BY IRVING NESTOR

BY BOBBY PERETTI

​THD: What do you think the role of religious institutions should be in pursuing social justice, or should institutionalized religion be something that focusses strictly on doctrine and theology, whereas the individual follower should be committed to social justice?

Nelson: I guess when you say “religious institutions,” we’re talking at several different levels: congregations, denominations, para-church  organizations. I think social justice is a key component of what it means to be a Christian in today’s world. It’s something that individuals should also do, but it’s certainly not something that should be relegated to the individual realm. And in terms of what that looks like: that’s an interesting question. When I was growing up in the late sixties-early seventies, the church was talking much more about issues of social justice. I have to give a lot of credit to my dad who’s a pastor. I learned a lot from what he was doing back then. He was a youth minister and also a Christian education director at several congregations, but always infused social justice, racial reconciliation, and that kind of stuff into his own work. I grew up reading Sojourners magazine and a magazine called The Other Side. These were evangelical but left-leaning. So biographically, I always kind of had that lens of thinking about social justice as a basic part of Christian life.

Now, I think one of the mistakes that churches and denominations made during that time was that--and remember this was on the heels of the civil rights movement and everything--I think they felt that what social justice meant was working only through the political arena. I think that’s a temptation for Christians to do that, and certainly, I am not saying that Christians have no place in the political arena. But I think that if you are putting your hope in that as the avenue of change, then you will be sorely disappointed. It’s really hard to stay faithful, I think, to a social justice mission in the halls of power. There was this book on my dad’s bookshelf, that really influenced me called The Politics of Jesus by John Howard Yoder. And at first, when I read it, I didn’t like at all because, you know, being young, I was all about: “Yeah! Political action and protests and speaking truth to power” and that kind of stuff. But Yoder, coming from a Mennonite tradition, talked about the politics of Jesus as not being revolutionary, at least in that sense. He wasn’t a zealot like the disciple Simon was, in terms of overthrowing the power structures, but bringing in such a radically different message of reconciliation, forgiveness, and mercy that it ended up turning everything on its head. It was revolutionary, but not through the channels that people expected him to be. I think that difference is pretty powerful. So what does working for social justice look like? I think maybe different organizations are called to different pieces of the larger mission. One thing that I think we tend to do as Christians: we think that everybody has got to do it the same way. We say, “‘A’ is the only legitimate pathway to do this.” Whereas, it seems that if you read the New Testament, people have different gifts and different callings and different expressions of the same thing, and in a way, it is the diversity of approaches that we should embrace and not try to straightjacket people into one way of doing it. “Social justice looks like this rather than this.” But definitely I think it should be at least a part of every religious organization. And, again, it’s not going to be the central focus of some organizations for that same reason. Some are called to bring a ministry of healing brokenness and relationships and things like that. But at the same time, it shouldn’t be relegated to just a fringe element of these institutions.

THD: You say that part of the weakness of the sixties and seventies was people elevating the political side of social justice maybe into their vocation. Do you think that weakness is still relevant today, or, if not, what are the primary weaknesses of the church and social justice?

TN: Yeah, so that’s interesting. There’s a lot of stuff going on in the church (and I am talking here about the church in the United States) that I don’t really pay a lot of attention to. I know that there have been a lot of movements and things that I am dimly aware of, but I don’t feel that I know enough about them to be able to say anything, really, about them. I mean, in my little corner of the world… I know my little piece of what’s going on, but I don’t really know enough about the general shape of what’s happening in the larger circles to comment on that.

THD: Have you noticed any interesting developments or a noticeable change in some perception, or have you seen students think of it differently?

TN: One thing that is relatively new among millennials, more than prior generations, I find, is more of a folding in of issues about the environment and things that we weren’t really attuned to back then, and marrying that, maybe, with environmental justice issues. Unfortunately, in the larger church there seems to be not… I am dismayed at what gets done under the name of “evangelical”. And so the fact that, in the political realm, the kind of candidates the “evangelical” crowd is supporting in places like Iowa are pretty frightening to me. And it seems to be about drawing these kinds of moral, symbolic boundaries against certain populations is what that really means. Whereas, what social justice is really about is inclusion and making sure that we are drawing the circle ever wider and wider so that people can be brought in. And so it’s a fundamentally, I think, an opposite stance and attitude than is being displayed in the standard “evangelical” morals.

THD: Bringing this deeper to the Christian faith, what is a unique characteristic the church has, in contrast to most of the NGOs out there, that it brings to social justice that other institutions maybe aren’t?

TN: Well, I think, that there is definitely a difference, and part of it is the motivation. I think that the fundamental message of Christianity is that we are all essentially the same. Right? We are all broken. We all need grace and mercy. I think that working for social justice is an outgrowth to what we’ve been given, and to give that to other people. And that’s why I say that this whole idea of evangelicals drawing boundaries, “It’s us and them,” is antithetical to what the Gospel is. The Gospel seeks out people who’ve been especially broken and especially persecuted and especially despised and goes into that place with them. I think that’s the key difference of Christianity: is that it’s not just, “I have resources. I am going to give resources away, and therefore you become a client, or you become my project.” But the whole birth and life of Jesus teaches this incarnational approach, “I am going to go where you are, suffer what you suffer, live the life you live, and be alongside of you, and empty myself of what I have and take on what you have.” I think that’s the ultimate expression of what it means to do this type of ministry. So you see people moving in to the inner city (and this maybe happened more in the sixties and seventies), like a Sojourner’s Community in Washington DC. When I was a kid, I used to send my newspaper-route money to a place called Voice of Calvary in Mendenhall, Mississippi, where a black pastor, John Perkins was trying to build interracial congregations in the heart of the segregationist south. To me, those are the ultimate expressions of what it means to live this out. And that only can come authentically, I think, through having this really personal experience of grace and mercy for your own life, because otherwise you just become… the temptation is to be like: “Aren’t I such a good person because I am doing this kind of work?”

THD: With that uniqueness, is there any particular issue the Church should have a more necessary role in, in the sense that it’s an issue that’s problem perhaps goes deeper than simply doing good can heal?

TN: One role the church has that no other NGO has: a church is a congregation – a place where people gather together as equals and build a shared life together. That’s what’s powerful about congregations. They can bring in people very different from one another – white, black, rich, poor, Republican, Democrat – it totally goes against the grain of everything that society is trying to do to keep us segregated. Tragically the church looks all too much like these social divisions. But to consciously create a community that tries to draws all of these folks in is an incredible witness to the power of the Kingdom of God vs all other kingdoms. I attend a church here in Baltimore called GraceCity and it meets down in a school in Federal Hill. It’s an intentionally multiracial church. It has one white pastor and one black pastor, and the church is very aware of who is up front and who is doing things behind the scenes. It’s something that we as a church talk about together. People have different experiences and perspectives. For instance, white people have a tendency to take control of everything, so it has to be kind of called out in love when that happens. Of all institutions it’s the congregation that can bear the most witness to this. It’s not a staff of professionals serving people; it’s a living breathing community that’s trying to live together.

THD: Bringing it to our own context in Baltimore, how have you seen interaction between the church and different social conditions in the city?

TN: The pastors of our church I know were very heavily involved with the aftermath of the Freddie Gray thing, they were actually on the front lines, literally between the police and the protestors trying to be a human shield. That was one window where there was a positive approach. Unfortunately there was no message from the pulpit about this about this kind of stuff – I wanted more processing of this, what it means to be in the midst of this kind of thing. What does it mean to exist in a hyper-segregated city such as Baltimore? What is our responsibility? Think about the parable of the Good Samaritan. The neighbor is the one who sees the need and does something about it – to prove he truly is the neighbor. I’m sure lots of churches are doing things. Though I wish I knew more about what different groups are doing. It remains that all too often these social divisions become set up in the church as well as in society. They’re hard barriers to overcome.

THD: What would you suggest to students who are thinking about these things to do?

TN: That impulse is a good one – “I see all this around me and I want to do something.” I think the first step is humility and maybe thinking, “I should first learn from someone who’s already doing something.” I studied a black church for my dissertation, and it was a great experience because I’d never put myself in a context in which I’m the extreme minority. So maybe what that looks like is putting yourself in a position to be a learner under the authority of someone who’s in there and already addressing these issues. Support what they’re already doing. I think the tendency is that everyone wants to go out and start their own NGO – “Well here’s my piece of it that I want to do.” An attitude of humility is not as glamorous and doesn’t make you feel as noble about what you’re doing, but its more effective in the long run.

THD: Is there a particular passage in scripture that you think most relates to the relationship the Christian faith has with topics of social justice?

TN: I think for me, one verse that always sticks with me, and as a sociologist this has particular relevance. It’s Romans 12:2, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” As a sociologist I study the patterns of this world – that’s what sociology is, essentially. And the pattern of the world is to segregate, to separate, to dominate, for people to try to get as much as they can for themselves. What we need to have is this transformed mind and culture, first of all by recognizing those pressures and how they affect Christians both individuals and collectively – the kind of fear and distrust that is sown between rich/poor black white/ immigrant…part of it is constantly seeing the messages of the world and how we are being pushed into that mold. One needs to see it in order to shake those things off and resist. Think about what is that “blessed community” that Christ talks about and how am I taking steps to replicate what he’s talking about? How are our minds being transformed? Really it’s a work of the Holy Spirit – it’s not how many books you can read – but to be open to let the Holy Spirit shape you and teach you through events and circumstances. It all involves taking risks. If you’re not taking risks, then that’s not faith, that’s just belief. Faith will call for people to do things that others think are crazy or that people feel they are not adequately resourced for. But that’s exactly where and how the Kingdom takes shape.

​

BY JESSICA HARSONO
​We can't stand on a soapbox forever.
The dream ends abruptly, broken
like a fever. From this angle below the trees,
the leaves and their faces cut dark shapes
out of a cloud-bleached sky. I never
remembered why the river kept stepping
over itself in its rush towards elsewhere
because every year I went back to find it
hadn't moved, stagnant shores strewn heavy
with tackle. It isn't difficult to predict
that kind of betrayal. In a basement
hollowed by men, the cantilever beams
are the only evidence holding up the ground
on narrow shoulders. There in that darkness,
it can be easy to say there is nothing left
worth saving. That after all this time, there never
was. One autumn, in that quiet margin
between storms, I repeated my name like a gutter
with water dripping from two of its four     
corners, relentless in its tempo
then rushing, all at once, until it collapsed
under its own damn weight. In such
sobriety, how could we hope
to deserve anything? The filing cabinets are full
of mistakes. Tile lined with kitchen timers
meant for detonating. Eventually we'll learn
that the world is only ash, pressured
into something no longer resembling dust.
The night will keep falling, gravity won't
stop, but still You are there, standing in the clouds
of silt and rubble, a flood of air like smokestacks
rolling on the horizon, catching
light, promising what can't be seen.

BY SAM PAEK

The resurrection of Jesus Christ, in both the empty tomb and his appearances thereafter, is the ultimate evidence for the deity of Jesus; it is the foundation of our professed Christian faith. In fact, Paul thought this issue so immensely important that he claimed, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.” As it is, virtually anyone can claim divine revelation, but that does not immediately elevate it to the pedestal of truth. However, if Jesus Christ is actually raised from the dead, the implications for the world are huge: his claim to divinity and the reality of eternal life are suddenly realities we cannot ignore.

The question then arises whether it is actually possible to “prove” Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. In studying historical events of antiquity, a historian must deal with the data at hand and attempt to ascertain the truth of a matter with varying degrees of certainty. Since many documentations from the ancient world are lost to us, we must attempt to reconstruct a narrative of what happened with what little is available to us. However, much of the difficulty in accepting the truth of Jesus’ claims is due to the totality of their implications, not because of the historical data; in other words, the stakes are extremely high for all of us if his claims are true. Thus, a historical survey of the resurrection is crucial; as Tim Keller aptly notes, “The issue on which everything hangs is not whether or not you like [Jesus’] teachings, but whether or not he rose from the dead.”

Did Jesus Actually Die on the Cross?
Although virtually all scholars agree that Jesus in fact died, skeptics have claimed that Jesus’ resurrection was a hoax because he did not die in the first place. This idea is found in the Qur’an and other skeptical circles such as those of Donovan Joyce, who championed the “swoon theory,” claiming that Jesus actually just fainted or feigned death on the cross, and was revived in his tomb or by his disciples. In light of this, we must briefly survey the evidence that confirms the death of Jesus.

It is almost unanimously attested to that Jesus, before his crucifixion, endured an extremely painful flogging at the hands of the Romans. Dr. Metherell, a physician and a research scientist, attests to the horrific flogging and the hypovolemic shock that would follow as a result, which would have put Jesus in a serious medical condition by the time he was carrying the cross. During crucifixion itself, the victim’s lung cavity would eventually collapse, leading to asphyxiation and death through cardiac arrest.
When all this is taken into account, it seems rather impossible that Jesus could have survived such an ordeal. It would be almost impossible to imagine any human surviving the trial, the beatings, the shame, and the crucifixion and live to tell the tale. In any case, a weak and almost-dead Jesus could have not possibly convinced his hiding disciples that he was the promised Messiah and Conqueror of death. In the words of D.F. Strauss, himself a skeptic of the resurrection, “Such a resuscitation could only have weakened the impression which he had made upon them in life and in death, at the most could only have given it an elegiac voice, but could by no possibility have changed their sorrow into enthusiasm, have elevated their reverence into worship.”

The fact that Jesus died through crucifixion is recorded not only in the four Gospels, but also in various secular accounts. Josephus, a Jewish historian writing in first-century Palestine, notes, “Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing amongst us, had condemned him to be crucified…” Tacitus, a Roman historian, writes, “Christus, from whom the name [Christians] had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate.” Other references exist in the writings of Lucian of Samosata, Mara Bar-Serapion, and the Talmud.
    
The Burial and the Empty Tomb

​All four Gospels record that Jesus was taken and buried by a man named Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Sanhedrin (a group that had voted to crucify Jesus) and that he was raised again on the third day. In addition to the Gospel accounts, the burial of Jesus is mentioned in a creed cited by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:3–7, which had been circulating in the early Church: “For what I received I pass onto you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures…” This creed is dated to about three to five years after Jesus’ resurrection and is thus historically reliable material. The narrative of the creed is paralleled in Mark’s account of Jesus’ death and resurrection, and actually predates Mark itself, the earliest Gospel dated to [latest] around 70 AD.

Joseph of Arimathea himself is a curious figure, for one could question why the Gospel writers would have named him the burier of Jesus when he was a member of the Sanhedrin. However, this very fact marks the Gospels as reliable accounts that attempted to tell the truth, for it is highly unlikely that they would name a member of the Sanhedrin, hated by the early Christians for their role in the death of Jesus, as the one to bury him, especially when his disciples had just deserted him.  Furthermore, Joseph of Arimathea is a figure that could have been easily cross-checked by the masses, as he was given both a town of origin and an association with the historical Sanhedrin, which makes him more of a historical figure than not.

In addition, archaeological digs in Palestine have revealed three different rock tombs utilized in the first century. In the most expensive of these tombs, a round stone could be rolled down into a miniature groove in the ground, which would hold the disc-shaped stone in place and would require multiple men to push it back up. Despite the tomb’s security, however, the earliest Christians claimed that it was actually empty, and that Jesus had somehow been seen outside the confines of his burial place. If the grave had not actually been empty, it would have been impossible for a movement based on Jesus’ resurrection to take place. As William Lane Craig astutely notes, there are three general reasons why the empty tomb was so central to the spread of early Christianity: first, the disciples themselves could never have believed in the resurrection if the tomb was occupied; second, no one else would have believed them if the tomb was occupied; and third, Jesus’ opponents would have quickly and assuredly exposed the disciples’ claims as a hoax.  

This final point is significant, for if opponents of early Christianity wanted to disprove the disciples’ claims, they could have simply produced the corpse from its grave or pointed out the occupied tomb; however, all we see are attempts to explain away the empty tomb, with questions aimed at answering what happened to the body rather than actually exhuming the corpse.

Another interesting aspect of the Gospel account is the unanimous presentation of women as the first witnesses of they empty tomb. In both Jewish and Roman cultures, women were lowly esteemed, and a result their testimonies were often held in question. Given this fact, it is highly improbable that the Gospel writers would intentionally fabricate a story, only to attribute its pivotal testimony first to that of women; it seems men of high standing in Christian history would be a much more convincing choice. In light of this, it is likely that the writers were attempting to convey the truth of the resurrection rather than fabricate its occurrence.

We see that a clearly deified, resurrected view of Jesus was solidified shortly after the crucifixion. A.N. Sherwin-White, in studying ancient Greek and Roman history, concluded that a span of at least two generations was not sufficient for legends to grow out of history, or to wipe out a solid core of historical facts. The Jesus presented in the New Testaments falls quite comfortably within that range. Thus, Oxford church historian William Wand concludes, “All the strictly historical evidence we have is in favor of [the empty tomb], and those scholars who reject it out to realize that they do so on some other ground than that of scientific history.”

The Eyewitness Evidence: Did Anyone See Jesus?

Missing bodies do not immediately lead one to the conclusion that a resurrection occurred; historically, missing bodies are often found weeks, months, or even years later, but a resurrection is hardly an explanation invoked by the rational public. If Jesus were indeed resurrected, eyewitness evidence would lend direct credence to this claim.

In legal cases, eyewitness testimonies present particularly strong evidence for or against a defendant. As it is, there is a large consensus amongst scholars of the New Testament that not only did the disciples see the resurrected Jesus, but also that they sincerely believed what they saw was real. The earliest affirmation of this comes from Paul, who wrote his epistles to the churches approximately two decades after the resurrection of Christ. Because Paul claimed that he knew at least some of the disciples, including Peter and James, and also because he was considered among the “apostles” by early church fathers, what he says about concerning the apostles and Jesus himself is very significant.

Most scholars agree that a strong oral tradition existed in first century Palestine, and it was especially strong in the Jewish communities, in which Rabbis would often memorize entire books of Scripture. Additionally, they identify several instances in which oral traditions were written down into the texts that comprise the New Testament, which includes the creeds, hymns, poetry, and narratives we find all over the writings of the Gospels and Paul. One of the earliest of these oral traditions is Paul’s creed in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7, which includes, besides a testimony of the atoning death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, a list of eyewitnesses who personally saw Jesus alive after his death and burial. 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 reads, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.”
In fact, many scholars hold that Paul received this creed when he stayed with Peter and James three years after his initial conversion, which is extremely significant, given that most ancient written works document events centuries after their occurrence. It is important to keep in mind that not only was this creed extremely early, but Paul also wrote his letter to the Corinthian church with the intent that the letter be read publicly. In essence, Paul was verifying the testimony of the early Church, and also inviting outside witnesses to affirm this truth.  John Rodgers, Dean at Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, notes, “This is the sort of data that historians of antiquity drool over.”

In addition to Paul’s letters, the writers of the Gospels record a number of different people from all blocks of life encountering the resurrected Jesus. The appearances include, but are not limited to, Mary Magdalene (John 20:10-18), Cleopas and another disciple (Luke 24:13-32), to ten apostles while Thomas was absent (John 20:19-23), and to Thomas himself, while he was with the other apostles (John 20:26-30). To be sure, this is not an exhaustive list of Jesus’ resurrected appearances, but nonetheless this grounds the claims of Christianity in the testimony of eyewitnesses, a powerful statement to its reality. Places in the Biblical record show us that the disciples claimed multiple times to be witnesses of everything they preached. In the words of theologian Carl Braaten, “Even the more skeptical historians agree that for primitive Christianity…the resurrection of Jesus from the dead was a real event in history, the very foundation of faith, and not a mythical idea arising out of the creative imagination of the believers.”

Circumstantial Affirmations of the Resurrection

With an event so significant as the resurrection was to the Christian movement, there is bound to be more than just direct evidence for this claim; indirect evidence would provide support for the historicity of the resurrection, and Church history is littered with what will be referred to as “circumstantial” evidence. There are at least three good pieces of circumstantial data that lend support to the resurrection, which, taken collectively, serve to emphasize that nothing other than the resurrection of Jesus could account for these events.

First, the lives of the disciples themselves provided a living testimony to the resurrection. After Jesus’ death and resurrection, the disciples were transformed from cowards to evangelists willing to die for the sake of the Gospel. Such a conviction is a strong indicator that they were not simply claiming that Jesus had been raised from the dead; they sincerely believed it. At least seven different outside sources testify that the disciples willingly suffered and died for their beliefs, most of which came from within a generation or two of their deaths.

Although no one questions the sincerity of martyrs of other religions, we must keep in mind that the apostles died holding onto the claim that they had personally encountered the risen Jesus. They did not die for an idea or a set of religious doctrines, as is the case for many martyrs; they died because Jesus had appeared to them in the flesh when he was thought to be dead—they died because they believed He was God Himself. In fact, this evidence was so compelling that the atheist New Testament scholar Gerd Lüdemann writes, “It may be taken as historically certain that Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesus’ death in which Jesus appeared to them as the risen Christ.”

Secondly, hardened skeptics who did not believe in Jesus prior to the resurrection were changed radically after their encounter with him. This includes Paul, who was a Pharisee and a church persecutor, and James, the brother of Jesus. Saul of Tarsus, who was given the name Paul after his conversion, himself writes in his epistles that he was a persecutor of Christians who was utterly transformed by his encounter with the risen Christ. His belief was so strong that he, along with many of the apostles, was willing to suffer and even die for their faith. This is attested to by Luke, Clement of Rome, Polycarp, Tertullian, and Origen, early church Fathers that had either known or received firsthand testimony about the disciples. James, the brother of Jesus, was a pious Jew and was an unbeliever during Jesus’ ministry. However, Josephus tells us that James became a leader of the early Church, and was actually stoned to death because of his beliefs; this is also attested to in the writings of Clement of Alexandria, Hegesippus, and Eusebius. Such a turnaround is explained in Paul’s creed of 1 Corinthians 15, in which he relates that Jesus appeared to James after his resurrection.

Thirdly, and finally, the sudden and rapid emergence of the Christian Church requires a historical explanation, as it was a major cultural shift that challenged key social structures of the Jewish community. J.P. Moreland notes that Christianity spread so rapidly it reached the Caesar’s palace in Rome within twenty years, and eventually became the official religion of the Roman Empire. Christianity was not spread by conquest or by economic and commercial interests; it grew explosively, building up churches and fellowships within a few years of the resurrection, and all this despite the constant persecution by both the Jewish leaders and the Roman Empire. As C.F.D. Moule of Cambridge University puts it, this is a belief and a movement that nothing in terms of previous historical influences can account for.According to Dr. Moule, this belief must have originated in the belief that Jesus did indeed rise from the dead: “…the birth and rapid rise of the Christian Church…remains an unsolved enigma for any historian who refuses to take seriously the only explanation offered by the Church itself.”

Conclusion
    
Ancient history is not an exact science, but it nonetheless gives us much insight into the events of the past. Interestingly, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is a historical event that is more attested to than many other events of history we often take for granted. Alternative explanations for the disciples’ transformation and the growth of the early Church are inadequate, and often the excuse for sidestepping the verdict of history and disregarding the historicity of the resurrection is, “I can’t believe it.” To suggest something other than the resurrection is to ignore history, or as N.T. Wright puts it, “enter into a fantasy world of our own.”
    
The worldwide implications of this historic event cannot be understated. Many people care deeply about social justice, ending global hunger and poverty, and restoring the environment—issues that confuse, anger, and divide individuals across political and social lines. If the resurrection is a true historical event, however, it means that there is an infinite reason for us to pour ourselves out for these issues and more. There is a reason for justice and compassion that transcends humanity. For as N.T. Wright says:

The message of the resurrection is that this world matters! That the injustices and pains of this present world must now be addressed with the news that healing, justice, and love have won…If Jesus Christ is truly risen from the dead, Christianity becomes good new for the whole world—news which warms our hearts precisely because it isn’t just about warming hearts. Easter means that in a world where injustice, violence, and degradation are endemic, God is not prepared to tolerate such things…Take away Easter and Karl Marx was probably right to accuse Christianity of ignoring problems of the material world. Take it away and Freud was probably right to say Christianity is wish-fulfillment. Take it away and Nietzsche probably was right to say it was for wimps.

But the resurrection exists. And as individual believers of this resurrection we too live with the assurance that once we die, we will live eternally in the glory of our God and in the riches of his kingdom. Jesus himself promises us, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” He invites us all to share in this eternal life with a simple question: “Do you believe this?”

References 

[1] 1 Corinthians 15:17
[2] Timothy Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (New York: Riverhead Books, Penguin Group, 2008), 210.
[3] Gary Habermas, The Verdict of History: Conclusive Evidence for the Life of Jesus (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 1988), 54-58. a
[4] Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ: A Journalist’s Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1998), 194-195.
[5] David Friedrich Strauss, A New Life of Jesus, authorized trans. 2 vols., 2nd ed. (London: Williams and Norgate, 1907), 1:412.
[6] Gary Habermas and Michael R. Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Kregel Publications, 2004), 48-49.
[7] Tacitus, Annals, 15.44 (C. A.D. 115)
[8] 1 Corinthians 15:3-7
[9] F.F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?, 6th ed. (Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1981), 25-60.
[10] Strobel, Case for Christ, 209-210.
[11] Craig, Knowing the Truth About the Resurrection, 48-49.
[12] Ibid., 64-65.
[13] See Matthew 28:11-15. There are also references to this from the writings of Tertullian, an early church father, and Justin Martyr.
[14] This is attested to in both Josephus’ Antiquities (4.8.15) and in the Talmud in multiple places. In terms of the Roman view of women, Suetonius testified to the lowly perspectives on women in his history of Caesar Augustus in The Twelve Caesars.
[15] Habermas, The Case for the Resurrection, 38. This is based on the “principle of embarrassment,” which says that a mark of historical authenticity is when the writer of a document attributes his source to
something that would not be expected to have a created the story, largely because this weakens the writer’s credibility and position in arguments.
[16] J.P. Moreland, Scaling the Secular City: A Defense of Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1987), 156-157.
[17] William Wand, Christianity: A Historical Religion? (Valley Forge, PA: Judson, 1972): 93-94.
[18] Galatians 1:18-19, 2:2-20.
[19] Habermas, The Case for the Resurrection, 52.
[20] See table of dates and publications of ancient literary works in J.P. Moreland’s Scaling the Secular City, 135.
[21] Keller, The Reason for God, 204.
[22] Quoted in Gary Habermas, The Case for the Resurrection, 53.
[23] Acts 5:32, 10:39
[24] Carl Braaten, History and Hermeneutics, vol. 2 of New Directions in Theology Today, ed. William Hordern (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1966).
[25] The seven sources include Luke, Clement of Rome, Polycarp, Ignatius, Dionysius of Corinth, Tertullian, and Origen.
[26] Gerd Lüdemann, What Really Happened to Jesus? A Historical Approach to the Resurrection, trans. John Bowden (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995), 80.
[27] Habermas, The Case for the Resurrection, 65.
[28] Paul’s letter to the Galatians relates men teaching legalistic doctrines with James; these men were teaching that Christians had to keep the Jewish law in addition to their faith in Jesus. Furthermore, Hegesippus writes that James was a pious Jew who strictly followed the Jewish law.
[29] We do not have any of the actual writings of Clement or Hegesippus surrounding this issue; our knowledge of this has been drawn from Eusebius, who referenced these two earlier writers in his work.
[30] C.F.D. Moule and Don Cupitt, “The Resurrection: A Disagreement,” Theology 75 (1972), 507-19.
[31] Quote taken from William Lane Craig, Knowing the Truth About the Resurrection, 120.
[32] N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Fortress, 2003), 707.
[33] Keller, The Reason for God, 220-221.
[34] N.T. Wright, For All God’s Worth: True Worship and the Calling of
the Church (Eerdmans, 1997), 65-66.
[35] John 11:25-26a.
[36] John 11:26b.
​

BY MICHAEL GOOD

THD: How have you seen the relationship between science and religion shift during your career?

RH: I have not seen it shift. The relationship between science and religion was set in the early 1800s. There have always been political and social movements that want to take charge, and other such movements that want to maintain their power; the 1800s was defined as a time when science was trying to remove the moral and political authority of an established church. Huxley was one of the fellows that did it; he was not a scientist himself but a very good speaker. The first man to synthesize urea was a kick in the teeth to the vitalists; Darwin published the Origin of Species; since these times, there has always been an attack on religion by science. The Christian faith says that there is a God that created us, but we rejected a relationship with him. Jesus was sent to restore this relationship. The prime human problem is, “I don’t want anyone telling me what to do.” Having God tell you what to do, especially if you can’t see that God…people have enjoyed adopting science because of this. I do not believe that science and religion have anything to fight over, but there are people that believe in science when science has no “belief”—there’s nothing to “believe” in science—and want nothing to do with religion. There are also religious people who want their religious faith to answer every question that there is, and religious faith never has done that. But no, the relationship has not shifted. There are some very humble who are scientists, humble people that are ministers that aren’t working scientists; these people know that science has a role and a set of rules. Religion has a set of rules. They do not mix. Back when science was the hobby of rich Englishmen, there was a phrase called “quod est demonstrandum”—“therefore, it is demonstrated”—and there was a culture of demonstration and proving what you claimed. However, faith is the evidence of things not seen, so they do not come near each other at all. Yet, in our day and time, we have people saying that they do, that they must. One group of psychologists with a grant actually set out to find what structure in the human mind allows a human being to believe in God. The assumption is that this is some structure in our mind that causes nearly every culture in history to believe in a god. What structure can allow this craziness? How can we explain it in physical terms? So no, the relationship has not changed.

THD: So would you say that science and religion, for you personally, have been two separate lives?

RH: They have to. They operate on different principles. This guy named Wittgenstein was talking about how a Hindu and a Christian could both believe, and there was this term called “valid”—a person’s religious faith was “valid” if they could believe in it. How do you disprove this faith? You cannot disprove a belief because it is evidence not seen. Well this Wittgenstein was walking when he passed a rugby match, then a cricket match, then asked himself, “Well, are those both games? Yes. Human play them, yet they have different rules, different teams, goals, and played differently.” Here was science with a set of rules on how to operate, and here was religion, with a set of rules on how to operate. You can object, saying, “It’s not a game!” Well, in the analogy of your life, you choose rules to live by. You also choose rules when you have a profession. So, these are two things that you can do. To be a Christian does not mean you cannot be a physicist. A guy in our church, his wife was Dutch and he was Spanish. He was talking about a paper he had just written in his physics department dealing with cosmology: the galaxies in our universe are not distributed uniformly, but as a set of soap bubbles, concentrated in certain areas and very few in other areas. Our galaxy was in a very open space, far away from other galaxies. Certain things were 13.5 billion light years away. Then somebody asked him, “Where’d you get that 13.5 light years number?” He responded, “That’s as far as we can see with our current telescopes and radioscopes.” He is an honest man, because physics is an observational science. You can be a farmer and be a Christian, and you can work for an insurance agency and be a Christian. Each of those professions operates on a different set of rules, but then your religious faith undergirds it all. Curiously enough, the people who say that science should have no part in religion also say that science should be “ethical.” There is no ethical system that does not refer to some higher authority. Some people are willing to let societal norms be an authority, and I only have to refer you back to Germany in 1936, or Turkey in 1917, when certain groups were massacred because public opinion thought they were inferior. These are different rules, and some people might say, “They conflict!” Well, no, I believe that God created the world. But if I adopt the rules of science and don’t take anybody’s word for it, I can’t take Moses’ word for it when he writes Genesis. So what do I have to do? I have to create my own theory. There is another assumption in science: natural effect has a natural cause. You cannot assume a transcendent being reaching into nature, yet faith deals with the Creator God. When you adopt science’s rules, you basically say, “I’m going to play by this set of rules to come to a conclusion.” However, this doesn’t mean I believe that conclusion. I can use those rules, but belief is something else. I believe that God sent Jesus, and no scientist can disprove it.

THD: Has your study and research encourage your faith or speak into it at all?

RH: Every time I do something, like setting up a lab, I have a set of rules that I operate by. I offer a course, and students choose to come to it; if you don’t come to it, you have to accept the consequences of that. I have to abide by my rules; I can’t change them for people or play favorites. I’m challenged continually to behave as my Master wants me to behave. Hopkins employs me, but I do a good job because I really work for somebody else.  If somebody comes to me and wants me to do something, I have to behave ethically. That right there, I think it is a challenge to faith but it also strengthens faith to do that. Our graduate students have to take a course in ethics because you have to be your own best critic, being honest with your results. Honesty is actually not part of science, although it is inherited from the fact that human societies cannot exist with it. Being a researcher, I knew the limits of science, and also being a person of faith, I knew the limits of faith. I’ve never prayed that an experiment would go well or would have a certain outcome; I have prayed for my integrity, though. Like when you study, what do you study for? Ultimately, it’s God. It’s an interesting model: God saves you, and He becomes your King.

THD: How can you reconcile evolution driven by natural selection with a divine creator?

RH: If you say it must be demonstrated, taking the rules of science, and if you assume natural effect has a natural cause, you can come up with evolution. You are limited to this physical universe to find the causes. Now, the divine creator: if you say that God came into this world and created it and that He sent his son to die, those are statements beyond scientific proof, and I can believe that. They are outside the physical universe. I can work with evolution, but I can believe something else. Evolution does not teach me to be kind, to help the weak, to stand up for minorities, and the like. But I don’t want to be part of a society that involves evolutionary principles. Evolution is a model of how species came to be, but I don’t see any difficulty in reconciling the two. What would science be without honesty and respect? I think one operates within the other, but I think scientists are too proud to say.

THD: What are some common misconceptions you’ve come across regarding Christian scientists?

RH: Here in this job, as an employee of Johns Hopkins University, the policy of this company is that we do not favor a single religion, one race over another, etc. On company time, I treat all people equally. I do not take my religious faith as a guide to doing this company job. I’ll do it honestly; I’ll do it as if I’m working for God. Very few people here treat me poorly because I am a Christian. Most folks in this department respect each other; if several faculty members are Jewish, they’re not slammed for being Jewish. In the news, you’ll see other things. In the fight for getting money from the government and other private sources, there are fights there too. Science people knock religious people, and vice versa. Now, when I was in high school, there was a representative from CalTech who came by. He was talking me, and most of the way through the interview he asks me, “This here is the Bible Belt. We found at CalTech that some people don’t do too well at CalTech from here. You wouldn’t be one of those people, would you?” He didn’t say the word “Christian,” but that’s what he meant. I should’ve walked out of that interview, because he was an insulting bigot. But it’s a good thing I didn’t go there.

THD: Was your faith challenged as you went through college?

RH: While I was in college at MIT, I tried to behave, and when I came to graduate school at Hopkins, I thought I was doing fine until I found out what I really was. I did something I never thought I’d do. I was so ashamed of what I had become that I nearly lost it, nearly went down the tubes. However, I had some very gentle, kind people who basically enfolded me in love and supported me until I could forgive myself and ask God’s forgiveness as well. But I found out what I was deep inside; I was not a nice person. Ever since that time, I have been on my guard. Only by the grace of God do I sit here. Now I have a family, a wife that loves me, and that never would have been possible without those people enfolding me in love and bringing me back. My faith has gone through some things, but thank God.

THD: Would you say that you’ve grown as a believer because of your work?

RH: I doubt that. I have grown as a believer because I’ve tried and failed, and because God loved me and those people at church that loved me. I can’t think of being a believer without that fellowship. If you count the fact that I know science has limits, which informs my faith. I can be intellectually honest and work in the scientific field that way. ​

BY KARL JOHNSON

BY AMY HE

The house always seems paler and shabbier in the winter. Mom’s a small person and never can really fill up the space, and Dad and Audrey and I are gone most of the time. Tuesday nights, when she has her Bible study over for dinner, is the only time anyone comes over. It’s rare that we’re all together.
As soon as the car has crunched its way up the driveway and Mom pulls the parking brake, Audrey’s out the door and bounding up the front steps like an antelope. Mom turns back to look at me.
“I’m glad you’re home,” she says. Her smile looks older than I remember.
“How’re you? Are you sleeping well?”
“I’m fine. It’s your sister I’m worried about.”
I change the subject. “Dad’s home?”
She shakes her head and unfastens her seatbelt. “Business trip. He’ll be back in time tomorrow for the funeral service, though.”
After dropping my bag at the foot of my bed, I glance through my open door into the hallway. Audrey’s room is shut, her off-white door speckled with old tape marks. She used to put up “Keep Out” signs and switch them out with “Come on in-but KNOCK” when she was in the mood.
A few years ago, she took everything down and stopped answering her door. We don’t bother her anymore when the door’s closed.
Mom’s already aproned and mixing a marinade when I walk into the kitchen. She hands me a bowl of green beans to wash while she preps the meat. We attempt to talk about my semester, but eventually Mom brings up the topic she actually wants to discuss.
“Your sister’s having a hard time.”
It’s an effort to keep quiet and let Mom continue. Every conversation comes back to Audrey. She’s either struggling in school or spending too much time watching television. Not that I think Mom’s wrong for worrying. Audrey’s not the motivated type, so I doubt she studies much.
“She doesn’t call as often as you do, so it’s hard for me to tell exactly what’s going on.” Mom’s hands stop moving. “She doesn’t sound very happy. Freshman year seems to be really difficult for her. And she told me she’s not going to church anymore.”
I don’t want to tell her, but what she says doesn’t surprise me. Audrey never was enthusiastic about being dragged out of bed every Sunday morning. She fell asleep during sermons. She didn’t have Christian friends. I always meant to ask her what she actually thought about the whole Christianity thing, but one thing led to another and then Audrey was off to college. We kinda lost track of each other after that.
“When I asked her why,” Mom continues, “she said she didn’t see the point of going. I asked if she had any friends to go to church with and she said no.”
“Yeah, that’s difficult,” I say. There are deep grooves on the wooden cutting board where I pile the wet beans. This one time, Audrey wanted to cut some watermelon for me. She was maybe ten years old, and she walks out of the kitchen with a plate of misshapen slices and blood welling out of one of her fingers. I point it out, screeching, and she just shrugs and asks for a band-aid.
Mom drops the first steak slab onto the pan. “Are you still going to church?”
My heart jumps once in my chest and I stop with the knife lingering mid-air. I’m nothing like my sister. Audrey’s always starting fights, always talking back, angry. Funny, then, that the first time Mom asks about me, it’s to check up on me. Confirm that I’m not turning into Audrey.
I inhale, then resume slicing the green beans. “Yep.”
“Do you like it?”
“Mmhm.”
Mom exhales softly. “I know Audrey doesn’t want to talk about it with me, but if you talk to her I’m sure she’ll listen. Can you ask—”
I cut her off. “I’ve got a lot of work to do over break. There’s still a paper I need to turn in. And I need to go shopping for something to wear to the funeral.”
Mom nods slowly. I notice only in my peripheral vision.
“Of course. But if you have time…”
“Sure.” I dismember the last bunch of green beans and toss the knife into the sink. “Anything else?”
She doesn’t answer right away, giving me enough time to avert my gaze and busy myself with transferring the vegetables to a bowl.
Mom asks, “Can you call your sister to come down for dinner?”
- - -
Late at night, I’m dozing off when a door slams somewhere in the house, loud enough to spurt adrenaline through my chest. Audrey is a siren, screaming urgently. Mom sounds muffled, like she’s drowning. They’re arguing about Audrey not going to church.
It’s just like Mom to go ahead and have a conversation that she knows she can’t pull off. It’s always been like this with Audrey. There’s no fighting, and winning, with her. And I’ve known for a long time that she hates spiritual stuff. I’ve long given up on talking to her about God and all that.
- - -
Audrey clatters down the stairs, yanking the belt of her dress tighter. I make room for her in front of the hallway mirror. It’s the first time I’ve really seen her since coming home. When she came with Mom to pick me up at the airport, when she took her dinner up to her room, I only got snapshot glances of her.
The pins are already coming out of Audrey’s hair. She pulls out an errant one, and all her thick dark hair splashes onto her shoulders. I did her hair when she was on the soccer team. Mom, Dad, and I grinned like goofballs whenever tiny Audrey waved at us from the field, mud-caked from her toes to the tips of her French braid.
I peek at Audrey’s mirrored face. It looks small and stern.
Mom is upstairs getting ready, Dad is outside starting the car, and Audrey’s hip brushes against mine as she frowns at the way her old band dress hikes up around her armpits. She didn’t think of buying a new one before coming home. I feel like saying something to her, but I can’t figure out what.
I notice that Audrey’s looking at me. Her eyes don’t say whether she’s looking for another fight or if she’s going to be civil.
She speaks. “Remember how you used to braid my hair?”
My smile stretches wide with relief. This is safe ground. “Of course,” I say.
“This is a mess.” Audrey combs with her fingers and sends a pin clattering onto the floor.
“Why don’t I fix it?” The words tumble one after the other, mothballs rolling out of a wardrobe.
Audrey groans. “Can you? You’re a lifesaver.”
I bite the welling happiness down on my cheek. Audrey keeps still as I pull out the last errant pins and start parting her hair.
She speaks up again. “You probably heard me and Mom last night.”
That is one way to put it. My reply is a noncommittal “Mmhm.”
“Did you hear what we were fighting about?”
I shrug. “Bits of it.”
“She thinks I’m a heathen.” Audrey meets my eyes in the mirror.
“Are you?” I ask. I try to keep things light, but my voice comes out hauling a ton of bricks.
“I don’t agree with a lot of what Christianity teaches, like what it says about women needing to be submissive.”
I heard a sermon recently about this topic, and I remember liking it, but I can’t think of a single argument that my pastor made. Instead, I say, “Yeah, I guess.”
“You go to church, right?”
My hands are full with her hair, otherwise I’d be itching to leave the room. I know she’s going to ask why, and I don’t feel like justifying my actions to her. “Yeah, I do,” I say.
Audrey tugs at her dress. “Why do you keep going?”
“Um, well, I like my friends from church. And the pastor does a good job speaking about issues.”
“Like what?”
“Like whatever, you know. Contemporary stuff.”
I’m racing through the braid now, just wanting to get it done. I’m tired. It wasn’t exactly easy to sleep with World War III happening in the room next over. I mean, I just want us to get along. I don’t want to argue with her.
Audrey’s gaze is bottomless in the glass. I avoid it.
“I’m just trying to figure out what it is you like so much about it,” she says with an even tone. “You don’t need to get mad.”
“I’m not mad. And it’s not just about if I ‘like’ it or not. It’s my faith, so can’t you just respect it?” I reach for a tie, but my wrists are bare. I’m left holding the ends of her hair.
“When did I ever not respect it? I’m just asking questions.”
“How about last night when you were yelling at Mom? Was that respecting it?”
We hear Mom shuffling upstairs. Audrey jerks away and my hands fall to my sides. She storms for the door. Her loosening hair whips my shoulder.
The reflection in front of my starts to blur, but I’m not going to feel bad about the argument. Audrey started it.
Mom pauses at the top of the steps. She asks me, “Is everything alright?” and hurries down the stairs.
“I’m fine.” My voice is a little too shrill. I cross my arms and back away from her. “You know, the neighbors probably heard you and Audrey screaming at each other last night.”
Mom stops trying to hug me.
“Why do you always do this?” I add. “You’re always talking about Christianity and church when you know it only makes Audrey angry.”
That sad, old smile is on Mom’s face again. “Don’t you want to talk to her about it?”
“No,” I say. And my throat closes up.
I don’t want to talk about it. Not with Mom, not with Audrey, not with my friends at school who exist apart from my sphere of church acquaintances. I gave it a shot, and look how well that went.
My shoulders hunch up to my ears and I want to wallow in my misery, but Mom looks tired and on the verge of tears and Dad is honking the horn, the wind rushes through the forlorn house and we’re late for a funeral.
​

BY SAMUEL COOPER

Can Good and Evil Be Explained Without Reference to God?

“So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.” [1] Many of us are familiar with this story. After having formed the Earth and everything in it, the Creator stooped from heaven, crafted from the dust a man, and breathed life into him. [2] This first man, Adam, and his spouse, Eve, the first woman, were the pinnacle of creation. It was God Himself who granted them dominion over all of earth. They were given much authority with few restrictions; being pure creatures, their desires lacked malicious tendencies, and so, they did not require the regulations that we do (do not kill, do not steal, etc.), despite having free will. They were, however, given one command by God: “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” [3] It was this one command that was broken. Man willingly made the decision to trust the serpent above God. This serpent deceived man into thinking that God’s intention was not to protect him but to keep him from becoming like God by eating of this fruit. [4] Man’s lack of faith in God which manifested itself in his consumption of the fruit had an effect analogous to that of Pandora’s Box: the release of evil upon the world.

Whether you accept Moses’ story as literal or symbolic, the sheer number of cultures with similar stories  (e.g. Pandora’s box, the Zoroastrian myth, the Babylonian myth of Marduk and Tiamat) certainly points to a common trend in human thought; we, as humans, see apparent injustices and ask how this evil came to be and where Good (we will keep this use of the word “good” capitalized in order to distinguish the Good from its component goods, as will be made clear later in the article) exists in the midst of it all. [5]Historically, philosophers have gone even deeper by asking, “What is evil? What is Good?” For many without a religious inclination, the origins of Good and evil are uncertain, yet there is some idea of the definition of the two. A layman’s view is that Good is a force which preserves a certain order and protects the innocent, whereas evil is antagonistic to Good. We see these definitions portrayed in our books, our movies, our news, etc. However, these definitions leave many questions unanswered. Who is innocent? What is order? What is chaos? We seem to have an inherent understanding of these, yet we lack a firm foundation on which to ground our primal intuitions. We must seek a firmer foundation than intuition alone.
    
One foundation we may look to are our laws. Our societies are built upon laws which regulate the permissibility of various actions. This framework provides us with an approximation of what is Good and what is evil. However, the laws of our societies are insufficient in determining what is truly Good and evil. There are some instances in which societal laws are erroneous and do not reflect what we need: a grounding for objective morality. We require moral laws which are to be held regardless of the whims of the current power and to which we may appeal to in case of the passing of an unjust law. For example, it was not until the 19th century that slavery, something that is now seen as clearly immoral, was abolished from our nation, and it would be presumptuous to claim that we now live in a society with perfect laws. There are also many instances in which moral laws are not implemented as societal laws. In most states, cheating on your spouse no longer conflicts with any laws, yet the fact still remains that adultery is nearly universally condemned and is generally agreed to have negative affects on the life of the other spouse and the lives of any children involved. Our laws are thus much too unreliable to be considered as a basis for determining Good and evil. We must look for a foundation that incorporates within itself the moral laws we look for, not deriving itself from them as the societal laws do. We need a foundation comprised of objective moral laws.

​One may take issue with the notion that morality must be absolute, or objective. Why must there be a transcending law for morality instead of individual morality? The answer is this: for one to have true morals, they must be absolute, because otherwise they cease to be morals and become opinions. C.S. Lewis points out that even he who claims to lack a belief in morality, will protest if there is an injustice done to him. “He may break his promise to you, but if you try breaking one to him he will be complaining, ‘It’s not fair’ before you can say Jack Robinson.”[6]  Without objective moral laws to appeal to, every human decision would be determined not by what is fair but by who is the more powerful. If we take a relativistic stance regarding morality, we remove any basis we may have for trying to stop a given crime in order to promote justice.

​However, our societal structure (i.e. one of laws and regulations) and our inclination toward fairness, for ourselves if not for others and in practice if not in word, indicates that there is indeed an absolute morality, and the knowledge of this morality is embedded in us as moral compass, or conscience. This is not to say that there are not those who lack such a knowledge of morality, “just as you find a few people who are color-blind or have no ear for a tune. But taking the race as a whole… the idea of decent behavior [is] obvious to everyone.” [7] Some may point to societies in which their view of right and wrong is seemingly contrary to ours. However, with close examination it would become apparent that such a society does not exist. As C.S. Lewis illustrates: “Think of a country where people were admired for running away in battle, or where a man felt proud of double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him. You might as well imagine a country where two and two make five.” [8] Having established that morality must be absolute, and therefore existing outside of the realm of human creation, we are left wondering where this morality comes from.

I propose that the only solution for the existence of Good and evil and the only way to root our intuition of morality is to acknowledge that there must be an external entity— a transcendent being that acts as the standard for moral actions, a law giver. It is this entity to which we ascribe the name of God. This leads us to a whole new problem, however. If God, our law giver, is benevolent, omniscient, and the Creator of all things as described by the Christian faith, where did evil originate? This is one of the obstacles that must be overcome in order to better show that God explains the Good and evil we see around us.
  
Indeed one may argue that other deities can fill the law-giving capacity of the Christian God. But rather than dispute that sentiment head-on (due to the rigor that would be involved and because it would be beyond the scope of my point here), my goal will be to show that the Judeo-Christian God is an excellent fit. I will also assume that the Bible is inerrant. [9] While there are good reasons behind this claim, those too are beyond the scope of this article. By assuming biblical authority, we can properly explore the origins of Good and evil as explained by historical Christianity.  

What is Good?

To learn about Good, we must know more about the God we are claiming to be the origin of this Good and the foundation of morality. The book of Malachi records the words of God as follows: “’For I the LORD do not change…’” [10] In other words, God does not modify who He is; His character is unchanging. Additionally, the book of Matthew transcribes the words of Christ as follows: “‘You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.’” [11] These two verses, when combined, provide a useful insight into the nature of God; He is perfect, always has been perfect, and always will be perfect. Succinctly, He is incorruptible. He is the possessor of perfect Goodness. However, this statement, while still correct, is incomplete without an explanation of its implications.

In order to elaborate on God’s perfect Goodness, we must gain a better understanding of what the perfect Good is.  While the Bible, by being the very Word of God holds the most in-depth definition of what the perfect Good is, the description is scattered across the sixty-six books, making it difficult to provide a concise statement. Let us instead turn to another source for this definition. [12] 

Perhaps the best concise description of the perfect Good comes from The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius. Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius was a member of a well-embedded, Roman aristocratic family, and being such, he received the best education available in the late fifth century. Boethius was considered by many to be a child prodigy and became a master of all the liberal arts. In his late thirties, he served as the head of all the government and court services for Theodoric the Great. Despite his great political success, Boethius always considered philosophy his chief solace in life and continuously pursued his scholarly ambitions. Due to his rapid rise to power, he soon gained enemies and was falsely accused of attempting to overthrow Theodoric and was imprisoned. During his imprisonment, awaiting his execution, he began to wonder why bad things happen to good people; from this thought was born The Consolation of Philosophy, one of the most popular and influential books of the Middle Ages. [13] 

In his literary and philosophical masterpiece, Boethius explains the perfect Good, as “the perfection of all good things and contains in itself all that is good; and if anything were missing from it, it couldn’t be perfect, because something would remain outside it, which could still be wished for.” [14] Recall that we have discerned from Scripture that God is perfect, but Boethius tells that in order for God to be truly perfect, so that He is incorruptible, no perfection can exist outside of him. If He was not perfect in this sense, it would be illogical to call Him God. Therefore, we cannot say that God is the possessor of perfect Goodness, because this would imply that the Good exists outside of Him, making Him less than perfect. We must recognize that God is the Good. He is the perfect union of perfect love, justice, mercy, and every other perfect good (a lowercase “g” is used here to indicate a good that is a component of the Good, the union of all goods). That is why Christ, as the incarnation of God on earth, said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” [15] He did not say that he had the way, and the truth, and the life. So Boethius was not only describing the Good but God Himself.

​Notice also that Boethius says that the perfect Good is made up of goods. So, by a transitive property we can say that God Himself is made up of goods, the parts of God that we see in the world around us. Recall the story of Adam and Eve. Before they ate of the fruit and unleashed evil into the world, they lived in the lush Garden of Eden, a paradise created by God. In fact, Moses writes that at the end of each day of creation, God surveyed what He had made and called it good (when referring to creation, I use a lower case “g” to indicate that only a part of Good is contained in creation).

So how does the good contained in the created world align itself with the perfect Good of God? Imagine that God is the accumulation of all water. Creation is a vessel, or a cup. However, not being God Himself, creation is only suited to contain a portion of the Good (some goods). God has very high standards for goodness, so in order for creation to be called good, the vessel of creation has to be filled to the brim with water. The lack of an emptiness is what was being referred to when God called His creation good in Genesis. Even after evil plagued the earth, some good still remains in all things. So, since all things contains a part of the Good and the Good is synonymous with God, we can say that God literally sustains all things.

It is this part of God in us that acts as our intuition for morality. We can learn of the goods of God by using this intuition and looking at the goodness found in creation, including ourselves. However, because of the release of evil into the world which corrupted everything in it, we must be careful when making these observations. We must check every observation made against the observations made in Scripture. Ultimately, it is only through inerrant Scripture that we can assure ourselves of the goods. “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.”
In summary, Good is the culmination of every good (power, love, justice, truth, etc.). God, being eternally perfect and incorruptible, the embodiment of Good, and existing outside of human creation, thus far matches the criteria we seek in morality; therefore He is our standard for morality. It is to Him and His Holy Scripture through which He reveals Himself that we must look to in order to perfect ourselves and find true satisfaction. However, when we look to creation to learn about the Good, we must be wary of the evil plaguing every vessel.

What Is Evil?

To understand this evil, we must first understand ourselves in relation to Good. We were created perfect, in the sense that, continuing with the analogy, we were filled to the brim with water. We were not, however, perfect in the sense that God is perfect, the accumulation of all water. If we had been created containing Good, God would not have actually created anything because we would be God. With this in mind, we can say that the following is what Christ meant in Matthew 5:48 when he said that we are to be perfect as God is perfect: we are to seek to regain our state of being filled to the brim with goodness, but we cannot hope to be God, or in other words, contain Good. A cup cannot, nor should it, wish to hold the ocean.

Why is there a need for us to regain our perfect state? This is where evil appears. In the previous section, we mentioned that God is incorruptible because He is forever perfect. We, on the other hand, being mere vessels of goodness, are corruptible. Let us recall the story of Adam and Eve once again. Because man was given dominion over the earth, his error of eating of the forbidden fruit affected the whole of creation just as the actions of a nation’s leader affect that nation’s state. This was where evil began.

When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they willingly corrupted themselves. Despite God’s warning of punishment, they gave up some of the goods they contained. This corruption is evil. As Thomas Aquinas said in his Summa Theologica, “For evil is the absence of the good, which is natural and due to a thing.” [17] So, when mankind was corrupted when he ate of the fruit, he lost his state of being filled to the brim with goodness. The vessel became partially empty. We allowed evil on this earth.

In this sense then, evil is not a thing but an effect. Aquinas puts it this way: “But evil has no formal cause, rather it is a privation of form.” [18] For the absence of something does not make that absence something. So, there is nothing that is purely evil, because evil is the absence of good, and existence is a good. (The fact that existence is a good can be seen Exodus 3:14 where God tells Moses, “I Am Who I Am”. Here God declares that that He is pure existence, therefore making existence a good.) Therefore, something that is purely evil would not exist. And alternatively, everything that exists must have some good within it.

Once again, Aquinas provides us with more useful insight when he writes about the difference between a privative evil (corruption) and a negative evil:

But not every absence of good is evil. For the absence of good can be taken in a privative and in a negative sense. Absence of good, taken negatively, is not evil; otherwise, it would follow that what does not exist is evil, and also that everything would be evil, through not having the good belonging to something else; for instance, a man would be evil who had not the swiftness of the roe, or the strength of a lion. But the absence of good, taken in a privative sense, is an evil; as, for instance, the privation of sight is called blindness. [19] 

In short, to be perfect we do not need to contain every good. We simply need to contain the goods which we were created to contain. Again, a vessel need not contain the ocean to be called full.
How then are we to act to be called good once more? An action can be deemed good or evil by the motivation and the manner through which that action is performed by an individual and whether it is in accordance with the Goodness that is God. For example, one who seeks after power, but does not also seek after compassion and kindness has wickedness in his heart. Power, although still a part of the Good, further corrupts the individual if sought after for its own sake. To make our actions truly righteous, we must seek not after individual goods but after the accumulation of them, the Good. We must seek after God.

How Can a Perfect God Allow Evil to Exist?
    
We now turn to one of the primary issues that arises by having God be Goodness and the basis for morality. The problem of evil is a very persistent issue for Christianity. While the discussion to be had is difficult and a perfectly satisfactory response can by no means be given in such a limited space, let us, nonetheless, attempt to find an answer. The problem as presented by Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli goes as follows:

“[1] If God is all-good, he would will all good and no evil.
 [2] And if God were all-powerful, he would accomplish everything he wills.
 [3] But evil exists as well as good.
 [4] Therefore either God is not all-powerful, or not all-good, or both.” [20] 

How are reconcile that God exists, is all-good, is omnipotent, and that evil exists? It seems that one must be false in order for the others to coexist.    
    
The first thing one must realize is that God did not cause evil. It was man who allowed evil when he chose to disobey God’s instruction despite being warned. This evil is present everywhere on this earth in two forms, moral evil (sin) which is actively committed by an individual and physical evil (pain) which is suffered by an individual.

Moral evil originated in our free will, as is seen in the story of Adam and Eve, and separates us from God. Some have qualms with the entire human race being punished for the actions of two people, but one must remember that while the entire world was condemned by the actions of one man, Adam, the world was also saved by one man, Jesus Christ. If God were to remove this moral evil, our free will would be removed because we would only have the option to do good. We would be nothing more than lifeless drones, something lesser than what was intended by God.
    
Physical evil, human suffering, is what most people refer to when speaking of the problem of evil. However, once again, this evil did not originate from God but from man’s sin (moral evil). Those who wish God to remove all evil, often forget that God, while still a loving God, is also a just God. The God Christians serve is the same God that flooded the whole earth because of man’s wickedness. How can we say that He was wrong in doing this? We do not condemn a judge for incarcerating a murderer. In fact, we would condemn the judge if he released this criminal. In the same way, God, in order to remain perfect and in accordance with his holy nature, had to carry out the consequences of man’s disobedience. Some may argue that innocent people suffer evil, but is there really anyone who is innocent. Every person who has ever lived, save one, Jesus, has committed at least one wrong that has made him less than perfect. As Romans 3:10 tells us, “None is righteous, no, not one.” Even if the physical evil is not directly related to the wrongdoings of an individual, there is still a reason behind it. Many times throughout the Bible, such as in the story of Job, physical evil is used to strengthen and further perfect an individual, just as an injection may be painful but serves an ultimate purpose for good.
    Kreeft and Tacelli sum up what has been said as follows

“1. The nature of spiritual evil is sin, separating ourselves from God.
2. The origin of spiritual evil is human free will.
3. The end for which God allows spiritual evil is to preserve human free will, that is, human nature.
4. The nature of our physical evil is suffering.
5. The origin of physical evil is spiritual evil. We suffer because we sin.
6. The end or use of physical evil is spiritual discipline and training for our own ultimate perfection and eternal joy. (It also is just punishment for sin and a deterrence from sin.)” [21] 

All these points indicate that only one is responsible for evil, mankind. It is man that brings upon himself the evil he complains about.
    
Furthermore, if God were to destroy all evil, everything and everyone on earth would have to be destroyed. We have already stated that, evil is an effect. It is the lack of good in a vessel. Therefore, for God to destroy the effect of evil, He would have to destroy all vessels that are not perfect. In other words, He would have to destroy everything in this world.
    
It is only by the grace, the undeserved love, of God, that we still exist. We should be thanking him instead of cursing Him. After all, He made an enormous sacrifice. He sacrificed His son, Jesus, to correct the disobedience of Adam and Eve. He died for us, an unworthy, wicked people. Christ bore upon Himself every evil. He paid our bail. It was His sacrifice that allows us to be free from the fear of death and the consequences of our wickedness. His sacrifice fills the cup to the brim of any who will only receive it with a repentant heart, so that he will be made perfect and wholly good once more. All these things, God’s mercy, His justice, and so much more, indicate that God is indeed the perfect Good. He is our perfect foundation for morality. 

References

[1] Genesis 3:6
[2] Genesis 2:
[3] Genesis 2:16-17
[4] Genesis 3:4-5
[5] For evidence of Mosaic authorship see (Sailhamer, John H. "A Wisdom Composition of the Pentateuch." Packer, J.I. and Sven K. Soderlund. The Way of Wisdom. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000. 15-35) and (Gaddala, Jacob. "Cultural Background of the Pentateuch in Defense of Mosaic Authorship." Journal of Dispensational Theology (2011): 4-8.)
[6] Lewis, C.S. Mere Christianity. New York: Harper Collins, 2001. (Lewis 6)
[7] Lewis, C.S. Mere Christianity. New York: Harper Collins, 2001. (Lewis 5)
[8] Lewis, C.S. Mere Christianity. New York: Harper Collins, 2001. (Lewis 6)
[9] For evidence of biblical inerrancy see (Geisler, Norman L. and William C. Roach. Defending Inerrancy: Affirming the Accuracy of Scripture for a New Generation. Baker Books, 2012.)
[10] Malachi 3:6
[11] Matthew 5:48
[12] For more information on the how the books of Holy Scripture are determined see (Bruce, F.F. The Canon of Scripture. IVP Academic, 1988.)
[13] Keenan, Brian. "Preface." Boethius. The Consolation of Philosophy. London: The Folio Society, 2014. 9-34.
[14] Boethius. The Consolation of Philosophy. London: Folio Society, 1969. (Boethius 84)
[15] John 14:6
[16] Isaiah 40:8
[17] Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica. Barnes and Noble, 2013.
[18] Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica. Barnes and Noble, 2013.
[19] Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica. Barnes and Noble, 2013. (Aquinas 491-492)
[20] Kreeft, Peter and Ronald K. Tacelli. "The Problem of Evil." Handbook of Christian Apologetics. Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 1994.
[21] Kreeft, Peter and Ronald K. Tacelli. "The Problem of Evil." Handbook of Christian Apologetics. Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 1994.
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