An excellent book on apologetics

My son and I are reading through Mere Apologetics by Alister McGrath.
It is an excellent introduction to apologetics. The most impressive thing is the warm and positive tone. McGrath is excited about the gospel of Jesus. It is good news! But, there can be significant cultural and intellectual obstacles to people seeing this. Yet these people are made in the image of God and are to be respected and engaged with in a warm and gracious manner.

It is also refreshing that McGrath does not get bogged down in debates about the relative merits of different form of apologetics: evidentialist vs. presuppositionalist vs. experiential vs. dialogic.

To give you the flavour here is the outline of Chapter 6,  "Pointers to faith: approaches to apologetic engagement" nicely considers the following "clues"

1. Creation - the origins of the universe
Why did the universe and life have a beginning?

2. Fine-tuning - a universe designed for life

3. Order - the structure of the physical world
Why does science work?
Why is mathematics so unreasonably effective at describing the natural world?

4. Morality - a longing for justice
How can morality have a basis without God?

5. Desire - a homing instinct for God
Why do we long for something better?

6. Beauty - the splendour of the natural world

7. Relationality - God as a person
Why is it that we find the most meaning, fulfilment, (and pain) in human relationships?

8. Eternity - the intuition of hope

I don't find any one of these clues in isolation that compelling. However, put together they point to something significant. Furthermore, the Bible does provide coherent answers to these questions.

Mental health talks for scientists

In the past year I have given several talks to group of scientists about mental health issues. The most recent talk is described here on my science blog.

Barth on science and Philistines

 I encountered this choice quote from Karl Barth in a nice paper, "How Nature and Beauty can bring scientists and theologians together,'' by Greg Cootsona.

Theology as a whole, in its parts and in their interconnexion, in its content and method, is, apart from anything else, a peculiarly beautiful science. Indeed, we can confidently say that it is the most beautiful of all the sciences. To find the sciences distasteful is the mark of the Philistine. It is an extreme form of Philistinism to find, or to be able to find, theology distasteful. The theologian who has no joy in his work is not a theologian at all. Sulky faces, morose thoughts and boring ways of speaking are intolerable in this science. May God deliver us from what the Catholic Church reckons one of the seven sins of the monk–taedium–in respect of the great spiritual truths with which theology has to do.

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 2.1, page 658.

Suffering does not make sense

Why is there evil? Why is there suffering?

I recently read Vinoth Ramachandra's excellent book, Gods that fail: Modern Idolatry and Christian Mission. In the chapter about creation he states

Evil itself is left unexplained in the Bible, for perhaps the very good reason that it is  inexplicable. The moment we 'explain' it we have related it to a meaningful framework within which it now 'makes sense'. But the whole point of evil is that it does not make sense. It is insane, an absurd intrusion into God's good creation. To explain it is to explain it away.That is why every attempt o explain evil... only ends up trivialising evil...

A chapter,  "Job and the Silence of God", draws on a commentary by Gustavo Gutierrez. Vinoth concludes

The God of the Bible gives us no theoretical answer to the mysteries of evil and suffering. I suspect that no `answer' is possible, for evil in God's good world is a monstrous absurdity, an insane affront to One who is perfectly holy, true and loving. It is an enemy to be confronted and defeated, not a problem to be solved. Suffering and evil are so deeply embedded in our experience of human life that, in the attempt to turn them into intellectual problems for philosophical analysis, we may well lose a major key to their understanding, namely empathetic involvement in the suffering of others.

The historical origins of global poverty

Why does poverty exist? Why are some nations rich and others poor? What are the historical origins of debt and inequality? Does wealth "trickle down"? Does foreign aid help poor countries?

My wife and I watched this excellent documentary. Although it is called "The end of poverty" I think a more appropriate title would be "This historical origins of global poverty" and does not really discuss how to solve the problems. It is also not to be confused with Jeffrey Sachs book of the same title, which focuses more on practical solutions.
It is quite disturbing.

From Job's suffering to a cartoon Joseph

The sermon at church on sunday was part of a series on suffering and focussed on the whole book of Job. Why does God allow suffering? Job and his friends actually never get an answer. But, human wisdom and understanding is contrasted to the wisdom and power of God manifest in creation.

At the end of the sermon the preacher, Dave Pitt, took things in an unexpected and surprising direction (to me at least), that I thought was quite helpful and challenging. He played the song, "You know better than I" from the DreamWorks animated movie Joseph King of Dreams.

Slaves to debt II

Last night my son and I watched The International. I had actually watched it five years ago and blogged about it. I enjoyed it again. Here is my favourite scene.