“Those who wish to base their morality literally on the
Bible have either not read it or not understood it…”
I am not the only person who scores very high on reading
comprehension tests, has read the Bible multiple times, and thinks quite
differently about it than Richard Dawkins.
To illustrate his above statement, Dawkins has chosen some
of the most difficult to understand Old Testament stories and retold them
dripping with sarcasm and worded in the most inflammatory way possible,
attempting to show that the God of the Old Testament was a horrible ethnic
cleansing tyrant, who hated everyone except Jewish men. He has passed over any of the stories that
illustrate God’s compassion on anyone who comes to Him recognizing Him as the
one true God. There are many examples of
this, and I have already cited the city of Nineveh in the story of Jonah. Additional examples of this would be Rahab, a
prostitute in the city of Jericho, and Ruth, a Moabite woman. They were women, making them, according to
Dawkins, loathed second class citizens.
They were foreigners, making them, according to Dawkins, hated by the
Jews and by God Himself. However, because
they accepted Him and exhibited faith, they were accepted by God and even appear
in the genealogy of Christ (a bit of inexplicable inclusion if Dawson’s
viewpoint is believed).
Taking the Old Testament as a whole, rather than focusing on
a handful of difficult stories, demonstrates an extraordinarily patient God who
is giving man a chance to find Him by obedience to a specific code of rules and
regulations. Man is not successful in
keeping these rules. In the end, all
they accomplish is to show man his need. Therefore,
no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather,
through the law we become conscious of sin. Romans 3:20 Still, those who
are found with faith, are recognized as children of God, in spite of their
inability to keep the law. Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it
to him as righteousness. Genesis
15:6
In the New Testament, which Dawkins claims is no better, we
have a new approach. Instead of keeping
rigid rules, man is now given an ideal to follow through both Christ’s example
and Christ’s directives. An expert in the law, tested him with this
question: Teacher, which is the greatest
commandment in the Law? Jesus replied,
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all
your mind…the second is like it. “Love your neighbor as yourself. Matthew 22:35-38 So now, we have the
opportunity to know God through principles rather than procedures.
It is my contention that at the end of human history, we
will have to accept that God has been totally fair with mankind. He tried giving us a means of finding Him
through rigid laws to be followed, and He gave us the opportunity to come to
Him through a couple of basic ideals. We
haven’t managed it either way. The only
thing that bridges the gap between us and God is faith in the atonement of
Christ.
Atonement is an impossible concept for Dawkins. Not only does he not accept the existence of
God, but he doesn’t accept the notion of sin and that it separates us from
God. He sees the sacrificial death of
Christ as an exercise in sadomasochism. To Dawkins it is “vicious,
sado-masochistic and repellent…barking mad, but for its ubiquitous familiarity
which has dulled our objectivity.” Of
course, as Paul put it, …the message of
the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing…I Corinthians 1:18
Dawkins attempts to prove that even the New Testament
intended salvation only for the Jews, and that “Jesus limited his in-group of
the saved strictly to Jews.” Ah…not so.
Matthew 8:5-13 tells the story of a Roman centurion who
seeks Christ’s help to heal one of his servants.
Their conversation results in Christ saying, …I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the
east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But
the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness….” This sounds suspiciously like being a Jew
isn’t adequate, and that those of faith from around the world will displace
some who are Jews by birth who are without faith.
Another story in the New Testament which makes it clear that
Christ’s message of salvation is not for the Jews only is found in Acts
10. Cornelius, a centurion of the
Italian Regiment who is described as devout and God-fearing, sent for
Peter. Before the servants of Cornelius
arrive at Peter’s home, Peter has a vision in which he is told not to call anything unclean which God has made clean. (v.
15) He is told not to hesitate to go
with the men who will come to him with a message. He goes to the home of Cornelius and finds a
large gathering of Gentiles wanting to hear the message of salvation through
Christ. He says to them, You are well aware that it is against our
law for a Jew to associate with a Gentile or visit him. But God has shown me that I should not call
any man impure or unclean. I now realize
how true it is that God does not show favoritism, but accepts men from every
nation who fear him and do what is right.
Acts 10: 28 and 34
This stands in direct contradiction to this quote from
Dawkins, “It was Paul who invented the idea of taking the Jewish God to the
Gentiles. Hartung puts it more bluntly than I dare: ‘Jesus would have turned
over in his grave if he had known that Paul would be taking his plan to the
pigs.’”
So…
1.
Christ
Himself took his message to Gentiles
2.
It was Peter, not Paul, who first had the
insight that the gospel was for the Gentiles also.
3.
Jesus isn’t in His grave to turn over. (My opinion vs Dawkins and Hartung, of
course)
Apparently it is frequently pointed out to Dawkins that
Hitler and Stalin were atheists and committed terrible atrocities. He acknowledges that Stalin was an atheist,
but says there is no evidence that it was the cause of his brutality. He notes there is some question in Hitler’s
case. Hitler claimed to be Catholic,
although no one is sure whether this was just a matter of convenience for him. So…let’s grant him that Stalin’s and Hitler’s
behaviors may not have been related to atheism.
Let’s talk instead about regimes that are openly atheistic and oppressive
of religion. It is characteristic of
these regimes to be brutal and to impoverish large percentages of their
populations. E.g. a number of countries during the era of the Soviet Union,
China and North Korea. Perhaps, he would
argue that in these countries atheism amounts to a religion and that any nation
which doesn’t allow freedom of religion (i.e. imposes a state religion) has an
excellent change of being oppressive.
This may well be true. But, I
certainly have no desire to live in North Korea in particular, and I bet he
doesn’t either.
His concluding comment in this chapter is “why would anyone
go to war for the sake of an absence of belief?” There is a sense in which he himself has figuratively “gone to war” by writing this book. As to actual war, I hope we never have to
take on China or North Korea or a resurrection of one of the Soviet
states. They would not be going to war
strictly for an absence of belief, but their atheism would certainly be a
contributing factor to the underlying philosophy that caused aggression.
No comments:
Post a Comment