Does the Bible Support a Just War?
by Norman L. Geisler
While the Bible doesn't approve of war for every cause, and while it encourages peace with all persons (Rm 12:18), it nonetheless indicates that peace and justice sometimes require war (Mt 24:6). This is made clear from many considerations. First, the Bible does not prohibit all taking of life. For instance, killing in self-defense is justified (Ex 22:2), as is killing in capital punishment (Gn 9:6). Government is divinely authorized to use "the sword" (Rm 13:4), as Jesus Himself recognized (Jn 19:11). Second, under the law, God spelled out the rules of warfare for Israel (Dt 20). Third, while Jesus forbade His disciples from using a sword for spiritual purposes (Mt 26:52), He urged His disciples to buy a sword if necessary for protection (Lk 22:36-38). Fourth, John the Baptist did not say that armies should be abolished and did not call for repentance from serving in the office of soldier (Lk 3:14).
The Bible commands Christians to obey their government (Rm 13:1-7; Ti 3:1; 1 Pt 2:13-14). However, there are limitations to such obedience. When the government commands worship of idols or a king (Dn 3:6), forbids preaching the gospel (Ac 4-5), or orders the killing of children (Ex 1), then it is a believer's duty to disobey. Likewise, if government engages in unjust warfare, believers may dissent. However, like Daniel (Dn 6), the three Hebrew young men (Dn 3), and Peter (Ac 4–5), those who disobey government must accept the consequences meted out by the state.
Several conditions for just war are given in the Bible. First, it must be declared by one's government (Rm 13:4). Second, it must be in defense of the innocent and/or against an evil aggressor (e.g., Gn. 14). Third, it must be fought by just means (Dt 20:19).
In addition to the above reasons for a just war policy, biblical arguments for total pacifism are flawed. For example, Jesus' command to turn the other cheek (Mt 5:39) refers to a personal insult (like a slap in the face), not to bodily harm. Indeed, even Jesus refused to turn His cheek when smitten unjustly (Jn 18:22-23). The exhortation to love our enemies does not preclude the use of force to restrain them from killing us (cp. Paul's instigation of government intervention for his protection in Ac 23).
Can God's Actions Be Detected Scientifically?
by C. John Collins
"I'll believe in God if you can prove scientifically that He does things!" How can we respond to such a challenge?
The first thing we must do is disentangle the questions involved here. First, what do we mean by "God's actions"? Second, what do we mean by "science"? And third, can science detect events as God's actions? Let's take them one at a time.
To begin with, we recognize that, after the creation, God works in two ways. First, He maintains the things He created, along with their powers to cause things. Apples keep on tasting good and nourishing us because God keeps maintaining their properties. A soccer goalie deflects the ball because God maintains the properties of the ball, the air, and the goalie's body. Second, God is not limited by the powers of created things. Sometimes He goes beyond their powers if it suits His purpose. We can call the first kind of action the natural (since it works with created natures) and the second the supernatural (since it goes beyond natural powers). Let's be clear about this: Both kinds are God's actions and both serve His purpose.
The sciences study aspects of the world around us in hopes of understanding how they work. Some scientists study the regularities of the world (such as "the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection"), while others study specific events, trying to reason backward from effect to cause (like Sherlock Holmes, the "scientific detective").
Can God's actions be detected scientifically? It depends on which ones. Because God made His world "very good" (Gn 1:31), it needs no tinkering to keep in operation, so we don't expect that the sciences will "detect" God's natural actions. The reason that an atom's electrons don't crash into the nucleus is not that God holds them apart by a miracle but that He made their properties so that they don't crash.
On the other hand, the sciences may sometimes help us detect a supernatural event because in knowing the properties of natural things, we can tell when these have been transcended. For example, the more we know about how babies come about, the more clearly supernatural becomes the conception of Jesus: There is no natural explanation for it. As C. S. Lewis put it, "No doubt a modern gynecologist knows several things about birth and begetting which St. Joseph did not know. But these things do not concern the main point—that a virgin birth is contrary to the course of nature. And St. Joseph obviously knew that." Advances in medical science have only sharpened the point. We could say the same about Jesus' resurrection: Dead bodies stay dead unless someone with extraordinary power interferes.
This kind of detection works best when it's based on knowledge, not ignorance. It's not just that we don't know how it could happen; rather, we have every reason to believe that it can't happen unless something else is added. The sciences can help us to know better the natures of the things involved and thus to know when "something else" is needed to explain what we see.
How Can the Bible Affirm Both Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom?
by Bruce A. Ware
God is the sovereign ruler over the universe and all human affairs, and human beings are responsible before God for the moral choices and actions they make. Yes, the Bible teaches both divine sovereignty and human freedom, and both are true.
What does the Bible teach about God's sovereign rulership?
Consider Daniel 4:35, where we are instructed that God "does what He wants with the army of heaven and the inhabitants of earth. There is no one who can hold back His hand or say to Him, 'What have You done?' " In light of this verse, three observations are needed. First, God's rulership is the exercise of "His will." That is, He decides in advance what He wants to happen, so that His will precedes and directs all that occurs. Second, He exercises His will universally—over those in heaven and all the inhabitants of earth. There is no place where His will does not pertain or is not exercised. And third, no creature of God can thwart the fulfillment of God's will or charge God with wrongdoing. In short, God's rulership by His will is absolute, universal, and effectual.
Consider further the kinds of reality over which God reigns. The Bible contains a number of "spectrum texts" that display God's ultimate control of both good and evil, light and darkness, life and death. In Is 45:6-7, God announced, "I am the Lord, and there is no other. I form light and create darkness, I make success and create disaster; I the Lord do all these things" (see Ex 4:11; Dt 32:39; 1 Sm 2:6-7; Ec 7:13-14; Lm 3:37-38). And, while we gladly affirm that God is good (only!), and that God neither approves evil nor has any evil residing in Himself (Ps 5:4), yet we must affirm with Scripture that He reigns over all of life, both its good and evil, and that in all that occurs "the decision of His will" (Eph 1:11) is fulfilled.
What does Scripture teach about human moral responsibility?
From page 1 of the Bible, all humans are put on notice that God holds us accountable for the moral choices we make and actions we take. The law of God—whether the simple law not to eat of one tree in the garden (Gn 2:16-17), the law given on Sinai (Ex 20), or the law of Christ (1 Co 9:21; Gl 6:2)—establishes the moral framework within which human lives are to be lived. God will "repay each one according to his works" (Rm 2:6), and this judgment will be based on whether we persevere in doing good (Rm 2:7) or whether we do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness (Rm 2:8). There is no denying that God considers humans as being responsible for the choices and actions we make, and the final judgment day will bear testimony to how we have chosen to live our lives.
So God is the sovereign ruler over all, and human beings are responsible before Him. But just how can both be true?
We cannot understand fully how both are true together, but that they must work together is demanded by Scripture's clear teaching. Consider one illustration from Scripture where both are seen—namely, a lesson from Joseph's story (Gn 37–45).
Joseph's brothers were deeply jealous of him and grew to despise him. When the opportunity presented itself, they sold him into Egypt (Gn 37:25-36), where Joseph was misunderstood and mistreated. Despite this, God's hand was on Joseph and he was elevated to second in command in Egypt (Gn 41). During a famine, his brothers traveled to Egypt to purchase grain, and there Joseph made himself known to his brothers. What Joseph told them is as incredible as it is instructive: "It was not you who sent me here, but God" (Gn 45:8).
"Wait!" we might protest. "Surely they did send Joseph to Egypt!"
So they did, and so Joseph previously acknowledged (Gn 45:4). But to get at the full reason he was sent to Egypt requires looking not just to the brothers but also, and more importantly, to God.
So it is clear: Both God and the brothers were responsible for sending Joseph to Egypt. Both God's sovereign rulership and the brother's moral actions were active. As Joseph put it later in speaking to his brothers, "You planned evil against me; God planned it for good" (Gn 50:20). The brothers acted for evil, and God acted in the same events for good.
Not every question is here answered, but we see that we must affirm both the sovereign rulership of God and the genuineness of our moral responsibility. Both are joined together in Scripture, and what Scripture has joined together, let no man separate.
(For another perspective, see the article in 1 Peter 1, page 1850.)
How Does Christianity Relate to Hinduism?
by Ravi Zacharias
I often think back with nostalgia to growing up in India and the late-night conversations we would have about a Hindu play or some event that featured Hindu thought. Now, through the lens of Jesus Christ, I have learned to see how deep-seated culture and religion can be and how only the power of the Holy Spirit can reveal the error of an ingrained way of thinking. Consequently, whenever we speak with someone from another faith, it is essential to remember that we must not attempt to tear down another's belief system but rather to reveal the hungers of the human heart and the unique way in which Christ addresses them.
For the Hindu, karma—the moral law of cause-and-effect—is a life-defining concept. Life carries its moral bills, and they are paid in the cyclical pattern of rebirth until all dues are paid in full. Hinduism here conveys an inherited sense of wrong, which is lived out in the next life, in vegetable, animal, or human form. This doctrine is nonnegotiable in Hindu philosophy. Repercussions of fatalism (that is, whatever happens will happen) and the indifference to the plight of others are inescapable but are dismissed by philosophical platitudes that do not weigh out the consequences of such reasoning. Thus it is key to bear in mind that although karma is seen as a way of paying back, this payback is never complete; hence life is lived out paying back a debt that one cannot know in total but that must be paid in total. That is why the cross of Christ is so definitive and so complete. It offers forgiveness without minimizing the debt. When we truly understand that forgiveness, we develop a loving heart of gratitude. There is a full restoration—in this life and for eternity.
The Christian should also understand the attraction of pantheism, the Hindu view of seeing the divine in everything. It superficially appears more compatible with scientific theorizing because it presents no definitive theory of origins. Life is cyclical, without a first cause. Pantheism also gives one a moral reasoning, through karmic fatalism, that one is trapped in the cycle until one escapes, without the need to invoke God. But in the final analysis, it is without answers when one needs to talk about the deepest struggles of the soul. Hindu scholars even admit this in their creation of a path of bhakti (love, devotion) to satisfy the inescapable human hunger for worship.
It is here that a keen understanding is needed. Krishna's coming to earth as an avatar—that is, one of the incarnations of the Hindu god Vishnu—in a way brings "God to man." But a huge chasm still remains. How does one bring man to God? For this, there is only one way—the way of the cross. A profound and studied presentation of the cross, and what it means, is still the most distinctive aspect of the Christian faith. Even Gandhi said it was the most unexplainable thing to him and was unparalleled. For the Christian, the cross of Jesus Christ is the message "first to the Jew, and also to the Greek" (Rm 2:9)—to the moralist and the pantheist, to the religious and the irreligious. We can communicate this message with a Hindu acquaintance or friend only through a loving relationship. The love of Christ, a patient listening and friendship, and the message of forgiveness provide the path to evangelism.