The Gulag Archipelago Archives

18 March 2022

Responsible.

(The continuation of the Biblical Anthropology series.)

Whatever Became of Sin? by Karl Menninger

We met Psychiatrist Karl Menninger in the post Does Sin Even Exist?. Dr. Menninger’s answer, in his 1930 book, was basically, “Of course not, don’t be silly.”

But his opinion changed.

Over 40 years after his interview, where he tried to understand mental illness while denying the reality of sin, he admitted he had been wrong. In fact, he wrote a book titled Whatever Became of Sin?. And now he said, yes, sin exists. In fact, it is the very root of mental illness. You simply can’t deny it. We are responsible for our sin, and responsible to change.

This is what he wrote at the end of his book:

If we believe in sin—as I do—we believe in our personal responsibility for trying to correct it, and thereby saving ourselves and our world.
Dr. Karl Menninger

Using the simple terminology of Dr. Menninger, we are responsible.

In the last post I had a little box with some of the ways we justify our sin. Don’t miss it. One of the arguments was this: “Sin is something apart from the ‘real me’, the ‘authentic me’.” But the Bible teaches that the “authentic me” (without Christ) is actually evil. That’s hard for anyone to swallow.

But this is the reality: We are responsible for our sin. We are responsible to change.

But Dr. Menninger didn’t seem to understand that simply trying to change will never lead to salvation, not of ourselves, nor of the world.

Trying to change never leads to salvation.

We talked about Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn right at the beginning of this section. In his book The Gulag Archipelago, he documents some of the incredible injustices of the Soviet Union. Reading it, one finds it hard to even believe that men and women are even capable of such evil. And how is it that these things are still happening in the world today? And yes, they are still happening in the world today.

Why is there so much evil in the world, and how can we stop it? It happens in wars and persecution and in our own homes.

Perhaps we need more education. And yet, the modern education in Nazi Germany didn’t seem to solve the problem. What if we eliminate need and poverty? Well, do we believe that the rich do no evil? That “equals” never sin against one another?

Well, what if we could simply eliminate the evil people? Communist societies and others have tried to do just that.

But in his book, Solzhenitsyn writes about the tyranny of the “blue caps”, that is the KGB, the secret police. And he asks this terrifying question. If my circumstances had been different, would I have become one of those men? It’s possible. Even probable. And he concludes with this:

If only it were all so simple. If only there were evil people somewhere, insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us, and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956)

This is a difficult topic. But as Christians, we know that there is grace, forgiveness, and hope in Jesus Christ. But … only in Jesus Christ. Christ or chaos.

And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
Acts 4:12

That is, the name of Jesus of Nazareth.

We must stop trusting in our own actions, our own goodness, because there is no salvation in my name or yours. There is only salvation in the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And when we put our full confidence – our true faith – in Him, we find salvation, because He is the only Saviour.

We follow Him as Saviour, we honour Him as Lord in our hearts, because we know that the only other option is chaos.

Resources

This is the end of the second section. I only have one resource for you this time – one for kids. For a great re-telling of the story of Adam and Eve, check out Mrs. G’s “Adam and Eve”, available for download in mp3 format. As we continue, it’s so important to think deeply about the early chapters of Genesis.

22 February 2022

The Serpent’s Temptation (Leaving Genesis 1 & 2 Behind)

Jim Devotional and Bible 0

Max Planck was a theoretical physicist from Germany. He won the Nobel Prize for the discovery of “energy quanta”. A crater on the moon bears his name, some units and concepts in physics bear his name, and there was even a space observatory known as the Planck.

Dr. Planck once said:

Science demands also the believing spirit. Anybody who has seriously engaged in scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gate of the temple of science are written the words: Ye must have faith. It is a quality which the scientist cannot dispense with.
Max Planck

Although Dr. Planck had his faith, I’m not suggesting he was a true believer or even that he was consistent in his beliefs. But he was right to say that all science does require faith.

Dr. Jason Lisle, Astrophysicist, said it this way, in his book The Ultimate Proof of Creation:

Faith is not antagonistic to reason. On the contrary, biblical faith is required for reasoning. One must believe in order to understand. Faith must come first, we need certain presuppositions in order to even begin to reason. For example, we must first believe that there are laws of logic before we can argue for them logically. We must have faith that our senses are reliable before we can even begin to read the Bible. But when we do read the Bible, we will find that our faith is justified. Biblical presuppositions such as logic, uniformity, reliability of senses, and memory all make sense in the biblical worldview. The Bible provides the justification for these things.”
Dr. Jason Lisle

This explains some of why we have started by studying the basics of Genesis 1 and 2. And I shared with you three keywords that we will come back to again and again:

Truth – The Bible teaches us that the world was created by a Mind, by a Creator, who established the physical laws of the universe. Logic exists because it reflects the ordered mind of God.
Dependence – Our Creator needs no one and nothing. He is eternal and all powerful. But we need Him – we have limits, and live in time and space.
Purpose – We have a purpose from God. Ultimately, creation gives glory to the Lord Jesus Christ.

To read more, check out the earlier posts: 7 Hebrew Words, Genesis 1 and 2: First Keyword, and Genesis 1 and 2: Keywords #2 and #3.

As Christians, we believe that God wants us to know Him, through His Creation and through His Word. It is possible to “do science”. It’s possible to investigate the evidence. Sure, we’re limited creatures. But it is possible to know absolute truth, because we have an “absolute” Creator.

When you try to separate your thinking from the truths of Genesis 1 and 2, strange things happen.

The Christian author from Russia, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, wrote about the politician Andrey Yanuaryevich Vyshinsky, a powerful man in the Communist Soviet Union. Vyshinsky wrote a report which, according to Solzhenitsyn, reflected common ideas in the Soviet Union at the time. Solzhenitsyn writes:

…it is never possible for mortal men to establish absolute truth, but relative truth only. He then proceeded to a further step, which jurists of the last two thousand years had not been willing to take: that the truth established by interrogation and trial could not be absolute, but only, so to speak, relative. Therefore, when we sign a sentence ordering someone to be shot we can never be absolutely certain, but only approximately, in view of certain hypotheses, and in a certain sense, that we are punishing a guilty person.
Thence arose the most practical conclusion: that it was useless to seek absolute evidence—for evidence is always relative-or unchallengeable witnesses—for they can say different things at different times. The proofs of guilt were relative, approximate, and the interrogator could find them, even when there was no evidence and no witness, without leaving his office, “basing his conclusions not only on his own intellect but also on his Party sensitivity, his moral forces” (in other words, the superiority of someone who has slept well, has been well fed, and has not been beaten up) “and on his character”.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956)

In other words, loyalty to “the Party”, and personal perspective, is more important than the truth.

Without absolute truth, justice falls, and science falls. And people who are unjustly arrested by tyrannical regimes still somehow think that they can simply explain to someone that their arrest was “a mistake”. But they forget that reason and logic were left behind when Genesis 1 and 2 were left behind.

Most of us know what happened next, after God had given his commandments to the first humans (Genesis 1:28-30; Genesis 2:15-17). Along comes Genesis 3, and, of all things, a talking snake.

Of course, we now know this was not just some freak of nature – the serpent in Eden was Satan himself (Revelation 12:9).

It’s fascinating to notice Satan’s tactics. I won’t go into detail here, but take a few minutes to look at what he does:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”
And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’”
But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Genesis 3:1-5

The serpent starts with a simple question. He’s like a friendly neighbour, just trying to help. But he gets at least two details wrong, as he questions God – “you” is plural (God had given the command to Adam, so it was originally singular). And of course God had not been the big meany who would not let them eat of ANY tree.

Then the woman makes mistakes – “neither shall you touch it”? I don’t remember that command.

Finally, the serpent is bold enough to directly contradict God, and hold out the temptation.

God, the Creator, had created the trees, and in fact had created the woman’s eyes. Would it not be wise to trust Him? But instead, she (and the man, who is with her!) chooses another authority. What is it?

Well, the woman starts not with faith, but with the evidence. And then she creates her own standards. She is the ultimate authority. And, to steal another thought from Jason Lisle pointed out, she does something not only immoral, but irrational.

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.
Genesis 3:6

Satan loves the supposed evidence, when it’s taken without faith in God. Remember how he tempted Jesus Himself? “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread” (Matthew 4:3) (emphasis mine). Let’s test the hypothesis, Jesus! – IF.

Let’s see … how does Jesus respond? “It is written…“

First, God’s Word. Because without God, the evidence makes no sense.

You cannot use evidence properly apart from faith in the truth of God’s Word.

Again, an atheist can correctly interpret evidence. You don’t need to specifically believe Genesis 1 and 2 to do that. But you do need something of the truth as a foundation.

You may remember the well known verse about the defense of the faith:

…but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect…
1 Peter 3:15

Yes, present your reasons, bring forth the evidence! But let’s look at the context. “But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy…” First, the source of all truth. We honour Christ as Lord, the Creator of all.

“…honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.”

The man and woman in the Garden ignored God’s truth and their relationship with Him. They listened to the lies of a fellow creature, taking the place of the Creator, throwing the world into chaos.

“…honor Christ the Lord as holy…” – because in the end, there are only two options. Christ or Chaos. (And I’ll tell you more about the origin of that phrase later on.)