Participants: Clifford Goldstein
Series Code: CFTF
Program Code: CFTF000010
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00:21 Hi Cliff Goldstein and I want to welcome you to the Program
00:24 Contending for the Faith 00:26 The text in the Word of God I'd like to start with 00:30 are found in the book of Romans 00:32 and I suppose if there were one book in the Bible 00:36 that, perhaps more than any other 00:39 revealed the full scope 00:42 spiritually and theologically 00:45 the human condition, it would be the book of Romans 00:53 so much of the meaning of sacred history 00:57 You know Paul talks about Adam and Abraham, Sarah and Jacob 01:03 Esau, Rebecca, Moses, David the fall, Sinai, Jews, Gentiles 01:09 of law, grace, sin and death 01:12 and first and foremost he talks about Jesus 01:16 and what Jesus has done for us 01:19 I don't think I can exaggerate if I could say that 01:22 over the course of history you could've filled a library 01:26 a small or even a large library 01:29 with the books written on just Romans 01:33 and I don't think we can exaggerate 01:36 the influence of this book on the history of the church 01:39 and certainly on Protestantism 01:43 Now the texts I wanna look at are at the beginning of the book 01:46 and early on they help flesh out what Paul 01:50 or they they lay the groundwork for what Paul fleshes out 01:55 in the ensuing chapters 02:43 Here Paul talks about a crucial theme in the book 02:47 and that's human sinfulness 02:50 I mean the whole premise of the book 02:52 rests on that idea, that of human corruption and how Jesus 02:56 and how Jesus came to solve the problem 03:00 of human corruption and to save us from the destruction 03:05 that this corruption would bring 03:08 That's what the cross was all about 03:12 to solve the problem of sin 03:15 But I want to focus on something else here 03:19 is the claim that he says 03:21 is that the reality and existence of God 03:25 is revealed through what has been made 03:28 that is in the created world 03:31 these people are gonna, that what has been made in the 03:34 created world, in other words he's saying that creation has 03:36 revealed enough about God 03:38 That they will be without excuse 03:43 From the creation alone they can learn enough about 03:47 God. That they can be justly condemned 03:50 on the day of judgment 03:54 Ooh! That's a heavy claim it really is. 03:57 And it's not because these people are stupid 04:01 It's not because they can't understand 04:03 Rather it's that they're sinful, fallen and in their sinfulness 04:08 and fallenness they suppress the truth 04:13 You know I could understand this to myself 04:17 from a personal experience 04:21 I remember many years ago in college 04:25 I wasn't a believer and I remember every now and then 04:30 I'd read, I'd think about things I'd talk to people 04:33 And every now and then the idea would come to me 04:37 I would think Hmm, maybe there really is a God out there 04:43 And maybe there is a creator 04:45 But then as I think about that a little more 04:48 And then I'd think about the way I lived 04:52 And even though I didn't know anything about the law 04:56 anything about these things I sensed 04:59 that if there really was a God out there 05:01 then how I'm livin, I'm in deep, deep trouble 05:06 And so in a sense I pushed the idea out of my mind 05:11 I just rejected the idea 05:13 So I guess in a sense you could say I suppressed the truth 05:20 in unrighteousness and I just kept on truckin, as they say 05:25 Fortunately, as they say 2 years later God did an intervention 05:30 which is why, now thanks to the Gospel, 05:34 thanks to the promise of salvation 05:37 I'm aware of my sinfulness I'm still aware of it 05:41 but I claim the gospel promise 05:43 and that's my assurance 05:45 And thus my eyes have been opened 05:48 And you know, no matter how hokey it might sound 05:54 And I really mean this. I see the reality of God everywhere 06:02 I really do, it's amazing! 06:05 First, that anything exists 06:08 is to me that anything exists whatever it is 06:11 is powerful evidence for a creator. 06:13 I'm sorry but rocks, tea kettles stars, iPhones, quasars, space 06:18 nothing came from itself, nothing created itself 06:22 that's impossible because to create yourself 06:24 you'd have to already exist and if you already existed 06:27 then you were not creating your- self 'coz you were already there 06:31 No, nothing can create itself 06:35 Instead what was created was created by something before it 06:39 and whatever that was, something was created before it 06:44 and something created it and on and on on 06:47 till you get to that which was uncreated 06:51 That which always existed 06:53 and who or what else would that be but the God 06:57 depicted in the Scriptures 07:00 the God depicted in Revelation 4:11 07:04 You are worthy O Lord and God to receive glory 07:09 and honor and power, for you created all things 07:14 and by Your will they were created and have their being 07:19 I'm sorry but the scientific fad and yes, science is very faddish 07:26 The scientific fad which claims the universe arose from nothing 07:30 is mere ad hoc metaphysical speculation 07:34 that comes garbed with all the epistemological privilege 07:38 that science sanctimoniously awards itself 07:42 and what we are saying, and what we are saying is Yes 07:46 that's what they're saying was that the universe was created 07:50 by nothing at all. You know here we are 400 years 07:55 after the beginning of the enlightenment 07:57 and the scientific revolution 08:00 and we are being now told that out of nothing everything 08:03 that exists came from, let me read you a quote. 08:07 Oxford's Peter Atkins summed it up the best. Listen to this 08:30 Sorry, but that's metaphysics, that's not physics 08:34 That's philosophy, that's not science 08:37 Centuries ago a German polymath named Godfrey Wilhelm Liebknecht 08:42 famously asked what's probably the most fundamental 08:46 and basic question that anybody could ask 08:49 I think this gets about as conceptually as far back 08:52 as we can go. Why, he asked. Why is there something 08:58 instead of nothing? And the most logical answer 09:03 remains what has always been 09:05 Because a self existing and eternal God 09:09 created everything that was made 09:12 As John said, "Through Him were all things made" 09:17 Without Him nothing was made that has been made 09:23 This, despite firm declarations of many scientists 09:27 backed up rigorous laboratory experiments 09:31 and a few equations to boot, this, that they are claiming 09:36 that God doesn't exist and that we're here by chance alone 09:40 Nobel prize winning physicist Stephen Hawkings 09:45 expressed it like this: 09:47 Stephen Weinberg rather, not Stephen Hawkings 09:51 He said this: The most extreme hope for science 09:56 is that we will be able to trace the explanation 10:00 for all natural phenomena, to final laws 10:03 and historical accidents. I don't know, to me it's crazy 10:09 2500 years of Western thought climaxes 10:14 with the idea that everything arose from nothing? 10:17 and it did it by accident as well? 10:20 Makes me think of Richard Rorty one of the most famous 10:25 philosophers in the first half of the, last half of the 20th C 10:30 Rorty basically argued that we're never gonna find truth 10:34 It's impossible to find truth 10:36 and that the whole concept of truth is misguided 10:40 and basically he said "instead of trying to understand reality 10:44 and understand these things, he says all we can hope for is to 10:48 learn how to cope with it 10:50 I don't know. Again 2500 years of Western thought 10:55 climaxes with the idea that the universe arose out of nothing, 10:59 by accident, and we can never understand it so all we need 11:03 to do is to try to cope instead 11:06 Somehow folks, somehow I'm not so sure that's much progress 11:13 Next, despite being told from the Intelligentsia 11:18 the opposite. Design in the created world still declares 11:23 a Designer. Some of my favorite texts in 11:27 all the Bible come from Job 11:52 Wow! It's as if Job here is expressing what Paul did 11:57 many years later. You know for centuries now 12:02 people have surrendered the Teleological argument, the 12:06 argument of purpose and design 12:08 To David Humes book called 12:11 The Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion 12:14 You know I read the Dialogues and they've capitulated to a 12:19 Potemkin village and I think a shoddy one at that 12:23 I've read Hume's book, I've read it numerous times 12:26 and he doesn't do what, his argument against the 12:30 existence of God doesn't work 12:33 It doesn't do what even, what these people, 12:34 even some Christians claim that it does 12:37 All Hume shows, all he says is the mere fact that 12:42 if a man finds a watch on the ground, infers a designer 12:46 it does not absolutely prove that God created the world. 12:49 Well duh! It's not absolute proof 12:53 I don't think it was ever meant to be absolute proof 12:55 It's an inference ok. One can move logically 13:00 from the concept of design by humanity 13:03 to the concept of design by creator 13:06 The issue is the reality of purpose and design 13:10 which itself points to a designer 13:13 who created with purpose 13:14 regardless of whether it was a human watchmaker 13:18 or the creator God. An iPhone which looks designed 13:23 acts designed, reveals design in its inwards and its outers 13:27 in outward parts and works only through design 13:31 is of course designed 13:34 But a human being, qualitatively more complex than a smart phone 13:40 A human being which looks designed, acts designed 13:44 reveals design in its inwards and its outwards 13:47 and works only through design 13:49 is of course, we assume, we are assured by the 13:53 best and brightest, it's not design! 13:56 I don't know. Maybe I'm not sophisticated enough 13:59 But who am I to believe? 14:01 Richard Dawkins, Charles Darwin, Christopher Hitchen 14:04 or my own eyes and my own brain 14:07 brain, as well as Moses, Isaiah, John and Paul 14:12 Again, maybe I'm not too sophisticated 14:15 But when I see design in anything 14:18 I see evidence of a designer 14:21 whether it's something manmade or something in nature 14:24 it doesn't matter to me. Design points to a designer 14:28 Whether I happen to know this designer is in Silicon Valley 14:32 someone who I could see face to face 14:34 if need be or whether he's somewhere in the cosmos 14:37 and for now I can't see Him. 14:45 And again because I see the reality of design everywhere 14:51 I see the reality of God everywhere. 14:55 And of course the biggest question and a fair question too 15:01 has to do with the existence about the existence of God 15:04 that is evil. Though that's tough questions for anyone 15:08 to deal with. I don't know if you ever get a chance it's worth 15:11 reading a section in Dostoevsky The Brothers Karmazov 15:15 Two brothers wrestle with the question of the existence of God 15:20 And how an all powerful, all knowing God could exist 15:24 while evil does as well. I want to read you one section where 15:29 1 person symbolizing skepticism, someone asks questions 15:34 "I want to see with my own eyes the hind lie down with the lion 15:39 and the victim rise up and embrace his murderer 15:42 I want to be there when everyone suddenly understands 15:45 what it's all been for. But then there are the children 15:49 What am I to do about them? This is a question I can't answer 15:54 For the 100th time I repeat there are a number of questions 15:58 But I've taken only the children 16:00 because in their case what I mean is so unanswerably clear 16:05 Listen. If all must pay for the eternal harmony 16:09 What have children to do with it 16:12 Please, tell me please." 16:15 Yeah, that's the question is it? That's the question. 16:21 Evil and children suffering in a world created by a good God 16:27 And though I don't have time to get into all that now 16:30 All I can say is this. I know nothing in the premise 16:34 of an all loving, all knowing and all powerful God 16:38 deductively demands the non existence of evil 16:43 It doesn't automatically follow 16:45 It's not a logical condition. It's not a logical contradiction 16:50 It's not as if you're saying A equals not A or the like 16:54 Instead the great controversy forms a powerful template 17:00 and a background that enables me to press on in faith 17:04 despite all the evil that rattles our souls 17:08 I can see the reality of God even with the evil 17:12 because this evil shows me how terribly wrong 17:16 everything has become and that fits so well 17:20 into the great controversy. 17:22 See, yet time and time again I have to fall back on that 17:27 metanarrative because its the only thing that helps me 17:30 make sense of what doesn't seem at times to make sense at all 17:34 You know I once read a powerful article 17:39 about a woman wrote about her time teaching poetry 17:44 and writing to children dying at a cancer center 17:48 And listen to what this woman wrote: 17:51 "The children I write with die. No matter how much I love them 17:57 No matter how creative they are. No matter how many poems 18:01 they have written or how much they want to live" 18:05 Almost every line in this article is a zinger 18:09 And how can it not, considering the topic 18:12 Kids in the context of, in the context of children suffering 18:18 and dying of cancer. But in this context 1 line really caught me. 18:23 and she said this, in this whole context 18:28 I was, like everybody else 18:31 trying to make sense of what is nonsensical. Whoa! Nonsensical? 18:39 That is none of it made sense. It can't be rationally explained 18:44 There's no good reason for it. And yet, is it that better 18:51 y'know, is it that better that evil 18:53 and children dying of cancer is evil 18:56 isn't it better that it be non- sensical and non rational 19:00 or non logical or not explicable? 19:02 Otherwise what? Otherwise what? You have good logical harmonious 19:08 reasons exist why these kids lose limbs, suffer horrific pain 19:13 suffer the trauma of chemo, go through all that, 19:16 sit in the hospital for years and then die? 19:19 Please. If there were good reason, logical reason for that 19:24 I really wouldn't wanna know it. 19:27 However bad these tragedies are it would be worse 19:30 if there were sense to them. That's why its all nonsense. 19:37 And again that's why I go back 19:39 to the larger theme of the great controversy 19:43 The large cosmic theme about the battle between good and evil 19:47 that Jesus won for us at the cross 19:50 That's the only template I use to help me 19:53 If not make sense or fully understand 19:56 what's going on, at least put it in a larger perspective. 19:59 One that gives me hope for a resolution. 20:03 Sure we have a million questions about a million things 20:07 But still this grand theme helps me to keep it altogether now. 20:12 No matter how much remains unanswered 20:15 and perhaps unanswerable. 20:19 Ok sure someone could justly argue that with this template 20:25 I'm working from a priori presuppositions about 20:29 how the world works. And that's true. 20:31 Though trust me they're not a priori 20:34 But again they are pre suppositions 20:37 But so what? Nothing can be believed without presuppositions 20:41 You can't believe in anything without certain assumptions 20:44 Things you can't prove. No these assumptions are things 20:48 that you just accept on faith. They're assumptions. 20:52 The key though is to have the correct ones. 20:55 You know I remember early on 20:58 as a believer in Jesus. When I was a brand new believer 21:03 weeks into this. I remember I asked a friend out there 21:09 With so many faiths and religions out there, 21:13 How do I know that Adventism how do I know that 21:16 this is the truth? And I'll never forget Bernie Molnar 21:21 who just passed away a while back. He was one of my first 21:25 SDA contacts. He instantly answered. He said, well, 21:31 he said it's certainly not unreasonable to think 21:35 that with all those views out there, 21:37 at least one of them is true. 21:39 I thought, wasn't that a great answer? 21:43 Doesn't that make good sense? 21:46 I appreciated that answer back then when I was a brand new 21:50 believer barely knowing anything. 21:53 And here I am today, 34 years later 21:58 and I still fall back on that 22:01 because I believe its built on correct assumptions. 22:06 Yes, I do see the reality of God everywhere, even despite evil 22:15 And I look up in the sky and I see the reality of God 22:21 whether I'm looking at the clouds above, the blue sky 22:25 a sky full of stars at night 22:28 whether I look through a telescope 22:30 or look at the pictures through the Hubble telescope 22:33 I see the reality of God. It's the most logical explanation 22:39 for all that I see. I look at my iPhone 22:44 I look at my iPhone and I see evidence for the reality of God. 22:52 OK, I see it's there, I see design. 22:56 I see powerful design in here. 23:00 It's design and nothing's gonna tell it's not. 23:02 and yet there's nowhere near the design in this thing 23:05 as I see in a single human cell. 23:09 And that's why when I look at this I see evidence 23:13 for the reality of God. 23:16 I look at rocks. I look at a rock and I see evidence 23:21 for the reality of God because that rock 23:24 contrary to the latest and greatest science, 23:27 contrary to what so many noble laureates and physicists 23:32 are telling us that rock did come from nothing 23:37 Something had to create it. 23:40 I look inside my own soul, I look in my own consciousness 23:45 and I can see the reality of God 23:48 Because where could this all have come from? 23:51 I don't believe it rose out of nothing. 23:55 And I don't believe it rose out of chance 23:59 So where else but God? 24:02 I think of Immanuel Kahn's famous saying 24:26 Very interesting. And though I wouldn't quite phrase it 24:31 as he did, the more steadily I reflect on everything. 24:36 That is, houses, butterflies, smart phones. 24:40 It's undeniable to me that a creator would exist. 24:45 And with the grand revelation of Him as revealed in the Bible 24:51 which includes powerful evidence 24:55 for the resurrection of Jesus 24:58 with the confirming ministry of the Spirit of Prophecy 25:02 and my own life changing experience with Jesus 25:06 and the assurance of salvation that comes because 25:09 of His death in my behalf 25:12 and His righteousness covering me 25:14 it's no wonder that I believe in God! 25:17 and no wonder I'm a Seventh Day Adventist 25:21 With those things what else could, could I be? 25:25 I want to return to Paul in Romans. 25:30 Into those same verses we looked at in the beginning. 26:13 Again that's heavy there. Without excuse. 26:17 But notice what he said. For what may be known about God 26:24 is plain, is made plain to them. 26:28 Ok? This implies that there are aspects about God 26:31 that aren't revealed to them. 26:33 Because what may be known is explained to them 26:36 Maybe there are obviously some things that are not known. 26:39 Which of course makes sense. I mean he's a believer 26:43 as someone who knows the Lord, knows the Gospel, 26:47 knows the truth of salvation 26:49 that hardly means I have all the answers. 26:53 What, are you kidding me? 26:54 I mean if I have intellectual nightmares 26:59 maybe somebody could explain this to me. 27:01 I have intellectual nightmares over the fact that -6 27:06 multiplied by -6 gives you a +36 27:10 And yet you could take -6+-6 -6+-6+-6 and you get-36 27:21 I go nuts trying to figure out how you can make sense of that. 27:25 How does that work? You multiply em, two negative numbers 27:29 and you get a positive number. 27:30 You add them together and you get a negative number. 27:34 Now, if I can't make sense out of that 27:39 how am I going to make sense out of the holocaust, 27:44 the Trinity or how am I going to fully understand Daniel 11? 27:50 I can't. But who cares? I don't care. 27:56 I can still see the reality of God in everything. 28:01 Even in all that I don't know and understand about Him 28:06 and in the world, in the world that He had created. 28:12 I can see it even regardless of what I don't understand. |
Revised 2015-03-03