Since 1987 Dr. Schaefer has been Graham Perdue Professor of Chemistry
and Director of the Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry at the
University of Georgia.
The Ten
Questions Intellectuals Ask About Christianity
It may
strike some readers as peculiar to find a chapter with this title included
in a volume on science and Christianity. Twenty years ago, as I began
giving this series of lectures as a Professor of Chemistry at the University
of California at Berkeley, I would have shared this opinion. However,
my hosts always try to schedule a “Question and Answer” time of
perhaps 30 minutes to one hour following each lecture. And gradually
it dawned on me that many of the same questions were being asked at
one university after the next. Moreover, many of these recurring questions
had little or nothing to do with science. About ten years ago, someone
came to the front of the auditorium after the post-lecture questions
were exhausted, perhaps at Stanford University, and had the temerity
to say “Professor, you did better on the questions than you did on
the lecture. Why don’t you make up a lecture from your answers to
these nonscientific questions?” So here we are. I am indebted to many
sources for the answers to these questions, but I regret that many of
these sources have been lost. My comments in the preface are especially
applicable here. I do recommend in this context Paul Little’s book
“Know Why You Believe” and acknowledge several helpful answers from
my friend Steve Brown of Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando.
1. Is
it reasonable to be a scientist and a Christian?
This is
actually the first question that many intellectuals ask about Christianity.
Since the majority of the present book is devoted to answering this
question, my answer here will be exceedingly brief. Namely, that the
answer must be “Yes,” because so many of the pioneers in the physical
sciences were committed Christians. Further, many of today’s most
distinguished physicists and chemists are Christians.
2. What
about Adolf Hitler? Wasn’t he a Christian?
I have
found that in a university audience of 200 students and faculty, there
is invariably at least one person for whom this question absolutely
dominates. I answer this question by quoting Hitler himself: “The
heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity.
Bolshevism is Christianity’s illegitimate child. Both are inventions
of the Jew.” Christianity is, of course, Jewish in its origin, but
the rest of the above statement is pure human depravity. Shortly after
assuming power in Germany in 1933, Adolf Hitler stated that he intended
“to stamp out Christianity root and branch,” for “One is either
a Christian or a German - you cannot be both.” Christianity should
be destroyed by force or “left to rot like a gangrenous limb,” Hitler
argued, so that most Germans will be Christian “never again. That
tale is finished . . . . but we can hasten matters. The persons will
be made to dig their own graves. They will betray their God to us.”
3. Who
made God?
This is
a universal question, in the sense that it is asked in all cultures
by persons of all ages above perhaps three years old. God never needed
to be made, because He was always there. Prior to the creation of our
universe God existed in one or more time dimensions that human beings
have not experienced. God exists in a different way from human beings.
We exist in a derived, finite, and fragile way, but the Creator exists
as eternal, self-sustaining, and necessary, in the sense that there
is no possibility of Him ceasing to exist. In philosophy, many errors
result from supposing that the conditions and limits of our own finite
existence apply to God.
4. Can
God make a rock so big that he can’t lift it?
I had
thought this question was a joke until I was asked to answer it on October
13, 1995 before an audience of 1300 people at the University of Michigan.
It is indeed true that God is omnipotent. But omnipotence does not mean
that God can do literally everything. As the Westminster Shorter Catechism
says “God can do all His holy will.” God cannot sin. God cannot
lie. God cannot change His nature. God cannot deny the demands of His
holy character. God cannot make a square circle, for the notion of a
square circle is self-contradictory. God cannot cease to be God. But
all that God wills and promises, He can and will do.
5. Doesn’t
the inherent subjectivity of morality prove that God does not exist?
The pervasiveness
of this question in contemporary society requires a substantive answer:
A. People
commonly say that “morality is subjective” or that it is “relative.”
But when they speak in a moral vein - which is to say, when they pass
judgment on human behavior - they do so as moral realists. Most atheists
are just as convinced as Christians that Adolf Hitler was an evil person.
B. People
resist moral realism because they think it leads to intolerance. In
doing so they make two fundamental mistakes. First, they fail to realize
that tolerance itself is a value and that they are simply making this
particular goal rule over all others. This is itself a form of moral
realism. Second, they fail to understand that tolerance and moral realism
can coincide, and indeed do in healthy societies.
C. People
disagree about how to achieve objectives, but in the abstract they do
not usually clash over the truth of any specific value.
i. One
rarely hears it said that “justice” or “fairness” or “kindness”
or “bravery” or “charity” are not sound principles - in the
abstract.
ii. Moral
disagreements typically involve the implementation of values, the challenge
of trying to integrate them into our behavior. This involves taking
into account issues of knowledge as well as concerns about right and
wrong.
D. There
are essentially no new or revolutionary ideals. People sometimes assume
there are new values, simply because the language through which ideas
are expressed changes. For instance, an important concept today is “diversity.”
While you may not find this precise word in the traditional language
of morality, such as that used in the New Testament, you will find the
concept (e.g., I Corinthians 12:14-31). There Paul talks about the different
roles played by different (i.e., diverse) parts of the body of Christ.
E. People
are attracted to moral subjectivism or relativism because it exonerates
them of guilt. But the very fact that they so strongly desire to perceive
themselves as righteous reveals an unacknowledged commitment to moral
realism.
6. Is
the New Testament Picture of Jesus Reliable?
Given
the unprecedented claims of Jesus, this is an important question. Shortly
after becoming a Christian, I came upon a remarkable book by the British
classics scholar Professor F. F. Bruce of the University of Manchester.
Dr. Bruce made his academic reputation as a scholar of ancient Greek
and Latin manuscripts. Bruce’s book is titled “The New Testament
Documents: Are They Reliable?” Therein Professor Bruce argues that
“The grounds for accepting the New Testament as trustworthy compare
very favorably with the grounds on which classical (Greek, Roman) scholars
accept the authenticity and credibility of ‘reliable’ ancient documents.”
As just one example, Bruce notes Julius Caesar’s “Gallic Wars,”
of which there are nine or ten existing manuscripts, the oldest of which
dates from 850 A.D.
My immediate
response to this bit of information from Professor Bruce was “I wish
I had known that when I began second-year Latin at East Grand Rapids
High School on the first day of school in the autumn of 1959.” We
spent the entire academic year trying to translate Caesar’s “Gallic
Wars.” I need to confess here that my behavior in Miss Hill’s Latin
class was less than exemplary. Miss Hill was an elderly unmarried lady,
and some of the names we attached to her person cannot be repeated here.
If she’s in heaven, I’ve got some apologizing ahead of me. We received
marks for both academic performance and behavior at East Grand Rapids
High School, and my marks for behavior in Miss Hill’s class placed
me right on the edge of expulsion from the school. But I would have
cheerfully risked it all on that first day of second-year Latin to say
in front of the class “Miss Hill, I am regrettably going to have to
request a different translation assignment for the year. It has come
to my attention that the oldest existing copy of Caesar’s “Gallic
Wars” is a copy, probably fraudulent, made nearly 900 years after
the book was purported to have been composed. I respectfully refuse
to be involved in translating a book that is not reliable.”
In the
above context, the comparison of Caesar’s “Gallic Wars” to the
New Testament could hardly be more stark. Specifically, there are some
4,000 extant Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, in whole or in
part. The best complete documents go back to 350 A.D. Parts of John’s
Gospel are authoritatively dated at 130 A.D., perhaps only 50 years
after its composition.
John Warwick
Montgomery has well summarized this situation: “To express skepticism
concerning the resultant text of the New Testament books . . . is to
allow all of classical antiquity to slip into obscurity, for no documents
of the ancient period are as well attested bibliographically as is the
New Testament.”
7. How
could an intelligent 20th century person believe that Jesus rose physically
from the dead?
For me
this was the most important question, as I have discussed in my essay
“From Berkeley Professor to Christian.” Recognizing the truth of
the resurrection of Jesus does not make a person a Christian, but it
can be a giant step in the correct direction. Let me provide seven possibly
helpful comments (help from Steve Brown cheerfully acknowledged):
A. If
Jesus remained dead, how can one explain the exuberant statements of
His closest friends? Forty days after Jesus’ death, people hear His
friends’ shouts of excitement, “We’ve seen a dead man walking!”
B. If
Jesus remained dead, how can a person explain the faithfulness of Jesus’
closest friends to the testimony of the resurrection even in the face
of their own deaths? Of the eleven apostles, only one died of old age
- John - and he was exiled to Patmos, a gruesome island work camp. Jesus’
followers died as martyrs, with the truth of the resurrection on their
lips. The simple statement “It did not happen” would have spared
their lives.
C. If
Jesus remained dead, why did 500 people say they saw Him alive (see
I Corinthians 15:6)?
D. If
Jesus remained dead, how would one explain the credibility of the witnesses?
In the first century, countless individuals questioned the firsthand
witnesses repeatedly, and their unified yet independent accounts were
never disproved.
E. If
Jesus remained dead, how does a person explain the inability of the
first century skeptics to deal with the resurrection via an alternative
explanation? The political power of Rome and the religious establishment
in Jerusalem were arrayed to stop the Christian faith. All these powerful
forces needed to do was to excavate the grave and triumphantly present
the corpse. They were utterly unsuccessful.
F. If
Jesus remained dead, how can you explain the reality of the Christian
church and its phenomenal growth in the first three centuries of the
Christian era? The church of Jesus covered the Western world by the
fourth century. A religious movement built on a lie, and with no military
or financial resources, could not have accomplished such a remarkable
result.
G. If
Jesus did not rise from the dead, his closest friends were an extraordinarily
compulsive group of liars. This charge does not fit well with the ethical
caliber of the writings of Jesus’ disciples. Virtually all religions
now concede that the writings of the apostles represent a very high
level of moral character.
8. Who
is Jesus?
I think
the best brief answer to this is given by C.S. Lewis in his masterpiece
“Mere Christianity.” This book should be required reading for anyone
with the faintest interest in the life of the mind. Lewis begins with
a statement that most of us have heard, perhaps frequently: “I’m
ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept
his claim to be God.” Lewis argues that the above statement is intellectually
indefensible. He writes: “That is the one thing we must not say. A
man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would
not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on a level
with the man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the
devil of hell. You must take your choice. Either this man was, and is,
the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him
up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon, or you can
fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with
any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has
not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
9. Why
do bad things happen to good people?
For many
people this is the biggest question of all. The best simple answer I
have seen was scrawled on the side of a vacant, burned out building
in Berkeley, California. This was probably the site of some drug war
or other nefarious activity. As one approaches the building, one sees
in large, very distinct letters the words “Most people want to serve
God.” The first time I saw these words I was genuinely surprised,
as my 18 years as a professor at the university had actually inclined
me to the opposite opinion. However, my puzzlement was dissolved when
I drove closer and saw in smaller print the words of explanation: “Usually
in an advisory capacity.”
In his
1955 lecture to the Oxford Socratic Club, C.S. Lewis expressed the same
truth in more sophisticated language: “If human life is in fact ordered
by a beneficent being whose knowledge of our real needs and of the way
in which they can be satisfied infinitely exceeds our own, we must expect
a priori that his operations will often appear to us far from beneficent
and far from wise, and that it will be our highest prudence to give
him our confidence in spite of this.” James Packer adds to Lewis’s
insights: “A god whom we could understand exhaustively, and whose
revelation of himself confronted us with no mysteries whatsoever, would
be a god in man’s image, and therefore an imaginary god.”
Human
arrogance tends to believe that if we had been in charge of creation
we would have done it better. With a little more care about the details,
we would have kept the beauty of sunsets, but eliminated cancer and
heart disease. The more we understand the processes of the world, however,
the less likely does it seem that this would be possible. The fine tuning
of our universe is perhaps its most remarkable characteristic. As finite
human beings we should not claim to know God’s will exhaustively.
But it is clear that God did not intend to create an enormous machine
whose sole purpose was the elimination of human suffering. Suffering
is very much a part of God’s plan for our brief sojourn upon this
planet.
As John
MacArthur has discussed, the major reality of the book of Job, one of
the oldest books in the Hebrew Bible, is the inscrutable mystery of
innocent suffering. God ordains that His children walk in sorrow and
pain, sometimes because of sin, sometimes for chastening, sometimes
for strengthening, and sometimes to give opportunity to reveal His comfort
and grace. But there are times when the compelling issue in human suffering
is unknowable, because it is for a heavenly purpose that those on earth
cannot discern. Stephen Curtis Chapman has well written in a popular
song: “God is God and I am not. I can only see a part of the picture
He’s painting.” Moreover, it is unwise, as well as uncharitable,
to conclude that the sufferings of others are specifically punitive.
The concept of karma (punishment for sins in an imaginary prior life)
has no role in the Christian faith.
Why do
bad things happen to good people? A humorous variant of this important
question goes something like this: “God would have a lot more friends
if He treated the ones He already has better.” The response to this
critique seems obvious: if God rescued from every problem those who
are true to Jesus, Christians would not need faith. Their religion would
be a great big insurance policy, and there would be lines of selfish
people ready to sign up.
10. Doesn’t
the uneven geographical distribution of Christianity around the globe
prove that it must not be a universal truth?
No more
than the uneven distribution of the understanding of calculus around
the world proves that calculus is untrue. Very closely related questions
may be expressed in several different ways, but this one captures the
essence of the problem. The critical issue must be one of truth, rather
than geographical distribution.
11. What
about other religions?
This is
an important but potentially contentious question, with the capacity
to produce more heat than light. My intention is to seek the latter
rather than the former. One of the more even-handed ways to compare
different religions is in terms of the words and lives of their founders.
C. S. Lewis made some helpful comments in this regard, recorded in the
anthology “A Mind Awake,” edited by Clyde Kilby. Therein Lewis writes:
If you had gone to Buddha and asked him, “Are you the son of Brahma?”
he would have said, “My son, you are still in the veil of illusion.”
If you had gone to Socrates and asked, “Are you Zeus?” he would
have laughed at you. If you had gone to Mohammed and asked, “Are you
Allah?” he would first have rent his clothes and then cut your head
off. If you had asked Confucius, “Are you heaven?” I think he would
have probably replied, “Remarks that are not in accordance with nature
are in bad taste.” The idea of a great moral teacher saying what Christ
said (that He was God Almighty, the one through whom the universe was
created) is out of the question. In my opinion, the only person who
can say that sort of thing is either God or a complete lunatic suffering
from that form of delusion which undermines the whole mind of man. He
was never regarded as a mere moral teacher. Jesus did not produce that
effect on any of the people who actually met Him. He produced mainly
three effects: hatred, terror, and adoration.
12. Question
from a student at the University of Arizona, February 21, 2001: “I
know I’m not perfect, but I’m not a big sinner. Does God really
care about my sins?”
Obviously,
before a large public audience of University of Arizona students and
faculty, no matter how strong the temptation, this was not the time
for me to inquire about that person’s particular failures to serve
God. But I was able to share from my own experience that my sins are
not minor. My sin runs too deep: the way I hurt people, my unloving
attitude, my tendency to judge others, my refusal to trust God in all
circumstances, my inability to get sinful thoughts out of my mind and
heart (and the list could go on and on) cause me to tremble in God’s
presence. Pride and selfishness are an integral part of the human condition,
and they are not “minor” sins. Pride and selfishness are the essence
of man’s rebellion against God. Credit to Steve Brown.
13. Will
not God accept those of other religions who are sincere?
Let us
begin another potentially contentious discussion by noting that all
other religions are diametrically opposed to Christianity on the most
crucial question: “Who is Jesus Christ?” These worldviews deny that
Jesus is God, that He rose again after dying on the cross, and that
because of His death, all who trust in Him exclusively can have a full
and complete forgiveness of their sins.
Given
these essential differences, what is one to conclude about the question
of sincerity? No one should doubt the sincerity and intensity of faith
of a Hindu holy man, a Sadhu, wandering through India with absolutely
nothing to his name but a begging bowl. Such a person is not into religion
for the big bucks! But sincerity or intensity of faith does not create
truth. Faith is no more valid than the object in which it is placed.
The critical point should be, “What is true?” I always encourage
my friends to read the four original accounts and see what Jesus claimed
about Himself. Not every religion can be true. Most are mutually contradictory.
Either one is true and the others are false, or they are all false.
Either Christ is who He said He is or He is not. If He is not, then
He was lying, He was sincerely deluded, or the stories were all made
up about Him. If Jesus is who He said He is, then Christianity is true,
and He is the only mediator between God and human beings.
14. Hasn’t
the overall influence of Christianity been negative?
A balanced
response to this old question has been given by Dr. Kenneth Scott Latourette,
Sterling Professor, Yale University:
Christianity
has been the means of reducing more languages to writing than have all
other factors combined. It has created more schools, more theories of
education, and more systems than has any other one force. More than
any other power in history it has impelled men to fight suffering, whether
that suffering has come from disease, war, or natural disasters. The
Christian faith has built thousands of hospitals, inspired the emergence
of the nursing and medical professions, and furthered countless movements
for public health and for the relief and prevention of famine. Although
explorations and conquests which were in part its outgrowth led to the
enslavement of African people for the plantations of the Americas, men
and women whose consciences were awakened by Christianity and whose
wills it nerved (e.g., William Wilberforce) brought about the abolition
of slavery (in England and America). Men and women who were similarly
moved and sustained wrote into the laws of Spain and Portugal provisions
to alleviate the ruthless exploitation of indigenous peoples in Central
and South America.
Wars have
often been waged in the name of Christianity. They have attained colossal
dimensions through weapons and large scale organization initiated in
(nominal) Christendom. Yet from no other source have there come as many
and as strong movements to eliminate or regulate war and to ease the
suffering brought by war. From its first centuries, the Christian faith
has caused many of its adherents to be uneasy about war. It has led
minorities to refuse to have any part in it. It has impelled others
to seek to limit war by defining what, in their judgment, from the Christian
standpoint is a “just war.” In the turbulent Middle Ages of Europe
it gave rise to the Truce of God and the Peace of God. In a later era
it was the main impulse in the formulation of international law. But
for it, the League of Nations and the United Nations would not have
been. By its name and symbol, the most extensive organization ever created
for the relief of the suffering caused by war, the Red Cross, bears
witness to its Christian origin. The list might go on indefinitely.
It includes many other humanitarian projects and movements, ideals in
government, the reform of prisons and the emergence of criminology,
great art and architecture, music, and outstanding literature.
Atheism
has in fact engendered greater carnage than “Christendom” in its
politicized exploits. But when atheism worked its way into violence
and sensuality, it was the logical outworking of some of its assumptions.
When politicized Christendom did its evil, it was in violation of the
teaching and the very person of Jesus Christ. That is a primary difference
in the two worldviews. Finally, it may be noted that just three atheists
- Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, and Mao Zedong - were responsible for
more deaths than those reported in all the wars of recorded history.
15. How
can a loving God send people to Hell?
The premise
to this question is correct. God loves us. But His love is strong, rather
than weak and permissive. The question might equally well be, “How
can a perfectly righteous God let self-centered people into heaven?”
It betrays a lack of balance to presume upon God’s love and ignore
His holiness.
No one
but God is worthy enough to enter heaven. But because of His love, God
wants us to be with Him. Therefore, Jesus’ death on the cross, where
He paid the penalty for all that those trusting Him exclusively have
done wrong, was God’s way of simultaneously satisfying His holiness
and demonstrating His love.
Consider
that sacrifice: God has done everything necessary to rescue people from
an eternity separated from Him. What have you done about Jesus’ provision?
Are you choosing hell rather than heaven?
16. What
about people who have never heard even the name of Jesus?
Many people
have carefully considered this question over the past two millennia.
Few thoughtful persons claim to understand God exhaustively. If I did,
I would be God, a possibility to which I assign a probability of absolutely
zero. But we do know the Bible says God will judge the world with justice.
It also says God has made His presence known to all people through nature
and through our consciences, so we all find ourselves without excuse
(Romans 1:19,20).
The world
can be divided into two groups: those who are familiar with the message
of Jesus, and those who have not heard yet. I have confidence that God
will take care of the latter group with perfect justice. Part of God’s
provision in that regard is Jesus’ explicit command for His followers
to go to every nation and people group with His message of eternal life.
Many who have not yet heard will hear. But because everyone reading
these words has heard, you will need to make a personal decision about
the free gift that Jesus offers.
17. Why
are there so many hypocrites in the church?
Again,
the premise is correct. Yes, there are people in the institutional church
who do not live the life in Christ they profess. God hates such pretense
as much as you do. But businesses, social clubs and other religions
all have their hypocrites as well. Regrettably, hypocrisy is a part
of the human condition.
My challenge
to the reader is to look at Christ and who He claimed to be, rather
than focusing on the fallible footsteps of those who follow, or profess
to follow, Him. Christianity stands or falls on the life of Christ,
not on the performance of His followers. Anything in life that is genuine
will inspire counterfeits. The deplorable hypocrisy of some who falsely
claim to be Christians has little bearing on the central truth claims
of Christianity. John Warwick Montgomery once quipped “If Albert Einstein
were arrested for shoplifting, would it make the theory of relativity
wrong?
Jesus
Christ’s claims are true, and He was not a hypocrite. Will you follow
Him? Don’t miss out on knowing Jesus because of someone else’s failures.
18. Won’t
a good moral life get a person to heaven?
Living
a good life cannot get a man or woman into heaven, because God’s standard
for “good enough” is perfection. In this context, Jesus said “You
must be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” If God
allowed anything imperfect into heaven, heaven would be marred. So who
can get to heaven on his or her own merit? No one but Jesus, because
only He lived a perfect life.
So how
can any ordinary person get there? We cannot live a sinless life, nor
can we make up for our wrongs. But Jesus did both. God offers a relationship
with Him on this earth and eternity with Him in heaven. What one needs
to do is trust in Jesus’ death on the cross as the penalty for our
sins, paid in full.
19. Many
people are offended by the “exclusiveness” of Christianity. Can
anything be said in response?
A. Christianity
is “universal” in the sense that Jesus invites all people everywhere
to receive the gift of eternal life made possible by the death on the
cross.
B. Since
many basic tenets of different religions are contradictory, someone
has to be wrong.
C. Exclusivity
seems unavoidable. Who wants to board a commercial airplane on which
the pilot is not exclusively committed to a safe landing? Does the pluralist
not believe exclusively that several religions provide acceptable paths
to God? The exclusion of exclusivity is also exclusive.
D. Christianity’s
uniqueness arises not from the narrow-mindedness of individual Christians,
but from the extraordinary claims of Jesus Christ, attested by those
who were eyewitnesses of His life, death, and resurrection.
20. What
should one make of all the different denominations within Christianity?
Let me
focus my answer in stating that under the umbrella of “denominations”
I would include the Roman Catholic Church, the Roman Catholic Church
Eastern Rite (Uniates), the different branches of Eastern Orthodoxy,
and the many forms of Protestantism. Something like one-third of the
world’s population has at least nominal adherence to one of the above
branches of Christianity. My discussion below is not intended to include
Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Science, the Unity School
of Christianity, the Boston Church of Christ, Scientology, the Unification
Church, and several smaller groups that grossly deviate from the central
truths of the Christian faith. I regret having to be explicit here,
but I do not want to be misunderstood by the unsuspecting.
I am an
advocate of the Ice Cream Theory of denominations. Although I am currently
on a low sugar diet, I love ice cream. In fact, I love virtually all
flavors of ice cream. I readily admit that when a choice of all flavors
is available, I always choose Oregon Mountain Blackberry ice cream.
This attitude reflects my view of denominations. I am not embarrassed
to say that I am a Presbyterian, having regularly attended the same
church for the past 15 years, beginning when I moved from Berkeley to
Georgia. However, I have worshipped Christ in many parts of the world
where there was no presbyterian church - at Catholic, Orthodox, or several
varieties of Protestant churches. Further, I would express my opinion
that the different denominations can be helpful, in causing Christians
to think deeply and indeed meditate on just what it is that they believe.
Firm convictions need not necessarily, indeed should not, lead to rancor
among Christians. While we may disagree on the details, we agree on
the big picture, which is well expressed in the words of a contemporary
song: “It was all about a Man; it was all about a cross; it was all
about the blood that He shed so I would not be lost.”
21. OK,
professor. You promised us ten questions and you delivered twenty. Now
let’s cut to the chase. How does a person become a Christian?
God exercises
tremendous creativity in the countless mechanisms from which he chooses
to draw a person into a relationship with Himself through Jesus. Two
perspectives on my own experience (“From Berkeley Professor to Christian”
and “The Way of Discovery”) may be found elsewhere in the present
book. In striking contrast, for a mentally handicapped twelve-year-old
child to say in complete earnestness “I love you Jesus” may well
be sufficient. So I would not be one to limit the way in which a person
comes to Christ to a particular formula. That stated, there would seem
to be a logical flow of the response to the offer of eternal life that
Jesus gives freely to those willing to listen. Humanly speaking, what
needs to be done?
A. Repent.
There should first be an admission that I have been living as my own
master, driven by selfishness, worshipping the wrong things, violating
God’s loving laws. Repentance means to ask God for forgiveness and
to turn from my self-absorption with a willingness to live for Christ
and center on Him.
B. Believe.
Faith is transferring my trust from my own efforts to the efforts of
Christ. I was relying on other things to make myself acceptable, but
now I consciously begin to rely on what Jesus did to achieve my acceptance
with God. Nothing else is needed for me to be right with God. If I still
think “God owes me something for all the good things I have done,”
I have completely misunderstood the teaching of Jesus.
C. Approach
God in prayer in a manner perhaps like this: “I now understand that
I am more flawed and sinful than I ever dared to believe. At the very
same time, however, I see that I am much more loved and accepted than
I ever dared hope. I turn from my old way of living for myself. I have
nothing in my record to merit your approval. But I now rest in what
Jesus did, and I ask to be accepted into God’s family for His sake.”
When a person genuinely enters into this transaction, two things happen:
(i) that person’s accounts are cleared, his or her sins wiped out
permanently, and the person is adopted into God’s family; and (ii)
the Holy Spirit enters one’s heart and begins to change that person
into the character of Jesus.
D. Follow
through. Tell a Christian friend about your new commitment to Jesus.
Begin to engage in the basic Christian disciplines of prayer, worship,
Bible study, and fellowship with other Christians.
Revised: 3/7/03 Copyright © 2003 Dr. Henry
F. Schaefer, III
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