The way we see it: Capital Punishment irresponsible, hypocritical. “Cruel and unusual punishments (shall not be) inflicted” –  The Constitution of the United State of America;

“Thou shalt not kill” — The sixth commandment of The 10 Commandments;

These are key lines from two of the most recognizable and influential documents in Western civilization.  Nowhere in these lines does the word “except” reside.  There are no circumstances under which American citizens should consider it acceptable to use the Death Penalty as a form of punishment.  It’s irresponsible and disgusting that we still allow people to be put to death. Especially when there are cases where innocent people are convicted.

“The way we see it” is based on the majority opinions of The Arbiter’s editorial board

Capital Punishment is a very complex and controversial issue for our times. What follows below can be considered “Another way to see it.” This article is from  J. Budziszewski, a well known professor of Government and Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin.  It is titled Capital Punishment: The Case For Justice and gives a biblically and philosophically based argument for Capital Punishment in some situations.

Capital Punishment: The Case For Justice by J. Budziszewski

Justice is giving each what is due to him. So fundamental is the duty of public authority to requite good and evil in deeds that natural law philosophers consider it the paramount function of the state, and the New Testament declares that the role is delegated to magistrates by God Himself. “Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution,” says St. Peter, “whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right” (1 Peter 2: 13-14). St. Paul agrees:

For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of him who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain; he is the servant of God to execute His wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be subject, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience (Romans 13:3-5).

So weighty is the duty of justice that it raises the question whether mercy is permissible at all. By definition, mercy is punishing the criminal less than he deserves, and it does not seem clear at first why not going far enough is any better than going too far. We say that both cowardice and rashness miss the mark of courage, and that both stinginess and prodigality miss the mark of generosity; why do we not say that both mercy and harshness miss the mark of justice? Making matters yet more difficult, the argument to abolish capital punishment is an argument to categorically extend clemency to all those whose crimes are of the sort that would be requitable by death.

I ask: Is there warrant for such categorical extension of clemency? Let us focus mainly on the crime of murder, the deliberate taking of innocent human life. The reason for this focus is that the question of mercy arises only on the assumption that some crime does deserve death. It would seem that at least death deserves death, that nothing less is sufficient to answer the gravity of the deed. As Scripture says: “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image” (Genesis 9: 5-6). Someone may object that the murderer, too, is made in God’s image, and so he is. But this does not lighten the horror of his deed. On the contrary, it heightens it, because it makes him a morally accountable being. Moreover, if even simple murder warrants death, how much more does multiple and compounded murder warrant it. Some criminals seem to deserve death many times over. If we are considering not taking their lives at all, the motive cannot be justice. It must be mercy.

The questions we must address are therefore three: Is it ever permissible for public authority to give the wrongdoer less than he deserves? If it is permissible, then when is it permissible? Is it permissible to grant such mercy categorically?

Society is justly ordered when each person receives what is due to him. Crime disturbs this just order, for the criminal takes from people their lives, peace, liberties, and worldly goods in order to give himself undeserved benefits. Deserved punishment protects society morally by restoring this just order, making the wrongdoer pay a price equivalent to the harm he has done. This is retribution, not to be confused with revenge, which is guided by a different motive. In retribution the spur is the virtue of indignation, which answers injury with injury for public good. In revenge the spur is the passion of resentment, which answers malice with malice for private satisfaction. We are not concerned here with revenge.

Retribution is the primary purpose of just punishment as such. The reasons for saying so are threefold. First, just punishment is not something which might or might not requite evil; requital is simply what it is. Second, without just punishment evil cannot be requited. Third, just punishment requires no warrant beyond requiting evil, for the restoration of justice is good in itself. True, just punishment may bring about other good effects. In particular, it might rehabilitate the criminal, physically protect society from him, or deter crime in general. Although these might be additional motives for just punishment, they are secondary. In the first place, punishment might not achieve them. In the second place, they can sometimes be partly achieved apart from punishment. Third and most important, they cannot justify punishment by themselves. In other words, we may not do more to the criminal than he deserves–not even if more would be needed to rehabilitate him, make him harmless, or discourage others from imitation. For example, if a man punches another man in the nose, we may not keep him in a mental institution forever just because he has not yet become kind in spirit, kill him because we cannot be sure that he will never punch again, or torture him because nothing less would deter other would-be punchers. For these reasons, rehabilitation, protection, and deterrence have a lesser status in punishment than retribution: they are secondary.

The argument against capital punishment runs as follows. True, the purpose of retribution is served by the murderer’s death, but under certain circumstances retribution might interfere with other purposes of punishment: it might prematurely put an end to his rehabilitation; it might undermine deterrence (say, by so angering his compatriots that they, too, commit evils); and it might not be necessary for the physical safety of others. Therefore, it would be better not to kill him, but to protect society by other means–perhaps by locking him up forever. The difficulty with this argument is that it seems to regard the secondary purposes of punishment as sufficient to overturn its primary purpose. Rehabilitation, protection, and deterrence cannot justify doing more than what retribution demands; how can they justify doing less?

Fortunately, this is not the end of the story; mercy and justice can, in fact, be reconciled. Let me first consider a false ending to the story that makes their reconciliation seem simpler than it is. This false ending comes from the utilitarian philosophy that permeates our society and legal culture.

To the question, “Is it ever permissible to show mercy?” the utilitarian answers “yes,” but it is a misleading “yes” because he does not understand what is being asked. A utilitarian says that the only reason to have laws at all is to stop things that make people feel pain and start things that make them feel pleasure. Requiting wrong just because it is wrong will make no sense to him because he does not believe in intrinsic wrong; if someone chides him, “Never do evil that good may result,” he is confused, because what results is the only measure of evil that he has. He cannot distinguish retribution from revenge, viewing all punishment merely as an emotional venting which makes people feel better. Not that he objects to it on that account, for in his view, feeling good is all that matters. Over time, though, rehabilitation, protection, and deterrence can make people feel better, too, so the only question is what combination of punishment and remission of punishment makes people feel the best. Therefore, the utilitarian might very well do less to the criminal than he deserves–but, for the same reason, the utilitarian might do more to the criminal than he deserves, for the utilitarian does not grasp the concept of desert.

To the question, “Is it ever permissible to show mercy?” I also answer “yes,” but for a different reason. The faith I hold recognizes the dilemma that utilitarians ignore. Justice is inexorable; evil must be punished. This would seem to make mercy impossible; yet there is mercy. As the Psalmist says, “Great is thy mercy, O Lord; give me life according to thy justice” (Psalms 119:156). Somehow the irreconcilables meet and kiss.

How can this be? There are two parts to the riddle, one on God’s side, the other on man’s. On the divine side, the reconciliation of justice with mercy lies in the Cross. God does not balance mercy and justice; He accomplishes both to the full. The reason He can remit punishment to human beings who repent and turn to Him is that Christ, the Lamb of God, has taken the punishment in their place. His death and resurrection become their death and resurrection, because he identifies with them through sacrifice and they identify with him through faith; the judge himself steps forward to pay their debt. Divine mercy, then, means two things. One is the divine atonement which makes God’s forgiveness possible. The other is the divine patience with which He waits for us to ask for His forgiveness.

Yet whom God loves, He disciplines. For our good, not even divine forgiveness means that the consequences of sin in this life are fully remitted. Among these consequences is punishment by human magistrates, who act as God’s agents whether they know it or not. The sentences of human magistrates cannot be, and are not meant to be, a final requital of unrepented evil; that awaits the great day when Christ returns to judge the quick and the dead. But they foreshadow that final justice, so that something of the retributive purpose is preserved. In the meantime they promote restraint, repentance, and amendment of life. Human magistrates turn out to be not plenary but partial delegates, and not only of God’s wrath but also of His patience.

All this puts the primary and secondary purposes of punishment more nearly on a level than they would be otherwise–not for God, but for man. Although human magistrates are forbidden to let crimes go unrequited, they do not carry the impossible burden of requiting them to the last degree. For temporal purposes, the retributive purpose of punishment can be moderated by its other three purposes after all. The only purpose which cannot be moderated is the purpose of symbolizing that perfect retribution which magistrates themselves do not achieve, for human punishment is a sign of wrath to come.

If criminals in general can sometimes be punished less than they deserve, then perhaps capital criminals can sometimes be punished less than they deserve. The desideratum is when the purposes of punishment can be satisfied better by bloodless means than by bloody ones, so let us consider the four purposes one by one.

Rehabilitation refers to the reconciliation of the criminal with man and God. It may seem at first that capital punishment can never aid in rehabilitation, because when the string of life is cut the process of rehabilitation is cut off, too. But this is overstated. One part of rehabilitation is cut off, for certainly a dead man is not readmitted to society. But what do the opponents of capital punishment propose as an alternative? For serious crimes and dangerous criminals, they propose life imprisonment, but a man in jail for life does not return to society either. The real question is not what the prospect of death does to a man’s prospect of readmission to society, but what it does to his prospect of change of heart. Here the picture is quite different. “Depend upon it, Sir,” said Samuel Johnson, “when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” Indeed, there may be many criminals for whom nothing else concentrates the mind enough. By contrast, an offender who is confined in jail for life with no society but that of other criminals is probably more likely to be hardened than reformed. We are forced to conclude that in some cases, the death penalty may contribute to rehabilitation rather than hinder it.

Protection refers to the defense of society from the criminal. The restoration of just order is by its very nature a moral protection of society, but there is much to be said even if we consider only physical protection. Some people suggest that although capital punishment might once have been necessary for protection, modern improvements in the penal system make it possible to shield the innocent without killing the guilty. Such indeed is the argument of Pope John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae, although he states the conclusion in less categorical terms. It is the more categorical form of the conclusion to which I object. What the Pope suggests is that today we may be able to sentence a criminal to life imprisonment with the reasonable certainty that he will not be able to escape. I agree that this is a deeply significant change which may ultimately reduce the weight of the safety question in cases where clemency has been proposed. However, I do not agree that it has reduced its weight already. Today the risk is not so much that dangerous and justly judged criminals will escape from prison; the risk is that we will let them out. It has been a long time since a “life sentence” meant that the prisoner would stay in prison for the rest of his natural life.

There are several reasons for the erosion of life sentencing, and they tend to compound each other. High crime rates have so swelled the number of inmates that officials find it difficult to feed and house all of them; the pressure to set some free is hard to resist. At the same time, American society finds it increasingly difficult to take right and wrong seriously. Not only does our lax moral attitude contribute further to the high rate of crime, but it generates further pressure to let criminals out of prison. When we do let them out, they are usually more dangerous than when they entered, because of the tips they have learned, the contacts they have made, and the attitudes they have developed among other criminals. The argument is sometimes made that abolishing capital punishment would foster the virtue of compassion. Conceivably this is so, but in the present moral climate it is more likely to foster that counterfeit compassion which thinks no wrong is very wrong. Should this happen, then society would be even more at risk than it is now.

Suppose the unlikely: that somehow we did keep all capital criminals in prison for the duration of their natural lives. Even then the protective purpose of punishment would not be fully satisfied. True, a man behind bars no longer endangers society in general. But he endangers other inmates, and he certainly endangers prison staff. Surely they, too, deserve consideration. We are forced to conclude that even today, with our modern penal systems, safety is still an issue. Safety must not trump desert: the risk of future harm to society cannot justify doing more to the criminal than he deserves. But in some cases it should keep us from doing less.

Deterrence refers to the discouragement of crime in general. This is where some opponents of capital punishment claim their strongest ground, for the statistical evidence for the deterrent effect of capital punishment is inconsistent and inconclusive. Avery Cardinal Dulles has suggested a further dilemma. (See “Catholicism & Capital Punishment,” FT April 2001). Although grotesque and torturous methods of execution seem most likely to deter, they are incompatible with human dignity. Conversely, those methods of execution which are compatible with human dignity seem unlikely to deter. So for the means of capital punishment which could actually be used, we probably could not count on a deterrent effect.

For those who view deterrence as the primary purpose of punishment, the uncertainty of capital punishment as a deterrent provides the fatal argument against it. For those who view its primary purpose as retribution, however, this uncertainty makes little difference; the mere fact that a deserved punishment does not deter makes it no less richly deserved. But is it possible that high rates of capital punishment would actually undermine deterrence, inciting wicked and resentful men to greater evils? We know that banning a favorite vice can have this effect; the prohibition of alcohol, for example, can give drunkenness a certain glamour. But the crimes we class as capital must be prohibited in any case. If there were evidence that punishing them by execution rather than by bloodless means incited them, that would certainly be an argument for using the bloodless means. To my knowledge, however, no such evidence has turned up. It seems, then, that the data on deterrence neither strengthen nor weaken the case for capital punishment.

Retribution. We saw earlier that, although human punishment does not bear the full burden of requiting good and evil, it must hold up requital as an ideal; it must point beyond itself, to that perfect justice of which it is merely a token. Cardinal Dulles agrees, but he sees a problem:

For the symbolism to be authentic, the society must believe in the existence of a transcendent order of justice, which the state has an obligation to protect. This has been true in the past, but in our day the state is generally viewed simply as an instrument of the will of the governed. In this modern perspective, the death penalty expresses not the divine judgment on objective evil but rather the collective anger of the group. The retributive goal of punishment is misconstrued as a self-assertive act of vengeance.

The cynicism which Cardinal Dulles describes is a real and grave difficulty. In general, our ruling class no longer believes in those divine decrees of which human decrees are but a hint or shadow, and neither does a large and growing part of the population. More and more our intellectuals agree with the famous statement of Oliver Wendell Holmes that “truth is the majority vote of that nation that could lick all others.”

But what is the import of these facts? They do not make it less important for our courts to appeal to justice; they make it more important. There is a difference between saying that the ideology people hold no longer gives adequate expression to the law which St. Paul says is “written on their hearts” (Romans 2:14-15), and saying, instead, that it is not in fact written on their hearts. Even now, people retain a dim idea of desert; the idea “A deserves B for doing C” has not simply become meaningless to them. The Roman judges of the first century were no less cynical than the American judges of the twenty-first. Tiberius Caesar would have been quite comfortable with Holmes’ maxim; Pontius Pilate washed his hands of justice, using the question “What is truth?” not to begin the interview with his prisoner but to end it. The apostles knew all these things, yet St. Paul calls the magistrate the servant of God to execute divine wrath on the wrongdoer.

I do not know whether our society can be brought back to believe in a transcendent order of justice, but of this I am certain: if we who recognize this standard do not act as though we believe in it, then no one will be brought by us to believe in it.

The question to ask about the retributive purpose of capital punishment is this: Is it possible for punishment to signify the gravity of crimes which deserve death if their perpetrators are never visited with execution? This seems unlikely. Consider the deviant who tortures small children to death for his pleasure or the ideologue who meditates the demise of innocent thousands for the sake of greater terror. Genesis says murderers deserve death because life is precious; man is made in the image of God. How convincing is our reverence for life if its mockers are suffered to live?

Let us consider what objections might be made against our argument to this point. The judicious Cardinal Dulles, to whom my discussion is already indebted, finds less to commend capital punishment than I do. Yet even he does not think that a review of the purposes of punishment is sufficient in itself to justify abolishing the ultimate penalty. The crux of his published argument is found not there, but in four other common objections to the penalty of death. (1) Sometimes innocent people are sentenced to death. (2) Capital punishment whets the lust for revenge rather than satisfying the zeal for true justice. (3) It cheapens the value of life. (4) And it contradicts Christ’s teaching to forgive. The Cardinal calls the first objection “relatively strong,” to the second and third he concedes “some probable force,” and the fourth he considers “relatively weak.” Yet he concludes that “taken together, the four may suffice to tip the scale against the death penalty.” Let us revisit these four objections.

Erroneous convictions. Courts sometimes do mistakenly condemn the innocent. Although erroneous conviction is possible in any case, its gravity increases with the severity and irreversibility of the penalty. It would seem that the proper remedy is to require a higher procedural standard in capital cases than in ordinary cases, and to root out the sources of corruption in the system of justice. Indeed, the Cardinal acknowledges the point, approving the suggestion that capital punishment would be justified if the trial were held in an honest court and the accused were found guilty “beyond all shadow of doubt.” His point is that this criterion cannot be satisfied, for despite all precautions, errors do sometimes occur.

The difficulty with the argument lies in the notion of guilt “beyond all shadow of doubt.” When we say this, do we mean beyond shadow of any sort of doubt, or do we mean beyond shadow of reasonable doubt? In law, the latter standard rules, and surely this is as it ought to be. Anything might be doubted, but it does not follow that doubt is always justified by the facts in evidence. The murderer might have told the grocer, doctor, and cabdriver what he was going to do; he might have been videotaped doing it by a newsman, a passerby, and an automatic security camera; he might have boasted about it afterward to a coworker, bartender, and next-door neighbor; and he might have confessed, in the presence of his lawyer, to the arresting officer, the investigating officers, and the court. Yet perhaps someone on the jury has been reading the Meditations of René Descartes and is troubled by the possibility that the sensible world is only an illusion caused by an evil demon or by the nature of minds. If it is, the juror reasons, then none of the witnesses can be trusted. For that matter, neither can the accused; he may have only dreamed the whole murder. True, Descartes concludes that the world is not an illusion after all. But the juryman votes for acquittal anyway, reflecting that philosophers sometimes err.

Now the way that the juryman reasons about philosophers is very much like how Cardinal Dulles reasons about juries. The Cardinal holds that because even honest courts can err, we must not trust any verdict, irrespective of the weight of evidence which supports it. But a doubt which cannot be affected by any possible evidence is not a reasonable ground for letting a convict off the hook.

The lust for revenge. Of course it is true that the death penalty might whet the appetite for revenge. It is hard to see, though, why this should be more true of the death penalty than of “locking them up for life.” Indeed it is hard to see why it should be more true of punishment than of the other aspects of criminal justice. Seeing policemen on the streets, hearing the testimony of witnesses in court, hearing the judge’s solemn charge to the jury–all of these things might whet the appetite for revenge, and no doubt they often do. Should we then abolish policemen, testimony, and solemn charges? Moreover, not only can the love of justice be twisted toward the wrong, but every good impulse can be twisted toward the wrong: love of country, love of family, compassion for those who suffer. The first may be distorted into jingoism, the second into nepotism, the third into sentimentality. Even the love of God can be perverted, and when it is, it is a terrible thing indeed. Yet the fact that something right can be perverted does not stop it from being right.

The cheapening of life. Cardinal Dulles paraphrases the standard argument this way: “By giving the impression that human beings sometimes have the right to kill, [capital punishment] fosters a casual attitude toward evils such as abortion, suicide, and euthanasia.” The Cardinal does not consider this argument strong. In particular, he observes that many earnest opponents of these other deeds are earnest supporters of capital punishment, for they realize that the rights of the guilty and innocent are not the same. He is quite right, and we can pair his observation with another. Many fervent supporters of these other deeds are also fervent opponents of capital punishment. The phenomenon is as common as it is strange. Perhaps it is a form of compensation, as conscience demands its pay: having approved the private execution of the weak and blameless, one now seeks absolution by denouncing the official execution of the strong and ruthless. Whether or not this explains it, two things at least are plain. First, it is psychologically possible to hold either of the following combinations of positions: that it is wrong to kill the innocent but may be right to kill the guilty, and that it is wrong to kill the guilty but may be right to kill the innocent. Second, the normal moral reason for upholding capital punishment is reverence for life itself. Indeed, this is the reason why Scripture and Christian tradition uphold it, a fact which suggests that if anything, it is the abolition of capital punishment which threatens to cheapen life.

Christ’s teaching on forgiveness. It is true that Jesus taught us to love those who hate us, forgive those who wrong us, and abstain from hypocritical comparisons between ourselves and those who offend us. These things we should do, however difficult they may be. But let us remember that the same Lord and God who commands His people to pardon their debtors also gave them Torah, which commands magistrates to call them to account. Cardinal Dulles speaks rightly when he says that “personal pardon does not absolve offenders from their obligations in justice.” Indeed, he considers this fourth objection “relatively weak” and “complex at best.” My only objection to these words is that they are too polite, for the supposition that personal forgiveness implies a requirement for universal amnesty is not merely weak but mistaken. Taken seriously, it would destroy all public authority, for if punishment as such is incompatible with forgiveness, then why stop with capital punishment? Must we not abolish prisons, fines, and even reprimands as well?

I have heard it asked by fellow Christians, “How dare we play God? How dare we wrest into our own hands the divine prerogative of life and death?” It is a good question. My answer is that we dare not. We dare not wrest into our own hands any of the divine prerogatives of justice, whether the deprivation of life, of liberty, or of property. It is a dreadful matter to kill a man, but it is also dreadful to lock him in a hole, away from wife, children, parents, friends, and all that he held dear in life. It is a fearsome matter to imprison a man, but it is also fearsome to use fines and impoundments to confiscate his worldly goods, which he may have accumulated by honest labor and is counting on for the succor of his family and the support of his declining years. No, we dare not wrest into our hands any powers over our fellow men. But if God puts such powers into the hands of those who hold public authority–what then? Does this not alter the picture? How dare we jerk our hands away, hide them behind our backs, refuse the charge. For the teaching of Scripture and Christian tradition are just as clear about public justice as they are about personal forgiveness, and the teaching of Christ is that “Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35). The magistrate is “sent,” whether he knows it or not; he is “the servant of God to execute His wrath on the wrongdoer.” Yes, we have seen that he is a servant of God’s patience, too, but the one charge does not cancel the other. However tempered with mercy, public authority remains an augur or a portent of the wrath which will one day fall upon the unrepentant.

The story has another side as well. To remit deserved punishment too easily is a miscarriage not only of justice but also of mercy. When a heart is very hard, it may sometimes be the case that deserved punishment is the only knock strong enough to break the husk and spill out the seeds of repentance. God Himself is said to use this method: those whom He loves, He chastens, even perhaps with the prospect of death. If we are to imitate His love, then we must sometimes imitate His chastening, too.

Our brief review of the objections to capital punishment has led us to the following conclusion. First, in considering whether to grant clemency, the proper question is not whether juries ever err, but whether we have reasonable ground to think that this particular jury has erred in fact. Second, any deserved punishment, indeed any element of justice, might whet the impulse for revenge. But when a good impulse is perverted, we should fight not the impulse but its perversion; and so with the impulse for justice. Third, Scripture and Christian tradition uphold capital punishment not in contempt for life but in reverence for it. It is because man is made in God’s image that Torah decrees that whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed. Fourth, Christ did teach personal forgiveness, but he never challenged the need for public justice. Official pardon rightly has conditions which personal forgiveness does not. Not only is punishment compatible with love, it is sometimes demanded by it as the only medicine strong enough to do the offender good.

Classically, Christian teaching has held that the state has the authority to inflict capital punishment. It has also classically held that in certain cases a deserved punishment of death may be remitted but that the grounds for possible clemency are particular, not universal. Categorical remission of the penalty for all whose crimes deserve death contradicts revealed teaching on the duty of the magistrate and has no warrant in Christian tradition. It would weaken three of the four purposes of punishment, would confuse the good counsels of compassion, and would bring about more harm than good. What, then, of Evangelium Vitae? I accept the conclusion of John Paul II that “today” cases in which the death penalty is still necessary are “very rare, if not practically nonexistent.” However, we must resist the tendency to exaggerate his conclusion by reading these six words as the single word “nonexistent.”

Some say that because there is a risk of error in both directions, we should prefer to err on the side of mercy. I agree. We should indeed prefer to err on the side of mercy, in individual cases. But to err categorically is not simply to make a mistake. It is to abdicate our duty.

J. Budziszewski is Professor of Government and Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. This article is adapted from a chapter of A Call for Reckoning: Religion and the Death Penalty, edited by John Carlson, Eric Elshtain, and Erik Owens, to be published this fall by Eerdmans.

Copyright (c) 2004 First Things 145 (August/September 2004): 39-45.

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Posted 9/26/04

By Lael Arrington

Truman Burbank was born and raised on a TV set, the star of his own show.  He is completely unaware of reality. He believes he lives on a coastal island.  He believes that his wife and friends, all paid actors, really love him. Christoff,  the producer in the film, says, “While the world he inhabits is . . . counterfeit,  there’s nothing fake about Truman himself.” Truman is real. That’s what makes him “so good to watch.”³

The 1998 film The Truman Show illustrates the often confusing distinctions between belief and knowledge, truth and untruth. What constitutes knowledge?  Most philosophers would agree that knowledge is justified true belief.   It is belief, something we take to be true by at least 51 percent, that agrees with the evidence.   At the beginning of the movie, Truman believes that his life on Seahaven is real, not a scripted TV show. But his belief does not qualify as knowledge because it is not justified by the evidence of which the viewing audience is clearly aware.

What is truth? Truth is telling it like it really is. Truth is not a thing, but rather a relationship between our words or ideas and reality. Whether Truman can see it or not, whether he believes it or not, whether his words agree with it or not, his life is entertainment for the masses. Truman’s beliefs do not correspond to reality. They are false.

We may think of belief as an all-or-nothing proposition. But belief is more of a continuum.  In the course of the movie, we see Truman’s confidence in what he believes to be true steadily diminish.  Lighting canisters fall out of the “sky.” The man he knew as “Dad” shows up one day, trying to warn him before he is hustled onto a bus. He catches on to his wife doing product placement commercials.  You can almost see the needle on the continuum between belief and unbelief falling, falling past the 50/50 point. He suspects he is being deceived and controlled.  When he escapes on a sailboat, the producer

creates a ferocious storm.  Truman shouts to the sky, “Is that the best you can do? You’re going to have to kill me!” He survives and sails on until the ship reaches the edge of the watery set and, quite literally, pokes a hole in the bubble of deceit that has been his life.

In the same way, we can live in deceit and illusion until one day we hit the wall of reality. When our false beliefs collide with reality, we then have a choice: Will we live according to knowledge — true belief justified by good evidence? Or will we settle for illusion? The producer promises Truman an illusion of safety. Truman chooses the truth that sets him free. The cheers from the audience gradually subside as they stare at their blank screens, then grope around for their TV guides and some other virtual  adventure to soothe and distract. But that is another story.

To seek knowledge, we weigh all our beliefs against the best evidence — God’s revelation, both general and special. In order to live and speak with truth, we do so “in the sight of God” (2 Corinthians 4:2). That is, we live and speak words that correspond to reality as God created it and as The One Who Sees Everything sees it.  Frederica Mathewes-Green has said, “Reality is God’s home address.” ⁴ To be a person of truth is to live before God in the reality he created rather than to settle for illusions, even those of our own making.

For reflection and discussion

As I look back over seasons of pain and escape into distraction and daydreams,

I think of how I described my journey in my book Godsight:

“I think how the emptiness I often felt came from being in a place, either

in my head or on a screen, where I was not present to God.  My life did not

correspond to his reality.

“I sensed the lack of integrity deep in my bones.  The reality of my own life,

full of potential moments of love and ser vice to God and others was ticking

by.  My escapes were killing me softly — one evening of entertainment, one

daydream at a time.

“What is most real is eternal life. Jesus said, ‘Now this is eternal life: that

they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent’

(John 17:3).  If we truly want to love and seek God, we find him when our

words and lives correspond to reality, even painful reality.  Not in untruth,

fantasy or distraction.”⁵

• Have you experienced hitting the wall of reality? Did you discover that

any of your beliefs were untrue?

• What counts for true knowledge in today’s world? What limitations

might you find with today’s approach to knowledge?

When Truman discovered his life was an illusion, the director begged

him to stay in the safety of Seahaven. He didn’t stay. Why do you think it

is so hard to live in an illusion? Why not enjoy the safety?

• Are there places in your life or heart that do not correspond to reality as

God sees it? What reality have you constructed?

• What greater reality might God be inviting you into?

• What might you want to say to God about being a person of truth?

3. Andrew Niccol, The Truman Show, directed by Peter Weir, starring Jim Carrey (Hollywood:

Paramount Pictures, 1998).

4. Frederica Mathewes-Green, in a conversation with Lael Arrington in 2004.

5. Lael Arrington, Godsight: Renewing the Eyes of Our Hearts (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway,

2005).

That’s all one can say about what newly inaugurated Governor Robert Bentley said in a church.

“Anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I’m telling you, you’re not my brother and you’re not my sister, and I want to be your brother,…”

Governor Bentley was speaking at Dexter Avenue King Memorial Church after the official inaugural ceremony.  Bentley told the crowd (in the church) that he considered anyone who believed in Jesus to be his brothers and sisters regardless of color, but anyone who isn’t a Christian doesn’t have that same relationship to him.

Simply Shocking!

Bill Nigut, the Anti-Defamation League’s regional director said, “His comments are not only offensive, but also raise serious questions as to whether non-Christians can expect to receive equal treatment during his tenure as governor,”  …  “It is shocking that Governor Bentley would suggest that non-Christians are not worthy of the same love and respect he professes to have for the Christian community,” … .

Dr. Gill Mckee, another Baptist pastor added some personal context:   “He was in a church, in the presence of many Christians, his spiritual brothers and sisters,” …”What is so ironic is that his strong Christian faith is what causes him to love other people, no matter who they are, black, white, rich, poor, Christian or not,” McKee said Tuesday. “I know the heart of the man: Robert Bentley loves other people.

“Anyone who raises questions like that (favoritism) about him doesn’t know him,” McKee said. “As the committed Christian I know him to be, one of his priorities is to love his neighbors – and that has nothing to do with whether the neighbor is Christian or not.”

The Rev. Dr. David Freeman, senior pastor of Huntsville’s Weatherly Heights Baptist Church commented:

“Gov. Bentley was using ‘insider’ language,” Freeman said. “People in his church knew exactly what he meant. I grew up with that language, so I understand it, too. However, I now believe that that language points to one of the great failures of fundamentalist Christian theology.    …  “The greatest Christian theology entreats us to see all human beings as our sisters and brothers. That is a gift {to} the world’s faiths.”

Amen!  Preach it!  All religions and worldviews are ultimately the same!  How dare a politician imply anything otherwise  – especially in a sacred place like a church that Martin Luther King preached in!  Let justice, no, “Sameness” roll on!

Or, … maybe not.  I wonder how Jesus would define brothers and sisters?

Matt 12:46-50 “While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.”  He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” ⁴⁹ Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. ⁵⁰ For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

That is even more shocking than Governor Bentley!

Matthew 10:32-39  “Whoever acknowledges me before others,  I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven.  But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.

“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.  For I have come to turn   ‘a man against his father,   a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law— a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’ Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me.  Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.

OMG! Now that is really shocking!  Oh, how shocking My God and Savior really is.  Good thing Jesus didn’t say that in a church with reporters present.  They might have tried to kill him or something.  Governor Bentley needs to learn to be more careful or he will end up becoming more like Jesus.  Let that be a warning to all of us.

Yet, if we know anything of the God of the bible, we know  that the same God who numbers our hairs and does not allow a sparrow to fall to the ground apart from his will, also allows great suffering to be experienced by most everyone, including His chosen people.  Even the Apostle Paul, whose numerous personal examples of suffering are described in Acts and 2 Corinthians, described some of these times as being “under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself.” Suffering to the point of despairing  must have been very difficult, yet Paul says, “but this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God.” It’s true that we cannot always know the particular purposes for our suffering, we can always know this purpose of not relying on ourselves, but God.  I think of this purpose, of relying not on  ourselves, but God as being like “first base”.  Perhaps we won’t be able understand more until we get to this place, first.

When I noticed a revised and expanded edition of Surprised By Suffering – The Role of Pain and Death in the Christian Life, by R.C. Sproul, I decided to give it a read.    R.C. Sproul is a very able teacher and I was pleased with the balance of theology and biblical illustrations as well as personal illustrations from his life and family heritage.  I was also pleased with the breadth of the book, covering everything from faulty theology (“It’s not God’s will for you to suffer…”) or the benefits of suffering for the sufferer or secondary benefits for others who might be observing, to the final act of suffering – namely, dying in faith followed by the resurrection and life after death.  Indeed, two thirds of the book is devoted to death and  dying followed by subjects of the resurrection and afterlife.

Originally, I was surprised at this emphasis, but quickly came to appreciate the necessity of the whole picture of life, death and resurrection, especially in light of the Gospel’s answer to the question of suffering and afterlife compared to other worldviews.   Since virtually every human culture has developed some form of hope in life beyond the grave, it was enlightening to be led through a brief overview of ideas from Plato, Socrates, Kant and eastern views as well.  All of which provided the background in which to contrast the teachings of Jesus and the New Testament on resurrection and the afterlife.    Truly, as Paul says, “If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”

Steve Barry

Surprised By Suffering by R.C. Sproul; Hardback, 156 pages; $15.00 retail, $12.00 Cornerstone price

Though their antecedents are rarely explored in the evening news, present

tensions in the Middle East are rooted in a family story that is more than

four thousand years old. This drama begins with Abraham, a model of faith

and a father to Muslims, Jews, and Christians. Muslims learn about Abraham

through the Qur’an (Koran) of Islam. Jews and Christians learn about

Abraham through what the Jews call the Torah and Christians call the Old

Testament, beginning in Genesis.1

The first chapters of Genesis shed light on some basic questions — our

origins and purpose, why we fight, why we die, and how we live meaningfully.

We find glory, beauty, love, deception, shame, blame, punishment, sibling

rivalry, murder, expulsion — all in the first four chapters of Genesis. Before

long, God grieved the sin among his people and re-created the world through

a flood, a baptism, if you will. As author Madeleine L’Engle suggested, “The

flood was God’s tears.”2 But God found one righ teous family, Noah’s, through

which he rebirthed a freshly storied world.

From Genesis 10 on, the focus of Scripture is on covenant relationships. In

the context of cultural confusion in ancient Babel, where men were building

a great city for personal glory, the Lord not only separated people through

unique languages, he also planted the seed of a remarkable people who were

asked to reject idolatry and live in love. Like us, these were fallible and three dimensional

people, making Genesis a vivid, candid, R-rated page-turner.

Through it all God was faithful, and over many generations the seed grew

into a life-giving tree. Any person could be grafted into that tree, not by

fortune of lineage or wealth but simply by faith in God and in his promised

Messiah. God begins with a remarkable father and mother, a patriarch and

matriarch. Abram and Sarai (whom God renamed Abraham and Sarah) were

citizens of Ur, a great center of ancient Mesopotamia. And the Lord said to

Abraham, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household

to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation” (Genesis

12:1 – 2).

Muslims honor Abraham as the first monotheist, worshiper of the one

true God they call Allah. Muslims trace their heritage through Abraham and

Hagar, the servant who was Sarah’s childbearing surrogate, and their son,

Ishmael (Abraham’s firstborn child). Muslims prize the promise God made

to Hagar when she was abandoned in the wilderness: “Lift the boy [Ishmael]

up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation” (Genesis

21:18). Indeed, Ishmael was blessed with life and progeny, for he had twelve

sons, and his numbers quickly grew.

Jews and Christians trace their lineage through the son God promised

Sarah and Abraham — Isaac, the miraculously conceived son of the free

woman, through whom God would foreshadow and fulfill his covenant promises.

Isaac’s son Jacob then bore twelve sons, whose descendants became the

twelve tribes of Israel.

The account of Abraham and Sarah continues the theme of God’s covenant

(beginning with Noah) to one particular family. The Lord said to Abraham,

I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all

peoples on earth will be blessed through you.

GENESIS 12:3

I am God Almighty; walk before me faithfully and be blameless. . . . I will make

you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you.

GENESIS 17:1, 6

The branches of this family tree would be known by their fruit. They

would, as a way of life, turn curses into blessings. Joseph, son of Jacob, grandson

of Isaac, converted the curse of exile into blessing: not only did Joseph

save his own brothers who’d sold him into slavery but he saved non-Jews as

well, including all of Egypt, from famine. The children of God would, and

will, become a blessing to the nations. “Thus there were fourteen generations

in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon,

and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah” (Matthew 1:17).

This shared respect for Abraham, with differing ideas of the past, present,

and future, makes the conflicts among Jews/Christians and Muslims — from 1

the medieval crusades to today’s Middle Eastern clashes — surprising on

one hand and understandable on the other. But embedded within the tension

there is also hope — that any cousin who so chooses will be present at the

family reunion.

For reflection and discussion

• How do you see this ancient story unfolding in our time?

• At the age of one hundred years, “Abraham gave the name Isaac to the

son Sarah bore him” (Genesis 21:3). Why do you think Abraham chose a

name that means, in Hebrew, “he laughs”? Sarah also laughed. Why?

The theme of Abrahamic covenant is so essential that the apostle Paul revisited

it two millennia later. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul tells Christfollowers

that they are not children of slavery but of freedom. In Galatians

3:26 – 28 and Galatians 5:1, he writes:

You are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into

Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile,

neither slave nor free, neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ

Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according

to the promise. . . . It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm,

then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

• What is it to be a child of slavery? What is it to be a child of freedom and

the Spirit? How might people in freedom bless those in slavery?

• What resources have you been given to share as a blessing to another?

Reprinted from “A Faith and Culture Devotional”, copyright 2008, Kelly Monroe Kullberg and Lael Arrington.

The Faith and Culture Devotional contains over 100 daily readings in the subjects of Art, Science, and Life.  It is written, edited by Kelly Monroe Kullberg and Lael Arrington and published by Zondervan, 2008.

It is available for purchase from Zondervan at www.zondervan.com or through The Cornerstone.  The retail price is $16.99, Cornerstone’s regular price is $13.59 and currently there is a BSU student special price of only $10.00.

Dr. Brown is Assoc. Professor of Chemistry and Environmental Studies at Trinity Western University,  in Langley, B.C.

There will be three separate talks on Wednesday nights at 7:00 in the Cornerstone room of The Biblical Studies Center.

• Nov. 17th, 7:00 pm  “An Introduction To Intelligent Design Theory” This talk will be an introduction to construction of Intelligent Design Theory and comparison with other systems of thought such as Darwinism, Neo-Darwinism, Punctuated Equilibrium.

• Dec. 1st, 7:00 pm  “Fingerprints of Design” This talk will focus on whether design is recognizable and what methods are used to measure information and design.

• Dec. 8th, 7:00 pm   “Alternative Scenarios on The Diversity of Life” This talk will address the question of how including the notion of design and information might change our view of life and evolutionary change.

The Lectures will be in the Cornerstone room at The Biblical Studies Center building, 1025 Belmont St.  For more information, please contact Steve Barry at The Cornerstone, 345-1757.

By Sam Storms, PhD

Physicists and cosmologists are ever in search of what they call “a theory

of everything,” an all-encompassing theory that can account for everything

from the subatomic world of particle physics to the galactic expanse of supernovas

and black holes.

Brian Greene, professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University,

argues that for the first time in the history of physics we have a framework

with that capacity.   Scientists call it string theory.  The idea is that everything in

the universe at its most microscopic level consists of combinations of vibrating

strings. According to Greene, “string theory provides a single explanatory

framework capable of encompassing all forces and all matter.”

The problem isn’t that Greene and others have gone too far in making this

claim.  The problem is they haven’t gone nearly far enough!  Greene is clearly

drawn to this theory because strings make sense of every fundamental feature

of physical reality. But what makes sense of strings?  Why do they exist?

If they explain “all forces and all matter,” what explains them?  What accounts

for the shape they take and the functions they serve?

The answer is that everything exists for the glory of God. Everything

— from quarks to quasars, from butterflies to brain cells — was created

and is sustained so that you and I might delight in the display of divine

glory.   Only humans are fashioned in the image of God.  We are the only species

that establishes schools and conducts research and preserves archives

of information.  We alone have been granted remarkable capacities to reason

and reflect, deduce and conclude.  We alone can glorify God by rejoicing in

the beauty of his creative handiwork and relishing the splendor of his selfrevelation

in the person and redemptive work of Jesus Christ.

We’re touching here on the most profound question anyone could ever ask:

Why is there something rather than nothing?  The simple answer is that God

chose to create. This was certainly not from the anguish born of need, as if

creation might supply God what he lacked. God didn’t take inventory and

suddenly realize there was a shortage that only you and I could fill.  So what

prompted God to act?

The source of God’s creative energy was the joy of infinite and eternal

abundance! God chose to create from the endless and self-replenishing overflow

of delight in himself.

We must begin with the recognition that God delights infinitely in his own

eternal beauty. When God the Father gazes at the Son and sees a perfect reflection

of his own holiness, he is immeasurably happy. The Father rejoices in

the beauty of the Son and Spirit, and the Son revels in the beauty of the Spirit

and Father, and the Spirit delights in that of the Father and Son. God is his

own fan club! God created us out of this eternal community, this overflow of

mutual love, delight, and admiration, so that we might joyfully share in it, to

God’s eternal glory.

God doesn’t simply think about himself or talk to himself. He enjoys himself!

He celebrates with infinite and eternal intensity the beauty of who he is

as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And we’ve been created to join the party!

To relish and rejoice in the beauty of God alone accounts for why we exist.

Enjoying God is the soul’s sole satisfaction, with which no rival pleasure can

hope to compete. Glorifying God by enjoying him forever. It’s the Christian

Theory of Everything.

Reprinted from “A Faith and Culture Devotional”, copyright 2008, Kelly Monroe Kullberg and Lael Arrington.  Mr. Storms article is adapted from his book One Thing: Developing a Passion for the Beauty of God.   Mr. Storms left Wheatonto found Enjoying God Ministries in Kansas City, Missouri; www.enjoyinggodministries.com

(Reprinted with permission from Credenda/Agenda. See bottom of article).

Christmas is impossible. It can’t be done. That woman won’t be silent. It can’t be expressed. Encapsulate all the colors, meanings, music, and history of World War II into one sentence, commas permitted. Now do it with a far more earth-shattering, far more complicated, more unspeakable event. That’s the tension of Christmas.

At the first creation, words were not enough. Too thin. Not even close. The expression had to go deeper, beyond mere words. Angels had to scream at the art—scream at the eagles, scream at the sand, at the elephants, at fire, oysters. “When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.” Father, Son, and Holy Spirit couldn’t be captured in words alone, so He used evergreens and walruses. The whole creation is the shout of His personality. But even tidal waves prove insufficient. He overflows. Thus, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory.” The Christmas sentence. Two sentences, one with a compound predicate. God “has spoken to us by His Son . . . the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person.” More insufficient sentences.

This second creation, this Incarnation was far brighter than the first creation. It built upon the first and turned it upside down. “These who have turned the world upside down have come here too.” Christmas turned creation inside out; it broke the stranglehold of death; it thickened water. How could we even begin to express it? Wineskins could not hold it. Normandy was cheesecake. Even John who gave us the Christmas sentence gave up. He gave us word upon word, sentence upon sentence and then breathed his last, “even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” A fine trick. And yet we’re expected to express it: “And teach them to your children and your grandchildren.” And “tell it to the generation following.” Very funny. Very cruel.

It’s impossible, but neither can we hold it in. It pushes our skin out to its breaking point. Painful adoration. Stretch marks. We’re pressed from within. She couldn’t hold it in.

“And Mary said: ‘My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant; For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.” Mary, Mary, don’t you know that Christmas is a pagan holiday? Hold your words in. Be silent. “For He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name.” Vixen.

If she can’t hold in Christmas, why should we even try? It’s a lost cause. Imagine the tension of living in the covenant in the centuries before Messiah. The conflict is stark; the psychology twisted, longing for relief. “The prophets proclaim justice: Israel will certainly be judged for disobedience.

But they also proclaim grace: God is coming to redeem his people. . . . Israel’s sins are worse than those of the pagan nations of Canaan, even of Sodom and Gomorrah, which God destroyed. How can a just God do anything less than wipe them out entirely? Yet the promise of grace comes again. God will surely redeem his people. But how can He wipe them out and redeem them at the same time? It seems as though God’s justice violates His mercy and vice versa. God is, it seems, in a bind. If He redeems, He must wink at sin; if He judges, He must renege on His promise. . . . God seems to be wanting precisely to build the tension, and build, and build. . . . And then comes Jesus. The wait is over.”—John Frame. Oh the agony of life without Christmas. No wonder Mary sings. She carries life from the dead, light from darkness, home from exile. “Sing, O barren, you who have not borne! Break forth into singing, and cry aloud, you who have not labored with child! For more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married woman.” Imagine sitting in the deserts of Babylon and Assyria, counting the stars, juggling mercy and justice. “O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel, That mourns in lonely exile here, until the Son of God appear. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.” Christmas is the revolution of revolutions. To hide it behind paganism, to hide it behind indifference and busyness, to express it behind sentences alone, would be a robbery. I would be lying to my children. I can’t hold it in—“We will not hide them from their children, telling to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and His strength and His wonderful works that He has done.”

And Mary sings: “And His mercy is on those who fear Him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with His arm; He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.” More Christmas words, Mary. But these words have not been commanded. Your Christmas celebration isn’t sanctioned from on high. Whatever is not commanded is forbidden. How dare you speak out like this? Will worship. You have fallen headlong into the sin of Esther—“establish among them that they should celebrate . . . . as the month which was turned from sorrow to joy for them, and from mourning to a holiday; that they should make them days of feasting and joy, of sending presents to one another and gifts to the poor.” Hold it in, Mary. Buck up. Christmas thoughts are offensive.

And with the coming of Emmanuel, “old things have passed away; behold all things have become new” (2 Cor. 5:18). In the Incarnation we see that “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” Light overflows, overpowers, and blinds, like its creator. The Triune is the God of excess, the God who gives all, the light that chases  away darkness. The Son gives all for the Father and Spirit; the Father gives Himself over to the Spirit and Son; the Spirit returns more sacrifice and love back to the Father and Son. The coming of the Son is the express image of God bursting the old world. He tabernacled among us, and “How lovely is Your tabernacle, O LORD of hosts! My soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the LORD; My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.” David faints and cries at the excess he saw. He would have burst to see his Son.

The Incarnation’s excess brittles my sentences as I stand before the kids, wondering how to  explain it. The words come out rickety, gap toothed. I can read and read to them but that’s never enough. Maybe I could set the whole house on fire in a searing white light with the darkest winter background, just a bit of star in the dining room, melt the neighborhood. That might come close. Instead I climb the ladder up the side of my house with my stupid little clinking lights; I loop and hang and wrap and pile them around as best I can. The electricity wheezes in the house, and the lights can be seen from two miles away; I tested. But I can’t stop; they’re never enough. It’s not fair. He gets to use glowing jellyfish and Texas lightning and Alpha Centauri, and I can only hang these pathetic glowing strings.

But Christmas insists. And so here in the north, during the darkest days of winter and death, this small town’s Christmas lights conspire together against the black night and start to reclaim reality. “And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. . . . That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world.” Slowly, slowly, Christ’s coming has been transforming the whole world, turning darkness to light, tribes to communities, wilds to gardens,  cannibalism to cuisine, philosophers to poets. “Since the Savior’s advent in our midst, not only does idolatry no longer increase, but it is getting less and gradually ceasing to be. Similarly, not only does the wisdom of the Greeks no longer make any progress, but that which used to be is disappearing. . . . On the other hand, while idolatry and everything else that opposes the faith of Christ is daily dwindling and weakening and falling, the Savior’s teaching is increasing everywhere”— Athanasius. No Pelagian Santa lies to kids there.

This new world suggests the oldest. It moves toward a mature Eden, the City of Eden, full of fruit trees. And so we plant trees full of “fruit,” mirrored balls staring back at our living rooms. We do this, too, in the middle of winter. These Christmas trees bring Eden back in the middle of the darkness. Fruit amidst death. My eyes roll to hear of pagan origins. Why do they stop arbitrarily at that point? Trees of life and knowledge were central to Eden. Sure pagans slunk off with edenic symbols and worshiped the creature rather than the Creator, but that is their sin, not ours. They may not claim the trees. They belong to Jehovah. These pagans also prayed, yet we do not abandon prayer. The Bible begins and ends with trees. Christmas makes us look backward and forward.

And, yet, the newness of the Incarnation doesn’t stop with lights and trees. The whole creation has been made new. Christmas is the beginning of the New Heavens and Earth, and this bursts out in gifts—new clothes, new tools, new games, new books—a new world. Boxes are wrapped to separate them from objects of monetary exchange, objects of equal trade. Instead, gifts are excesses, surprises of grace. And if the Lord blesses and your tree is gloriously surrounded with boxes on top of boxes of this new order of stuff, you can stoop down from across the room, level with all those boxes and see that they resemble a city skyline, a new city, “the great city, the holy Jerusalem” — “the foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with all kinds of precious stones” where the nations “bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it.” And in the middle of this city is “the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.” Your Christmas tree.

And Mary sings: “He has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent away empty.” She bursts forth still? Celebrating Christmas will lead to consumerism, Babylonianism, apostasy, and stockings. The gospel is about law and stinginess. Let the women be kept silent; for they are not permitted to speak. Who allowed this Mary to preach Christmas?

Still something was wrong. It all went by so quickly. Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, done. The traditional church calendar helps express the largess of Christmas by the Advent season. This is a start. But I wanted to express a tinge of exile, a hint of that Old Covenant tension. Time needed to be stretched out. I could yak-yak-yak about the apparent tension between God’s justice and mercy, and for several years that’s what I did. But I wanted to show the tension—even through a glass darkly. I needed hints of Babylonian exile, “O Come, O come, Emmanuel.” Ezekiel saw and heard the bones in the desert—“Son of man, can these bones live? . . . Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! . . . Surely I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. . . . [T]here was a noise, and suddenly a rattling; and the bones came together, bone to bone. . . . They indeed say, ‘Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off!’ “Therefore prophesy and say to them, ‘I will put My Spirit in you, and you shall live.’”

Rattling bones, desert sand, sour wine. And so for more than a week before Christmas, we sing and read through the covenantal promises—Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, psalms, the prophets, Mary—always highlighting the wrestling of justice and mercy, yearning for release. We keep the rhythms of the songs with the rattle of bones (thick wooden dowels), and we partake of hints of vinegar and sand, a taste of ugly exile. Empty wine glasses sit before us, teasing, and at the close of that night’s liturgy, we sneak the tiniest bit of chocolate, a hint of Christmas to come. By Christmas Eve we are sick of sand and vinegar; we need freedom from the bones; the city grows around the tree; something more surely must burst forth; “O Come, O come, Emmanuel.” Please. We worship with the saints on Christmas Eve, and the presents burst open Christmas morning. The new world runs forth. At the final set of readings, we shift from “O Come” to “Joy to the World.” The sand and the vinegar vanish; the bones are replaced with bells; champagne and gourmet chocolates flow. “Cry out and shout, O inhabitant of Zion, for great is the Holy One of Israel in your midst!” Cry out and shout. Who can hold in Christmas? It’s impossible. I’m sure others can do better, but I’m forced to show something, my best shot.

And Mary sings, “He has helped His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy, as He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed forever.” Turn away from such druidic folly, Mary. Pass the day like any other. God wants you to hold it in and ignore the Incarnation. Cross your knees. God treasures silence more than shouting.

We enjoy the lights and sand and vinegar and chocolate and bones and presents and tree and more, using bits of His creation to try and show His wonder. Of course, “better is a little with the fear of the LORD, than great treasure with trouble. Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a fatted calf with hatred.” The greatest of these is love. But He’s the one who makes this love want to burst forth from within. It’s His fault, the God He gave us. He couldn’t even hold it in either. Sure, He speaks words through Mary, but when the time comes, He doesn’t hold back. He decorates the sky with brightness and cheats where no lighted house can hope to compete: “Suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men!’” Unbelievable one-upmanship. A sky that would make the greatest fireworks grand finale look like an electric short.

Christmas can’t be done, but it bursts out. And when Christmas days have just passed, more reality strikes. The Incarnation was just the beginning. Christmas would be nothing without Easter. And Easter would be nothing without Pentecost. So little time, so much impossibility.

Copyright 2009, all rights reserved, Credenda/Agenda magazine. This article first appeared in Volume 14, Number 5 of Credenda/Agenda magazine, and is reprinted with permission.

For the original article click here.

For Credenda/Agenda click here.

There is a natural order in all of creation – ideas have consequences.  What people believe affect their actions.  The actions we take influence other people and their beliefs.  When Reverend Samuel Rutherford believed that “all men are equal” he wrote the world shaking doctrine of ‘Lex Rex‘ (The law is king).  This philosophy influenced the creation of our country, dissolved slavery, and still is challenging those in power today (for more information on this specific philosophy ready Francis Shaffer’s ‘The Christian Manifesto). In contrast to most actions, the written word has power to last beyond the spoken word, spreading its influence into the future.  Wiker states at the very start of his book:

“Common sense and a little logic tell us that if ideas have consequences, then it follows that bad ideas have bad consequences.  And even more obvious, if bad ideas are written down in books, they are far more durable, infecting generation after generation and increasing the world’s wretchedness. [...] What then? Shall we have a book burning? Indeed not! Such a course of action is indefensible.  As I learned long ago, the best cure – the only cure, once the really harmful books have multiplied like viruses through endless editions – is to read them.  Know them forward and backward.  Seize each one by its malignant heart and expose it to the light of day”

In the Lord of the Rings, when Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippen return after destroying the one ring, they must purge the last remnants of evil from the Shire. Likewise, when we return from fighting the battles out in the world, we have to purge the last remnants of sinful philosophy from our “Shire:” our hearts.  We must follow the mandate of 2 Corinthians 2:5 “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

Benjamin Wiker sets up the battle field of the mind by addressing ten works that have influenced our thought lives without our knowing. He also addresses five other books that set the groundwork for philosophy without theology: Machiavelli’s The Prince, Descartes’ Discourse on Method, Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan, Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality among Men, and Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique. Each of these works are studied and have entered our culture’s thought patterns without our knowing.  Has someone challenged Descartes entrapping claim that “I think therefore I am”? Or attacked the skepticism that has arose from that concept? Has someone charged into battle against Rousseau’s belief that “the law is merely a tool for the rich to keep their riches, making the rebellion of the have-nots justified”?  All the errors and misconceptions of the 10 books spring from the removal of God from Man’s thought life. They all build off of each other – each book branching in a different direction but from that same trunk.

Carl Marx and Friedrich Engel’s The Manifesto of the Communist Party

John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism

Charles Darwin’s The Descent of Man

Friedrich Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil

Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin)’s The State and Revolution

Margaret Sanger’s The Pivot of Civilization

Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf

Sigmund Freud’s The Future of an Illusion

Margaret Mead’s Coming of Age in Samoa

Alfred Kinsey’s Sexual Behavior in the Human Male

All of these works offer differing perspectives on what to do with man ignoring God.  Wiker offers a critical mind-set in which the work is evaluated by its own merit.  Every book has citations taken and evaluated (except of Kinsey’s as the Kinsey Institute denied Wiker the right to cite).  Even for those not versed in philosophy, Wilken’s does an admirable job of shining light and making the errors of these 10 books seem obvious.  Wiker ends his book by stating:

“We are so fond of thinking of our progress from the simple savage that we forget to take account of whether we are really progressing in some sort of virtue or rather becoming more complexly and deviously savage.  [...] By following the trajectory of these books that screwed up the world, we can wonder whether the advance of ‘science’ over theology is an unmitigated good, and weather it is really progress.  Perhaps it is bringing us to a new age of technological barbarism, what we can certainly say is that the intensity of humanity’s self-destruction is a measure of the myth by which it lives, and this destruction is by no means limited to war and state-sponsored extermination.”

It all comes down to the concept of progress – is it something that has a foundation (a light that illuminates the world), or is it the destruction of what came before?  G. K. Chesterton gave this illustration in 1905:

“Suppose that a great commotion arises in the street about something, let us say a lamp-post, which many influential persons desire to pull down. A grey-clad monk, who is the spirit of the Middle Ages, is approached upon the matter, and begins to say, in the arid manner of the Schoolmen, “Let us first of all consider, my brethren, the value of Light. If Light be in itself good–” At this point he is somewhat excusably knocked down. All the people make a rush for the lamp-post, the lamp-post is down in ten minutes, and they go about congratulating each other on their unmediaeval practicality. But as things go on they do not work out so easily. Some people have pulled the lamp-post down because they wanted the electric light; some because they wanted old iron; some because they wanted darkness, because their deeds were evil. Some thought it not enough of a lamp-post, some too much; some acted because they wanted to smash municipal machinery; some because they wanted to smash something. And there is war in the night, no man knowing whom he strikes. So, gradually and inevitably, to-day, to-morrow, or the next day, there comes back the conviction that the monk was right after all, and that all depends on what is the philosophy of Light. Only what we might have discussed under the gas-lamp, we now must discuss in the dark.”

Read, Know, Confront, Battle, Stand.

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Ben Bishop is a recent graduate of Boise State University and is an assistant coach for speech and debate at the College of Western Idaho. In his spare time he reads as many books as he can get his hands on and blogs (http://windmillfighter.wordpress.com/).