UI – Part 414 – Biblical Truth

Last week’s blog discussed ‘Truth.’  Now we dig deeper.  We established that scientific facts result in objective truth.  It is knowledge and is not to be questioned.  The grey area has to do with ethics and moral truth.  Can such truths be objective?  Or are they always to be questioned, to be subject to debate and personal, as your truth and my truth may not be the same?  Is there a moral equivalent to scientific facts that result in unconditional truth as to actions and habits?  The answer rests with God.

The secular advocates seek a world – local, national and global – without God.  They prefer one’s religion be kept private and the churches, or worship centers, keeping to themselves.  Let not the influence of the church impact decisions of the elitist elected whose laws reflect their wants and desires to be applied, reflecting possibly popular opinion and wishes.

A few weeks ago a series (3 parts) was posted entitled Church and Government.  It discussed the dilemma that has arisen between a.) those that seek church rendered moral and ethical thinking, as well as maintaining the intent of the framers of the Constitution regarding divine law, and b.) those the want the church, the Catholics, protestants and evangelizers, kept at bay from influencing our laws.

Modern or Secular

‘Modernization’ becomes a politically convenient term for ‘secularization.’  As if progress suggests cultures evolving from a lack of understanding, a clarity of knowledge, as they learn, experience, and grow and individuals discover themselves, an ability to do all they do without a need for God.  The liberal progressive mindset characterizes religion as a means to cope, but a false alternative to what they offer.  Yet what they offer is easier to quantify that to explain, and not satisfying to the recipient in the long run.

 The Hillary campaign called the Catholic faith ‘severely backwards.’  Does that mean it has not secularized enough for their tastes?  In an email exchange staffer Halpin mocks News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch and Robert Thompson, Managing Editor of Wall Street Journal, for raising their kids Catholic.  He wrote, “They must be attracted to the systematic thought and severely backwards gender relations and must be totally unaware of Christian democracy.…”   Ralph Reed of Faith & Freedom Coalition expressed he was troubled and the comments demonstrated “anti-Christian bigotry, pure and simple.  It is sad, offensive, and un-American….It reveals a corporate culture in what was the Hillary Clinton campaign that tolerated the expression of bigoted and prejudicial views of people of faith.  No one should be attacked because of their deeply-held religious beliefs, much less by senior officials of someone who aspired to the presidency.”

The comments from the Clinton campaign reflect the narrative that is concerned with taking God out of the public square, an anti-constitutional, as well as anti-God posture intended to marginalize people of faith, embarrass them and subliminally coerce their support for the liberal agenda.

Muhammad referred to his Arab world in Mecca and Yatrib at the time as an Age of Ignorance.  His desire was to free them from a pagan and polytheistic pluralistic population to become one under Muhammadism, Allah the only one, a monotheistic, god.  He took a diverse culture and attempted to unify it as believing as one mind, by coercion and force as necessary.  Now are the Muslims also ‘severely backwards,’ or is that a term the Clinton staffers, as well as Hillary, would have been afraid to say, out of fear, knowing that Islam is a religion of violence. But it is clear Islamists have not modernized, even to the extent of progressing to be more tolerant of others, as the family of Muhammad, the Quraish, was in the 7th Century.

The Platform for Secularization

In public schools, the entertainment industry, colleges and universities a liberal progressive left leaning environment takes the ears, eyes and minds of the young and the vulnerable and indoctrinates them in secular thinking, often to the dismay of parents.  Individuality and choice, your own, is stressed above inherited values largely from family, tradition, social roles, environment and religious education.  The value of thinking for oneself seems self-evident, but it must weigh all the facts and allow the debate on all sides be heard.  One example would be creation and intelligent design verses Darwin’s theory of evolution and scientific considerations. In many schools today, advised from the federal department of education, teaching intelligent design, since God is under consideration, is verboten.  That then removes from the discussion a supernatural influence allowing only for facts based data, even when confirmation of the facts, proof, has not been wholly established.  Without all the facts in place making ‘evolution’ an objective indisputable truth, the alternatives must be taught.  Resisting the thought that concepts from what might be called a ‘religion’ could possibly be true is not what an open minded government body should do.  But the liberals resist, and if they had maintained control, they would have continued to resist any import of God into their decisions. 

We can only pray the Trump Administration will have a God focus. May we find Jesus and Santa Claus at his side, welcomed back in America. 

The Hobson choice with a liberal is accepting their system or not. Take it or leave it. Suggesting alternatives or modifications brings out the righteous anger of those in power. Their polemic also goes that if not fact, not proven, then it cannot be objective. This disregards the thought that if unproven, it does not mean it is not correct.  Now we see the frustration with the supernatural. Is there proof God exists or dwells in our universe, even beyond? Is there proof God does not exist or dwell in our universe, even beyond? What then is the therefore?

To many I ask you to just observe your surroundings and say that creation did not happen.  There must have been a beginning of time, a starting point, as there may indeed be an end point.  And space, has it always been?  The Big Bang theory has many adherents, scientists, who join in pointing to God’s power igniting out universe, our earth and our beings.

The Constitutional Concern

First I want to touch on the separation of church and state.  It is not called for in our Constitution.  There is a legitimate basis for Divine Law in this document. The framers sought a government structure that would best satisfy God’s commands. The Bible was their source.  The Battle Hymn of the Republic, sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir on the eve of Trump’s inauguration as our 45th President includes the words, “Christ died to make men Holy, let us die to make men free.” We are a Nation under God and must remain so. 

Expressed in Jenna Ellis’ book, The Legal Basis for a Moral Constitution, “The foundation of the U.S. Constitution cannot reasonably be divorced from its roots, nor can any legitimate interpretation of the U.S. Constitution be inconsistent with Divine Law, biblical morality, or abridge our unalienable, discoverable rights endowed by God” (pg 111).  She explains how the Declaration of Independence gives the U.S. Constitution its legitimacy and founding in Divine Law.

The Biblical Fact Check

The word “Bible” cannot be dismissed in this polemic.  It is the book from which the nature of Divine Law is obtained.  Divine Law is God-given, objective moral law. Jenna Ellis writes, “Divine Law, commonly referred to as Natural Law, is the principle that scientific and moral law is fixed, ordained by God, and ‘discoverable’ by man” (pg. 41). It is not subject to interpretation. It is Truth.  It is Biblical Truth.  Even other religions have as a basis for expressed moral and ethical values, for the most part, derived and referenced from the Bible.  That includes the Quran.  The two major religions, based on numbers of followers, is Christianity (2.2 billion) and Islam (1.6 billion). These followers comprise the largest populations in most nations.  Not even atheists represent a majority anywhere.  To grasp Divine Law, an objective morality outside ourselves, is to understand, shall I say, to know, Christ.  That being said you can now readily imagine the hairs rising on the backs of atheists and secularists?  Where other faith groups have adopted portions of the Bible’s foundations, any alternations made or suggested are from humans, not from God, not even Allah.  For Islam it is Muhammad making changes, not Allah.

Where this leads is to either morality as an objective God derived truth or morality as a personal preference, a personal belief.  Like having your own religion. Yet man is not the originator of morality. Can we assume that to a reasonable person God’s existence is self-evident?  There exists a spiritual realm, metaphysical, that influences everything.

“Secular humanist (atheist) and progressive theorists argue that morality is purely a social construct and therefore whatever moral law exists is exclusively within the realm of statutory construct,” (pg. 35; The Legal Basis for a Moral Constitution, by Jenna Ellis).

When studying the roots of Biblical Truth the question comes up as to which religion is true.  From Saving Leonardo, (pg. 33), Nancy Pearcey writes, “…those who pride themselves on being open and tolerant often end up merely practicing a different type of intolerance (bigotry). They resist the idea that any religion is true, because that implies the others are false — which they take to be disrespectful.” She notes that what religions teach matter!  That is what religions say. Why would they say otherwise. Her leaning is clear. It is the Christian faith that is true as to its teaching and its Scripture. “The Christian gospel is unique because it is the narrative of what God has done in history to accomplish salvation” (pg. 35). And, “If the resurrection did not happen in history, then it can have no spiritual meaning” (pg. 35).  She is not alone in making that statement.

Without the resurrection there is no Christianity.  But also without Christ dying on the cross for our sins according to Scripture, buried, and after three days raised according to the Scriptures, the truth of Christ would be no different then that of a mortal.  Nancy Pearcey makes another insightful statement, “The key to the power of the biblical message is the conviction that it is actually true — objectively, universally, cosmically true.  It is not merely a psychological coping mechanism….It is truth about the universe itself” (pg. 36).

Conclusion

Just as there are facts that support scientific items, there are facts that support morality and ethics.  The source is biblical.  The truths are discoverable and objective.  Man was equipped with the mind, created in God’s image, to uncover the truth.  Truth is there and uncovered as needed.

And as for the Constitution, removing Divine Law was never intended.  The legal framers intent is clear, and to any lawyer they can read and know this is a static, not a fluid, document.  It is not to be modernized by removing the overriding 4th element, God, from the Office of President, the Congress and the Supreme Court, in shaping our Nation.

Grace and Peace