Great is the Lord 3

May 14, 2010 @ 0:07 By 16 Comments

RonHighfield.jpgRon Highfield’s new book, Great Is the Lord: Theology for the Praise of God , probes in chp 3 “What fools don’t know: the existence of God.”

Here we will find a good discussion of the existence of God that refuses — and I don’t see this very often — to let the existence question become simply and only rational argument with conclusion that God “does” exist or God “doesn’t” exist. Instead, through it all Highfield argues that natural theology is not enough and that all theology must work from revelation (the Word of God) if it is to be thoroughly Christian.
On the title of the chp: “There is no lack of talk about God today. But one does not need to listen to it very long to realize that most speakers do not know what they are saying” (69). This one clinched it for me: “And whether one believes or not, blabbing on about God without understanding is the activity of a fool.”
The Christian question is not “Does God exist?” but “Does God (the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) exist?” We cannot know the answer to this question apart from God’s gracious revelation.


He examines three opposing options: the pagan option, where the powers of nature are seen as divine, the atheist option, where God is denied, and the agnostic option, where knowledge is not possible.

An excellent section in this chp is about the reality of atheism and he drives it “all the way down.” What happens if one is really an atheist: cosmically, there is no meaning, no purpose, no plan, no mind of God and no mind of man to match the mind of the cosmos, no value. This works itself into an existential reality: we have no meaning or purpose or values. Finally, atheism makes everything absurd and chaos. 
Highfield challenges atheism to justify its belief apart from denying theism. It needs to identify this something and how it explains everything else without reference to God (see p. 81).
Next, the traditional arguments for God: cosmological, moral, ontological and their limited usefulness.
Finally, he pushes beyond the “yes” or “no” question to the significance of God’s existence:
we are here for a reason
we are planned
we have a meaning that is real and eternal
we have values rooted in real order
we are real
we can accomplish something real and lasting.
Filed Under: Uncategorized 16 Comments
About Scot McKnight

Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. McKnight, author of more than thirty books, is the Professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary in Lombard, IL.

  • http://theprodigalprophet.wordpress.com The Prodigal Prophet

    Revelation through Scripture is an interesthing concept to a recovering ex-charismatic evangelical like myself.The key is interpretation – who and what decides interpretation of the writings. Can they be interpreted correctly? – who decides who is correct? For me Scriptures tell a story of unconditional Divine Love and its desire to reach out to us – this is where experience of Spirit comes in. A belief without Divine intimacy is in my opinion null and void and just a conceptual prison. I’m sure you’ll disagree with me but we’ll not fall out over it.My own faith journey can be read at http://www.authonomy.com under the title The Prodigal Prophet My blog at http://theprodigalprophet.wordpress.com may also be of interest to you as I write from a Christian mysticism perspective.Every blessing

  • RJS

    This is an interesting post – I agree with the points. The meaninglessness of life in an atheist position is an interesting idea to probe further. In Ecklund’s book (the one I posted on Tuesday) she addresses this in conversations with the self-identified atheist scientists. I will have to look at it tonight and come back to comment. This is a real issue though – for some at least, individual human life is of no more value than any other species – and all life will simply disappear in the long run.

  • http://ingles.homeunix.net/ Ray Ingles

    Finally, atheism makes everything absurd and chaos.

    Scot, if you’re not interested in just preaching to the converted, then I urge you to acknowledge that there are other ways of looking at this.
    http://badidea.wordpress.com/2007/09/27/the-meaning-of-meaning-why-theism-cant-make-life-matter/
    Forgive the extended quote, but I honestly believe this makes an important and relevant point:

    First, we need to examine “meaning” itself, and expose a mistake, a very basic mistake, in how many people think about it.
    To say that some event means something without at least some implicit understanding of who it means something to is to express an incomplete idea, no different than sentence fragments declaring that “Went to the bank” or “Exploded.” Without first specifying a particular subject and/or object, the very idea of meaning is incoherent.
    Yet too often people still try to think of meaning in a disconnected and abstract sense, ending up at bizarre and nonsensical conclusions. They ask questions like: What is the meaning of my life? What does it matter if I love my children when I and they and everyone that remembers us will one day not exist? But these are not simply deep questions without answers: they are incomplete questions, incoherent riddles missing key lines and clues. Whose life? Meaningful to whom? Matters to whom? Who are you talking about?
    Once those clarifying questions are asked and answered, the seeming impossibility of the original question evaporates, its flaws exposed. We are then left with many more manageable questions: What is the meaning of my/your/their life to myself/my parents/my children? These different questions may have different answers: your parents may see you as a disappointment for becoming a fireman instead of a doctor, and yet your children see you as a hero.

  • Scot McKnight

    Ray, particularizing doesn’t really escape the problem of random chaos.
    “Hero” is a value judgment based in what?
    I’m inclined to think you’re equating “function” with “meaning.” The ontological or metaphysical approach to “meaning” transcends function and swallows up function into a larger network of metaphysical reality. The radical atheist position cannot escape this trap: function isn’t meaning.

  • http://ingles.homeunix.net/ Ray Ingles

    The ontological or metaphysical approach to “meaning” transcends function and swallows up function into a larger network of metaphysical reality.

    But the ‘ontological approach’ uses the term ‘meaning’ in a way fundamentally different than the way people normally use the word. Not unlike the difference between “simple” and “ontologically simple”. (Anything that can create a universe cannot be “simple” in the everyday sense of the word.)
    Specialized vocabularies can be useful (in programming, the words ‘stack’, ‘atomic’, ‘queue’, ‘address’, ‘compile’, and so forth don’t mean what they do in everyday English) but they can also be used to obfuscate.
    For example, in advertising law, ‘better’ is actually better than ‘best’. If you say your toothpaste is the ‘best’, then legally what you’re saying is it’s “as good as all the others”. If you say your toothpaste is “better“, though, you have to be able to show why it’s better than the others.

  • Scot McKnight

    Ray, You accuse me unfairly and then I respond and this is what you give me? Horseplay with words?

  • http://ingles.homeunix.net/ Ray Ingles

    Scot – Hang on. I try not to butt in on posts that don’t relate to atheism, but on this article: http://blog.beliefnet.com/jesuscreed/2010/05/db-hart-on-the-new-atheists.html
    …where D.B. Hart levels several accusations against the so-called “New Atheists”, I tried to link to responses by actual atheists to that essay. Those links disappeared. What am I to think?
    And secondly, I didn’t call it that but I do actually think you’re engaging in ‘horseplay with words’. You speak of the “ontological or metaphysical approach to “‘meaning’”, but I’m really not clear what kind of meaning it can be if it doesn’t mean something to someone. Meaning can’t just hover unsupported. Things have to mean something to somebody, or what does it mean to say they “mean something” at all?
    Consider the closely-related concept of “value”. Things don’t have an abstract, unqualified “value”. They have value to someone, and for some purpose. A farmer has a bushel of corn, a woodworker has a chair. They trade, and each has more value (by their estimation) than before. That’s what makes economics go round.
    If there is something like objective value, though, then at least one of them (and possibly both) are wrong. Can you tell me which?
    (This, BTW, is one reason Anselm’s argument fails. The idea of a being “than which no greater being can be conceived” rests on the idea that ‘better’ can be unambiguously ordered like that. That may have been persuasive back when the Great Chain of Being was in vogue, but I don’t agree with that premise. Which is ‘objectively better’? The color blue or mozzarella cheese?)

  • Bill

    This article makes it clear that he doesn’t understand what a-theism is in general. Nor does he seem to understand why atheists, if they are without purpose, meaning and direction…aka chaos, exist and in fact are thriving according to the latest polls in the U.S.
    People find meaning by doing meaningful things. The most secular nations have civil societies, low violent crime rates and people look at you funny if you ask them how they find meaning without a god to worship or assign importance to you.
    It’s these kinds of biases that limit our understanding and damage our good will toward others.
    As far as revelation is concerned….. most religions claim this. How is any one person able to determine if one ancient book or another is the correct revelation? Seriously, one can not prove one religion is valid over another.
    Picking a revealed religion doesn’t boil down to years of comparative religious studies, exposure to other cultures and ideas, etc. A personal religious belief usually boils down to where you grew up, your culture, your family beliefs, exposure to other peoples, the influence of a friend, education, etc.
    It’s a tired argument to insist one’s particular god is the true god and all the rest aren’t. This is just another person telling them to “trust me, I know” because I know, or because I experienced it, or my ancient book says so and it’s full of real history about this town or that person.
    Many religions claim experiences, miracles, history about people and places, etc. It doesn’t make them true. In fact, it just proves that either every religion is equally valid, or it’s all a bunch of man made stuff supported by our psychological and biological needs to feel loved, secure, important, etc.
    Religion has it’s good points when it motivates people to help someone in need, but one could just as easily argue that it compels people to do harm or judge harshly too. In general, any religion that causes us to respect people enough to listen to them and work to understand them is a pretty good religion in my opinion.
    Other than that, I just don’t find religion necessary in my life and neither do I find benefit from thinking there is a god who watches over me or cares about me.
    Honestly, I get comfort from my family, friends, co-workers, hard work, my job, a good book, a warm fireplace, good food……
    Invisible, quiet higher powers are too hard to figure out and don’t do much as far as I can tell.

  • Scot McKnight

    Ray, I edit and delete very few comments but when they wander and or insult I have to … not sure about yours in the past.
    What is “meaning” when it comes to have “meaning” in life? How does one determine if a life is “meaningful”? When you say it is meaningful “to” someone, does that person determine — on what basis? — what is meaningful? Is it grounded in reality (here is why some say “ontological”) or is it merely one person’s subjective connection? Or is it when more than one person finds an action or a function meaningful?

  • RJS

    Ray,
    The impasse we have here is the root of the problem even getting a discussion started. But it isn’t just word games – people can go on living and thriving without considering anything other than local and temporary meaning. Fine – that is what you see as the only possible meaning.
    What I have contended in many posts – and you always disagree with – is that there is a deeper meaning, even for me, that transcends relationship. I find theism an attractive approach – even a preferable approach – because it provides an explanation for this deeper meaning, deeper beauty that transcends human existence. It is not that theism provides meaning or purpose but that it explains meaning and purpose.
    You could be stuck seeing black and white, unable to comprehend that there is color in the world (and that it contributes something significant and poetic not reducible to a prosaic and scientifically measurable change in the photon energy (i.e. wavelength))
    On the other hand I could be seeing mirages and hallucinations in a strictly material world.
    But to call it “word games” misses the point. It isn’t a word game. Atheism is opposed to the very reality of the kind of meaning we are talking about.

  • RJS

    By the way Ray – comments with links sometimes go directly to spam. There are even some indeterminate code words that send comments directly to spam without links. I had a few sent there recently. When this happens they can get lost in the mass of real spam and not get rescued and approved. If you got a “comment held for moderation” message this is likely what happened.

  • Kyle

    Ray,
    As you yourself clearly state, without a transcendent “value” there is only subjective value. Meaning resides in local or even individual evaluations. Since people disagree on value with frequency, those with the most power rise up and enforce their values on those with lesser power.
    We could speculate (like Bill above) that in societies without transcendent meaning, the State continues to respect its citizens and keeps acting like there are transcendent ideals even if they are clearly illusory. We could hope that those with power choose to treat those with lesser power as though they matter, but there is no evidence that this is or will ever be the case. Sure, in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, etc. where people are wealthy, the population density is low, strong governments establish justice, peace, etc. they are able to reject God and keep living off the capital from their Christian past (let’s not kid ourselves and minimize the clear connections between their types of government, views on justice etc. and their Christian heritage).
    But for every Norway, there’s a North Korea…or less drastically, a Vietnam. The population density is high, poverty is rampant, and our Western (read Christian) ideals of justice are not ingrained in the minds of either the common people or the State. The people with power, remain in power and enforce their power by might. Come with me on a trip to Myanmar sometime and see the government promoted poverty and restrictions. They have the power and will thus keep the people in line. The State in these nations enforce their ideals through restrictions on education, media censorship, etc. Without transcendent meaning and value, there’s no use in me going and trying to stop their local likewise subjective values…why should I stand up for the “rights” (transcendent) of these people?
    Now, if meaning, value, rights…whatever else have no transcendent value…if we cannot “hold these truths to be self-evident,” then people are not “created equal,” because those with power are not equal to those without. In the West, we can continue to live in our Christian-haunted world with our ideals of justice, human rights and the like, but there’s no use in spreading our non-transcendent ideals if they actually hold no meaning apart from our subjective perspective. Without an appeal to the transcendent, you better hope that you find yourself in a society with power, where the State just so happens to agree with your subjective views.

  • http://ingles.homeunix.net/ Ray Ingles

    Scot, RJS, I’ll take your word that my comments weren’t deliberately removed. The thing is, they went up… and then disappeared. Someone (Jeremy) actually responded to one of them first, before it vanished.
    I’m perfectly willing to believe some automatic system popped in later and took them out, but I hope you can understand where my impression would come from.
    And Scot, I make it a point to always be polite and avoid insult. I post under my real name and I have a long net history. The only thing I’m embarrassed about is once when I was explaining how relativity and magnetism interrelate and I flipped the sign and borked the math. I don’t insult, and I try to stay on topic – as I said, I try hard not to butt in unless the topic actually is atheism.

  • http://ingles.homeunix.net/ Ray Ingles

    The link I gave actually does talk about the “meaning of life” as well:

    It’s an experience, an emotion, not an assertion of fact. You either find your life meaningful or you do not, but it’s not even clear to me how one would even attempt to show that someone’s experience of meaning or lack of it was a mis-perception, let alone be outright false. What standard would you compare it against? If someone were to claim that your life isn’t meaningful to you, how would they prove it? How would you prove it to them, beyond merely expressing it? What would an argument even look like?

    Proof of God: the captcha is “avowal his”. :-)

  • Ray Ingles

    Kyle –

    As you yourself clearly state, without a transcendent “value” there is only subjective value. Meaning resides in local or even individual evaluations. Since people disagree on value with frequency, those with the most power rise up and enforce their values on those with lesser power.

    Not so fast. I believe in ‘human nature’ – I think it means something to call someone “human” as opposed to something else. And I think that there’s a lot of things humans have in common. We’re very social creatures and we have a lot of built-in intuitions about how to live together that have evolved over a very long time.
    Take common goals, toss in some game theory, and we can derive robust strategies – “morals” – that apply broadly to human beings. (David Opderbeck and I had an extended discussion about that here.)
    Sure, such morals are relative to human beings and kind of universe they inhabit… but that’s okay with me, I’m a human being in this universe. I’ll even go out on a limb and assert that you are a human being, who lives in this universe, too.
    BTW, you also write:

    let’s not kid ourselves and minimize the clear connections between their types of government, views on justice etc. and their Christian heritage.

    Astronomy evolved from astrology, and still uses a lot of the same terminology. Chemistry evolved from alchemy, and still has traces of that origin visible today. Does that imply anything about the validity of either astrology or alchemy?

  • MikeK

    Not having read this book, but I am captivated by his TOC, Highfield got this part down well: For Christians, the existence of God is about the Trinity.
    Now, a whole host of questions do follow from this statement, but the attempts to downplay the data or rearrange it to fulfill concerns for “biblical monotheism” or unitarian aims fail to satisfy. And, I’d suggest that such approaches fail in one specific way: unitarian approaches inadequately describe and comprehend the biblical data that “God is love.” Miss this, and it’s easy to avoid the hard and complex articulation of the Son-Father relationship and the relationship between the Spirit and the church.