all the stories in the first 11 chapters of Genesis, contains rich, figurative language that can help us achieve goodness in life. The same can be said for other poetic writings such as Job and many prophecies. Historical texts contain figurative and literal content that we can apply to life. Sometimes the lessons are clear, but often they can be interpreted and applied in many ways. That ambiguity causes frustration, confusion, conflict, and division when we develop dogmatic doctrines from ambiguous passages. The Apostle Paul admonishes us to avoid “quarreling over disputable matters.”[156]
When we encounter ambiguity, we need to embrace uncertainty. When people interpret or apply a passage of scripture differently, we can still work together in love. We can find areas of agreement to focus on while accommodating differences respectfully.
Christianity today faces wide disagreement over whether scriptures like Job and the first 11 chapters of Genesis should be understood literally or figuratively. How we look at these can significantly affect our theology, but it doesn’t need to divide us into opposing camps. We can unite with a focus on core doctrines where we find agreement.
Genealogy of Jesus. A sensitive area of disagreement over the allegorical nature of Genesis 1-11 comes from New Testament connections to these chapters. Luke gives us a genealogy for Jesus that goes all the way back to Adam. If Genesis 1-11 are allegory, then Luke’s genealogy of Jesus might include some fictitious characters.
We can address this awkward point in several ways. I’m inclined to think the Old Testament authors took artistic license with the stories and gave then continuity by connecting them together with an invented genealogy. Perhaps they didn’t realize that over time people would mistake their literary innovation for historical truth.
Of course, this is pure speculation because we have no evidence to determine the truth. All we can do is guess what most likely explains the evidence we have. A few hundred years ago it seemed reasonable to accept the genealogy as literal history, but we now have overwhelming evidence pointing to allegory for the earliest generations. Evidentialism compels us to favor an understanding that some early characters in Luke’s genealogy may be fictitious.
What Did Jesus Know? Another objection people often raise is that Jesus referred to passages in these chapters without indicating that they were allegory. It’s possible that Jesus knew the stories were allegory. When speaking metaphorically, as Jesus often did, people speak as if the metaphor is literally true. We can’t tell by analyzing the words.
Is it possible that Jesus erroneously believed these stories were history? This question seems inconceivable to Christians who see Jesus as the perfect man-God who would never make a mistake. Scripture presents a more human Jesus than this traditional Jesus.
We know that Jesus was not all-knowing. He states plainly that he doesn’t know when the end of the world will come.[157] Luke indicates that Jesus learned as he grew up.[158] Paul indicates that Jesus took on a limited form of divinity in his human body.[159]
There’s no justification to think Jesus entered the world knowing all languages, calculus, everything people around him were thinking, etc. We generally assume that Jesus, being fully human, had to learn how to crawl, walk, talk, etc. Surely, he tripped and fell occasionally. There’s no reason to assume he became omniscient before his death. He would have continued to learn throughout his life and he died with limited knowledge. Clearly, the Holy Spirit revealed things to Jesus, enabling him to know things supernaturally, but how much did the Holy Spirit reveal?
The Holy Spirit may have revealed names to Jesus before he met certain people, but I think Jesus learned most names the natural way. Did he ever forget someone’s name or call someone by the wrong name? I think so. Scripture indicates that Jesus was without sin, but no where does it say he never made an honest mistake. As he learned to speak, he certainly made pronunciation and grammar mistakes like all children do. When he memorized scriptures, did he ever forget lines and say the wrong words? I think so. Jesus was fully human.
Did the Holy Spirit reveal to Jesus that the world was over 4 billion years old? We can only speculate on such matters. Certainly, the Holy Spirit could have revealed such things, but not necessarily. It’s possible that when Jesus spoke of the world-wide flood, he assumed it was literal. It’s also possible he knew it was allegorical. There’s no way for us to know exactly what Jesus knew in his human body.
This reasoning shocks the sensibilities of many Christians with a traditional view of the divinity of Jesus Christ. Evidence and biblical analysis fail to support the theology that Jesus was all-knowing and could never make a mistake. Some people will dogmatically condemn such considerations as heresy, but intellectual integrity compels me to consider them objectively.
What Did the Authors Know? If the Holy Spirit guided biblical authors to write about things they couldn’t know naturally, how much did the authors consciously know? Did the Holy Spirit allow authors to mistakenly write things that weren’t true?
I already addressed this question a little in the variations section of Chapter 4. Differences between gospels (like the account of Jairus asking Jesus to save his dead or dying daughter) indicate that quotes may not be exact. The authors quoted people differently. These variations weigh against the presumption that the Holy Spirit enabled authors to remember the exact words spoken. Consistency between accounts strongly supports that they are true and reliable, even if quotes aren’t word-for-word exact.
A critic could argue that the author’s recorded information is not true because the quotes aren’t the exact words, but this would be an abuse of the text. Parables aren’t true either, but they illustrate true concepts. The authors did an excellent job of recording historical events even if the quotes aren’t exact. Variations occur in irrelevant details, not in meaningful content. Examining NT variations leads me to believe the authors knew what happened, but they didn’t know all the trivial details of events they wrote about.
When reading supernaturally fulfilled prophecies in the Bible, I sometimes wonder if the prophets had any idea how their words would be fulfilled. Let’s look at a passage in Daniel as an example. Let’s assume for the moment that the book of Daniel was actually written by the Hebrew exile named Daniel as described in the book. Daniel wrote:
“Know and understand this: From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty-two ‘sevens.’ It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble. After the sixty-two ‘sevens,’ the Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed,”[160]
Did Daniel know that “the Anointed One” would be a poor, controversial rabbi or did he expect a political/military ruler like most people assumed? Did he know the “anointed one” would rise from death? Did he know he would save people from their sin instead of delivering Israel from their enemies? How much did he know about the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple? There’s no hint that Daniel knew these details of the fulfillment of his prophecy.
By all appearances, this, and other ancient prophetic passages were written with almost no knowledge of their fulfillment. The prophets seem to have been given prophetic words without much understanding of how those words would be fulfilled.
In some cases, it appears the author wasn’t even aware his words were prophetic. For example, Psalm 22, attributed to King David, appears to be a highly metaphorical song lamenting the struggles of life, praising the power and goodness of God, and imploring for God’s rescue. There’s nothing to hint that David believed his song applied to a future messiah and savior. Yet, the psalm connects to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ with strikingly prophetic power. In most prophetic passages it seems the authors know little to nothing about the future events their words hint of.
Some Bible passages clearly reveal scientific misconceptions from the ancient authors. I’m aware of 23 passages in the Bible referring to foundations of the earth. The authors saw the earth as resting on some solid foundation. They also spoke of the places where the sun rises and sets. Clearly, they didn’t know the earth was a spinning sphere, orbiting the sun, in a rotating galaxy, expanding through space. In chapter 3 I discussed how these concepts of modern cosmology were once considered heresy because the universally accepted theology of the time saw the references to the earth’s foundations as the literal word of God. The written word of God took president over scientific evidence.
We now accept these earth-foundation passages as metaphorical. God knew all the time that the earth didn’t rest on a literal foundation. The earth is held securely in it’s orbit by the laws of physics created by God. That’s the firm foundation of the earth metaphorically expressed in scripture.
Now the question I ask is how much did the authors know? Did the Holy Spirit reveal the true nature of cosmology to the authors so they wouldn’t write something in the scriptures from ignorance? Did they know that their words were metaphor? Not likely. The authors of the Bible used common language of their day and they most certainly believed some metaphorical words were literally true.
So, the authors mistakenly recorded scientific error in the Bible. This should not alarm or upset anyone. God used people to record truths using the language and understanding of their time. The message from God isn’t that the earth rests on material foundations as people thought for many centuries. Most of these passages are extoling the greatness of the creator. That’s the truth being conveyed. These passages provide reliable theology, not history or science, regardless whether or not the authors thought they were literal.
We should not be alarmed when content in the Bible contradicts modern scientific understandings. We simply need to ask what theological truth the author was trying to convey within the ancient context of their limited scientific knowledge. As I discuss in earlier chapters, the evidence supporting divine intervention for the Bible is strong, but God communicated his timeless theological messages through ancient people with limited and sometimes mistaken understandings of the physical universe.
We can trust that the Holy Spirit guided biblical authors to reliably convey theological truth even when passages contradict modern science. The authors didn’t know things that we know today, such as the earth’s orbit around the sun and the age of the universe. We don’t need to dismiss modern scientific evidence to trust the Bible’s theological messages. We can recognize scientific error in the Bible without rejecting the theological message.
[156] Holy Bible, NIV, Romans 14:1.
[157] Holy Bible, NIV, Matthew 24:36.
[158] Holy Bible, NIV, Luke 2:52.
[159] Holy Bible, NIV, Philippians 2:6-8.
[160] Holy Bible, NIV, Daniel 9:25-26.
Evidential Validation. Many biblical doctrines find wide acceptance. The value of altruistic love over selfishness appears in many religions and philosophies. I find it broadly accepted by atheists. I can see the value of love and the destruction of selfishness all around me. Experience overwhelming backs up this theology. These evidences validate the theology.
Validated biblical teachings are less controversial. They have parallels in other belief systems, and people know from experience that they are likely true. I’ve never encountered someone faulting the Bible for the commands against murder, stealing, lying, adultery, or envy. Even without religion, it would be easy to build an evidential case for these doctrines based on the destructive impacts they have on human societies.
Evidential validation can help us decide which doctrines to hold on to dogmatically, and which ones to hold lightly, as uncertain, disputable matters.
Early in my life I began this process of evidential validation that I’ve refined over my 6 decades. When faced with a claim that the Bible says we should do or believe something, I analyze the scriptural text to see how clearly the claim is communicated, considering the possibilities of figurative language, cultural norms, translation uncertainty, etc. Then I weigh the claim against evidence from my experiences, science, history, philosophy, etc. The more confirmation I find from various sources, the more I trust the theological claim. But if the claim comes from a presumptive interpretation of the Bible and contradicts other evidence, I reject it.
Hair Length and Head Coverings. We find a good example of such contradiction in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16. In this passage Paul proclaims dishonor for any man who prays wearing a head covering and dishonor for any woman who prays without her head covered. Paul carries on for some time expounding on offenses related to men covering their heads or growing long hair and women cutting their hair short or failing to cover it in public.
At first read, this intuitively seems like a cultural norm that doesn’t apply to all situations. It doesn’t appear anywhere else in the Bible. We can find forms of it in some other religions and cultures, but not most. Philosophically, it’s difficult to support enforcement of this practice, and I’m not aware of any empirical evidence supporting it as beneficial to human societies. From my experience, there’s nothing inherently dishonorable about hair length or head coverings for either men or women. Enforcing this theology in western culture today is offensive. Evidential analysis strongly indicates that this passage springs from an ancient cultural norm and should not be adopted as a fundamental doctrine of Christianity.
Gender-based Restrictions in Church. There are passages in the Bible indicating that women should not speak or teach men during church gatherings.[161] Evidential analysis for this teaching follows the same trend as hair length and head coverings: little or no support from philosophy or empirical evidence, numerous variations with cultural context, etc. I see no justification for prohibiting women from speaking, teaching, or preaching in modern, western churches.
Sexuality. Sexual orientation and gender identity have become huge flashpoints for theology today. Scripture clearly indicates that God made humans with binary male/female genders and the intention that we abstain from sexual intimacy except in the context of a life-long marriage commitment between a man and woman.[162] Evidential validation of this doctrine comes with mixed implications.
This traditional theology conforms consistently with the teachings of the vast majority of religions and cultures throughout history. Cultures that deviate from these norms frequently fall into disorder. It would seem that rigid norms related to sexuality have some sort of societal benefit. Perhaps strict sexual norms help humans control sexual desires that lead to destructive behaviors such as aggressive competition for mates, sexual manipulation, rape, sexual abuse, and human trafficking. Perhaps people with forbidden sexual desires work so hard to overcome their desires and associated shame that they serve society as altruistic servants of the greater good. We don’t fully understand what roles gender and sexuality norms play in the complexities of human society.
One area of particular risk relates to childhood development. As children learn and develop their sense of identity, they rely heavily on messages they receive from parents and society. Gender roles form a foundational support to their psychological health as they develop. Having clear expectations makes this foundation strong for most children, but can bring stress for children who feel drawn to behavior that doesn’t fit the norm. Usually, they maintain resilience through temporary phases, such as a girl going through a “tom-boy” phase, but sometimes children grow increasingly stressed when they feel like they don’t fit their gender expectations.
Completely removing gender expectations would likely prove disastrous for any society. Children need these expectations to give them an anchor through the storms of childhood development, especially when puberty hits. When children don’t fit these expectations, we need to provide another form of psychological anchor to help them develop. We absolutely cannot subject them to abuse, shame, exclusion, or stigma for a nature they did not choose and have little control over. Nor should we just accept any behavior they feel inclined to choose. They need help growing in self-control to the point they can choose their behaviors with confidence and peace.
Modern psychology has revealed startling negative mental health outcomes for individuals shamed for homosexuality, gender dysphoria and other gender/sexuality traits that deviate from social norms. The evidential case for reducing the shame and stigma of these conditions is strong. As an evidentialist, I can’t support theology that stigmatizes and shames people for sexuality and gender identity conditions they didn’t choose. Neither can I just dismiss evidence supporting traditional morality and norms related to sex and gender. It’s a difficult and changing field of human sociology. I hope we can find a path forward that preserves biblical morality and the binary genders God created without condemning, stigmatizing, or shaming people who find themselves outside the norms.
Abortion. Many Christians take a dogmatic stand against abortion using scriptures like Psalm 139:13 that don’t directly condemn abortion. If this was all we had to go on, it seems to favor the position of sacred human life beginning at conception, but that position relies on inference. It’s disputable. Fortunately, we have other evidence to consider.
We know from medical science that many fertilized human eggs never implant. I’ve seen estimates that 60-70% of all human embryos die naturally. Most don’t make it to birth. If a fertilized human egg is sacred to God, why would he create us in a way that most human life ends without making it to birth. Medical evidence pushes against the idea of sacred life beginning at conception.
Scientific evidence can reveal when our hearts begin to beat, when brain activity begins, and many more details about prenatal development. From the perspective of modern science, we can better explore when the human soul comes into existence.
We can define the human soul as that part of our minds that perceives the world and makes decisions, that experience emotions, reasons, and is self-aware. Our brains are the seat of consciousness where the human soul appears to begin. Until advanced brain activity begins, there’s no soul. With that definition, a human embryo doesn’t have a soul until brain activity becomes advanced. We can’t pinpoint the exact time. It probably happens well before birth, but not in the first 2 months of pregnancy, quite possibly not until well into the second trimester.
From an evidential perspective, it seems to me that abortion within the first two months does not terminate a human soul. Even well into the second trimester it seems unlikely that brain activity has matured enough to support a human soul, but we’re getting closer to the realm of uncertainty. There is a time late in pregnancy that evidence of a human soul becomes strong enough that I consider terminating pregnancy to be murder, unless the mother’s life is in danger. In the first 2 or 3 months, evidence that a soul does not exist is strong enough that I favor protecting a woman’s right to choose abortion for any reason during this time.
There’s a range of uncertainty from 3 – 6 months. If people in a state or nation want to err on the side of safety and protect human fetuses beginning somewhere in the second trimester, I think that’s legitimate. If they want to leave the choice to the mother during that highly uncertain phase, I think that’s legitimate also.
Since the Bible isn’t clear on this topic, it makes sense to rely on evidence and reason to decide. We don’t have to use the Bible alone to drive our theology. I agree with Augustine and Galileo that, “God is the common and always truthful author of both the book of special revelation (the Bible) and the book of nature (general revelation).”[163] As the Apostle Paul wrote, the universe is God’s creation, and we can learn of his nature from what he created.[164]
These are just a few examples of evidential validation. In any theological dispute that threatens to divide the church, I believe evidential validation can help us find consensus when we disagree on the message of scripture.
[161] Holy Bible, NIV, 1 Corinthians 14:34-35; 1 Timothy 2:11-12.
[162] Holy Bible, NIV, Genesis 1:27; 2:24; 5:2; Exodus 20:14; Romans 1:26-27; 1 Timothy 1:9-10.
[163] Ferngren. (2017), page 102.
[164] Holy Bible, NIV, Romans 1:20.
No Original Sin. I dismissed the theology of original sin in my evidential analysis of the Garden of Eden story. Traditional Christians struggle to let go of this doctrine because it’s been a integral part of our belief system for so long. It may feel like an anchor of stability in rough seas, but it’s more like a ball and chain weighing the church down.
The doctrine of original sin makes God appear unjust, punishing all humanity with outrageous suffering because Adam and Eve ate a tempting fruit. Presuppositional apologists who defend this tradition without evidence offer rationalizations that rival conspiracy theories to reconcile the concept of original sin with a just, loving creator-God. I’ve read some that qualify as logically possible, but none seem likely. None are evidentially plausible because they fail to explain the overwhelming body of evidence that death, pain and suffering were present in life long before humans existed.
Sometimes Christians propose cringe-worthy concepts explaining original sin, such as inheriting a sin nature from Adam and Eve that entered their DNA when they ate the fruit. (Inheritable DNA is not altered by what we eat, nor by our behavior. The sin-DNA proposal would require a miraculous act of God, which makes God appear unjust and evil.)
In my Philosophy chapter I argued that altruistic love can’t exist without suffering. The book of Job supports this idea theologically. Satan makes the main point of the book by challenging God. He said that the love and obedience of Job were meaningless because God gave him only good things. Job proved his obedient love to have true value by remaining faithful through great hardship.
___________________________________
The book of Job isn’t just a story about some ancient test of faith; it tells us that love is only true if it can endure hardship. Without suffering, our good choices are meaningless.
___________________________________
The doctrine of original sin contradicts this concept by claiming God’s original, perfect creation was free of death and suffering until Eve and Adam disobeyed God. In truth, it’s only by faithfulness through suffering that love is proven and perfected. God even demonstrated his love through suffering and death (Romans 5:8). If Jesus Christ achieved “perfection” and “learned obedience from what he suffered,”[165] it makes sense that we all must suffer to grow in obedient love.
The traditional doctrine of original sin puts the church in a position of pushing untenable philosophy and contradicting biblical principles of suffering, in addition to contradicting overwhelming scientific evidence. I believe this philosophically offensive doctrine and the associated conflict with science has driven millions of young Christians away from the faith they were raised in. It’s not because they are turning from truth and goodness to a life of depravity. They are simply abandoning a false tradition, something once widely believed that has been shown erroneous.
Releasing the doctrine of original sin frees the church from the huge burden of justifying an offensive, implausible theology. We won’t drive so many teens and young adults away when they suddenly realize that they’re carrying an unjust burden of ancient sin from a story that couldn’t have happened the way it was taught to them in Sunday School. Eliminating the sensation that we were victims of gaslighting throughout our childhood will reduce the occurrence of former Christians turning hostile to the faith.
I don’t like to speak in such forceful tones, but I suspect the doctrine of original sin has caused enormous damage to the gospel and the kingdom of God.
The Spirit Realm (Heaven and Hell). Theologies of judgement and hell also drive multitudes away from Christianity and turn former Christians against the faith with hostility. This is no reason to dismiss the theology though, unless the evidence supporting it is weak.
Let’s consider biblical and philosophical evidence first. Philosophically, traditional doctrines of hell are difficult to justify. People generally won’t believe eternal torment is a just punishment for sins committed in this life unless they’ve been taught to justify that believe with a presuppositional rationalization. I’ve heard many rationalizations, but none have satisfied my skeptical nature even when I try to look at them favorably.
Since I believe God inspired and guided the writing of scripture, I must face this dilemma seriously. What I see as I read through the Bible about heaven, hell, and the spirit realm is a wide range of figurative language. The best I can conclude is that there are severe consequences in the afterlife for selfish, sinful choices we make in this life. Through repentance we can escape the negative consequences and enjoy positive rewards for good works done in sincere love. The parable of sheep and goats provides what I see as the most clear and forceful teaching of this concept.[166] Jesus spoke in a double figurative format with this teaching, using a parable which is metaphorical by nature, and then the metaphor of sheep and goats within the parable. Metaphors come with some ambiguity by nature, but the message that selfishness in this life leads to severe consequences in the afterlife while altruism in this life leads to good things in the afterlife is quite clear in this parable. (This doesn’t mean that good works earn eternal rewards. The good works are a result of contrite repentance.)
Injustice and Depravity. The belief that everyone sins and needs salvation from the consequences of sin underscores all that Christians believe. When combined with teachings on judgment and hell, this doctrine creates some difficulty for apologists. We are frequently challenged with questions like, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” “What happens to people who never hear the Gospel?” and “How can eternal punishment be just, even for terribly evil people, let alone altruistic people who don’t believe in Jesus Christ?”
Traditional responses to these questions include theological positions that:
No one is really good. We all sin.
We are all totally depraved, having nothing good in us.
Even one sinful thought makes us a sinner, separated from God because of his perfect holiness.
Eternal punishment is the only option for human rebellion against our holy, perfect creator.
Salvation is merciful for those who receive it, but those who don’t, get what their rebellion justifies.
All of these these rationalizations have major difficulties. They are all based completely on philosophy and a narrow interpretation of scripture. They all fly against what any reasonable person would intuitively consider just, and there’s no evidence that they are true and good. Their sole justification is to rationalize what’s written in the Bible. I believe the Bible holds the highest authority for Christianity, but it’s not the only source of truth. The Bible itself points to other sources.
“Since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.”[167] Paul’s words tell us that we can find truth about God from his creation, even with no knowledge of scripture.
“When Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.”[168] Here Paul reveals that we can understand what’s good and true through our God-given consciences and thinking abilities, again with no knowledge of scripture. The scriptures didn’t exist when the first 9 people commended for their faith in Hebrews 11 lived.
Scripture is authoritative and “useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,”[169] but when our interpretation of the message of scripture defies what empirical evidence from creation indicates, we should carefully question our understanding of scripture. Likewise, when the conscience-driven moral intuition of nearly everyone alive contradicts our understanding of scripture, we should question our understanding of scripture very critically.
So, we know from scripture and experience that no one is truly, perfectly good. People generally accept that. The difficulty is in relative goodness. The concept of total depravity, that there is absolutely nothing good in anyone, is a tough sell. Most of us are painfully aware of our sinful natures, but nearly everyone sees good in themselves too. We all know people with admirable goodness. Sinfulness and goodness show to some degree among Christians, atheists, and members of every faith on the planet. So, when someone asks why bad things happen to good people, it’s okay to point out that no one is completely good, but we should acknowledge that people are capable of doing good and some people clearly do more good than others.
I have heard arguments for total depravity, but I find every argument unconvincing. The arguments stand on philosophical reasoning, rely on selective scriptures while dismissing others, and ignore or dismiss real-world evidence of altruism. Paul lists numerous scripture quotes highlighting human depravity in Romans 3. In context, these clearly express how humans can’t keep the whole law of God no matter how hard we try. We all “fall short.” This does not mean there is nothing good in us. Such claims contradict many other scripture passages praising people for their goodness. We’re not perfect, but we can achieve some relative goodness by the grace of God and the power of his Holy Spirit. The chronology of kings in the OT distinguishes between good and bad kings who either strove to live according to God’s commands or didn’t. Jesus said no one is good except God the Father, but he also said that God the Father, “causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good.”[170]
It’s okay to use the adjective “good” for people who fall short of perfection but are relatively good. Jesus acknowledged that people are capable of doing good. Paul wrote that pagan gentiles know what’s good and do good sometimes.
I agree that no one is completely good, but people can be relatively good. Good enough to earn salvation? No. Even our best efforts fall short, but we don’t need to be dogmatic about using the adjective good. Total depravity theologians take the philosophy of the sinful condition of humanity to an extreme that I don’t subscribe to because it contradicts evidence, intuition, and scripture. They use philosophical rationalizations to justify their extreme doctrine, but I find those rationalizations highly presumptuous.
Now this opens the door to challenges. If some people are relatively good and do good things, how can it be fair that the Bible condemns so many of these people to eternal punishment just because they never heard the Gospel?
The common answer from traditional fundamentalists is akin to saying “that’s tough luck.” They believe everyone deserves eternal punishment for even the smallest sin. People fortunate enough to hear the Gospel have the opportunity to receive God’s mercy, but those who don’t are getting what they deserve. This answer is logical, but it defies our God-given conscience. Everyone alive who hasn’t been influenced by fundamentalist teachings will say, “That’s not just. A good and loving God wouldn’t do that.”
This is one reason I’ve carefully examined the scriptures with a critical eye like the Bereans of Acts 17:11. There are verses that seem to support this doctrine of condemnation for anyone who doesn’t hear the Gospel, but logically they are as exclusive as they seem. When Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father except through me”[171] he could be including people who never heard of him, but he extends the gift of eternal life to them because he chooses to. I believe this is the case for all the OT believers who never heard the Gospel. They can be saved by the blood of Jesus even though they never heard the Gospel.
The key to salvation, in my opinion, is repentance from selfishness. There are passages in the Bible that seem to indicate we’re saved by works, such as the sheep and goats parable I referred to earlier. Here it seems people are judged for how they treated the hungry, thirsty, strangers, sick, etc., basically our concern for the needy. The actions described are all characteristic of people who’ve repented from selfishness. The “goats” who face judgement are condemned for selfish failures.
All judgement passages seem to focus on the human tendency toward selfishness. Salvation passages that refer to repentance can all be understood to imply that we need to repent from selfishness to altruistic love. The most ambiguous salvation passages refer to belief in Jesus as the key to salvation, but James 2:19 makes it clear that belief alone isn’t the answer. It’s possible that saving belief in Jesus requires that we turn from selfishness, and I’m convinced that’s the key. The two greatest commandments, loving God and loving others, require that we turn from selfishness.
My response to those concerned about salvation for those who never hear the Gospel message is that Jesus saves anyone who repents of selfishness. Hearing the Gospel message makes that repentance more compelling, but anyone searching for truth and goodness can find it.
In the “Free Will” discussion of the Philosophy chapter I explored C. S. Lewis’s idea that hell is a place where souls endure eternal torment by selfish choice. I’ve also entertained ideas of annihilation for selfish souls based on biblical references to a “second death.” These two concepts provide philosophically plausible reconciliations for a just and loving God. What I struggle to reconcile are the passages indicating God sends souls to eternal torment at some final judgement. The only logical approach I have found to reconcile these passages with philosophical consistency is to view them as metaphorical warnings, not a literal act of God.
All this philosophical reasoning comes fraught with high uncertainty. Is there any empirical evidence to reduce that uncertainty? Not much, I’m afraid.
The spirit realm is beyond the reach of science, recording devices, or physical measurement tools. All we have beyond the Bible are testimonies, and most of those come with questionable credibility credentials.
Near Death Experiences. Many testimonies of the spirit realm come from out-of-body experiences (OBEs) and near-death-experiences (NDEs). I haven’t studied these extensively, but it seems such claims are occasionally hoaxes. Most appear to be dream-like memories with no way to validate their reality, but there are some characteristics that separate them from dreams. Some NDEs come with evidential credentials and compelling details indicating something supernatural actually happened. I’m reluctant to give them a lot of weight, but they do favor a spirit realm where the Creator-God might dwell.
The main problem I have with NDEs lies in the inconsistency of the accounts. What people experience varies so wildly that they can’t be going to some common place in the spirit realm. NDE memories appear to be shaped by a person’s life experiences and beliefs, indicating that they might just be dream-like brain activity. However, there are some inexplicable distinctions that indicate something more.
In NDEs people seem self-aware that they are spirits, no longer bound to their physical bodies. People recounting NDEs frequently speak of seeing colors that human vision doesn’t perceive in the physical realm. They report heightened senses. During NDEs people sometimes perceive things in the physical world that their minds couldn’t have known, such as the recent death of a friend or relative, things happening in the operating room, etc. NDEs often trigger extreme joy beyond anything the person has ever experienced in their physical life. The memory of that joy makes them long to go back. I’ve also heard accounts of individuals experiencing extreme terror, beyond anything they’ve ever experienced in life. The terror oppresses them so forcefully that they embrace religious faith with hopes of avoiding it when they face death again. NDE reports often include encounters with God in bodily form or as a pervasive light. God often conveys perfect love in these encounters. Some of these reports come from individuals who were atheists before their NDE. After an NDE, people report feeling they had entered a realm more real than our physical world. These characteristics appear frequently in NDEs but rarely or never in dreams.
NDE testimonial evidence leaves me puzzled. It seems clear that people aren’t going to an actual place like heaven, but there does seem to be something supernatural happening. Perhaps our souls begin to interact with a spirit realm in some fashion when we’re near death, but since our brains are alive and interpreting the interaction from a physical world paradigm, the experience comes off as dream-like. That’s a highly speculative conjecture with enormous uncertainty. So NDEs rest gently on my mental balance scale in favor of a spirit realm.
Since the Bible comes with strong evidence of divine inspiration I have no problem with some level of spirit-realm theology. I believe God exists and there’s something mysterious beyond this physical universe. We can speculate on angels and demons and heaven and hell and spiritual influences in this world, but there’s little justification for dogmatic or even confident theology in these matters. Evidence is sparce, and biblical interpretation is uncertain.
[165] Holy Bible, NIV, Hebrews 5:8-9.
[166] Holy Bible, NIV, Matthew 25:31-46.
[167] Holy Bible, NIV, Romans 1:20.
[168] Holy Bible, NIV, Romans 2:14-15.
[169] Holy Bible, NIV, 2 Timothy 3:16.
[170] Holy Bible, NIV, Matthew 5:45.
[171] Holy Bible, NIV, John 14:6.
The Nature of God. God’s existence stands out as the most credible claim we can make about the spirit realm, and his nature draws a lot of theological attention. I’ve already discussed some aspects of God’s nature that I think are strongly supported by evidence in science, history, and philosophy.
He created the universe and intervenes in it.
He hears and answers prayer.
He loves us and cares for us.
He values our love and free will.
He appreciates beauty, order, precision, and other elegant aspects of creation.
Christians hold dogmatically to a lot of ideas regarding the nature of God based solely on interpretation of scripture and rationalizations to make sense of those interpretations. Many of these dogmatic doctrines lack strong supporting evidence.
Omni-nature. We like to think God possesses unlimited power, knows everything, can be everywhere in space and time, etc. Evidence supports those ideas to some extent. Creating such a vast, complex universe requires nearly unlimited power from my small perspective. We can’t observe God’s unlimited nature directly, but it’s reasonable to assume his capabilities are extreme.
Tri-nature. Christian theologians put a lot of misplaced emphasis into trinity doctrines. The Bible authors don’t talk about God being 3 persons in one being. The concept would have been foreign, perhaps even offensive, to OT authors. NT authors spoke of God the Father and Jesus Christ the son of God. Sometimes they spoke of the Holy Spirit as a personal being and other times of the Spirit of God as if it was just an expression or operation of God the Creator.
It appears the authors were communicating abstract concepts with a blend of literal and figurative language, but they saw no need to define God as a triune being or explain God’s modes of operation. That obsession began many decades later, intensifying until it reached a climax at the First Council of Constantinople in 381.[172], [173]
During the third and fourth centuries, Christians had been quarreling, separating, persecuting, even killing each other over whether God was one person who’d expressed himself in 3 different modes, or 3 persons of one substance, or something else. There is no evidence to help us answer this question. All we have are subtle expressions from ancient Greek writings by authors who didn’t see such distinctions as worth elaboration. It seems to me we are free to use whatever model of God makes sense, as long as we are aware that we don’t really comprehend the full nature of God.
We could explore dozens of other theological fine points related to the nature of God that all come from human speculation. The Old Testament conveys strong images reflecting the nature of God, but we have little evidence outside of the Bible to validate or refine those images. Some people see an angry, vindictive God in the OT instead of a loving merciful Creator. The NT, with its strong historicity credentials, tells us a lot about the life, works, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ that seem to favor the loving, merciful side of God.
There’s nothing wrong with speculation about the nature of God and even choosing a favorite paradigm to view him, as long as we don’t get dogmatic and demand that everyone else view him that way too. My list of critical characteristics in God’s nature is short. The five points I listed at the start of this section are vital to understanding our creator and strong evidence supports them.
Physics. When considering the nature of God, we often question how actively he controls creation. At one extreme, people think he triggered the creation singularity at time zero and just let it go. He made the universe with the right initial conditions to cause everything else to happen by the laws of physics without supernatural intervention. There are no miracles; it’s all nature as God created it. At the other extreme I find people who think God actively controls everything; that the laws of physics are an illusion. God actively causes everything that happens so they can claim anything is a miracle of God.
These extreme views are both presuppositional. Evidence and reason drive me to a moderate position between these presuppositionally biased extremes. Evidences I summarized in Chapters 1, 3, 4 and 5 contradict the claim that God never intervenes in creation. As a physicist, my profession required me to trust in consistent laws of nature. In my experience, deviations from those laws are extremely rare. Anomalous events that seem to deviate from the laws of nature can usually be explained materially, but not always. I can’t prove that God isn’t actively causing everything to happen, but the most sensible conclusion to the evidence is that events follow principles of physics and supernatural interventions rarely happen.
Most of the Christians I know believe miracles happen much more frequently than I do. If I’m feeling sick and I ask God to restore my health, I will thank God when I get better, but I don’t proclaim a miracle. Perhaps God supernaturally intervened to restore my health, but he may have just allowed my body to recover with its natural healing properties. Some people would call it a small miracle simply because the thing I prayed for happened. I can’t prove that either one of us is right or wrong, but I favor material explanations unless evidence for supernatural intervention is very strong.
Evidentialism favors the theology that the universe runs mostly by the laws of physics as God created it. Supernatural interventions are rare.
Inerrancy. Evidentialism clashes with fundamentalism in the theological arena of biblical inerrancy, perhaps more controversially than any other area.
I touched on this topic in the “Debunked? Not Even Close” section of the History chapter. Harmony in the Bible, despite the hugely diverse authors, conditions, and timespan of its writing, provides strong evidence of divine guidance. Even though contradictions are surprisingly few, there are contradictions, enough to indicate human influence and the possibility of error. (Many Christians claim there are no contradictions because they can offer rationalizations of how the language got there, but the fact is that when you read the passages, they imply obvious contradictions that need explanation.)
In the Bible, God works through humans. Except for Jesus Christ, all of these humans have weaknesses and make mistakes, some of them very major mistakes. God still works through imperfect people today. We can be inspired by God and led by the Holy Spirit, but we all still say and do things that fall short of God’s desires. No one is inerrant or infallible. Everyone’s wrong in many things they believe.
The Bible was clearly written by people. The books are all written from the author’s perspective using common languages of the day. Some books even name their authors. Scholar’s recognize variations in writing skill, style, grammar, and vocabulary between books. Scholar’s can even tell when an author of multiple books like Paul or Peter uses different scribes.
Traditional Christian theology has claimed that the Holy Spirit guided the original writings so they were the perfect, inerrant word of God. We know copyists made mistakes by the variations in ancient manuscripts. (We know they followed strict copy protocols because mistakes and deliberate changes are so rare.) We also know translators made mistakes from the variations in different translations.
We can’t know for certain that the original authors made mistakes though. Even if a passage doesn’t contain the exact detail that actually happened in a historical event, such as the conflicting reports of Jairus about his daughter being dead or dying, it’s possible the text was written exactly as God intended. It’s possible, but unlikely. Insisting that the original writing of biblical documents were the perfect, infallible inspiration of God comes from a presupposition of inerrancy, not evidence. The evidence I presented in the History chapter strongly favors the possibility of error in the original writings.
Reason favors the possibility of error also. We know God has always worked through fallible humans who make mistakes. He accomplishes his purposes despite our failures. There’s no irrefutable reason to insist that he needs an infallible Bible to accomplish his work among humans.
The possibility of imperfections in the Bible is troubling because we want reliable guidance. If we accept that the Bible has errors and isn’t God’s complete message, doctrinal unity may be even more difficult to attain than it already is. Questioning the Bible’s perfection opens a door to questioning other scripturally based doctrines. But we can’t ignore evidence just because we don’t like the outcome. If evidence and logic lead to the possibility of errors, we need to live with it, trusting God to continue guiding us. We should avoid undermining specific Bible passages by assuming they are in error just because we don’t like them. The evidence for error should be very strong before we give it credibility because the evidence for divine guidance is very strong.
Evidence strongly favors a theology that holds the Bible up as the highest authority in the Christian faith, but not as a perfect, infallible, inerrant, complete word of God. We should take every word of the Bible seriously. Difficult passages that lead to dangerous or strange theological perspectives can be held as uncertain, acknowledging that perhaps we don’t understand what God’s message really communicates in that passage. (Many passages come to mind such as the OT genocide passages, 1 Peter 3:19-20 where he talks about Jesus preaching to souls who died in the days of Noah, etc.)
This is the evidential path. The first 11 chapters of Genesis have been proven beyond reasonable doubt to be fiction. We still have evidence that God guided these allegorical stories to reveal theological truths. We can’t apply them literally to science and history, but we can’t just dismiss them as irrelevant myth either. Those stories deliver a message from God just as the parables of Jesus Christ do.
What do we learn from perplexing passages such as the story of Noah getting drunk and cursing his sons?[174] I’ve no idea. I don’t advocate dismissing that passage as human error. God may have inspired it. But I don’t see it as a source of vital theology either. Passages like this give rise to speculative reflection on what God might have been communicating. We shouldn’t erase them from the scriptural record; neither should we draw conclusive theology from them.
The OT passages recording total destruction of enemies in the promised land seem morally abhorrent to me. We cannot use this to justify committing atrocities in the name of God. But I don’t feel we should dismiss these passages as useless error either. There seems to be a metaphorical message there for our spiritual life. As we pursue our paths of repentance, we are fighting an internal spiritual war. We should vanquish sinful selfish desires with a total destruction mindset, working toward purity in our souls with a promised land of love.
“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”[175]
Evidence solidly supports the belief that God guided the people who wrote, copied, and translated the Jewish and Christian scriptures, but he didn’t override their humanness to the point of eliminating all error. Paul’s adjective “God-breathed” doesn’t require that God dictated every word making it infallible. The idea that God can use even our mistakes for good supports Paul’s encouragement that all scripture is useful. We can study and apply the Bible with confidence in our efforts to live lives that please our creator.
Source of Ancient Stories. Who wrote the books of the Old Testament? None of the OT authors self-identify the way many NT authors do. Many Christians believe Moses wrote the first 5 books because NT characters, including Jesus, seem to believe Moses was the author. Many scholars claim that Moses couldn’t have written most of those books because the style appears to be a later form of Hebrew and some locations are identified by later names. It’s possible that Moses was the original author and later copyists updated the style and place-names.
We also have the question of Moses writing about things that happened before his time. Did the Holy Spirit reveal everything directly to Moses? Did he write down oral history? Did he have some written documents from earlier authors? We can only guess at the answers to these questions.
Of course, there are skeptics who claim Moses didn’t write any of it because he’s a fictitious character. Others acknowledge that Moses may have been a historical leader of the Hebrews, but most of what’s written in the Bible about him came from invented legend. We don’t have much evidence to resolve these disputes, but taking the Bible as a legitimate historical document supports the notion that Moses was a real person who wrote some of the Bible or at least served as a source of verbal history that eventually became part of the Bible.
Most of the OT authorship is similarly debatable. Scholars analyze the ancient Hebrew, guessing at when it was written by the style and names and places associated with specific times by piecing together historical evidences. We don’t know how long the history might have been passed down orally before it was written or if updates were made during copying. We do know that at some point copying became disciplined to the extent that intentional changes were no longer made.
We can’t justify being very dogmatic with regard to authorship of these ancient books. There’s plenty of uncertainty to treat various opinions as disputable matters. Traditional views of authorship can’t be completely ruled out, nor can more recent speculations regarding authorship be confidently dismissed.
[172] Mark Noll. Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity (3rd ed.). (Johns Baker Academic, 2012), page 51.
[173] Ian J. Shaw. Christianity: The Biography: 2000 Yeas of Global History. (Zondervan, 2016), page 81.
[174] Holy Bible, NIV, Genesis 9:18-29.
[175] Holy Bible, NIV, 2 Timothy 3:16-17.
Scripture Reliability. What parts of the Bible stand out as most reliable? Historicity credentials of the New Testament are remarkable. Fulfilled prophecy, harmony and copy integrity give evidence of divine guidance for the entire book. Even though the possibility of human error is real, evidence can give us some confidence that the errors are minimal and don’t have a major impact on doctrine.
The New Testament earns our greatest confidence. Archeological and historicity evidence supports reasonable confidence for later historical books in the Old Testament: 1 & 2 Samuel, 1 & 2 Kings, 1 & 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Ester. Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon, along fall in this timeframe, along with the prophecy books. Archeological and historicity evidence is weak for early Old Testament history (Genesis 12 through Ruth) and non-existent for the earliest material found in Genesis 1-11 and Job.
Even where archeological evidence is lacking and scientific or historical evidence contradicts the Bible, there’s good reason to treat many of those passages as divine allegory revealing theological truths. Some sections of the Bible lack evidence for historical reliability, but we can still gain insight into theological principles from them.
Evidence indicates that God wants to communicate truth to humanity and that he works through fallible humans to reveal his truths. The idea that God would give us a message in writing fits his character of an active, loving creator striving to reach us. Yet, God chooses to protect our free will where we make mistakes while he works in and through us.
We believe the Holy Spirit is capable of guiding people in bringing God’s message to us through the Bible. Evidence shows that humans make mistakes even under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, but those mistakes appear rare in the Bible.
Eternity. This life could be our launching pad to eternity. That perspective can greatly change how we view life. Everything we experience here, every joy, pain, struggle, choice, pleasure, deprivation—everything, prepares us for eternity. Our freely chosen responses to life may shape our souls for eternity. The gift of free will fuels our launch into eternity and continues to propel us through eternity.
The value of free will comes from the inherent goodness of choosing love. When we choose selfishness, there’s no value in that, but when we set our selfish desires aside and make altruistic choices, we create everlasting “treasures in heaven.”[176]
Jesus proclaimed the two greatest commandments in loving our creator and people.[177] God could have programed humans to always choose altruistically, to obey his commands and do good to others, but that wouldn’t be love. The greatest value is when we possess the freedom to love altruistically (or not) and choose to love. When that choice is difficult because selfish desires are intense and we are surrounded by temptations, evils, suffering, and struggle, then the value of choosing altruistic love is enormous! That’s one reason I think God allows evil and suffering. It increases the value of our freely choosing to love selflessly.
The Bible gives us a story of Adam and Eve greatly multiplying life’s struggles through their selfish rebellion in the Garden of Eden.[178] I believe this story teaches us how our sin greatly multiplies our suffering, and the suffering of everyone else. Even private sins that we don’t think will affect anyone else, change us and the way we interact with others. Every selfish choice, no matter how small, brings us shame and suffering, just like Adam and Eve experienced in eating the forbidden fruit. They felt the shame of their nakedness and disobedience so they hid from God. Then they struggled with greater hardships in life. The illustration of Adam’s sin affecting all humanity, and even creation, shows how our sins affect others, increasing suffering and corrupting God’s creation on earth.
God uses all these things to teach us the value of obedience to our creator and the value of love. God even took on human form, suffered, died, and rose from the dead to demonstrate his love for us and give us an example of how he wants us to live. He provided evidence so we could have faith in him if we are willing to look for the evidence and respond to it in repentance.
Even if this life was all there was for me, I would praise God for the tremendous gift he’s given me in life and for teaching me the joy of salvation and love. I’ve experienced a taste of heaven in this life through unselfish living that the unrepentant have never known. And I have solid evidence that my hope extends beyond this life in a truly glorious way. I don’t know what heaven is, but I believe it’s real!
This life is a wonderous gift, but God has something even better in mind for us. If we learn from the horrors of selfishness and repent, we can live eternally with our free choice to love. This learning process is another reason God allows evil in the world. Experience and first-hand observation provide the most effective methods of learning. As we witness and experience the torment of selfishness and disobedience, we learn the value of repentance well enough to persist in a repentant state for eternity, forever loving our creator and the souls who join us in heaven.
The difficulties of this life only need a little time to demonstrate God’s perfect plan. There’s no need for suffering to continue eternally. Once we repent, we can join God in heaven where we will choose love and experience the joy of altruistic love eternally. We’ll never tire of giving and receiving love with our creator and in community with the souls he creates who’ve also chosen love over selfishness. Of course, an eternity pursuing selfishness leads to torment. Scripture warns us of dire consequences in selfishness.
I discussed how this makes sense with insights from C. S. Lewis and Clay Jones near the end of my Philosophy chapter under the Free Will section. The overwhelming eternal goodness of heaven will far outweigh any amount of evil and suffering we might have to endure here. In heaven, this life may seem like a dream, vaguely remembered, with little consequence beyond providing an opportunity for us to repent of selfishness and enter eternity with our loving creator who made the way for our forgiveness.
All this may seem like abstract theology based on wishful thinking, but I’m a physicist who bases my beliefs on evidence and logic. I’ve presented empirical evidence from science and history along with logical philosophical evidence. I’ve experienced supernatural events first hand and a large proportion (about 38%) of people have stories of supernatural experiences.[179] Even extreme skeptics like Michael Shermer admit supernatural experiences.[180] Lee Strobel presents numerous well-documented miracles in his book, The Case for Miracles. I’ve found many credible accounts of near-death experiences (NDEs) with solid evidence that our spirits live beyond our bodies.
We also have solid historical evidence to trust in the documented accounts of the gospel contained in the New Testament. Very clear evidence tells us that Jesus Christ lived, died, and rose again. These reliable historical accounts record Jesus Christ making repeated references to the afterlife. His miracles and resurrection give very strong credibility to his word.
Evidence and biblical theology agree that our choices in this life may affect our spiritual condition in an after-life. Heaven is far from “pie in the sky” wishful thinking. With all the credible evidence giving me hope that it’s real, why would I hesitate to live my life in such a way as to experience this best of all possible conclusions to life? Even if I’m wrong, living a life based on freely chosen altruistic love is the best possible way to live this life. The hope of heaven makes it much more wonderful! Since heaven appears to be real, I want to launch my soul into heaven with a well-lived life.
Theology Conclusion. Evidence supports the fundamental tenants of the Christian faith, so the impact of evidentialism on Christian theology isn’t dramatic. A few significant points hold promise to invigorate the church with intellectual integrity, enhancing its relevance to an increasingly skeptical, educated, science-minded world with unprecedented access to information. No belief system can thrive in our changing culture clinging to traditional ideas that contradict overwhelming evidence. Evidentialism comes with hope to reform our theology in a way that better follows what evidence indicates to be true and good.
The greatest shift comes from accepting what science has revealed regarding the age of the universe, earth, and life. This paradigm forces us to look at the scriptures with greater awareness of allegory, metaphor, and other figurative writing. Excessive literalism has spun off dogmatic errors in the church for many centuries. We need to follow the example of the Apostle Paul who released his dogmatic legalism as a Pharisee to follow the truth and goodness of the gospel revealed to him by evidence. The Christian church must release our dogmatic traditions to seek truth and goodness revealed by evidence.
Questioning traditional theology and interpreting the scriptures with an honest eye toward figurative language creates discomfort due to ambiguity. Recognizing the possibility of error adds to the uncertainty. We must be careful not to abandon important truths in the face of uncertainty. Evidence strongly supports the Bible as a message from God. It remains our highest authority of all human works in seeking truth and goodness. God’s “book of creation” also comes with high authority since it’s the Creator’s work. When our understanding of the material universe aligns with scripture, we can be confident in our understanding. When the two don’t seem to agree, we must proceed with a keen awareness that our understanding is limited and we are often mistaken in the things we think we know.
The most important lesson of evidentialism illuminates the value of repentance. All through the Bible we see this message. It appears in other religions and philosophies. Even atheistic humanism recognizes its value. The greatest good that anyone can do in life is to turn from selfishness to altruistic love. When we stop putting our own interests first and choose to prioritize the interests of others, we make the world a better place. God promises to reward us for such repentance.
We can make a long list of doctrines supported by evidence. I’ve discussed a short list of significant doctrines that seem to have been neglected in traditional theology.
Repentance from selfishness to love is the greatest desire of God.
God designed humans to live in partnerships and communities.
God uses fallible humans to communicate truth and do good.
God sent a message to humanity through the Bible that uses figurative language profusely.
God gave us authority over and responsibility for his creation on earth.
God gave us free will in an uncertain world with real consequences for our choices.
There are many traditional doctrines that evidentialism confirms:
God created the universe and intervenes in it.
God hears and answers prayer.
God loves us and cares for us.
God values our love and free will.
Jesus Christ lived, taught, performed miracles, was crucified, and rose again.
The Bible, especially the New Testament, comes with high historicity credentials.
The Bible gives us an authoritative message from God.
Both of these lists would be much longer if I tried to be exhaustive, but these key ideas make a good starting point.
[176] Holy Bible, NIV, Matthew 6:19-20.
[177] Holy Bible, NIV, Matthew 22:36-40.
[178] Holy Bible, NIV, Genesis 3.
[179] Strobel, Lee. The Case for Miracles. (Zondervan, 2018), Page 30.
[180] Strobel, Lee, 2018, Page 66-69.