Theology and Apologetics Seminar Part 1

I've entitled the seminar, Theology and Apologetics, Study and Discussion. I put the name that way for a specific reason. That is, theology and apologetics are obviously very closely related to one another.

But unfortunately, some folks create their apologetic system and then bend and twist their theology to meet how they defend the faith. Obviously, that doesn't work. Apologetics, the Greek term apologia, refers to a defense.

And obviously, what you defend will determine how it is you're going to construct your defense. If you, for example, are defending a city that's in a valley, you're going to defend it differently in warfare from a city that's on a mountain, or you're defending a bridge, you're going to defend that differently from an airport or something like that.

So obviously, the object of defense determines what type of defense you use. Well, it's the same thing here. We cannot have an apologetic until we have discovered, until we have thought through, until we have wrestled with and have really solidified our theology.

And in fact, you will discover that your specific belief about theology, that is, who is God, what is the nature of God, who is man, how does God relate to man, that will determine your apologetic. My apologetic is completely and totally different than a Roman Catholic apologetic.

For the simple reason that, for example, Rome has what is called a natural theology. Rome believes that the fall of man did not totally affect the reason of man, and therefore, Rome feels that man can, outside of God's revelation, come to a true knowledge of God, simply on the basis of reason.

Now, I, as a Protestant, don't believe that, because I believe that sin has affected all of man's being, including his reason. And therefore, my method of reasoning with people outside of the faith is going to be different than that of a Roman Catholic.

And so we need to deal with theology first. We need to think through what it is to say, I believe that there is a God that created all things. Many Christians will say that. In fact, I know very few Christians who would not say that.

But rarely do we have the opportunity, like I've had the opportunity, of being forced to think through the logical ramifications of Christian belief. Now, I've had the opportunity, because of the fact I have encountered a number of atheists in various mediums, debating them on radio.

That's always an interesting way of doing it. Or debating them via the electronic medium on computers, or via mail, or things like that. And a number of them have been rather intelligent individuals who have challenged me to truly think through what it means to say that God created all things.

Now, that's lucky for me, but not a whole lot of people get the opportunity of really doing that. So I'll get to do it for you. I'll get to play that role, but fortunately, in a friendly and supportive manner, rather than the negative, destructive manner that is normally how we encounter atheism and things like that.

So before we can begin to attempt to communicate our faith to the world today, we first must find out what our faith is. Then, once we have that down real well, then we can start dealing with, now, how does the world think?

And if I say this to a person who's coming from this perspective, how will they understand me? How will I be able to make the content of the Christian message understood in a good way to this individual?

First, we've got to think through our theology, and that's what we're going to do. Now, I am assuming that everybody here this evening, aside from being a Christian, agrees with me on the basic doctrines of the Christian faith.

I am not going to take the time to go through my whole basic Christian doctrines class, because that's not what I designed this for. I'm not going to take the time to go through all the scriptural proofs of the Trinity, go through all the scriptural passages that say there's one God, and all the rest of this stuff, because I am assuming that we have that as a common basis.

My goal is to attempt to go beyond that and say, OK, we've got those basics. We understand those, but what does that mean? What does it mean to believe that there is only one true God who created all things?

That's what I'm going to try to get you to do. So I'm assuming that common basis. If that common basis doesn't exist, you and I are going to be talking on different wavelengths.

For a long time.

So I'm assuming that that's there, and so I'm not going to be trying to fill in all the gaps on these various ascendiary doctrines. So let's start with our theology. Normally, when I say the word theology, I'm referring to the whole body of Christian doctrine.

But sometimes I will refer to theology proper. And theology proper is the doctrine of God, period, and nothing else. Just like soteriology is a study of salvation, theology, in its most accurate sense, is the study of God.

And I think that's where we have to start. We really have to think about who God is, what God is, how God exists, and how that affects everything else. Because how we view ourselves is going to be determined in a large part by how we view our creator.

How we view ourselves as a creation, how we view ourselves as a finite being, is going to really be determined by how we look at God's infinite being. So we all believe there is one God, and you've heard of many of the attributes of God.

For example, I have mentioned before in other classes, I'm going to go through some of the attributes of God, and I'm going to try to draw out some of the meaning in them. You've heard of some of the natural attributes of God, such as spirituality, personality, and life.

God is spiritual. God is not corporeal. He is not physical in his essence, in his normal mode of being. God was not once a man who lived on another planet, as our Mormon friends would tell us. Jesus said God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.

He is personal, and that is very, very important. God is personal. God has personality. God is not inanimate. Pantheists will tell you, oh, yes, I believe in God. But they believe that God is in the wall and the light fixture and you and me and the butterflies and the bees and everything else.

They believe that God is connected to the universe in an inextricable way. He and the universe are parts of each other. God cannot exist outside of his creation. The creation cannot exist outside of God.

Therefore, there is really a connection and equation of the created universe and God. That's what a pantheist would say. But the Bible says God is personal. God's personality, in fact, biblically, is the grounds of our own.

We will see later on that one of the big questions that the world's philosophies cannot answer is where did man's personality come from? Why is man manly? What is this manishness about man that we cannot get away from?

Why do we have personalities? Why are we personal when animals are not personal? They do not understand the subject-object relationship. They cannot visualize themselves as a single unit against all others.

They cannot communicate the way that we communicate. They cannot think abstractly the way we think abstractly. Why is that? Well, the Christian says this is because we are created in the image of God, and in fact, the main image of God is our personality.

And that is the origin of our personality, and it could not have arisen by natural means, which is where the world's philosophies fall short. But God is personal, and God is living. God is not simply the result of natural processes.

God is life. He gives life. He is the one who is the giver of life to all of us. He is transcendent. That is what I was just mentioning when I talked about pantheism. God did not have to create. God does not draw his existence from that which he has created.

He is transcendent above creation. But the ones that I really want to zero in on are the attributes that pertain to his infinity. Now here, you're really gonna have to dig in your spurs because this is where we start laying some real deep roots for the discussions that will follow.

Number one, absoluteness. God is absolute. I have never been able to say that with the meaning that I say it now. God is absolute. Now, before I understood something about the world's system of thought, and don't take me wrong, I grew up in the public school system and I all the time find myself thinking in the forms of the world.

And I think one of the best things that could happen to you is if you learn to recognize that very thing for yourself. I think we all do very frequently. Think on the basic assumptions and presuppositions of the world rather than upon the assumptions and presuppositions of the Bible.

But before I really had an understanding of what the philosophies of the world were about, when I would teach this section of this outline and talk about absoluteness, I didn't really know exactly what I was saying.

I said, yes, I was right in saying that God is absolute in the fact that God is absolute love. And if you wanna know what love is, you must refer it back to God to find out what love is. If you wanna know what hate is, see how God treats sin.

If you wanna know, God is the standard to which we must appeal. But that has become so much more important to me because folks, it is absolutely central to Christian theology that God is the central point to which everything else is related.

God is the central ground of being for all of us. God does not depend upon anyone else for his existence and you'll find out the first three of these attributes I'm gonna talk about are so closely connected that it's next to impossible to attempt to divide them up and discuss them.

But God is absolute, he is the standard to which everything must be referred. Now, the reason I'm emphasizing this is that in human systems of thought today, man is the absolute. In fact, one of the part and parcel of sin, if you look at Romans chapter one, is the removal of God as God, as being absolute and replacing it with what?

The creature, which becomes man. This is part and parcel of man's sinful rebellion against God is instead of looking to God as the absolute, we look to ourselves as the absolute and in fact, become so audacious as to ask God to allow us to judge him.

If you've read much of Vantillia, you'll see that one of his basic presuppositions is, God is absolute, all thoughts must be referred back to God, you cannot put God on the examination block and put yourself up as the absolute judge and say, well, I'm just not sure about God here, you know?

That's the opposite, it doesn't work that way, okay? So God is absolute, he is the reference point to everything we will discuss and in fact, the fact that God is absolute is what gives Christian theism, that is the Christian system of belief in God, it's coherence, you see, there is no other thing to which you can root your system that lasts.

You see, all other philosophies that do not make a personal, self-existent God, the center of their philosophy will always run into this problem, relativism. All human philosophies at their basis are relativistic, why?

Because they have no tether point, they're like a ship in the sea with no anchor, they have nothing to which they can attach themselves. So therefore, I recall on a BBS system called Apollo, oh, back during the summer, I was talking with this one lady and she has kept posting post after post, writing big long posts about the fact that, hey, you've got your truth, I've got my truth, they're not the same truth, but I've got my truth.

Truth is completely relative to the world and in fact, how many times have you heard someone say, well, just who do you think you are telling me that your truth is the right truth? Well, there is no such thing as truth, if one person's truth is different than somebody else's truth then the whole meaning of the word's gone in that situation.

It is only in Christian theism where you have God who is self-contained, who is self-existent, who is absolute, who is the ground of all being, then everything else, because it has its being in him, has meaning.

Since everything else is dependent upon God,.

Then God doesn't do anything that doesn't have meaning.

When you look at the world's systems, you find very quickly that people are always complaining there is no meaning to life. Well, that's the reason, is that when you dig right down to the very basics of these systems, they have no basic point upon which they can hold on to.

So when something new comes along, it just washes away, no foundation. God is absolute, God is unique, God is unique. I think I've even gotten away from trying to say there is one God and just simply saying God is unique, there's nothing else like him.

You can't compare him to anything. There's never been one like him, there'll never be another one like him. He's unique, there's absolutely nothing else like him. He says that over and over again in scripture.

Who is like me, God says.

There is not.

Over and over in Isaiah, it says, to whom will you compare me? There's no one like me, there are no little God-like ones running around out there. He is unique, he is absolute. He is supreme, or he is sovereign.

Let me come back to that one. Let me just mention the third one real quickly before I get to some of the others. Self-existence, self-existence. God does not depend upon anything, anything. His ground of being cannot be found in anyone but himself.

God is self-existent. Everything else is dependent, God is independent. This is very, very important. All these things come together and are very important in our understanding of God. Because when we start dealing with how God relates to us, how God relates to the universe, these things become extremely important.

And we will either have to sacrifice these teachings from scripture, or we are going to have to accept them and deal with the difficult situations that arise when you start emphasizing the self-existence of God, the supremacy of God.

God is self-existent. There's something important about this. Let me throw it out to you now. When you say God is good, what do you mean? What do you mean when you say God is good? If you're like me, you've made a fatal error in saying that if you think like I thought.

But you've got, here's God, okay? And nice little three-letter word there. And when I said God is good, what I meant was, is there some standard of goodness out here, okay, to which God conforms?

No.

There is nothing that exists outside of God to which God conforms. God's goodness is not his conforming to a standard outside of himself. God's goodness is part of his innate nature. God is good because God says he's good.

Now, we don't like that because, you see, we always think of God in human terms. And if a human being said, I'm good because I say I'm good, we'd say, boy, you're a rather egotistical person. But you see, if God is all these things we're talking about, if God is absolute, if God is the ground of all being, if God is, as scripture presents him, omnipotent and eternal and all these other things we're gonna talk about, then when you say God is good, you are describing an aspect of God himself.

You are not saying that God conforms to some outside standard that is above him. There's nothing above God.

He's absolute.

He's supreme. So when we say God is good, what we are saying is that our conception of good is derived from God himself. In other words, what is good is good because God says it is good. And what is evil is evil because God says that it is evil.

And we cannot say anything other.

That's an important thing.

It really is. And you'll see why it becomes more and more important as we start talking about later on something called theodicy. Theodicy is the discussion of the attempt at justification of God's rulership or God's providence.

In other words, why is there evil in the universe if God is good and God is sovereign? These things will come up when we discuss those issues. Okay, I skipped over one. Let me go back to it. Sovereigncy, supremacy.

There are so many of them, we could hardly begin to look at them. Isaiah chapter 43, verses 12 to 13. You are my witnesses, declares Yahweh, that I am God. Yes, and from ancient days I am him, I am he.

No one can deliver out of my hand. When I act, who can reverse it, he says. In the 45th chapter, verse seven, listen to this. I form the light and create darkness. I bring prosperity and create disaster.

I, Yahweh, do all these things. That's very nice of the NIV to say I create disaster. That's not what it says. You know what it says? Anyone got the King James Version at that point? Isaiah chapter 45, verse seven.

I bring prosperity and create disaster?

No.

Barah, rah, I create evil. Stick that one in your hat and think about it for a while. Right there in your own scripture. Barah, rah, that's the two basic Hebrew words.

Barah, to create.

Barah, baroshayt, in the beginning God created. And rah, any first year Greek student, yeah, any first year. Any first year Hebrew student, that's one of the first words you learn, rah.

What does that mean?

Don't worry, we'll get to it.

Isaiah chapter 46, verses nine through 10. Remember the former things, those of long ago. And I am God, there is no other. I am God, there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning. From ancient times, what is still to come.

I say my purpose will stand and I will do all that I please. In the 135th Psalm, verse six. Just to get your Bible fingers ready to go here. We're gonna run through a couple of them here because this is one of the most important aspects.

And boy, there sure are a lot of passages that teach this. Psalm 135, six. Psalm 135, six. Psalm 135, six says, Yahweh does whatever pleases him in the heavens and on the earth, in the seas and all their depth.

Now, as we look at these passages, please remember that God's actions are not capricious. You understand what I mean by capricious? Whimsical, just, well, I think I'll do this. Well, I think I'll do that.

Because it sounds like, you know, if a human being said Psalm 135, six, we would say that person is capricious. But let me just throw something else out for you.

I'll do a lot of this.

I don't believe an absolute being can be capricious. Not only that, sense goodness, holiness, these are part of God's perfections. Anything he does will be totally good. Think about that. Anyways, I've got a bunch of passages here.

Let me turn to them and let's run through a couple of these, okay? Let's sort of start from the beginning of the Bible. Genesis chapter 20.

Genesis chapter 20, verse six.

This is a story of Abimelech and Abraham.

And Sarah and all.

And in Genesis chapter 20, verse six, then God said to him in the dream, yes, I know you did this with a clear conscience, so I have kept you from sinning against me. That is why I did not let you touch her.

Now, the sinful attitudes or the natural attitudes of Abimelech's heart would have been to go in to Sarah, to engage in relations with her. But God says, yeah, I know you didn't know. You know, Abraham lied to you.

You didn't know what was going on. So I have kept you from sinning against me. Well, God, how'd you do that? I mean, God never keeps us from sinning, does he? I don't see what that says there. Exodus chapter 34, verse 24.

Exodus 34, 24. This one's fascinating. Start at verse 22. Exodus 34, 22. Listen to this. Celebrate the feast of weeks with the first fruits of the wheat harvest and the feast of in-gathering at the turn of the year.

Three times a year, all your men are to appear before the sovereign Yahweh, the God of Israel. Then listen to this. I will drive out nations before you and enlarge your territory, and no one will covet your land.

When you go up three times each year.

To appear before the Lord, your God.

Now, wait a minute.

How can God control the very thoughts of the hearts of the pagan people surrounding the Israelites so that he could promise them.

They won't even covet your land?

Wow, that's interesting.

Look at Deuteronomy chapter two, verse 30. And believe me, this is an exceptionally surface listing of verses. I mean, Deuteronomy chapter two, verse 30. Deuteronomy 2 .30. But Sihon, king of Heshbon, refused to let us pass through, for Yahweh your God had made his spirit stubborn and his heart obstinate in order to give him into your hands as he has now done.

Now, what does that say? God did an action. That is, he made Sihon, king of Heshbon's heart, obstinate, his spirit stubborn, for a specific purpose. And what was that purpose? To give the land of the, I guess you'd call them the Heshbonites, to the children of Israel.

Is that not what it says? That's what it says to me. Look at Joshua chapter 11. Joshua chapter 11, verses 19 and 20. Except for the Hivites living in Gibeon, not one city made a treaty of peace with the Israelites who took them all in battle.

For it was Yahweh himself who hardened their hearts to wage war against Israel, so that he might destroy them totally, exterminating them without mercy, as Yahweh had commanded Moses. And so what does he say?

God had a purpose in mind. God was going to give the land to the Israelites. But the way that he decided to do that was that he would wipe the people out of the land via warfare. And to do so, he hardened the hearts of the leaders of those people so that they would wage war with Israel and he would be on Israel's side.

And it says very clearly he might destroy them totally, exterminating them without mercy. So we see in these passages alone, and I have a number of others to throw at you here, God intervening in human affairs to work his will to the point of hardening people's hearts, stirring up their spirits.

In the book of Ezra, for example.

Look at Ezra.

Sometimes it's for the good. If you look at the book of Ezra, chapter one. Look at Ezra 1 .1.

Ezra 1 .1 says,.

In the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of Yahweh, spoken by Jeremiah, the, or excuse me, Yahweh, moved the heart of Cyrus, the king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and put it in writing.

And this is what Cyrus, king of Persia said.

So notice what happens.

Here God moves the heart, and of course in Hebrew, the heart is the very center of the will and emotion of man of Cyrus, who is not even a Hebrew. He's not even right with God. He's a pagan. So that, why?

To fulfill the word of Yahweh spoken by Jeremiah. God had spoken through Jeremiah. He had said, this is what's gonna happen. And we asked the question, did Cyrus have much of a choice about this? Think about it.

I mean, what if Cyrus had decided not to do it? Remember Isaiah prophesied, I believe it was Isaiah 45, that Cyrus would be the one who would release the Jews a hundred years before it ever happened. Now what would happen if Cyrus had said,.

Eh, I don't want to.

Can you imagine God being made a liar by a man? Who was sovereign in this situation? God was. And God moved the heart of Cyrus, and Cyrus did what God wanted to do. Look at Ezra 7 .27. Ezra 7 .27. Just a few of the little passages here that talk about these things.

Ezra 7 .27 says, praise to Yahweh, the God of our fathers, who has put it into the king's heart to bring honor to the house of Yahweh in Jerusalem in this way. He has put this into the king's heart. Well, how dare he do that?

That violates the sovereignty of man. Well, I've never seen much of a doctrine of the sovereignty of man in scripture. I've seen a lot on the sovereignty of God, but not a whole lot about the sovereignty of man.

I've seen a lot about man being a creature and a creation. Isaiah chapter 10. Let's go read a couple more, and then I'll just throw a few references at you. Isaiah chapter 10, verses five through seven.

Now here you see God using an entire nation of people for his own purposes. Woe to the Assyrian, the rod of my anger and whose hand is the club of my wrath. So here he pictures Assyria as a weapon that he is using.

I send him, that is the Assyrian, against a godless nation. I dispatch him against the people who anger me to seize loot and snatch plunder and to trample them down like mud in the street. So he's saying, I'm gonna use Assyria against the children of Israel and Judah.

Actually, it was Israel that Assyria came against.

Notice what happens.

But this is not what he intends, verse seven, speaking of the Assyrian. This is not what he has in mind. His purpose is to destroy, to put an end to many nations. This is interesting. Here we see two aspects.

We see God saying, hey look, I'm in control of this, and I'm gonna use Assyria to punish Israel. But notice, the Assyrians still have a purpose of their own. Remember what happened back in Genesis with Joseph and his brothers?

Remember what happened there, selling him into slavery? In the 50th chapter of Genesis, after his father dies, his brothers come to Joseph and they're going, now he's gonna get us. Well, Papa was alive, he was nice to us, but boy, this guy's got a lot of power now, and now he's gonna get us, what we did to him years ago.

What did Joseph say to them? Referring to that event, he said, you meant it for evil. God meant it for good. So even though God used the sinful actions of the brothers, he did it with a pure motive. That was, he brought about the saving of the entire family.

The motivations of the hearts of those men were evil. It's very important we start talking about how God can utilize our actions, including sinful actions. Think about the cross. I mean, was it not wrong for people to have nailed Jesus to the cross?

It certainly was, but the greatest good that ever came came out of that situation. God can do that, and exactly how he works that out will obviously be a matter of discussion. Just a couple more in the book of Proverbs, then we'll be done.

Proverbs chapter 16. Proverbs has a lot about this. Proverbs chapter 16, verse 33. Proverbs 16, 33 says, the lot is cast into the lap, but it's every decision is from Yahweh. Frequently decisions we've made when you couldn't decide what to do, cast the lot.

And it says, every decision comes from Yahweh. Look just a couple chapters over, 1921, 1921. Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is Yahweh's purpose that prevails. That may be the basis of a little thing that R .C. Sproul says in Chosen by God, when he says, God is free, I am free.

God is more free than I am. When my freedom runs into God's freedom, I lose. That's sort of one way of putting what Proverbs 1921 says. Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is Yahweh's purpose that prevails.

Look at chapter 20, verse 24, just across the page from me. A man's steps are directed by Yahweh. How then can anyone understand his own way? I think what he means there is by understanding your own way without reference to God.

And that's gonna be the main discussion we talk about apologetics. The world can't understand itself or the reality around it without referring everything back to the absolute standard, which is God, which is God.

So Proverbs 20, 24, a man's steps are directed by Yahweh. How then can anyone understand his own way? Just one more, 21 .1, the king's heart is in the hand of Yahweh. He directs it like a water course wherever he pleases.

I could sit here and say, you might also wanna look at Job 14, five, Psalms 65, four, 139, 16, Proverbs 16, three, I don't wanna put those there. A number of passages here you might wanna look at, many in the New Testament, things like that, relevant to this issue.

It is all through scripture. It is so well attested that it is truly unbelievable. And yet it is not something you hear a whole lot about today for the simple reason that when we are faced with what the scriptures say concerning God's sovereignty, it is impossible for us to maintain our desired sovereignty over and against his.

So man does not like that. You won't find this too much in most of the philosophies of the world, I can guarantee you that. I mean, it's part and parcel of the Old Testament story. You have God taking a group of sheep herders slaves in one of the most powerful nations on earth at the time and making them into his chosen people.

And look at all the things he does. He demonstrates his control of all nature and the plagues against the nation of Egypt. He hardens Pharaoh's heart, even though it was pretty obvious. I mean, if God hadn't been involved, if Pharaoh had two brains to smack together, he would have let those people out of there long before plague 10.

I mean, there had to be something supernatural going on here. Same thing with the kings in the land of Canaan, man. I mean, after they saw the folks walk around Jericho seven times, the wall fell down.

It is not smart to fight against people who have that kind of power. And yet they did anyways and were wiped out.

Why?

Well, the scriptures say, because God decided that's the way it was gonna be. Fascinating, fascinating. So when I say God is sovereign, that he is supreme, I am simply telling you that this is an absolutely necessary aspect of Christian theology.

You divorce this from Christian theology and you're no longer talking about God. You are talking about a God. He is immutable. He does not change. Psalm 102, 27, Malachi 3, 6, James 1, 17, that passage where we get the phrase that we use in that beautiful hymn, Great is thy faithfulness.

There is no shadow of turning in thee. God does not change. Let me run through these others really quickly to get down to the number eight because we'll spend some time on that too. God is a unity. One substance, one ujja.

God is not split up into many different parts. God's not even split up into three different parts. His actual being itself is not. That's what the Trinity is, tri-unity. He is perfect. He is not, there is a philosophy, a quote unquote theology going around today, very popularly in United Methodist circles, called process theology, that pictures God as being in process.

He is growing. He is evolving. He is changing. When he created, he did not know that evil would exist. He has no coercive power. All he has is persuasive power. He attempts to persuade the universe to go the best direction.

It is, definitely not. In fact, when my systematic theology professor went through it, he went through what they taught and all and went through some positive aspects of it, which I sort of grinned at.

And then when he got to the negative aspects, the first thing he said was, most negative thing is, is this obviously isn't the God of the Bible. I said, yeah, good, all right, very good. But this is, that is, believe it or not, folks, the theology of Claremont Graduate School, which is the United Methodist Graduate School that is producing United Methodist pastors today.

Shocking, isn't it?

But it is.

Let me get to this one. This is the one that I will refer back to as much as absoluteness, if not more. Those of you old timers around here that have been here for a long time know what's coming. But this is vital.

For those listening on tape, I just drew a single line on the whiteboard behind me here. And I think in my study that one of the most absolutely important things to attempt to at least understand is the eternity of God.