I Am a Sinner

 Yep, there it is. I am a sinner. And by the way, you are a sinner as well. We all are. Nobody escapes that label.

But try telling a secularist that. They will bristle with the "righteous indignation" that anyone would ever stick that label upon them. "How dare they?" Even though they don't know what that really means, they would rather deny it than to embrace it as the corruption of who we are that it is.

"But Rick, didn't you just say that we are sinners? Not that we sin, but that a sinner is what we are?"

Yes and no. It is understandable that what you heard was that in calling myself and everyone else a sinner would be the same as saying, "You have been, are, and always been, a sinner. You cannot escape it. It is your destiny!"

It is understandable that one might think that, given the climate among churches and secularist today. But it is also so very wrong. That's because I was reminded at my church's Pre-Lenten retreat back in February or March of 2022, by the speaker, Dr. Peter Bouteneff, who reminded us at the retreat that sin isn't some absolutes that he has laid down--as if one time before creating us and our world, He thought to himself, "Hum, i wonder what prohibitions I can put upon these people so they don't have too much fun?" Rather, as I've said before, His law is based upon His purposes, or His will if you prefer that language, so that sin is defined by that which violates and corrupts God's purposes. Or, to put it another way, sin is that which violates God's design specs. And folks, we will violate His purposes nearly everyday of our lives.

That is what the Law is about: to detail what his purpose is in creating us, and how we can best avoid doing that in our lives. Which is exactly why Jesus said that not one letter or "jot" would invalidate the Law of God. Righteousness is defined not by how closely we follow the "letter of the Law"--as St. Paul states it in Galatians--but in how our relationship with him goes in a life-long journey into God.

Do we truly love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and body? I recently asked myself, "How do we do that? What does that love look like?" Well, as Jesus told the man who asked the question, "What must I do to be saved?" Or more literally, "What must I do to be healed and whole?"--He asked the man, "What does the Law say?" To put it bluntly, that is a line that few, if any Protestants would ever use. I can hear the cries now if anyone else but Jesus had said those words, "Heretic! That is a works-based message. There is nothing that the Law can offer to save a person. That was the whole point Paul was making in Galatians!" But, is it really? What if most Protestants read the Bible through the filter of Juridical Atonement so completely--despite the fact that such a view of the atonement is totally alien to the Bible--that they think when Paul said in Gal. 2:16:

Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but my faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified. 

That he was pitting the Law against Faith in how one was saved, and not merely how one was justified. For those on the juridical atonement viewpoint, can only see "justification" in juridical terms. So the point of justification is to justify us in relation to the Law. So the Law, therefore, is still the basis of our salvation in that view. Because as any one of those who view it thus would tend to say, that if anyone could fulfill the Law perfectly, that such a person would be saved. But since no one, as the Bible tells us, is free of sin save Christ himself, that option is out the window.

So then, we have to go to plan B, which is that the only person who has fulfilled the Law perfectly, Jesus Christ, has to die in order to appease God's justice, so that we can be forgiven and therefore, be justified or to be saved. Or to put it more simply, in the juridical view of the atonement, it is inherent in its theology that the "works of the Law," in the end, must be fulfilled in order for anyone to be saved--either fulfilled by the person, or by Christ and then imputed to us.

I'm sorry, but that is exactly the opposite of the point that Paul was making. He wasn't saying that there were two roads to being justified, but that there was only one road, faith in the person of Jesus Christ. That even if someone else could fulfill the Law perfectly their entire life, that person would not be saved, that is, would not be justified. For it isn't the law that we are being justified to, but to a person: God. That is why Paul puts it so dramatically, "For by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." 

Later on in the book, Paul tells us why the law was written: to be the means whereby we are pointed to how much of a sinner we actually are, and to the route of our healing. The law's purpose in our salvation and justification is only and purely that reality. It cannot be nor ever purposed to be how we get justified, because justification has nothing to do with the law and everything to do with the person of Jesus Christ. We are justified to a relationship with God, not the Law.

That is why I am still a sinner. Has nothing to do with my salvation save in as much as it directs me to repentance and doing my best to not sin. Not because I think that fulfilling the law or "doing good" will save me. Rather because I love God and desire to do his will, because I have faith, that is I trust that Jesus Christ and everything He has said, is the route that will best fulfill me because I'll be (mostly) operating within God's design specs.

That's because the only thing I can be sure about is God's love and mercy for me. And if I believe it, I will act accordingly. So I am a sinner because that is the reality as long as I live in this world. But I'm a repenting sinner. And that makes all the difference in the world as it regards my salvation--for it is truly a faith-based-in-Jesus-Christ salvation.

My Near "Deconversion" to Atheism

I just published a new book, titled, God: To Be or Not to Be?
 

It is a book about whether we can determine whether God exists or not, both by reason and our experiences. In that book, as well as the blurb on the back, I mention that I came near to deconverting myself, but never explained much more about that process and what it was that turned me around back to God.

 

So I thought I would document some of that here. Both so that you will know just how close I came to converting, they like to call it deconverting for obvious reasons, as well as the logical arguments that on their face sound logical and right, but in the end fell flat at the feet of the cross.

It all started innocently enough. Mostly after moving to Colorado though that move had little to do with it, as it was mostly an Internet thing. I started watching a lot of flat-earth debunking videos. I'm not exactly sure why I enjoyed watching those so much.

At first it was a curiosity of how flat-earthers became flat-earthers. I mean, what possesses someone to buy into the idea that all the governments of the world would conspire together (especially enemies) to not only defy the obvious evidence that the world isn't flat, but spherical, yet that they would all keep silent about it as well. Then as I watched them, mainly SciManDan and Katz, I think that is how his handle is spelled. As I learned more about their arguments, as seen through the eyes of a debunker, I began to notice certain patterns.

Mainly, that the flat-earthers were, by and large, but not always, religiously oriented. Likewise, most all the debunkers were atheists, though not all, like "Bob the Science Guy" I know at least goes to church. That led me to watching the Atheist Experience, a show that has been around since the early 2000s, at least. It is a call-in show, where various people would call in to talk about atheism and the like. But what the show liked and encouraged was for Christians (or other religions) to call in and attempt to convince them that God exists.

As you can imagine, they usually failed. If anyone started to make too much sense, which on rare occasion happened, they would generally be interrupted, not allowed to finish their thoughts by diverting them to a different topic. And if that didn't work, Matt Dillahunty, the usual host of the show, would ask them a question which went something like this:

How can you serve a God who condones slavery?

Generally the callers would fumble around, either unsure where in the Bible it says that God condones it (it doesn't say that), and sometimes once confronted with the actual text, would attempt to defend God's honor or offer some insufficient reason why that is in there. No matter their answer, short of them saying, "Your right, it appears that God condones slavery and is a racist in how slaves were to be treated, that slavery is immoral no matter what age or country does it, and thus God is immoral and I should have nothing to do with such a god." then he would get all high and mighty on the caller, telling them how immoral they were for serving such a god, and usually hanging up on them. In other words, the caller could never win. That's the main reason I never called into the show myself, though I thought about it a time or two.

So, what was the "Ah ha!" moment for me? One day, I don't recall exactly when, I was watching another episode of SciManDan. For an atheist, he's generally not pushy about it, like I didn't even know he was an atheist for some time. So I generally felt comfortable watching him. But one day, it hit me: the thought that how atheist looked at Christians and other religious people: they look at them the same way that I was looking at flat-earthers: so sure of their religious beliefs that they would find, often, the most crazy explanations in order to justify their belief that the earth is a flat disk. I realized that such was also the way that atheist saw me and other Christians.

I saw the world, in an instance, as an atheist would see it. A world of science, logic, rational thinking that never assumed anything starting out, but would only believe in that which had been proven to be true. They didn't consider themselves to even have a belief that God definitely wasn't there, but that given the data they thought they had, that it was unlikely to be true. They didn't have a belief that God wasn't there or that he was. That belief was unknowable, for them. That's why they called themselves atheist, but not strict "There definitely isn't a god" atheist. More like they believed that they couldn't know whether a god existed or not--like how does one prove that Martians don't exist?--so they considered themselves agnostic, but because they did believe that, and they did hold the belief that they couldn't assume without evidence that there was a god that existed, therefore as I said in the book, they had to chose how they would live. In effect, they rationally were agnostic but in actual practice, they  were atheist. At least they owned up to it. 

Anyway, that is the dilemma that I faced at that point. I saw what the atheist saw, I looked at things at that point from an atheist point of view. And at the time, I couldn't deny anything about their views. The immorality of their views on sexual mores bothered me, I know I couldn't go there. Yet, their arguments at that point felt solid. So I was forced to deal with them. And wrestle with them I did over the following months. I wrote a lot because that's how I work through things in my mind. Some of those writings made it onto this blog. Others didn't because I was too afraid to "come out of the closet," at least just yet. I felt like a couple of other times when the sheer logic would eventually force to to adopt a viewpoint that I had previously been at odds with. At one point, it felt inevitable that I would, at some point in the future, be telling my family and friends that I was now an atheist.

At one point, I was committed to going down that path. I signed up for an atheist community on Discord. I signed up for on Meetup to attend a group that is supposed to aid a person in making the move, I learned of atheist meetups in the Denver area on Sunday mornings that were basically fellowship times intended to be a substitute for church. I confided in my wife about my pending move. She was none too happy about it, but I told her I  didn't see an out from eventually becoming an atheist, i wasn't even sure that I believed that God existed at that point. I couldn't see how I could avoid becoming one, that process was well underway, but also I didn't think it would be possible to stay in the closet about it for any extended length of time.

Did I want to go down that road? No, and yes. No, in the realization of what it would mean: lost friendships, and any new friendships would have been new and fraught with "what are they expecting of me now?" I was sure I would navigate all that, though. What I was really scared of, though, was if I became a full-fledged atheist, would my morals change to include things like sex outside of marriage would be now moved from the immoral category into the moral category? I wasn't sure, though I was seeing some signs of it happening, I didn't think I could go as far as some of them did. In other words, I knew I would be choosing the way of pain to go down that path. I was not looking forward to that, not to mention dealing with my wife and family fallout, much less my various friends, both old and new, who knew I was a rock-solid Christian, as far as they knew.

That said, if it was the truth, I would have no choice but to go down that road. In that sense, I wanted to do what was right, no matter the cost. But, that is the key question, is it not? It appeared right, logical, and true. But was it?

"Okay, Rick," I can hear ya'll sayin', "Get to the point! How did you move from there back to being a theist?"

Alright, i'll tell you. The only further thing I have to say about the above is that I related it to you so that you would know how close to the brink I was. I already thought I was going over to the other side. If it hadn't been for my wife telling me to keep it a secret, because she didn't want our kids to know, which I understood where she was coming from, but that seemed cruel to me to keep them in the dark about such an important part of who I was, to only find out after I died that I was "playing a part" which I've never done. Anyway  . . .

The big truth concept that I had known for some time, but up until that point, I had not put two and two together, was that whether god existed could only be discovered in a relationship with him. I said that I had not put "two and two together" only because from an atheist standpoint, to suggest that the only way to prove God's existence, even if for one's self, was to "experience" God was to suggest, as is the case for many atheist, that their former lives as Christians either they were not sincere, or other such things. Yet many of them will report, with a certain amount of certitude, that they fully believed at the time that they did have a relationship with God. One popular YouTuber, I don't recall his name at the moment (and I'm too lazy to look it up), who comes across as honest and sincere as anyone can be, relates how everyone expected him to be a pastor. He was a leader in his youth group. He sincerely believed in God. He believed at that time that he was in a relationship with God.

But that alone is not what I'm talking about. Part of the data set? Yes, right along with all the other saints of the Church. Then you have the testimonies of many religions out there who have also reported relational experiences with God. Am I claiming that everyone's experience should be trusted, is right, even us Christians? No way! Only that to discount all experiences as fake, superstition, or coincidence is very unscientific. There is such a vast number of them down through history, that it would be silly to suggest that at least a subset of them, at a minimum, are not true and accurate. And if even 5 or 10 percent are accurate, one would have to conclude that some type of God exists.

Then there is simply the logical aspect of how one even gathers data about anyone else that they have any type of relationship with. I mean, is the first thing we do when we want to know most people is to subject them to various experiments or to read a book about them? Aside from the reason that most people we would potentially get to know don't have a book written about them, even if they did have a book, that wouldn't provide the experience of someone. You'd learn some items about them, but to really get to know that person, you would have to meet them, spend time with them. The only reason most people turn to a book to learn about anyone is that they are no longer with us. Or there is simply no other data about the person. Yet, the true fact is, reading about a person is no substitute for really getting to know a person.

So, the logical and rational "self-evident" truth is that physical science has little to say about how to get to know anyone. And the problem for atheist is that they can't have a relationship with someone who they believe doesn't exist in practice. Note, I'm not saying that they definitively believe that God doesn't exist, only that the only way they have decided that they can live is to live as if God doesn't exist. So, that is, practically speaking, their belief. They can claim all day long that they don't believe that god doesn't exist, and on a rational level that may be true. Yet, on a "how one lives their life out day by day" they clearly don't believe that there is a God because they have chosen to live their lives and center their philosophy and do and act and think, as if there is no god. Therefore, it becomes the central truth of their lives.

That's the whole point of the parable of the sheep and the goats. You know, the one that tells the sheep that they did  do these simple things and so that revealed their true belief and heart. While on his left, sat the goats who said all the right words and acted pious, etc. But their actions, what they actually did, showed what they actually believed. And so it is with these agnostic atheist, as I like to call them.

Anyway, I could write a book about this topic. Hey! I did write a book about it. So best I move along with my story.

i realized that the only way anyone could know that God exists is to experience him in a relationship because that is the only data we have, is our own relationship with him, and the testimonies of all those people down through the ages. And I had experienced him. Individually, I'm sure the atheist would mark them down to coincidences and other such phenomena, but taken as a collective whole, they form a consistent relationship with God that for me, is solid data that God is out there.

So when it came down to a decision, I simply couldn't deny and live as if God didn't exist. Because I've had a relationship with Him spanning over 45 years if you go by when I consciously put my life into His hands. Even further back if one goes to when I was a child. And when I first decided to believe in God, at sixteen-years of age, it was essentially the same reason: I couldn't bring myself to deny His existence.

Was it a "Pascal's Wager" type acceptance? In part, only in that it resembles its arguments in certain ways. The basis of Pascal's Wager is this: If there is a God, and you have decided to believe in him, then you've lost nothing and have gained everything. If you are wrong, and there is no God, then you haven't lost much of anything save some "immoral fun" from the Christian standpoint. On the other side of the coin, however, if God doesn't exist and you don't believe he exists, then you've gained very little over the person who did believe that such a god existed. But, if God does exist and you don't believe he exists, then you have lost everything. Thus the safe bet is to believe that he exists.

Believe me, that exact thought did enter my mind, even though at that point in my life I had never heard of Pascal and his wager, much less the concept before. I assumed, erroneously, that I was the first person to ever think of it. That said, that was not the whole of the story. It was more a fear of being wrong than a fear of being right. At the time I thought of that concept, however, I wasn't a Christian yet. That was in June or July of 1976, a good month or three away from my conversion to Christianity. Certainly I had been influenced by the Christian culture from an early age, but when I believed, I was a secularist, or as much as one might be at sixteen-years of age.

Now, there are a couple of atheist arguments against Pascal's Wager. One is its inherent assumption that if a god exists, it must be the Christian version of God. So, if you do believe, and a god does exists, so the thought goes, if you are wrong on which God it is, you are still able to lose everything. Or to put it another way, your probability of not losing everything goes way up and your probability of being right and you gaining everything goes downhill very fast when one looks at it that way.

However, while I most probably assumed that this god was the Christian God as described in the Bible, and I was destined to go down that road, I had not really encountered him yet save for some childhood experiences. So when I decided to believe in God, it wasn't necessarily the idea that it was the Christian God, but it was the idea that there was a creator god, period. On that point, one does have a binary choice, in that he either exists or he doesn't. I believed at the time that if there was such a god, but it wasn't the Christian God, then that was okay by me. Because the next question I had to answer was if I believed that a creator god existed, then what did this god require of me?

The second point that an atheist might make is that this isn't a proof that god actually exists. And on that point, they would be totally correct. One's fear of being wrong cannot on any rational measure prove that god exists. Rather, it is the method that an agnostic person might decide to be a theist instead of heading down the atheist route that the wager addresses.

But as I said, it was more than a wager as Pascal described it that caused me to go down that road. It was, in part that I couldn't deny that God existed and I decided I couldn't live as if he didn't, but it was also the realization that the only way I was going to be able to prove for myself that he existed was to get to know this God in a relational manner, not in a rationalistic manner. That was true then, and it is what kept me from taking that final step into the void of atheism the last few years. However, unlike when I first started out, now I had built up some experiences in relationship with him to aid in my confirmation that God really does exist. That, couple with the testimonies of countless saints down through the ages, the probability that he doesn't exist grows dim indeed.

But that's why I say in the book that rationally, I'm an agnostic because, yes, it is difficult to prove that God does exists beyond a reasonable doubt . . . if one sticks only to rational arguments. Likewise, neither do I doubt the existence of a lot of people who I've never met or known in person, based purely on the testimony of other people. You see, rationally, it makes sense to assume that it is highly unlikely that god exists, so someone has to prove to you that it is the case. But, none of us approach the existence of anyone else like that. We assume that the person that is being described to us either through someone else's direct experience or through reading a book on that person, we assume they do exist until it is proven otherwise. That is the reason so many books of fiction will state on their title pages that the characters in this book are fictional, and any resembles to anyone real or imagined is purely coincidental.

To me, whether God exists or not cannot be reduced down to a rational argument. Those can be aids, but they are insufficient to show that God exists. That is why rationally, I'd claim to be agnostic, but it is the testimony coupled with my own experiences that make me to be a theist, it is the best wager that I can possibly make. And for me, it is a sure thing.