Equipping the Mind is a Christian think tank focused solely in the area of apologetics, philosophy, and epistemology.

The following is the logical conclusion of the atheistic worldview showing its utter bankruptcy. We cannot be good without God, and without God, anything goes. If God does not exist, there are no “oughts”, “shoulds”, or “musts.” Without God, everything is permissible resulting in total moral anarchy. The serial killer debates an atheistic professor on whether or not to kill the professor.

From http://www.godawa.com/cruellogic.htm:

Story
A brilliant serial killer videotapes his debates with college faculty victims. The topic: His moral right to kill them.

Herman Mudgett thinks he is God bringing in the apocalypse, which is why he is called “The Millennium Killer.” When Mudgett escapes from a hospital for the criminally insane, Dr. Joseph Kallinger, the psychiatrist who testified on behalf of Mudgett’s insanity, is called in to help profile him with Detective Van Til, the cop who originally caught Mudgett. Their bitter pairing intensifies when Kallinger exploits Mudgett’s case for his book on criminal behavior. The stakes increase when one of Kallinger’s female students, with whom he is having a secret affair, is drawn into the danger.

And then the videotapes start to show up. Mudgett is capturing distinguished college professors and debates with them. His proposition: “Give me one valid reason why I should not kill you, and I will let you go.” As Mudgett dismantles their reasoning, he proceeds to dismember his victims, recording it all on video. The method to his madness is soon revealed: Mudgett’s murders are a forensic argument, proving himself to be guiltless to the cop and sane to the psychiatrist. Catching the killer is not enough to win this debate. Both heroes will have to face their inner demons.

But then it’s revealed that Mudgett has an accomplice, and all the evidence points to Kallinger, but all the reality points to Van Til. Who is predator and who is prey in this cat and mouse debate where ideas have consequences?

Cruel Logic is a story about human nature, the problem of evil, and one man’s attempt to regain his sanity in a world without absolutes.

“And if it be thus fit that God should have a supreme regard to himself, then it is fit that this supreme regard should appear in those things by which he makes himself known, or by his word and works, i.e. in what he says, and in what he does. If it be an infinitely amiable thing in God that he should have a supreme regard to himself, then it is an amiable thing that he should act as having a chief regard to himself, or act in such a manner as to show that he has such a regard: that what is highest in God’s heart may be highest in his actions and conduct” (Jonathan Edwards: The End for Which God Created the World).

This penetrating thought from Edwards can be summed up as this: since the chief and ultimate affection and end in everything is Himself (God), His actions show that He treasures Himself first and foremost (and might I add, infinitely above anything else). This has an immediate implication for the worshipper of God. Writing earlier in this book, Edwards remarks,

“The moral rectitude of the disposition, inclination, or affection of God CHIEFLY consists in a regard to HIMSELF, infinitely above his regard to all other beings”

Since the chief affection of God is Himself, He shows it through His actions and conduct, viz. creation, providence, redemption, etc. As worshippers of God, if we say that God is the chief affection and object of our heart, mind, and life, how do we act upon that affection daily showing that God is our chief end in all things? Are we consistent in claiming that God is our chief affection and showing through our actions that He is our chief affection and end in all that we do?

To seek to prove or to disprove the existence of this God would be to seek to deny him. To seek to prove or disprove this God presupposes that man can identify himself and discover facts in relation to laws in the universe without reference to God. A God whose existence is ‘proved’ is not the God of Scripture. - Cornelius Van Til

The onslaught against the Christian faith never ceases (and will never cease, this side of glory). The animosity and white noise coming from the New Atheism camp is becoming louder and more vehement each day. So how do we respond? Should we be afraid? No.

Over the course of the next few months (year(s)?), I would like to carefully put forth what I believe is the strongest and most biblical argument for God’s existence: The Transcendental Argument (TAG). And what our conclusions and findings will be is the following:

Atheism (and any other non-Christian worldview, for that matter) presupposes Christian theism because the proof for God’s existence is that without Him, you cannot prove anything.

Many contend that God is love. What they mean by this is that the essence of who God is, is love. Such verses as 1 John 4:8 and 16 are cited in support when they say, “God is love.” Many take this to mean that love trumps everything its opposite, viz. anger, jealousy, and judgment for sin. So the question is this: is God love, period, or is God love, comma (along with many other attributes defining who He is and what He is not)?

These passages in 1 John 4 are not saying what the essence of God is, but they are simply describing a specific attribute of who God is. For example, consider other descriptions of God:

Exodus 34:14
Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.

Deuteronomy 4:24
For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

Deuteronomy 7:9
Know therefore that the LORD your God is God.

Psalm 99:9
Exalt the LORD our God and worship at his holy mountain, for the LORD our God is holy.

John 4:24
God is spirit…

2 Thessalonians 1:6
God is just…

1 John 1:5
God is light…

If the passages in 1 John are describing the true and only essence of God, how do you reconcile “God is love” with “God is just?”

Here is what the Westminster Confession says concerning the nature of God:

There is but one only, living, and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions; immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, most wise, most holy, most free, most absolute; working all things according to the counsel of His own immutable and most righteous will, for His own glory; most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him; and withal, most just, and terrible in His judgments, hating all sin, and who will by no means clear the guilty (WCF Chap. II, Section 1).

So, when people insist that God is love and nothing else, what they are really saying is this:

Love is god.

And to make love one’s god, is nothing more than creating a false idol in one’s heart and mind about their conception of who God is. When showing them that God is just, they may say, “That’s not my God!” True. But your god is not the real God of Scripture.

My good friend Jared has written an excellent article calling for a stance for Truth in an age of neo-moralism, unclarity, and uncertainty that has crept into many churches and movements, predominantly found within the 20-something demographic, where the cry is for social justice instead of fleeing from the Divine justice to come.

The Gospel According to Sun Tzu

Sounds confusing, right?

Let me explain:

The Roman Catholic church (hereby called RCC) says that once the priests have consecrated the elements, the substance of the bread and wine become the actual, physical blood and body of Christ (CCC 1377) while still keeping their respective outward properties as bread and wine. That is to say, it is a double miracle. In one sense, the bread and wine become the real body and blood of Jesus even though you do not see, taste, or smell blood and flesh, and the bread and wine still taste and smell like bread and wine even though its substance is no longer bread and wine. You may say, “Prove it!”, but their response is, “You can’t prove it; it’s simply a matter of faith.”

Further, the RCC mass re-presents Christ’s sacrifice to the Father. The Eucharist is not merely a symbol but is the actual sacrifice of Christ, except that it is re-presented to God the Father as a blood-less sacrifice (CCC 1367). You may wonder why everyone kneels on the pew kneelers during communion. The reason why they do that is to worship the Eucharist. One Catholic writer summed it up well:

If the doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist were not true, this adoration would be the most monstrous idolatry: bowing to bread and worshipping wine! And if it is true, then to refuse to adore is equally monstrous (Kreeft, Peter. Catholic Christianity. p. 329).

That is why Calvin, on the other hand, called it impious, blasphemous, and the chief abomination of the Lord’s Supper (Institutes IX 18).

Now, here is my question. Luke 22:19-21 is one of the key verses used to say that the bread and wine are actually the body and blood of Christ. If that is so, then at the Last Supper recorded in Luke 22, the bread and wine would have become the body and blood of Christ. Now here’s the problem. If the Eucharist is a re-presenting of a blood-less version of Christ’s sacrifice to the Father, how could that have been offered in Luke 22 if Christ hadn’t been sacrificed yet?

Objection: The Last Supper didn’t re-present Christ’s sacrifice, it pointed to it.
Response: If that is true, then why did it merely point to a reality before the sacrifice but is now the reality after the sacrifice? 

However, to remain consistent, it had to have turned into the real body and blood of Christ in Luke 22, otherwise, that verse can no longer be used to support transubstantiation and that doctrine utterly falls apart. And if Luke 22 really teaches that, how can something be re-presented to God as a reality while the reality has yet to become a reality? 

I think A.W. Pink put it well in An Exposition of Hebrews when he writes: 

“…for by their pretended “real sacrifice of Christ” they, through their daily repetition of it, deny its sufficiency and finality (Heb. 10:2), degrading it below that of the annual atonement of Israel, which was made by the blood of beasts” (523).

Transubstantiation returns to the types and shadows of the Mosaic economy as they,

“…in their daily ‘mass’ pretend to sacrifice Christ afresh, and by their ‘priests’ present Him as an offering to God…Therefore, are they guilty of the unspeakably dreadful sin of crucifying to themselves the Son of God afresh, and putting Him to open shame (Heb. 6:6)” (522-523).

So, what does Scripture say?

Hebrews 9:11-12
But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all.

And what is the holy place referred to?

Hebrews 9:24
For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.

And how many times did Christ need to be offered to the Father?

Hebrews 9:25-26
…nor was it that He would offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the holy place year by year with blood that is not his own. Otherwise, He would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. 

And again:

Hebrews 10:12-14
but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time onward until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet. For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. 

and finally…

Hebrews 10:18
Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin. 

To perpetually re-offer and re-present Christ’s sacrifice to God is a simply making a declaration that one still needs an offering for sin because they are not forgiven. And that is to insult the sufficiency of Christ’s work, repudiate the Son of God, and trample Him underfoot (Hebrews 10:29).

προσ - to, towards
κυνέω - to kiss

προσκυνέω: to crouch, crawl, or fawn, like a dog at his master’s feet; hence, to prostrate one’s self, after the eastern custom, to do reverence or homage to any one, by kneeling or prostrating one’s self before him, to express in attitude or gesture one’s complete dependence on or submission to.

Does my life model this type of worship (Romans 12:1), one of absolute reverence, surrender, humility, submission, and dependence to the rule and reign of Christ’s Lordship over every area, thought, word, and deed of my life?

John 1:1 sets forth the greatest argument concerning the deity of Christ as the eternal, pre-existent, Word as well as showing the intensely intimate relationship between the Son and the Father within the Godhead.

However, the deity of Christ is constantly under attack by non-Christians. Historically, it was the Arian heresy that denied the deity of Christ. Arius argued that “there was a time when Jesus was not” and a time “when the Father was alone and not a Father”. The Council of Nicaea (325 AD), from where we get the Nicene creed, re-affirmed the Trinity as the entire dispute concerning the deity of Christ came down to one letter in the Greek, in fact, the smallest Greek letter (i, or iota), between the two words homoousios and homoiousios. The word homoousios means “same substance”, while the word homoiousios means “similar substance”. The Council declared that Jesus was of the same substance (homoousios) of the Father. That is why you will notice the explicit emphasis in the creed concerning their one-ness:

“…And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of his Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.”  

Do you see that there are hills worth dying on, even if it is over one letter in the Greek?!?

The denial of Christ’s deity continues today, most frequently within Jehovah’s Witnesses and Isalmic circles (in fact, many Muslim apologists have borrowed JW arguments on John 1:1).

What I would like to do is provide a short defense and meditation on the deity of Christ straight from the Greek, since that is where the controversy revolves. Below, I have displayed John 1:1 in the Greek and have placed my own literal English translation of John 1:1 underneath.

To begin I would first like to unpack this verse before I get to the controversy. The Apostle John has both Jewish and Gentile readers in mind. He begins by writing εν αρχη: in (the) beginning. So why would these first two words immediately grab the attention of Jewish listeners? The phrase “in the beginning” is an echo right out of Genesis 1:1- “In the beginning God…” The Septuagint (LXX), the Greek translation of the Old Testament, translates Genesis 1:1 as εν αρχη! So immediately, you will notice the identical phrase used both in Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1 in the Greek. This would immediately infer that John is about to write something concerning God Himself.

John continues: ην ο λογος (was the word). The concept of the Logos in Greek philosophy was extremely important. The Greeks loved talking about the Logos because the Logos was seen as an impersonal force of supreme Reason that brought order into the universe. So you can imagine how the Greek readers would become instantly engaged by the mere mention of the Logos. In fact, John uses the Logos in 1:1 to show that the Logos of Christianity is far superior to the Logos of pagan Greek philosophy. To John, the Logos meant the very Word that proceeds from God. We can really capture this idea in Hebrews 1:2 when the writer remarks, “…in these last days [God] has spoken to us in Son (literal Greek translation is in Son and not, in His Son)…” Just as one may speak in a language such as English, Latin, or Spanish, the language by and through which God speaks is His son, Christ Jesus. God speaks in Son, and we see that chiefly through the cross of Christ.

Next we see the intimate relationship between the Logos and God: και ο λογος ην προς τον θεον (and the word was towards the God). Most translations translate the preposition προς as “with” but it can also mean “towards” as well. The idea of “towards” paints the image of intimate face to face communion between the Father and Son. We see this intimate idea expressed later on in John 1:18 when John remarks - “…the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father…” Many commentators marvel at the phrase “in the bosom of the Father” and note that it represents an intimate union that far surpasses our comprehension.

Now we get to the controversy: και θεος ην ο λογος (and a God was the word). John is showing that not only did the Logos exist in the beginning with God but the Logos is God! However, those that oppose the deity of Christ will note that θεος lacks a definite article (the). That is why you will notice that I translated αρχη as “a beginning” instead of the typical translation of “the beginning” because it lacked the definite article τη. You will also notice that I translated τον θεον as “the God” just to make it explicit that this contains a definite article. So, you will then notice that θεος lacks the definite article ο. JW’s will try to argue that Jesus is a god but is not THE God.

Now, I don’t want to get too technical but here goes.

Let me first explain the first word “beginning.” Typically in the Greek, when a word, lacking a definite article, is preceded by a preposition (in this case, in), the preposition implies a definite article. So, εν αρχη can be rightly translated as “In (the) beginning”.

Now, let’s get to the real issue: should it be a God or the God? You may have noticed that there are two different endings for God in John 1:1: θεον and θεος. θεον is used because it is the direct object of the subject λογος. A direct object is simply a noun or phrase that receives the action in a sentence. “The Word (subject) was (linking verb) with God (direct object).” However, notice that the last phrase uses θεος instead of θεον! So, why is that so important? The reason is this: θεος and λογος are both in the Nominative Case, which is to say that they both function as the subject in the sentence! This is John’s way of saying that God and the Logos are the same, and therefore, are both God!

In closing, I would like to offer a few other remarks regarding the use of definite articles or lack thereof:

Do not build your theology upon definite articles or nouns lacking indefinite articles. The Greeks used and omitted definite articles all over the place where we would usually need or not need them. For example, we would translate “The Paul” from the Greek as “Paul” in English and “child” (lacking a definite article) as “a child” or “the child” depending on context. The point is, don’t get hung up on whether there is a the or not!

If JW’s or Muslims insist upon the lack of a definite article in John 1:1, see if they will be consistent elsewhere in John 1. Here’s why: every other mention of God in John 1 mentions God without a definite article.

• 1:6 - “There was a man sent from God…” - παρα θεου (from a God).
• 1:12 - “…to become children of God…” - τεκνα θεου (children of a God).
• 1:13 - “…but of God…” - αλλ εκ θεου (but of a God).
• 1:18 - “…No one has ever seen God” - θεον (a God).

So you see, John omits the definite article in these other four instances, but he is obviously not talking about a god but of THE GOD. If someone is trying to argue that John 1:1 says “a God” but all the other passages in John 1 say “the God”, it is obvious that they are not being consistent and their argument ultimately collapses and falls apart.

I hope this wasn’t too technical but helpful for understanding the opponents’ arguments and being able to defend the Christian faith, as well as see how each letter and word in the Bible was intentionally placed there by God!

I highly recommend listening to the following messages from the Clarus ‘08 conference with Dr. Michael Horton and Dr. D.A. Carson. You can download them here as well. I’ve listened to almost all of them and they are excellent.