HOW COULD A GOOD GOD ALLOW SUFFERING?

'I just don't believe the God of Christianity exists,' said Hillary, an English undergraduate. 'God allows terrible suffering in the world. So he might be either all-powerful but not good enough to end evil and suffering, or else he might be all-good but not powerful enough to end evil and suffering. Either way the all-good, all-powerful God of the Bible couldn't exist.'

'This isn't a philosophical issue to me,' added Rob, Hillary's boyfriend. 'This is personal. I won't believe in God who allows suffering, even if he, she or it exists. Maybe God exists. Maybe not. But if he does, he can't be trusted.'

For many people it is not the exclusivity of Christianity that poses the biggest problem, it is the presence of evil and suffering in the world. Some find unjust suffering to be a philosophical problem, calling into question the very existence of God. For others it is an intensely personal issue. They don't care about the abstract question of whether God exists or not - they refure to trust or believe in any God who allows history and life to proceed as it has.

In December 2004, a massive tsunami killed more than 250,000 people around the rim of the Indian Ocean. Over the following weeks, newspapers and magazines were full of letters and articles asking 'Where was God?' One reporter wrote: If God is God, he's not good. If God is good, he's not God. You can't have it both ways, especially after the Indian Ocean catastrophe.' Despite the confident assertion of the columnist, the effort to demonstrate that evil disproves the existence of God 'is now acknowledged on (almost) all sides to be completely bankrupt'. Why?

Philosopher J. L. Mackie makes this case against God in his book The Miracle of Theism (Oxford, 1982). He states it his way: If a good and powerful God exists, he would not allow pointless evil, but because there IS much unjustifiable, pointless evil in the world, the traditional good and powerful God could not exists. Some other god or no god may exist, but not the traditional God. Many other philosophers have identified a major flaw in this reasoning. Tucked away within the assertion that the world is filled with pointless evil is a hidden premise, namely, that if evil appear pointless to me, then it must be pointless.
This reasoning is, of course, fallacious. Just because you can't see or imagine a good reason why God might allow something to happen doesn't mean there can't be one. Again we see lurking within supposedly hard-nosed scepticism an enormous faith in one's own cognitive faculties. If our minds can't plumb the depths of the universe for good answers to suffering, well, then, there can't be any! This is blind faith of a high order.
The fallacy at the heart of this argument has been illustrated by the 'no-see-ums' illustration of Alvin Plantinga. If you look into your kennel for a St Bernard, and you don't see one, it is reasonable to assume that there is no St Bernard in your kennel. But if you look into your kennel for a 'no-see-ums' (an extremely small insect with a bite out of all proportion to its size) and you don't see any, it is not reasonable to assume they aren't there. Because, after all, no one can see 'em. Many assume that if there were good reasons for the existence for evil, they would be accessible to our minds, more like St Bernard than like no-see-ums, but why should that be the case?
This argument against God doesn't hold up, not only to logic but also to experience. As the author of this book(Timothy Keller) is a pastor, he have often preached on the story of Joseph in Genesis. Joseph was an arrogant young man who was hated by his brothers. In their anger at him, they imprisoned him in a pit and then sold him into a life of slavery and misery in Egypt. Doubtless Joseph prayed to God to help him escape, but no help was forthcoming, and into slavery he went. Though he experienced years of bondage and misery, Joseph's charater was refined and strengthened by his trials. Eventually he rose up to become a prime minister of Egypt who saved thousands of lives and even his own family from starvation. If God had not allowed Joseph's years of suffering, he never would have been such a powerful agent for social justice and spiritual healing.
Whenever he preach on this text, he hear from many people who identify with that narrative. Many people have to admit that most of what they really needed for success in life came to them through their most difficult and painful experiences. Some look back on an illness and recognise that it was an irreplaceable season of personal and spiritual growth for them. The author of this book have survived a bout with cancer and his wife has suffered with Crohn's disease for years, and they would both attest to that. He knew a man in his first parish who had lost most of his eye-sight after he was shot in the face during a drug deal gone bad. He told Timothy that he had been an extremely selfish and cruel person, but he had always blamed his constant legal and relational problems on others. The loss of his sight had devastated him, but it had also profoundly humbled him. 'As my physical eyes were closed, my spiritual eyes were opened, as it were. I finally saw how I'd been treating people. I changed, and now for the first time in my life I have friends, real friends. It was a terrible price to pay, and yet I must say it was worth it. I finally have what makes life worthwhile.'
Though none of these people are grateful for the tragedies themselves, they would not trade the insight, charater and strength they had gained from them for anything. With time and perspective most of us can see good reasons for at least SOME of the tragedy and pain that occurs in life. Why couldn't it be possible that, from God's vantage point, there are good reasons for all of them?
If you have a God great and transcendent enough to be mad at because he hasn't stopped evil and suffering in the world, then you have (at the same moment) a God great and transcendent enough to have good reasons for allowing it to continue that you can't know. Indeed, you can't have it both ways.

Evil and Suffering May Be (If Anything) Evidence for God

Horrendous, inexplicable suffering, though it cannot disprove God, is nonetheless a problem for the believer in the Bible. However, it is perhaps an even greater problem for non-believers. C.S. Lewis described how he had originally rejected the idea of God because of the cruelty of life. Then he came to realise that evil was even more problematic for his new atheism. In the end, he realised that suffering provided a better argument for God's existence than one against it.

My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of 'just' and 'unjust'?... What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too - for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to plase my private fancies... Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple.

Lewis recognised that modern objections to God are based on a sense of fair play and justice. People, we believe, OUGHT not to suffer, be excluded, die of hunger or oppression. But the evolutionary mechanism of natural selection depends on death, destruction and violence of the strong against the weak - these things are all perfectly natural. On what basis, then, does the atheist judge the natural world to be horribly wrong, unfair and unjust? The non-believer in God doesn't have a good basis for being outraged at unjustice, which, as Lewis points out, was the reason for objecting to God in the first place. If you are sure that this natural world is unjust and filled with evil, you are assuming the reality of some extra-natural (or supernatural) standard by which to make your judgement. The philosopher Alvin Plantinga said it like this:

Could there really be any such thing as horrifying wickedness [if there were no God and we just evolved?] I don't see how. There can be such a thing only if there is a way that rational creatures are supposed to live, obliged to live.... A [secular] way of looking at the world has no place for genuine moral obligation of any sort... and thus no way to say there is such a thing as genuine and appalling wickedness. Accordingly, if you think there really is such a thing as horrifying wickedness (...and not just an illusion of some sort), then you have a powerful ... argument [for the reality of God].

In short, the problem of tragedy, suffering and injustice is a problem for everyone. It is at least as big a problem for non-belief in God as for belief. It is therefore a mistake, though an understandable one, to think that if you abandon belief in God it somehow makes the problem of evil easier to handle.

A woman in Timothy's church once confronted him about sermon illustrations in which evil events turned out for the good. She had lost a husband in an act of violence during a robbery. She also had several children with severe mental and emotional problems. She insisted that for every one story in which evil turns out for good there are one hundred in which there is no conceivable silver lining. In the same way, much of the discussion so far in this chapter may sound cold and irrelevant to a real-life sufferer. 'So what if suffering and evil doesn't logically disprove God?' such a person might say. 'I'm still angry. All this philosophising does not get the Christian God "off the hook" for the world's evil and suffering!' In response the philosopher Peter Kreeft points out that the Christian God came to earth to deliberately put himself ON the hook of human suffering. In Jesus Christ, God experienced the greatest depths of pain. Therefore, though Christianity does not provide the reason for each experience of pain, it would provides deep resources for actually facing suffering with hope and courage rather than bitterness and despair.

Comparing Jesus to the Martyrs

The Gospel narratives all show that Jesus did not face his approaching death with anything like the aplomb and fearlessness tha was widely expected in a spiritual hero. The well-known Macabean martyrs, who suffered under the Syrain rule of Antiochus Epiphanes, were the paradigms for spiritual courage in the face of persecution. They were famous for speaking defiantly and confidently of God even as they were having limbs cut off. Contrast that with the demeanour of Jesus, who is depicted as profoundly shaken by his impending doom. '...He began to be deeply distressed and troubled' saying, 'My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death' (Mark 14:33-34). Luke describes Jesus before his death as being in 'agony' and describes a man with all the signs of being in physical shock (Luke 22:44). Matthew, Mark and Luke all show Jesus trying to avoid death, asking the Father if there isn't some way out of it ('If it be your will... take this cup from me' - Mark 14:36; Luke 22:42). Finally, on the cross itself, Jesus does not, as the Maccabean martyrs, confidently call on lookers to be faithful to God. Rather, he cries out that God has forsaken him (Matthew 27:46).
On the cross, Jesus suffered a 3 hour long death by slow suffocation and blood loss. As terribly painful as that was, there have been far more excruciating and horrible deaths that martyrs have faced with far greater confidence and clamness. Two famous examples are Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, who were burned at the stake at Oxford in 1555 for their Protestant convictions. As the flames leapt up, Latimer was heard to say calmly, 'Be of good comfort, Mr Ridley, and play the man! We shall this day light such a candel by God's grace, in England, as I trust never shall be put out.'
Why was Jesus so much more overwhelmed by his death than others have been, even more than his own followers?

The Suffering of God

To understand Jesus's suffering at the end of the Gospels, we must remember how he is introduced at their begining. The Gospel writer John, in his first chapter, introduces us to the mysterious but crucial concept of God as tri-personal. The Son of God was not created but took part in creation and has lived throughout all eternity 'in the bosom of the Father' (John 1:18) - that is, in a relationship of absolute intimacy and love. But at the end of his life he was cut off from the Father.
There may be no greater inner agony than the loss of a relationship we desperately want. If a mild acquaintance turns on you, condemns and criticises you, and says she never wants to see you again, it is painful. If someone you're dating does the same thing, it is qualitatively more painful. But if your spouse does this to you, or if one of your parents does this to you when you're still a child, the psychological damage is infinitely worse.
We cannot fathom, however, what it would be like to lose not just spousal love or parental love that has lasted several years, but the infinite love of the Father that Jesus had from all eternity. Jesus's suffering would have been eternally unbearable. Christian theology has always recognised that Jesus bore, as the substitute in our place, the endless exclusion from God that the human race has merited. In the Garden of Gethsemane, even the beginning and fore-taste of this experience began to put Jesus into a state of shock. New Testament scholar Bill Lane writes: 'Jesus came to be with the Father for an interlude before his betrayal, but found hell rather than heaven opened for him, and he staggered.' On the cross, Jesus's cry for dereliction - 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' - is a deeply relational statement. Lane writes: 'The cry has a ruthless authenticity... Jesus did not die renouncing God. Even in the inferno of abandonment he did not surrender his faith in God but expressed his anguished prayer in a cry of affirmation, "My God, my God". Jesus still uses the language of intimacy - 'my God' - even as he experiences infinite separation from the Father.

Redemptin and Suffering

The death of Jesus was qualitatively different from any other death. The physical pain was nothing compared to the spiritual experience of cosmic abandonment. Christianity alone among the world religions claims that God became uniquely and fully human in Jesus Christ and therefore knows firsthand despair, rejection, loneliness, poverty, bereavement, torture and imprisonment. On the cross he went beyond even the worst human suffering and experienced cosmic rejection and pain that exceeds ours as infinitely as his knowledge and power exceeds ours. In his death, God suffer in love, identifying with the abandoned and godforsaken. Why did he do it? The Bible says that Jesus came on a rescue mission for creation. He had to pay for our sins so that some day he can end evil and suffering without ending us.
Let's see where this has brought us. If we again ask the question: 'Why does God allow evil and suffering to continue?' and we look at the cross of Jesus, we still do not know what the answer is. However, we now know what the answer isn't. It can't be that he doesn't love us. It can't be that he is indifferent or detached from our condition. God takes our misery and suffering SO seriously that he was willing to take it on himself. Albert Camus understood this when he wrote:
Christ the god-man suffers too, with patience. Evil and death can no longer be entirely imputed to him since he suffers and dies. The night on Golgotha is so important in the history of man only because, in its shadows, the divinity ostensibly abandoned its traditional privilege, and lived through to the end, despair included, the agony of death. Thus is explained the 'Lama sabachthani' and the frightful doubt of Christ in agony.

So, if we embrace the Christian teaching that Jesus is God and that he went to the cross, then we have deep consolation and strength to face the brutal realities of life on earth. We can know that God is truly Immanuel - God with us - even in our worst sufferings.

Resurrection and Suffering

I think we need something more than knowing God is with us in our difficulties. We also need hope that our sufferings is 'not in vain'. Have you ever noticed how desperate the families of lost loved ones are to say that? They work to reform laws or change social conditions that led to the death. They need to believe that the death of their loved ones has led to new life, that the injustice has led to greater justice.
For the one who suffers, the Christian faith provides as a resource not just its teaching on the cross but also the fact of the resurrection. The Bible teaches that the future is not an immaterial 'paradise' but a new heaven and a new earth. In Revelation 21, we do not see human beings being taken out of this world into heaven, but rather heaven coming down and cleansing, renewing and perfecting this material world. The secular view of things, of course, sees no future restoration after death or history. And Eastern religions believe in a heavenly paradise consider it a consolation for the losses and pain of this life and all the joys that might have been.
The biblical view of things is resurrection-not a future that is just a consolation for the life we never had but a restoration of the life you always wanted. This means that every horrible thing that ever happened will not only be undone and repaired but will in some way make the eventual glory and joy even greater.
A few years ago Timothy had a horrible nightmare in which he dreamed that everyone in his family had died. When he awoke his relief was enormous - but there was much more than just relief. His delight in each member of his family was tremendously enriched. He looked at each one and realised how grateful he was for them, how deeply he loved them. Why? His joy had been greatly magnified by the nightmare. His delight on awakening took the terror up into itself, as it were, so that in the end his love for them was only greater for his having lost them and found them again. This same dynamic is at work when you lose some possession you take for granted. When you find it again (having thought it was gone for ever) you cherish and appreciate it in a far deeper way.
In Greek (specifically Stoic) philosophy there was a belief that history was an endless cycle. Every so often the universe would wind down and burn up in a great conflagration called a palengenesia, after which history, having been purified, started over. But in Matthew 19:28 Jesus spoke of his return to earth as the palingenesis. 'I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things (Greek palengenesia), the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne.' This was a radically new concept. Jesus insisted that his return will be with such power that the very material world and universe will be purged of all decay and brokenness. All will be healed and all might-have-beens will BE.
Just after the climax of the trilogy The Lord of the Rings, Sam Gamgee discovers that his friend Gandalf was not dead (as he thought) but alive. He cries, 'I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself! Is everything sad going to come untrue? The answer of Christianity to that question is - yes. Everything sad is going to come untrue and it will somehow be greater for having once been broken and lost.
Embracing the Christian doctrines of the incarnation and cross brings profound consolation can instil us with a powerful hope. It promises that we will get the life we most longed for, but it will be an infinitely more glorious world than if there had never been the need for bravery, endurance, sacrifice or salvation.
Dostoevsky put it perfectly when he wrote:

I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, that in the world's finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to psas that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood that they've shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened.

More succinctly C. S. Lewis wrote:

They say of some temporal suffering, 'No future bliss can make up for it,' not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory.

This is the ultimate defeat of evil and suffering. It will not only be ended but so radically vanquished that what has happened will only serve to make our future life and joy infinitely greater.

THERE CAN'T BE JUST ONE TRUE RELIGION

"How could there be just one true faith?" asked Blair, a twenty-four-year-old woman living in Manhattan. 'It's arrogant to say your religion is superior and try to convert everyone else to it. Surely all the religions are equally good and valid for meeting the needs of their particular followers.'

'Religions exclusivity is not just narrow - it's dangerous,' added Geoff, a twenty-something British man. 'Religion has led to untold strife, division, and conflict. It may be the greatest enemy of peace in the world. If Christians continue to insist that they have 'the truth' - and if other religions do this as well - the world will never know peace.'

Questions 1:What is your biggest problem with Christianity?
Qustions2: What troubles you the most about its beliefs or how it is practised?
From what I have heard over the years can be summed up in one word: Exclusivity

I agreed on this statement: 'If Christians are right about Jesus being God, then Muslims and Jews fail in a serious way to love God as God really is, but if Muslims and Jews are right that Jesus is not God but rather a teacher or prophet, then Christians fail in a serious way to love God as God really is.' The bottom line was - we couldn't all be equally right about the nature of God.

Some of you may get disturbed by this and insisted that what mattered was to believe in God and to be a loving person yourself. To insist that one faith has a better grasp of the truth than others was intolerant.

It is widely believed that one of the main barriers to world peace is religion, and especially the major traditional religions with their exclusive claims to superiority. It may surprise you that though I am a Christian I agree with this. Religion, generally speaking, tends to create a slippery slope in the heart. Each religion informs its followers that they have 'the truth', and this naturally leads them to feel superior to those with differing beliefs. Also, a religion tells its followers that they are saved and connected to God by devotedly performing that truth. This moves them to separate from those who are less devoted and pure in life. Therefore, it is easy for one religions group to stereotype and caricature other ones. Once this situation exists it can easily spiral down into the marginalisation of others or even to active oppression, abuse, or violence against them.

Once we recognise how religion erodes peace on earth, what can we do about it? There are three approaches that civic and cultural leaders around the world are using to address the divisiveness of religion. There are calls to outlaw religion, condemn religion or at least to radically privatise it. Many people are investing great hope in them. Unfortunately, I don't believe any of them will be effective. Indeed, I'm afraid they will only aggravate the situation.

1.Outlaw religion

One way to deal with the divisiveness of religion has been to control or even forbid it with a heavy hand. There were several massive efforts to do this in the 20th century. Soviet Russia, Communist China, the Khmer Rouge and (in a different way) Nazi Germany were all determined to tightly control religions pratice in an effort to stop it from dividing society or eroding the power of the state. The result, however, was not more peace and harmony, but more oppression. The tragice irony of the situation is brought out by Alister McGrath in his history of atheism:

The 20th century gave rise to one of the greatest and most distressing paradoxes of human history: that the greatest intolerance and violence of that century were practised by those who believed that religion cause intolerance and violence.

Going hand in hand with such efforts was a widespread belief in the late 19th & early 20th century that religion would weaken and die out as the human race became more technologically advanced. This view saw religion as playing a role in human evolution. We once needed religon to help us cope with a very frightening, incomprehensive world. But as we become more scientifically sophisticated and more able to understand and control our own environment, our need for religion would diminish, it was thought.
But this has no happened, and this 'secularisation thesis' is now largely discredited. Virtually all major religions are growing in number of adherents. Christianity's growth, especially in the developing world, has been explosive. There are now six times more Anglicans in Nigeria alone than there are in all of the U.S. There are more Presbyterians in Ghana than in the U.S and Scotland combined. Korea has gone from 1 per cent to 40 per cent Christian in a hundred years, and experts believe the same thing is going to happen in China. If there are a half a billion Chinese Christians 50 years from now, that will change the course of human history. In most case, the Christianity that is growing is not the more secularised, belief-thin versions predicted by the sociologists. Rather, it is a robust supernaturalist kind of faith, with belief in miracles, scriptual authority and personal conversion.
Because of the vtality of religions faith in the world, efforts to suppress or control it often serve only to make it stronger. When the Chinese Comunists expelled Western missionaries after the World War 2, they thought they were killing off Christianity in China. Instead, this move only served to make the leadership of the Chinese church more indigenous and therefore to strengthen it.
Religion is not just a temporary thing that helped us adapt to our environment. Rather it is a permanent and central aspect of the human condition. This is a bitter pill for secular, non-religious people to swallow. Everyone wants to think that they are in the mainstream, that they are not extremists. But robust religions beliefs dominate the world. There is no reason to expect that to change.

2.Condemn religion

Religion is not going away and its power cannot be diminished by government control. But can't we - via education and argument - find ways to socially discourage religions that claim to have 'the truth' and that try to convert others to their beliefs? Couldn't we find ways to urge all of our citizens, whatever their religious beliefs, to admit that each religion or faith is just one of many equally valid paths to God and ways to live in the world?
This approach creates an environment in which it is considered unenlightened and outrageous to make exclusive religous claims, even in personal conversations. It does so by stating and restating certain axioms that eventually achieve the status of common sense. Those who deviate from them are stigmaised as foolish or dangerous. Unlike the first strategy, this approach to the divisiveness of religion is having some effect. It cannot ultimately succeed, however, because at its heart is a fatal inconsistency, even perhaps a hypocrisy, that will eventually lead to the collapse of this way of thinking. What follows are several of these axioms and the problems with each.

'All major religons are equally valid and basically teach the same thing.'

This assertion is so common that one journalist recently wrote that anyone who believed that 'there are inferior religions' is a rightwing extremits. Do we really want to say that the Branch Davidians or religions requiring child sacrifice are not inferior to any other faith? The great majority of people would almost certainly agree that they are.
Most people assert the equality of religions have in mind the major world faiths, not splinter sects. This was the form of the objection the author of this book got from a student. The student contended that doctrinal differences between Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism were superficial and insignificant, that they all believed the same God. But when the author asked the student who that God was, he described him as an all-loving Spirit in the universe. The problem with this position is its inconsistency. It insists that doctrine is unimportant, but at the same time assumes doctrinal beliefs about the nature of God that are at loggerheads with those of all the major faiths. Buddhism doesn't believe in a personal God at all. Judaism, Christianity and Islam believe in a God who holds people accountable for their beliefs and practices and whose attributes could not all be reduced to love. Ironically, the insistence that doctrines do not matter is really a doctrine itself. It holds a specific view of God, which is touted as superior and more enlightened than the beliefs of most major religions. So the proponents of this view do the very thing they forbid in others.

'Each religion sees part of spiritual truth, but none can see the whole truth.'

Sometimes this point is illustrated with the story of the blind men and the elephant. Several blind men were walking along and came upon an elephant that allowed them to touch and feel it. 'This creature is long and flexible like a snake' said the first blind man, holding the elephant's trunk. 'Not at all - it is thick and round like a tree trunk,' said the second blind man, feeling the elephant's leg. 'No, it is large and flat,' said the third blind man, touching the elephant's side. Each blind man could feel only part of the elephant - none could envisage the entire elephant. In the same way, it is argued, the religions of the world each have a grasp on part of the truth about spiritual reality, but none can see the whole elephant or claim to have a comprehensive vision of the truth.
This illustration backfires on its users. The story is told from the point of view of someone who is not blind. How could you know that each blind man only sees part of the elephant unless YOU claim to be able to see the whole elephant?

There is an appearance of humility in the protestation that the truth is much greater than any one of us can grasp, but if this is used to invalidate all claims to discern the truth it is in fact an arrogant claim to a kind of knowledge which is superior to [all others] ... We have to ask: 'What is the [absolute] vantage ground from which YOU claim to be able to relativize all the absolute claims these different scriptures make?'

How could you possibly know that no religion can see the whole truth unless you yourself have the superior, comprehensive knowledge of spiritual reality you just claimed that none of the religions have?

'Religions belief is too culturally and historically conditioned to be "truth".'
When the author first went to New York nearly 20 years ago, he more often heard the objection that all religions are equally true. Now, however, he is more likely to be told that all religions are equally false. The objection goes like this: 'All moral and spiritual claims are the product of our particular historical and cultural moment, and therefore no one should claim they can know the Truth, since no one can judge whether one assertion about spiritual and moral reality is truer than another.' The sociologist Petter L. Berger reveals the serious inconsistency in this common assumption.
In his book A Rumor of Angels Berger recounts how the 20th century had uncovered 'the sociology of knowledge', namely that people believe what they do largely because they are socially conditioned to do so. We like to think that we think for ourselves, but it is ont that simple. We think like the people we most admire and need. Everyone belongs to a community that reinforces the plausibility of some beliefs and discourages others. Berger notes that many have concluded from this fact that, because we are all locked into our historical and cultural locations, it is impossible to judge the rightness or wrongness of competing beliefs.
Berger goes on, however, to point out that absolute relativism can only exist if the relativists exempt themselves from their own razor. If you infer from the social conditionedness of all belief that 'no belief can be held as universally true for everyone,' that itself is a comprehensive claim about everyone that is the product of social conditions - so it cannot be true, on its own terms. 'Relativity relativize itself,' says Berger, so we can't have relativism ' all the way down'. Our cultural biases make weighing competing truth claims harder, yes. The social conditionedness of belief is a fact, but it cannot be used to argue that all truth is completely relative or else the very argument refutes itself. Berger concludes that we cannot avoid weighing spiritual and religous claims by hiding behind the cliché that 'there's no way to know the Truth'. We must still do the hard work of asking: which affirmations about God, human nature and spiritual reality are true and which are false? We will have to base our life on some answer to that question.
The philosopher Alvin Plantinga has his own version of Berger's argument. People often say to him, 'If you were born in Morocco, you wouldn't even be a Christian, but rather a Muslim.' He responds:
Suppose we concede that if I had been born of Muslim parents in Morocco rather than Christian parents in Michigan, my beliefs would have been quite different. [But] the same goes for the pluralist... If the pluralist had been born in [Morocco] he probably wouldn't be a pluralist. Does it follow that...his pluralist beliefs are produced in him by an unreliable belief-producing process?

Plantinga and Berger make the same point. You can't say, 'All claims about religions are historically conditioned except the one I am making right now.' If you insist that no one can determine which beliefs are right and wrong, why should we believe what you are saying? The reality is that we all make truth-claims of some sort and it is very hard to weigh them responsibly, but we have no alternative but to try to do so.

'It is arrogant to insist your religion is right and to convert others to it.'

The noted religion scholar John Hick has written that once you become aware that there are many other equally intelligent and good people in the world who hold different beliefs from you and that you will not be able to convince them otherwise, then it is arrogant for you to continue to try to convert them or to hold your view to be the superior truth.
Once again there is an inherent contradiction. Most people in the world don't hold to John Hick's view that all religions are equally valid, and many of them are equally as good and intelligent as he is, and unlikely to change their views. That would make the statement 'all religious claim to have a better view of things are arrogant and wrong' to be, on its own terms, arrogant and wrong.
Many say that it is ethnocentric to claim that our religion is superior to others. Yet isn't that very statement ethnocentric? Most non-Western cultures have no problem saying that their culture and religion is best. The idea that it is wrong to do so is deeply rooted in Western traditions of self-criticism and individualism. To charge others with the 'sin' of ethnocentrism is really a way of saying, 'Our culture's approach to other cultures is superior to yours.' We are then doing the very thing we forbid others to do. The historiam C.John Sommerville has pointed out that 'a religion can be judged only on the basis of another religion'. You can't evaluate a religion except on the basis of some ethical criteria that in the end amounts to your own religious stance.
By now the fatal flaw in this approach to religion in general and to Christianity in particular should be obvious. Sceptics believe that ANY exclusive claims to a superior knowledge of spiritual reality cannot be true. But this objection is itself a religous belief. It assumes God is unknowable, or that God is loving but not wrathful, or that God is an impersonal force rather than a person who speaks in Scripture. All of those unprovable faith assumptions. In addition, their proponents believe they have a superior way to view things. They believe the world would be a better place if everyone dropped the traditional religions' views of God and truth and adopted theirs. Therefore, their view is also an 'exclusive' claim about the nature of spiritual reality. If all such views are to be discouraged, this one should be as well. If it is not narrow to hold this view, then there is nothing inherently narrow about holding to traditional religious beliefs.
Mark Lilla, a professor at the University of Chicago, spoke to a bright young student at Wharton Business School who, to Lilla's bafflement, had gone forward at a Billy Graham crusade to give his life to Christ. Lilla writes:
I wanted to cast doubt on the step he was about to take, to help him see there are other ways to live, other ways to seek knowledge, love... even self-transformation. I wanted to convince him his dignity depended on maintaining a free, skeptical attitude towards doctrine. I wanted...to save him...

Doubt, like faith, has to be learned. It is a skill. But the curious thing about skepticism is that its adherents, ancient and modern, have so often been proselytizers. In reading them, I've often wanted to ask: 'Why do you care?' Their skepticism offers no good answer to that question. And I don't have one for myself.

Lilla's wise self-knowledge reveals his doubts about Christianity to be learned, alternative faith. He believes tha he individual's dignity as a human being rests on doctrinal scepticism - which is, of course, an article of faith. As he admits, he can't avoid believing that it would be better for people if they adopted his beliefs about reality and human dignity rather than Billy Graham's.
It is no more narrow to claim that one religion is right than to claim that one way to think about all religions (namely that all are equal) is right. We are all exclusive in our beliefs about religion, but in different ways.

3.Keep religion completely private

Another approach to the divisiveness of religion is to allow that people may privately believe their faith is the truth and may 'evangelise' for their faith, but that religious beliefs should be kept out of the public sphere. Influential thinkers such as John Rawls and Robert Audi have argued that, in public political discussions, we may not argue for a moral position unless it has a secular, non-religious grounding. Rawls is well known for insisting that what he calls 'comprehensive' relious views be excluded from public discourse. Recently a large array of scientists and philosopers signed 'A Declaration in Defense of Science and Secularism', which called on the leaders of our government 'not to permit legislation or executive action to be influenced by religous beliefs. The signatories included Peter Singer, E.O. Wilson, and Daniel C.Dennett. The philosopher Richard Rorty, for example, has argued that religious faith must remain a strictly private affair and must never be brought into discussions of public policy. To ever use an argument grounded in a religous belief is simply a 'conversation stopper', with which the non-believer cannot engage.
To those who complain that this approach discriminates against religion, Rorty and others retort that this policy is simply pragmatic. They are not ideologically opposed to religion per se, nor are they seeking to control religious beliefs, so long as they are kept in the private sphere. However, in the public square it is divisive and time-consuming to argue constantly over religion. Religion-based positions are seen as sectarian and controversial, while secular reasoning for moral positions are seen as universal and available to all. Therefore, public discourse should be secular, never religious. Without reference to any divine revelation or confessional tradition, we should work together on the great problems of our time - such as AIDS, poverty, education, and so on. We should keep our religious views to ourselves and unite around policies that 'work' best for the most people.
However, Stephen L. Carter of Yale responds that it is impossible to leave religous views behind when we do any kind of moral reasoning at all.

Efforts to craft a public square from which religious conversation is absent, no matter how thoughfully worked out, will always in the end say to those of organized religion that they alone, unlike everybody else, must enter public dialogue only after leaving behind that part of themselves that they may consider the most vital.

How can Carter make such a claim? Let's begin by asking what religion is. Some say it is form of belief in God. But that would not fit Zen Buddhism, which does not really believe in God at all. Some say it is belief in the supernatural. But that does not fit Hinduism, which does not believe in a supernatural realm beyond the material world, but only a spiritual reality within the empirical. What is religion then? It is a set of beliefs that explain what life is all about, who we are, and the most important things that human beings should spend their time doing. For example, some think that this material world is all there is, that we are here by accident and when we die we just rot, and therefore the important thing is to choose to do what makes you happy and not let others impose their beliefs on you. Notice that though this is not an explicit, 'organised' religion, it contains a master narrative, an account about the meaning of life along with a recommendation for how to live based on that account of things.
Some call this a 'worldview' while others call it a 'narrative identity'. In either case it is a set of faith-assumptions about the nature of things. It is an implicit religion. Broadly understood, faith in some view of the world and human nature informs everyone's life. Everyone lives and operates out of some narrative identity, whether it is thought out and reflected upon or not. All who say 'You ought to do this' or 'You shouldn't do that' reason out of such an implicit moral and religious position. Pragmatists say that we should leave our deeper worldviews behind and find consensus about 'what works' - but our view of what works is determinded by (to use a Wendell Berry title) what we think people are for. Any picture of happy human life that 'works' is neccessarily informed by deep-seated beliefs about the purpose of human life. Even the most secular pragmatists come to the table with deep commitments and narrative accounts of what it means to be human.
Rorty insists that religion-based beliefs are conversation stoppers. But all of our most fundamental convictions about things are beliefs that are nearly impossible to justify to those who don't share them. Secular concepts such as 'self-realisation' and 'autonomy' are impossible to prove and are 'conversation stoppers' just as much as appeals to the Bible.
Statements that seem to be common sense to the speakers are nonetheless often profoundly religious in nature. Imagine that Ms A argues that all the safety nets for the poor should be removed, in the name of 'survival of the fittest'. Ms B might respond, 'The poor have the right to a decent standard of living - they are human beings like the rest of us!' Ms A could then come back with the fact that many bioethicist today think the concept of 'human' is artificial and impossible to define. She might continue that there is no possibility of treating all living organisms as ends rather than means and that some always have to die that others may live. That is simply the way nature works. If Ms B counters with a pragmatic argument, that we should help the poor simply because it makes society work better, Ms A could come up with many similar pragmatic arguments about why leting some of the poor just die would be even more efficient. Now Ms B would be getting angry. She would respond heatedly that starving the poor is simply unethical, but Ms A could retort, 'Who says ethics must be the same for everyone?' Ms B would finally exclaim: 'I wouldn't want to live in a society like the one you are describing!'
In this interchange Ms B has tried to follow John Rawls and find universally accessible, 'neutral and objective' arguments that would convince everyone that we must not starve the poor. She has failed because there are none. In the end Ms B affirms the equality and dignity of human individuals simply because she believes it is true and right. She takes as an article of faith that people are more valuable than rocks or trees - though she can't prove such belief scientifically. Her public policy proposals are ultimately based on a religious stance.
This leads a legal theorist, Michael J. Perry, to conclude that it is 'quixotic, in any event, to attempt to construct an airtight barrier between religiously grounded moral discourse. . .and [secular] discourse in public political argument'. Rorty and others argue that religious argument is too controversial, but Perry retorts in Under God? Religious Fatih and Liberal Democracy that secular grounds for moral positions are no less controversial than religious grounds, and a very strong case can be made that all moral positions are at least implicitly religious. Ironically, insisting that religious reasoning be excluded from the public square is itself a controversial 'sectarian' point of view.
When you come out into the public square it is impossible to leave your convictions about ultimate values behind. Let's take marriage and divorce laws as a case study. Is it possible to craft laws that we all agree 'work' apart from particular worldview commitments? I don't believe so. Your views of what is right will be based on what you think the purpose of marriage is. If you think marriage is mainly for the rearing of children to benefit the whole society, then you will make divorce very difficult. If you think the purpose of marriage is more primarily for the happiness and emotional fulfilment of the adults who enter it, you will make divorce much easier. The former view is grounded in a view of human flourishing and well-being in which the family is more important than the individual, as is seen in the moral traditions of Confucianism, Judaism and Christianity. The latter approach is a more individualistic view of human nature based on the Enlightenment's understanding of things. The divorce laws you think 'work' will depend on prior beliefs about what it means to be happy and fully human. There is no objective, universal consensus about what that is. Although many continue to call for the exclusion of religous views from the public square, increasing numbers of thinkers, both religious and secular, are admitting that such a call is itself religious.

Christianity Can Save The World

The author have argued against the effectiveness of all the main efforts to address the divisiveness of religion in our world today. Yet he strongly sympathise with their purpose. Religion can certainly be one of the major threats to world peace. At the beginning of the chapter he outlined the 'slippery slope' that every religion tends to set up in the human heart. This slippery slope leads all too easily to oppression. However, within Christianity - robust, orthodox Christianity - there are rich resources that can make its followers agents for peace on earth. Christianity has within itself remarkable power to explain and expunge the divisive tendencies within the human heart. Christianity provides a firm basis for respecting people of other faiths. Jesus assumes that non-believers in the culture around them will gladly recognise much Christian behaviour as 'good' (Matthew 5:16; cf. 1 Petter 2:12). That assumes some overlap between the Christian constelltion of values and those of any particular culture and of any other religion. Why would this overlap exist? Christians believe that all human beings are made in the image of God, capable of goodness and wisdom. The biblical doctrine of the universal image of God, therefore, leads Christians to expect non-believers will be better than any of their mistaken beliefs could make them. The biblical doctrine of universal sinfulness also leads Christians to expect believers will be worse in practice than their orthodox beliefs should make them. So there will be plenty of ground for respectful co-operation.
Christianity not only leads its members to believe people of other faiths have goodness and wisdom to offer, it also leads them to expect that many will live lives morally superior to their own. Most people in our culture believe that, if there is a God , we can relate to him and go to heaven through leading a good life. Let's call this the 'moral improvement' view. Christianity teaches the very opposite. In the Christian understanding, Jesus does not tell us how to live so we can merit salvation. Rather, he comes to forgive and save us through his life and death in our place. God's grace does not coe to people who morally outperform others, but to those who admit their failure to perform and who acknowledge their need for a Saviour.
Christians, then, should expect to find non-believers who are much nicer, kinder, wiser and better than they are. Why? Christian believers are not accepted by God because of their moral performance, wisdom or virtue, but because of Christ's work on their behalf. Most religions and philosophies of life assume that one's spiritual status depends on your religious attainments. This naturally leads adherents to feel superior to those who don't believe and behave as they do. The Christian gospel, in any case, should not have that effect. It is common to say that 'fundamentalism' leads to violence, yet as we have seen, all of us have fundamental, unprovable faith commitments that we think are superior to those of others. The real question, then, is which fundamentals will lead their believers to be the most loving and receptive to those with whom they differ? Which set of unavoidably exclusive beliefs will lead us to humble, peace-loving behaviour?
One of the paradoxes of history is the relationship between the beliefs and the practices of the early Christians as compared to those of the culture around them.
The Graeco-Roman world's religious views were open and seemingly tolerant - everyone had his or her own God. The practices of the culture were quite brutal, however. The Graeco-Roman world was highly stratified economically, with a huge distance between the rich and poor. By contrast, Christians insisted that there was only one true God, the dying Saviour Jesus Christ. Their lives and practices were, however, remarkably welcoming to those that the culture marginalised. The early Christians mixed people from different races and classes in ways that seemed scandalous to those around them. The Graeco-Roman world tended to despise the poor, but Christians gave generously not only to their own poor but to those of other faiths. In broader society, women had very low status, being subjected to high levels of female infanticide, forced marriages and lack of economic equality. Christianity afforded women much greater security and equality than had previously existed in the ancient classical world. During the terrible urban plagues of the first 2 centuries, Christians cared for all the sick and dying in the city, often at the cost of their lives.Why would such an exclusive belief system lead to behaviour that was so open to others? It was because Christians had within their belief system the strongest possible resource for practising sacrificial service, generosity and peace-making. At the very heart of their view of reality was a man who died for his enemies, praying for their forgiveness. Reflection on this could only lead to a radically different way of dealing with those who were different from them. It meant they could not act in violence and oppression toward their opponents. We cannot skip lightly over the fact that there have been injustices done by the church in the name of Christ, yet who can deny that the force of Christians' most fundamental beliefs can be a powerful impetus for peace-making in our troubled world?

This whole thing is written by Timothy Keller, I just typed it out here to share with you all cause I think this teaching is good.

Praise for the moment

These ideas are nightmares to most parents, whose worst fear is a child with dyed hair and who likes killing.

Like whatever they say has no bearing, it's so scary in a house that allows their kids swearing.

To see him walking around with his headphones blaring.

Alone in his own zone, cold and he don't care, he's a problem child, and what bothers him all comes out, when he talks about, his stupid dad walkin' out. Cause he just hates him so bad that he blocks him out, if he ever saw him again he'd probably knock him out.

His thoughts are whacked, he's mad so he's talkin' back, talkin' black, brainwashed from rock and rap.

He’s stealing things, watch porn and mind is cracked.

His enemies hit him, so he socked em back, and broke his nose.

His house is a broken home, there's no control, he just let's his emotions go...

[Chorus]

{C'mon}, Praise with me, {praise}, praise for the years{praise Him}, praise for the laughter, praise for the tears, {Amen)Praise with me, praise for today, maybe tomorrow our great Lord will take us away...

He slowly is changing, intertwining with the Spirit.

In the land of the sinners, a remorseful mind is a sanctum.

Holy Christ Holy, only have one motive, praising the Lord, because Jesus Christ saved him.

Yet not everybody just feels like they can relate, I guess words are a general expression because they can be great, and they change your fate, or even best they can teach love.

It's like everyday hang on every single statement He said.

And he worship Him, plus he has been trying to serve Him.

Now how on earth did this metamorphosis happen?

From sinning so greatly and in the danger of sears, to having a saviour, no more living with fears.

Cause then these Romans crucify Him, their soldiers scourging him, disciples turn on Him, people all wanted to mock at Him.

To get their mouths on every insults they have, they want Him to lose His mind,everytime they heaped.

So they can try to make Him out to look like the biggest joker, all these priests won't hesitate to execute Him. That's why these crowds/prosecutors wanted to convict Him, strictly just to get Him off of these streets quickly.

But some of them been listening to Him religiously, so the tomb’s sealed while the women sitting opposite Him.

They're for the revival and His tomb is guarded against peeps, if life is just a delusion, this thing doesn't make sense Pete!

It's all eternally, my music is literal, and if I’m a liar how the heck can I change myself?

I couldn't, I wouldn't be fit to, so repent all you sinners, because Christ has died for you!

[Chorus]
{C'mon}, Praise with me, {praise}, praise for the years{praise Him}, praise for the laughter, praise for the tears, {Amen)Praise with me, praise for today, maybe tomorrow our great Lord will take us away...

They say music can alter moods and talk to you.

Well I pray that my lyrics can save you and change you too.

Well if it can, then the next time you met another dude, just tell him the good news and he may get saved.

See what these kids do is hear about us talking eternal, but they don’t wanna get one cause they think it is all bull-s.

Not knowing we really just trying to save their souls, we evangelicals, of course it all depend on our skills, you ignoramus.

But music is reflection of self, we just explain it, and then we hope someone can get saved and get healed.

It's simple ain't it?

How we can come from practically nothing to being able to have the life that we wanted to live and that's why we sing for these kids, who don't have a thing, except for a dream, and a corrupted bad magazine.

Who post pin-up pictures on their walls all day long, idolize their favorite singers and know all their songs.

Or for anyone who's ever been through crisis in their lives, till they sit and they cry at night wishin' they'd die.

Till they throw on a rap record and they sit, and they vibe, we're nothin' to you but we're precious peoples in His eyes.

That's why we seize the moment try to freeze it and own it, squeeze it and hold it, cause we consider these minutes golden.

And maybe they'll admit it when we're gone when our spirits live on, through our lyrics that you hear in our songs and we can...

[Chorus]{C'mon}, Praise with me, {praise}, praise for the years{praise Him}, praise for the laughter, praise for the tears, {Amen)Praise with me, praise for today, maybe tomorrow our great Lord will take us away...x2

So long never edit song suddenly today have this feeling to do it. Correct me if my grammar/vocab is wrong.

What a great start of a year. except Lx he've to stay in da hospital...

Wow! What a great start of my year, I love the hip hop pastor chua pic, SUPER FUNNY man~ Lol Wei nian said we used the stage for like 1 hour taking photos, is it really that long? Anyway enjoy looking at your funny faces peeps.