Saturday Sermon: Apologetics

I am of the mind that if the Bible is supposed to be the word of the one true God, then shouldn’t this book be universally understood from the words, “In the beginning…”? Instead, we get a completely unhinged, contradictory mélange of stories that drift between the absurd and the insane. God’s first words to the newly created man is a bald-faced lie when he tells him that if he eats of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil he will die in that same day. It turns out that serpent (that so many people wrongly refer to as Satan) was the only one who told the truth and he was punished for it. Yet, there will be some smooth-talking defender of the faith who justify it. This person is an apologist.

Christian Apologetics is the defense of the faith, doctrines, and even the Bible. In this case, apologists seek to use the Bible to defend the Bible. Earlier this week, I talked about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and also the Binding of Isaac (or rather, the attempted murder of Isaac) and how I could not reason out how Lot or Abraham could be considered righteous. Lot offered his virgin daughters to the angry mob to protect the angels, which anybody with a conscience would have seen as repugnant. However, a cursory search of apologetics for this story states that Lot asked for forgiveness from God and received it. Where was this? Apparently in Psalms, and also in 1 Peter. But I haven’t read that far yet, so I guess the story is a cliffhanger? If this book was truly written by a superior being then it would explain itself in the context of the current reading and send the reader on a wild goose chase all over the book for random verse that may or may not explain the context of a story.

In the case of Abraham and Isaac, I have read some Olympic-class mental gymnastics justifying this story. “Abraham knew that God would not let harm come to his son.” How? Did he ask him? This was a test from God, but if God is all-knowing, wouldn’t he know that Abraham would willingly do what he was told? Instead, God allows him to travel for three full days to the place where he was pointed. That right there shows intent in and of itself, but it’s not good enough. Abraham and Isaac build the altar and prepare it, which is still not good enough. It’s not until Abraham ties up his son and pulls the knife that God finally says, “Haha, LOL. JK. Yeah, you don’t really have to do that.” Apologists will say that Abraham was obedient to God and that made him righteous. So being unquestioningly obedient is a sign of righteousness? No, that’s the sign that you might be in a cult.

Announcements

Next week, I will finally hit the halfway point of Genesis. Tuesday’s post will spark a new Saturday Sermons periodic series about…nah, you’ll have to wait until next Saturday.