Why would God allow Evil and Suffering?



Forgive these questions; in a perfect world I wouldn’t have to ask them. But if God is all good and all-powerful and all-knowing, why does he allow bad things to happen to good people? [Craig] This is I think the principle argument

For the atheistic side that my opponents in the debates will sometimes bring up, and I think that there’s a couple of ways to respond to this. First we need to understand what the atheist is claiming here. Is he arguing that God and

Suffering are logically incompatible with each other? If he is, then he needs to show that there’s some sort of implicit contradiction there, because there’s no explicit contradiction, and I would say that no atheist has ever been able to sustain that burden of proof to show that there are necessarily true

Assumptions that would reveal some kind of a contradiction between God and the suffering and evil in the world. In fact, I think we can prove that they are compatible by just adding a third proposition, and that would be that God has morally sufficient reasons for permitting the evil and suffering in the

World. As long as that’s even possible, it shows that God and evil are logically compatible. So that logical version of the argument doesn’t work. Now very quickly, there’s a probabilistic version of the argument which says alright God and evil are logically compatible but nevertheless it’s highly improbable that

God exists given the evil and suffering in the world. And I think there’s a number of moves that the theist can make in response to that argument to show that it’s not improbable that God exists given the suffering in the world.

[Questioner] I happen to believe, and I’m trying to be as objective as I can throughout the debate, that the reasons why there is suffering and pain are entirely obvious and in fact they’re inevitable if there is a loving God. But how would you explain

Them? Why then does God have to allow discomfort, suffering, pain, terrible pain? [Craig] Well I would say Michael that there isn’t any single reason. Rather there’s a multitude of reasons that would be in play here. One would be that God wants to create a world of free creatures who can become responsible

Moral agents and mature persons, and that will require a world that operates according to certain natural laws where the fire that warms you can also burn you; the water that sustains you can drown you, and it would require the ability of these creatures to do morally evil acts. And so

Creating that sort of an arena I think is going to allow the possibility of natural suffering and moral evil to occur, but that God permits these with the overall goal in mind of bringing people freely into a knowledge of himself and

To eternal salvation. And the goal of human life is not happiness in this life; we are not God’s pets. His goal is not to create a nice terrarium here for his human pets. Rather, it is to bring persons into communion with himself forever

Freely, and in order to do that, it’s not at all implausible that a world suffused with natural and moral evil would be the correlative of that.

#God #Evil #Suffering

Satan’s LOCATION Exposed! // Fallen Angels, Nephilim & Demons Explored in Detail



In popular culture We’ve all seen countless images of the Satan and usually we see him ruling the fires of hell from the underworld We see pitchforks and horns But what is the Bible actually say about the Satan?

What does it say about his location and his tactics? What does it say about his crew the Fallen Angels and the demonic entities? Well, it’s time to explore in detail what the Bible says about all of this and more Stay tuned

Whenever one decides to grow in their knowledge of God, one of the first things we have to do is Read the Bible for ourselves You see we all have been bombarded with inaccurate and fanciful ideas when it comes to spiritual concepts For instance many of us grew up with this idea that God

Is some giant with a long beard who sits on a cloud somewhere and Such ideas make it harder to believe in God but when you actually read the Bible for yourself, we see that it says God is spirit Which is actually a very practical

Concept many of us grew up with the idea that Satan is a red horned figure who lives underground But when you read the Bible, we are shown what and where? Satan really is And when you get deep into it again, you will find a very practical concept Now

Many of you have seen our previous episode which tells the story of this gangster who goes to hell and In that presentation it shows this image of Satan with horns, and it seems as if he is the ruler of hell

And so here I just want to make the point that the imagery there is not to be taken literally as how Satan actually works because this portion of that episode is Symbolic to show how Satan is largely responsible for those who end up in Hell

So in that episode the images are mostly figurative and often symbolic however in our most recent episode Where we expose one of Satan’s lies the imagery there Can be taken as more likely how Satan works and where he is

So is Satan ruling hell from under the ground well, let’s just jump right into what the Bible says So here Ephesians 6:12 Paul is writing to the effusion church and look what he says about Satan and the forces of darkness

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against the rulers against the authorities the cosmic powers over this present darkness Against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places So here Paul and he’s writing to believers he says we don’t wrestle against flesh and blood meaning humans

He’s saying that our main enemy Satan is rare in the heavenly places We wrestle against the authorities the cosmic powers who ruled the kingdom of darkness the spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places Now when we look at the Greek word for heavenly places here score tools

We end up finding the Greek word heavenly places and that is the Greek word at peroneus an Immigrant is is often used to translate the heavenly in heaven Celestial basically something that is existing in the heavens. And so let’s go a little bit deeper than that

By clicking here to see how heaven in the Bible is described and the Greek word of course there shows that heaven in the New Testament refers to what in The air the heavens really in the skies The universe the aerial skies or the universe. So here we see that Paul identifies

The location of Satan the forces of darkness the Satan am not underground Ruling but actually ruling we’re in the heavenly places, which we have just seen in the Greek refers to the universe the skies the airs Basically above us not below and if you study and research the ancient Israelite tradition

You’ll find numerous writings that – the Satan and the forces of darkness existing in the heavens or in the celestial regions in fact according to Israelite tradition there was once a time when Satan and the angels who he convinced to turn against God were banished from God’s presence

And when those rogue angels left the high heaven where God was They weren’t immediately thrown into hell No, they were actually allowed to roam around the universe to roam around the heavens with Satan Interestingly the book of Jude in the New Testament

Actually quotes from an ancient Israelite document. That was well known around the time of Jesus the Book of Enoch Many of you are well familiar with the Book of Enoch And so I’m sure you probably know that most Christian scholars don’t really view it as Scripture

But do recognize it as an ancient Israelite historical document that highlights what many ancient Israelites believed and In the Book of Enoch, there are quite a few interesting narratives They’re one of those narratives tells the story of how many years ago long long time ago

The group of angels who chose to side with Satan Committed a great sin These fallen angels were known as the Watchers and one thing that they watched were How pretty women were on earth in fact some of these Watchers or fallen angels? Decided to marry and even mate with human women

Which was a great great sin in the eyes of God and according to this narrative Whenever an angelic being and a human mate and produce a child the result will be a Nephilim What is a Nephilim a creature that was never supposed to exist a

Diabolical integration of the angelic with human flesh a walking abomination Now this could all just be a great story and very creative however Genesis 6 Says this look what it says in Genesis chapter 6 it shows us one of the main reasons why God sent the flood upon the earth

So here says that when human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them the sons of God saw That the daughters of humans Were beautiful and they married any of them as they chose

Then the Lord said my spirit would not contend or would not remain in humans forever for they are mortal in their days would be 120 years The Nephilim were on the earth in those days and also afterward when the sons of God

Went to the daughters of humans and had children by them and They were the heroes of old men ever known So here we see in this story is talking about what happened, right? Leading up to the flood and it’s showing that the sons of God here

Saw the daughters of human beings and they were attracted to them and they decided to marry them and they had children by the daughters of humans and the product of that were these Nephilim and then here says that they were

The heroes who was it referring to most scholars would say that this is referring to the Nephilim back in those days were the heroes They were great great creatures of strength You see in verse 6 it says that this really disturbed God and it says that the Lord

Regretted that he had even made human beings on the earth His heart was deeply troubled but we know that God Did find favor with Noah and his family and so therefore Noah and his family were saved and the ark God then sent the flood and

Basically wiped out all of humanity and these Nephilim creatures Which in his eyes were just a huge abomination. They were never ever supposed to exist So ultimately we see here that one of the reasons why the flood came is because the sons of God impregnated humans and produced these hybrid Nephilim creatures

Now just like any biblical passage, there’s always going to be various interpretations Some scholars say that the sons of God here may refer to a different race of humans however, it seems that the majority of modern scholars and more importantly ancient scholars view the sons of God here as referring to angelic beings

Why is that? Well remember the story of Job? Job was a righteous, man and He had favor with God and so Satan wanted to test job’s faith and harm him But in order for Satan to do that, he had to first ask God for permission

Look at how it reads job 1:6 it says that the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan came with them So here in this scene we see that the angels they came before God and

Satan also came with them and then began to ask God if he could attack job so the interesting thing here is that these angelic beings are being referred to as the sons of God and so that’s one reason why some scholars would say that the sons of God in Genesis 6 refers to

Angelic spiritual beings and specifically in Genesis 6 the Fallen Angels who chose to follow Satan now again according to ancient Jewish literature found among the Dead Sea Scrolls such as the Book of Enoch the Fallen Angels who chose to impregnate human women were immediately

Punished by God and were chained and placed in prison in the darkest region of Hell for doing that and They were placed in a region of hell called Tartarus and so it’s quite an interesting narrative And so the question we have to ask ourselves is is there anything in the Bible that says?

That the angels who sinned with these women were chained up and placed in Tartarus Is there anything in the Bible that mentions that? Well, actually the Apostle Peter alludes to something similar in one of his letters Look at how it reads in

2nd Peter 2:4. So here Peter is talking about the judgment of God and and here he says regarding the angels He says God did not spare the Angels when they sinned but sent them to hell Putting them in chains of Darkness to be held For judgment, but said them to hell now

I always say that whenever you come across the word Hell in either the New Testament or the Old Testament because of modern translations you really have to Investigate the Greek and Hebrew word that was translated into the English word

Hell and one of the reasons is because the word hell is translated from many different words in the New Testament It’s translated from the word Hades Sometimes you’ll see the word hell translate it from the word Gehenna Sometimes it is translated from the word Totaro and these are three different things

And so we want to look here to see what is the greek word behind this translation of hell and to do so We’re just gonna go to tools’ here and we see that it says that if God did not spare the Angels when they sinned but cast them into hell and

The greek word used there is Tatar Oh, what is to taro the deepest abyss of hell to taro? refers to The deepest abyss of Hades of Hades in the Greek it is often referred to as the abode of the wicked dead and so

Being the deepest abyss of Hades we see that to taro is not just haiti’s it’s not just hell – taro is the darkest Probably the most painful region of hades, and that’s where the angels who sinned Were chained and sent to the greek word?

To Taurus hell therefore Judgment Day so pretty pretty scary stuff and So when it says that they were placed there to await Judgment Day in Chains some scholars note that perhaps the great sin that they committed was when they saw the daughters of humans and Married them and then produced these Nephilim and

So those who have a literal reading of the Genesis 6 account? Will likely say that yes Some of these fallen angels committed a sin that allow them to be placed in Chains of darkness until Judgment Day but

What about the other fallen angels who are not locked up in Tartarus? Where are they at? we know that Satan is not locked up yet because we know that he and his crew were still able to Approach God and ask God for permission to attack Jobe

Satan was seen in the heavens with the sons of God and that was after the Genesis 6 account so it seems as if Satan and his crew are still around Now one could say and some do say this one could say that perhaps when Jesus ascended to heaven

Satan was then locked away and Chained up at that point some have made that point and I understand that However, you still do have theologians who would counter that and argue that well even after Christ ascended The Apostle Paul still said that Satan and the powers of darkness are aware in heavenly places

And so seemingly even after the Ascension of Christ Paul is saying that we still war against cosmic powers and high places in the heavenlies that seems to indicate that Satan and his crew have not yet been locked up in Chains in the abyss

In fact, I just thought of something we know that during the thousand-year reign that’s when Satan is locked up into the abyss is likely that then he will be locked up into the same abyss that the Fallen Angels were locked into for sinning with women. Just thought of that

But anyways, so it seems that he is not locked up yet, right, so Is there anything else in the Bible that talks about if Satan is locked up yet or if he’s still out there roaming around well John in the book of Revelation he seems to indicate that

Satan and his fallen angels are roaming in the universe He seems to kind of indicate that and he kind of alludes to such an idea in Revelation 12 In the book of Revelation chapter 12 it describes a battle that will take place between the good and evil angels and in this battle

Satan will end up losing his place in heaven or in the universe and will eventually be thrown down to the earth Look at what it reads in? Revelation 12 7 then war broke out in heaven Michael and his angels fought against the Dragon and the dragon and his angels fought back

So here we see that Satan and his fallen angel crew Were strong enough to even fight Michael the Archangel and the good angels, but they were not strong enough Liquid it reads in the next verse But he was not strong enough and they lost their place in heaven

First not and then the great dragon was hurled down that ancient serpent called the devil or Satan who leads a whole world astray? He was hurled to the earth and his angels with him And as you read along here, you will see that after he is hurled to the earth

Then it talks about how the Antichrist will begin to rule with the help of Satan the Beast will then rise and so it’s very very interesting Passage here. Of course, that’s with our passages There are made different interpretations and scholarly opinions on it

Some people believe that this battle between the Angels of Light and the angels of darkness has already happened Some people believe it happened very recently But again, you do have scholars who say that it hasn’t happened yet

Because we’d see in the passage that after Satan is defeated in this battle against the angels of light and after Satan is thrown to the earth and loses his place in the heavenly realms that then the Anti Christ rises and so by that logic

I do understand how some can argue that it seems as if this battle is something that will happen in the near future right before the Anti Christ starts to rule and That might be a reason why it says that once Satan is thrown to the earth It says he is filled with fury

Because he knows his time is short And so this verse seems to indicate that the moment he is thrown down to the earth realm that that will be in the end times because as it says that his time is short and then soon after that we see the

Rising of the beast and the Antichrist and so what are your views on that? You know, do you see? Revelation 12 the angelic battle there as a future event, or maybe you see it as symbolic, you know So there there are many perspectives with that

But again, it does fit into the argument showing that Satan is not Underground the fallen angels are not underground. They are and always have been Roaming the heavens roaming the universe This makes things a little bit more serious because this means that we live in a world that is

Currently under the control of satanic forces and Angelic beings who are above us and if that is the case That gives us a huge clue into how Satan operates You see it is not Coincidence that we live in a world that looks at Satan as some type of preacher

Underground that’s what he wants us to believe that is part of the deception You see as long as we are Looking down We will fail to look up he doesn’t want us to look up because if we glanced towards the sky, what will we see? air the atmosphere

Well, why is that important oh it’s vitally important you see in the air what is traveling Radio waves television signals communication devices the entertainment networks every day Millions of invisible signals are traveling all around us the air and the Atmosphere is the highway of our technological world and who controls that highway?

Well, it’s like what the Bible says in Ephesians 2:1 and as for you you were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you used to live when you follow the ways of this world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air

The spirit who has not work and those who are disobedient Here clearly it shows that Satan is The ruler of the kingdom of the air and the King James Version says that Satan is the Prince of the power of the air My friends whoever controls the airwaves controls the radio waves

The TV signals the communication channels as long as Satan is above us it is easy And practical to understand why his influence is so strong in our world He is in control of the media And not only that but did you know that we now have technology that can transmit ideas

And emotions into individuals based upon the signals that we transmit to them through the air, so If we as humans have reached a point in our mechanical achievement that we can do such things How much more could Satan in his fallen angels with far more advanced technology do the same?

Now we clearly see how the Satan influences our world and so I would argue that even While he is in his remote Location he can still easily Remotely control much of what’s going on in our world? Now I know some of you have some ideas about

The type of technology that is now existing and possibly the type of technology that Satan may have his disposal So, you know, if you are one who has done extensive research on this, please share in the comments your findings as well now as you could imagine with any discussion of

Satan and fallen angels Existing and seemingly being able to roam around the universe this will inevitably bring up a big question an AOC Network is far from a conspiracy channel, but the question can’t really be avoided What about all of the identified sightings of objects that people? Report are they all fabricated?

Or is it possible that some of these? sightings are manifestations of fallen angels Alone in the universe UFO in the form of a bright light is seen descending over the Dome of the rock in Jerusalem The video is said to be taken over the weekend another video from a different angle Whoa, maaaah

Three more US senators received a classified briefing about UFOs at the Pentagon may have heard the pilots and other military personnel been reporting these these kinds of sightings for years a couple weeks ago the Department of Defense even released footage shot by a Navy Super Hornet pilot, Senator Mark Warner

Who is the vice chair of the Intelligence Committee said look, I think it’s important. He told us just this afternoon I think it’s important that the military is taking this more seriously now than they did in the past

So what are they taking seriously those videos you were talking about where these pilots were describing seeing these things up to? 30,000 feet in the air flying at extraordinary speeds hypersonic well over the speed of sound changing direction in the most astonishing ways and

Seemingly defying the laws of physics. I know you think that the government didn’t take the threat seriously enough So let me just ask you point-blank the question. Do you believe that that life from somewhere else while you ran this program? Came here visited it observed. I

Will tell you unequivocally that that through the observation scientific methodologies that were applied to to look at this phenomena that these Aircraft we’ll call them, aircraft are displaying characteristics that are not currently within the u.s Inventory nor in any foreign inventory that we are aware of

So I know you’re using your being clear, but I mean the answer is yes My personal I can’t speak on behalf of the government obviously, I’m not in the US government anymore My personal belief is that there is very compelling evidence that we we may not be alone whatever that means

Now if we are going to talk about this We must first consider something very very important We must consider what exactly fallen angels are we know that fallen angels were at one point angelic beings who were on God’s side and scripture shows that angelic beings have a special type of body a

Spiritual body what is a spiritual body a Spiritual body is a type of body that cannot only exist in the physical world But can also interact with the spiritual world

We talked about this in the how you will look in heaven episode and in that episode we explored the scriptures that speak on how Jesus was resurrected in the spiritual body that one day we all will have and that same body is very similar to the type of bodies that

Angels have it’s a body that Can literally exist in two different realms at once? basically this type of body Could go through physical Objects and then become physical again when Jesus was resurrected he was able to do this at one point

He walked through a locked door and then occupied physical space again and Ate fish and he was not hindered by anything. He was not hindered by space or time. And so the spiritual body is incredible and so the question that we really have to ponder at this point is

Do fallen angels still have that? Spiritual body that angels possess or were they stripped of that body after they left God hmm something to think about Share in the comments what you think about that? I do think that you could make the argument That when those angels chose to leave God

Maybe they lost some of their power and beauty in fact There are many who argue that evil possess to them and that they changed somehow To something much more sinister And so yes, you could make that argument But I would still say that I lean towards fallen angels not just being spirits

But still having a spiritual body in some capacity and one reason for that leaning is because in Revelation 12 it says that they were in a battle with the holy angels They lost eventually but they were still able to put up a fight

And so that indicates that they still must have some type of a supernatural body to even be able to Go to war with God’s angels of light now What about demons often people do confuse fallen angels for demons? And that’s understandable I mean

We don’t really talk about this sort of thing in this level of detail in our churches very often Which is why we’re doing it now but actually fallen angels are very different from demons demons are only described in the Bible as evil spirits No, where are they shown to be physical creatures?

They are always described as spirits who really aren’t even that powerful in fact They are often always shown to be looking for someone to possess because they are just spirits who don’t really have power in fact

That’s why they are always trying to possess humans because they need a human body in order to function and Operate in the physical world again and so demons are they just spirits? They they can’t really manipulate physical things without a host

So they really aren’t that powerful and they definitely couldn’t fight with angels. They are just spirits. So Where do demons come from? Well again if you look into ancient Israelite theology the primary idea of where demons come from is the aftermath of the flood

Remember the the Nephilim well many scholars argue that it is likely that when the flood killed those Hybrid creatures their spirits are now. What roam the earth as demons and Of course There are many ancient Israelite writings and there see squirrel documents that refer to this

Such as the Book of Enoch the book of Jubilees and so, you know It gets pretty interesting and it is an important study because if demons are just the spirits of Nephilim We can see why if there are Unidentified objects above us. It is most likely that they aren’t demons

But actually fallen angels Because fallen angels have that angelic body and the angelic body is really described as an interdimensional type of existence for example if you had an interdimensional body you would not have to even travel at light speed to get to a far place in the universe if you had an

Interdimensional body you would be able to move in and out of dimensions and even through portals to traverse the universe and even beyond and So it’s really above our level of understanding I mean we are really talking highly advanced angelic stuff here

But nevertheless it is great to research and as always, you know, we are interested in your thoughts on this So please share in the comments. Do you think that it is likely that? these sightings are actually fallen angels making appearances and

Moving around to observe and to manipulate our world or do you think it’s something else, you know, so something to think about Now I know Someone out there is thinking wait a second. Wait a second Do you mean to tell me that there are evil beings out there flying around who may have?

Advanced technology and power and they are roaming above us. What’s to stop them from coming down and hurting me or doing something else Well good question, but you know what’s holding them back? The power of God Let’s back up for a second. You remember Jobe? he was a friend of God and

Satan and his fallen angels They wanted to hurt Jobe and even though they were more advanced than job They could not harm a hair on his head until Satan first asked God for permission That is HUGE This means that Satan does not have ultimate autonomy. He can’t just do what he wants

He can only do what God allows him to do And if God allows him to do something, it’s always for an infinitely wise purpose that goes beyond our present understanding Now a job was just a friend of God and the Satan had to ask for permission to harm him but you

You are a blood-bought child of God So listen when you understand who you are in Christ, you start to realize why a Fallen angel does not want to come to your house Listen some of you out there Need to start realizing that you have authority in Christ

First of all, you have power in the name of Jesus out of my house and stay away from my family And second of all God’s angels watch over you did you know that read X 1215 Hebrews 13:2 Matthew 18 10

You have angels who watch over you and when you use the name of Jesus They are dispatched You thought this video was just going to talk about fallen angels and Satan No, this episode is not only to expose their location, but also to expose their weakness

When you are a child of God, there is not a fallen angel There is not a demon there is nothing that can come against you Some of you have been in fear, some of you have been worried about the satanic world But my friend let it not be

If you feel that a demon or an evil spirit is around you if you know Jesus It’s time to use your authority and command it to leave Get out and go to hell in the name of Jesus if you know God and have a relationship

With God my friend. The last thing a demon should do is come in your direction They fear it Paul they fear Jesus and if you know God they will fear you too. And fallen angels Will they fear the name of Jesus as well? But you know what else fallen angels fear?

Being thrown into prison like the ones who sent back in Noah’s day were They fear being thrown to the deepest abyss of hell so even a fallen angel Would not want to mess with you because the last thing you do is a mess with a child of God So basically

When your dad is the king of the universe? You can not fear So I just wanted to wrap it up with that truth because I know that this has been an interesting topic

But the most important thing that I could say about fallen angels and demons and any of that is that you have power over them all with the name of Jesus and speaking of power You don’t want to miss the next episode because we’re going to be looking at the power of the first

Christians and Just like how the Holy Spirit used them. I Believe he’s going to use you Get ready god bless

#Satans #LOCATION #Exposed #Fallen #Angels #Nephilim #Demons #Explored #Detail

The Supernatural Birth of Jesus



I’m always glad when Christmas comes around, because I finally have the opportunity to sing one of my favorite hymns, and it’s only sung around Christmas. That hymn is “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.” It is not only my favorite Christmas Carol, but it is one of my very favorite hymns, and I’m not alone.

In 1872 the Church of England selected the four greatest hymns in the English language, and “Hark the Herald Angels” was one of those hymns. I wait all year to sing this hymn, and then I find myself singing it and humming it to myself all through the season.

It is a tribute to our Savior, our Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is one of the greatest treasures that the church has musically, and it is a treasure to the mind and soul of everyone who has memorized the incredible words to this hymn.

It was originally written in 1739 by Charles Wesley who wrote it as a Christmas day hymn. Fifteen years later, along came George Whitefield, the great preacher, great evangelist, and he felt that the words needed a little bit of editing, so he Calvinized it.

And fifteen years after the original work of Wesley, Whitefield brought its lyrics into the familiar form that we sing today. It needed a tune, and the years went by, and Wesley had always said it needs a kind of a somber, slow tune. But it never really caught on with that kind of tune.

And then about a hundred years after Whitefield in the mid 1800s there was a famous German Jew who was baptized a Christian, baptized into the Christian faith. This German Jew wrote a cantata in the honor of Johannes Gutenberg who invented the printing

Press, and in that Cantata there was an amazing tune, and that is the tune that since about 1850 has been associated with “Hard the Herald Angels Sing,” and that German Jew who converted to Christ was Felix Mendelssohn.

So when you get a song that has Wesley, Whitefield, and Mendelssohn, it’s going to be good; and it is good. It is the best. I know you know it, but I can’t go any further really without reminding you of the words: “Hark! The herald angels sing, ‘Glory to the newborn King.

Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled!’ Joyful, all ye nations rise, join the triumph of the skies; with the angelic host proclaim, ‘Christ is born in Bethlehem!’ Hark! The herald angels sing, ‘Glory to the newborn King!’ “Christ, by highest heaven adored; Christ the everlasting Lord; late in time, behold

Him come, offspring of the virgin’s womb. Veiled in flesh the Godhead see; hail the incarnate Deity, pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus our Emmanuel. Hark! The herald angels sing, ‘Glory to the newborn King!’ “Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace! Hail the Son of Righteousness!

Light and life to all He brings, risen with healing in His wings. Mild He lays His glory by, born that man no more may die; born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth. Hark! The herald angels sing, ‘Glory to the newborn King!'”

And there are at least three other verses that are not in the hymnal. Great hymn. Just an incomparable hymn, and every verse ends with, “Glory to the newborn King!” Wesley and Whitefield instruct us concerning the person of Jesus Christ in this hymn.

He is the newborn King, but He is also identified as the Prince of Peace, the Son of Righteousness, the Everlasting Lord, the Incarnate Deity, and most of all Emmanuel, God with us. It’s an almost breath-taking Christology in this magnificent tribute. And, by the way, this is Christianity.

Christianity is that God, the Eternal Son, left heaven, came to earth as a baby born to a woman miraculously without a human father; born to save the sons of earth, born to give them second birth. That is Christianity, and that birth is how the New Testament begins.

So let’s go to the beginning in the book of Matthew and the very first chapter. Over the next four weeks we’re going to look at Matthew’s account of the birth of the King. Jesus asked the Jewish leaders about Messiah one day, recorded in Matthew 22. “He said, ‘Whose son is Messiah to be?’

And they replied immediately, ‘Son of David. Son of David.'” Royalty. They saw Him as a man born in the line of David. That is exactly what the Old Testament declared back in 2 Samuel, chapter 7. We are told that the greater son of David, the Messiah who will establish God’s kingdom

Will come through the royal line of David. Whoever is the Messiah, whoever is God’s anointed king must be a descendent of David. That is why Matthew begins the way he does, verse 1: “The record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David.”

And then you have a detailed genealogy coming all the way down to “Joseph” – in verse 16 – “the husband of Mary, by whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah.” The Messiah, verse 1, must be a son of David. Messiah is, in David’s line, the royal right, passing through Joseph.

Let me hasten to say this: Jesus was not related to Joseph by blood, but in Luke, chapter 1, there is a genealogy of Mary, and Mary also came from David’s line. Mary gave Jesus the royal blood, Joseph gave Him the royal right, because the royal right always came from the father.

But it’s more than just the son of David that Messiah must be. He must be the son of David. He must have the blood of the line of David coursing through His veins, and He did through Mary.

He must have the right to the throne, which He received through the fact that Joseph was His legal father in the earthly sense. But He had to be more than just the son of David, He had also to be the Son of God.

And that is the message that Matthew gives us, starting in verse 18. Not only was He in the line of David, but He is divine. Not just man, not just royal, but He is divine, He is the Son of God.

Verse 18: “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: when His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. And Joseph her husband, being a righteous man, not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly.

But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.

She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.’ Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: ‘Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall His name Immanuel,’

Which translated means, ‘God with us.’ And Joseph awake from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took Mary as his wife, but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son; and he called His name Jesus.” Mary’s Son is God with us.

Mary’s Son is Immanuel. We are thus introduced to the incarnate God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ. Here, this account of His birth is a very critical identifying mark that sets Him apart from any and every human being who has ever been born.

He is the only one born of a virgin, conceived by God in the womb, the God-man: fully divine, fully human. But Matthew focuses particularly on His kingship, on the royal right that He has to the throne as God’s Anointed. That’s why he gives the royal genealogy at the very beginning.

And then he gives this remarkable birth that adds to His human royal line: divinity. Matthew presents to us all through his gospel Jesus as King. Let me just give you a little bit of a look at that. First of all, Matthew shows us the King revealed.

The person of Jesus Christ is always painted in royal colors. His ancestry, as we saw, is traced through a royal line. His birth is dreaded by a rival king. Wise men offer Him royal gifts. His herald, John the Baptist, declared that He is a king and that His kingdom is at hand.

His temptation reaches its climax when He is justly offered the kingdoms of this entire world. His great Sermon on the Mount is the manifesto of the King, setting forth the standards of His kingdom. His miracles are His royal credentials. His parables are called the mysteries of the kingdom.

He is hailed as son of David, but also as Son of God. He claims freedom from paying tribute to earthly kings, because He Himself is the Son of the Great King, and is Himself a King. He makes a royal entry into Jerusalem where He declares Himself to be the King.

And while facing the cross He predicts that He will rise again and He will establish His future reign. He proclaims sovereign power to command angels. Even His last words are a kingly claim and a royal command: “All authority has been given unto Me in heaven and earth. Go therefore.”

So Matthew presents Him as royalty, as God’s Anointed King, the revealed King. But Matthew also presents Him as the rejected King. The rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ is emphasized by Matthew all the way through. Before He was born His mother was in danger of being rejected by Joseph.

At His birth, Jesus faced the possibility of death. Jerusalem was troubled by His birth. Herod sought His life. In Matthew’s account, on the plains of Bethlehem, no angel choir sings. But in Matthew’s account, mothers weep as their baby sons are slaughtered in an attempt to kill the true King.

Even as a child He is hurried away into obscurity in Egypt for awhile, and then He’s hurried back up to Nazareth, and obscure town where He stays in obscurity until He’s 30 years of age. His forerunner and cousin John the Baptist is arrested, imprisoned, and beheaded.

During the time of His ministry He has no home of His own, nowhere to lay His head. He is a wanderer. His parables demonstrate the character of His kingdom age, and they are rejected by His people. In His death, He is forsaken by His people, He is forsaken by God.

In Matthew, there’s no penitent thief praying. There’s no word of human sympathy recorded by Matthew as He faces death. But Matthew does describe the reviling, the mocking, and the bribing of the soldiers to lie about His resurrection. No other gospel so chronicles the bitterness of the rejection of the King.

But, finally, Matthew’s focus is not only on the revealing of the King and the rejection of the King, but on the return of the King. No other gospel says as much about the second coming of Christ as does Matthew. It is a gospel of triumph.

The King is to be revealed, He is to be rejected, but He is to return and establish His promised kingdom and reign there forever and ever. Matthew begins at the very beginning with His birth. Just a note about the genealogy. In the genealogy you have many men listed.

But tucked into the genealogy are the names of four women in the first seventeen versus of Matthew 1. Interesting women. There is Tamar, guilty of prostitution and incest. There is Rahab, a prostitute and idolatress. There is Ruth from Moab whose whole line was cursed because it descended from incest.

And there is Bathsheba who was an adulterous woman, and whose husband was murdered out of that adultery. Those are the four women in the genealogy, which is a declaration by God that the King is a gracious King, and the King has come to identify with sinners.

The greatest credential for the King is not His genealogy, as wonderful as it is, it tells us in the royal line, it tells us He will be a gracious King. He will identify with sinners. But the greatest credential is His birth, and that’s what I read you in verses 18 to 25.

This identifies Him as having come from heaven. Now the facts are clear, you saw them there. Joseph and Mary were engaged, betrothed, not yet officially married, not yet having consummated that union. Joseph knew Mary was pregnant, and he knew that was not his child.

We are then told the child was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary. And then Joseph is commanded to marry her and name the child, who is God with us, with the name Jesus. Those are the simple facts of this very understated massive divine work of the virgin conception

And birth of the Son of God. Now let’s look a little more deeply. First of all the virgin birth conceived – and we’ll look at verse 18. “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: when His mother Mary had been betrothed to

Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit.” This is just such a simple explanation of a staggering, incomprehensible, divine miracle. The Bible does that a lot, simply states things that are beyond our comprehension. We don’t know anything about Mary really.

John 19:25 mentions her sister, who was also one who followed Jesus. That’s really all we know. We look at Luke 1 and we get her genealogy, so we know the name of the family behind her. We know she was related to Elizabeth, who was the wife of Zacharias the priest, and

They were the parents of John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus. We know she lived in Nazareth, which was a town in the north of Israel up in the Galilee area, a nondescript town of which it was said, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” A blue collar down, insignificant religiously, insignificant historically.

That’s all we know about her in terms of biography, in terms of earthly background. We know nothing about her family, what they did. But we do know about her character, which is what is most important, because in Luke,

Chapter 1, in verse 38, Mary says in response to being told by Gabriel the archangel that she’s going to be the mother of the Most Holy Child, the Son of God. She says, “Behold, the slave of the Lord; may it be done to me according to your word.”

This is a 13-year-old girl or so who sees herself as a slave of the Lord, a willing, loving slave of the Lord who wants only to do whatever the Lord asks her to do. She is a worshiper.

Over in verse 46, in response to this, she says, “My soul exalts the Lord, my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior, for He has had regard for the humble state of His slave; for behold, from this time on all generations will count me blessed.

For the Mighty One has done great things for me; and holy is His name.” And she goes on to quote Old Testament passages in that beautiful Magnificat. She is theologically astute. She knows God, she knows the attributes of God, she knows the Old Testament.

All that she says is drawn right out of the Old Testament. She is a righteous young girl, a slave of the Lord who believes what the Lord says and wants only to do what He asks her to do. She’s a godly young girl.

Now she is, it says in verse 18, betrothed to Joseph. You have to understand Jewish marriage contracts were a little different than we have today. People get engaged and disengaged, then engaged, then disengaged, and we’ve all become pretty used to that happening.

In the Jewish plan of marriage, when you were engaged or betrothed, that was a binding legal covenant. You literally bound yourself for life to the one that you had desired to marry. You can find that back in Deuteronomy 20 in verse 7.

Betrothal was a legal contract demanding, defining two people as committed to one another for life. Betrothal was a trial period. There was no consummation during betrothal. That came after the actual marriage ceremony. There were usually several months during the betrothal period. What was that for?

Well, in some ways, the husband needed to make preparations for the wedding. That would be an extensive responsibility that he would have. But even more than that, it was a trial time to see if the person that you had committed to would be faithful to that covenant.

It was a time to prove your holiness, your virtue, and your righteousness. It was clearly before they came together that they had been betrothed. So they were set by covenant, by legal contract for a marriage. But this was the trial period to find out if the person would be faithful.

And, back to verse 18, before they came together, before they were actually married, she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. The worst possible scenario was that a betrothed woman would become pregnant. That’s why you had the trial period to prove her integrity, her virtue. She was pregnant.

She was about three months pregnant, if you calculate what the New Testament says, at this time when Joseph gets the information. And by the way, she knew she was pregnant. How did she know? Luke 1:26, because the angel Gabriel came to her when they were back in Nazareth and

Said, “Behold, don’t be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God” – verse 30, 31 – “Behold, you will conceive in your womb, bear a son; you shall name Him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.

The Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. He will reign over the throne of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end.” He’s the King. “Mary said, ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’

The angle answered and said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the Holy Child shall be called the Son of God.” Nothing will be impossible with God. So she knew, she knew.

But apparently she knew before Joseph knew. Maybe she was just trying to figure out how to explain that since that had never happened. Now Joseph found out that she was pregnant. I can’t imagine the shock and devastation, because this is a virtuous girl that he knows

And loves and is committed to for life, and he finds out that she is pregnant. And according to Deuteronomy 22, verses 23 and 24, if a betrothed woman became pregnant, she was to be stoned to death. So a cloud of suspicion and shame and scandal is hanging over her head, because she doesn’t

Know how to explain this. There’s really no precedent for this, there’s no way to explain it. In all human history there’s never been a virgin birth. And now Joseph is in shock because he’s found out that she is pregnant, and he can’t understand it.

And so in verse 19, “Joseph her husband, being a righteous man, not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly.” Righteousness is a wonderful word, It embodies holiness, virtue, morality; but it also embodies compassion. Part of being righteous is being compassionate. This is a righteous man.

You might say, “Well, if he was a righteous man, he’d make a public display out of her. A righteous man would uphold righteousness, and a righteous man would make this public and say, ‘She has been unfaithful; I want to declare her unfaithfulness.

We’re going to bring her before the appropriate witnesses and we’re going to deal with thing publicly, because she needs to be a warning sign concerning this kind of sin.'” But there is inherently within true righteousness compassion and deep affection and love. He loves her, he cares for her.

He doesn’t understand what has happened, he has no explanation for it, but his heart is compassionate toward her. And so we saw the virgin birth conceived in verse 18, and now the virgin birth is confronted in verses 19 and 20. It’s confronted by Joseph. They’re betrothed.

He’s a righteous man, that is he desires to do what is pleasing to God. You could even say that he has been declared righteous by faith in God in the same way that Old Testament saints had. Certainly Mary was one of them.

He is a true Old Testament saint justified before God by faith. The justification of that man and even the transformation of that man’s heart is evidenced in his obedience to God, his desire to obey God, to marry a godly, virtuous woman. And to also demonstrate compassion.

Mary was precious to him, the girl of his hopes. But he had to do what was right. But he doesn’t want to disgrace her – back to verse 19 – wanting not to disgrace her. There’s no bitterness. There’s no anger. There’s no hostility.

There’s no desire to make a display out of her, just confusion and compassion. Two courses are really open to him at this point. The harshest would be to make a public example of her. And even though capital punishment as a punishment for sin had disappeared in the history of

Israel, there was still the threat of a public divorce, a bill of divorce, a public lawsuit against her; and she would be brought into some kind of court, and there would be witnesses coming into the court to testify against her that she was pregnant and that Joseph was not the father.

In ancient times she would have been stoned to death. But in more recent times, during the time of their life, divorce had taken the place of stoning. He could have had a public divorce and sort of exonerated himself, but he doesn’t want to do that.

“So he decided to” – it says at the end of verse 19 – “send her away secretly.” Send away is the word apoluō . It’s the New Testament word for divorce. But not publicly, not with witnesses testifying against her to justify his action, but a very quiet, very private divorce.

He wasn’t going to go through with the marriage to a woman who was unfaithful. He is devastated, he is crushed. It is all unthinkable to him, unimaginable. But he loves her, he cares for her, and so he decides that he is going to just do this very secretly.

However, verse 20 says, “When he had considered this,” – he was in the middle of considering it, meditating on it; apparently he falls asleep, mulling over in his mind what he’s going to do with this love of his life – “behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream.”

I don’t understand the reality of that; I don’t know how to define that. It says a dream, and yet it says an angel of the Lord actually appeared to him in a dream. This is a supernatural experience, that’s all we can say, that’s all we need to know.

“An angle of the Lord appears to him in a dream and says, ‘Joseph, son of David,’ – again reiterating that he is in the royal line – ‘do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.'”

What an unbelievably shocking dream. You know, he probably felt like most men feel, “I’m really not good enough for her.” And then he might have thought for a moment, “Maybe she’s not good enough for me.” And now he hears from an angel that God Himself has planted a life in her womb, something

That has never happened to any woman. And now he goes back to saying, “If I thought I wasn’t worthy of her before, I’m sure not worthy of her now if out of all the world God has chosen her to be the mother of His incarnate Son.”

We think about people being engaged having a difficult time waiting until they’re married to display their affection. I think Joseph must have felt like he needed to stay away from her, because he was some kind of transcendent person beyond anything he could ever imagine himself to be worthy of.

He is told that the child in her has been conceived by the Holy Spirit, the third member of the Trinity. He would know the Holy Spirit from the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit coming on people for all kinds of reasons in the Old Testament, bringing God’s power and God’s presence into a life.

This is stunning, shocking. It’s the same message that Mary heard back in Luke 1: “The child will be produced by the Holy Spirit. This will be a Holy Child. This will be the Son of God.” So Joseph is now trying to figure out just exactly, “How do I fit into that?”

Little wonder then that when the angel said, “Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife.” Fear was the first reaction of Joseph. “Stop being afraid. You can take her as your wife. She is not so transcendent, she is not so holy, she is not elevated that she cannot be your wife.

What has been conceived in her has been conceived by the Holy Spirit.” Verse 21: “She will bear a Son; and you shall call his name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” She will bear a Son. It doesn’t say, “She will bear you a son.” Never says that.

In Luke 1:13, the Lord said to Zacharias, “Elizabeth will bear you a son, because you are a participating father.” That is never said to Joseph. It’s just, “She will bear a Son.” This is Mary’s Son and this is God’s Son. This is not Joseph’s Son.

By the way, throughout the 2nd chapter of Matthew, Mary is identified as His mother and Joseph is never stated as His father, never. “Arise, take the young Child and His mother and flee into Egypt. Take your Child. Arise, take the young Child and His mother, go into the Land of Israel.”

This is not Joseph’s Son; this is God’s Son, this is Mary’s Son. In fact, in the 2nd chapter of Matthew, God says, “Out of Egypt have I called My Son.” Jesus was God’s Son and Mary’s Son, never Joseph’s Son.

The mystery of all of this is profound and confounding, and when it says down in verse 25 that he kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son, I can fully understand that, that he wouldn’t want to do anything to touch her.

It was not legal to do that anyway, just because they hadn’t had the marriage ceremony. But I think it would have been hard to imagine himself even putting a hand on such a set apart and anointed life chosen by God for such singular calling. But Joseph, you do have a role to play.

Father gives the name, so verse 21, “You shall call His name Jesus Yeshua” – Old Testament Joshua – “for He will have His people from their sins.” Yeshua means Jehovah saves, Jehovah saves. That’s His name, Jesus, Jehovah saves, for He will save His people from their sins.”

There are a lot of names that are given to Jesus in the Old Testament, you’re familiar with them: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Father of Eternity – Isaiah 9, Servant of Jehovah, Yahweh – lots of names of Jesus. But here is a new name. His name is to be Yeshua, Jehovah saves. That’s remarkable.

Back in the 43rd chapter of Isaiah, God claims some singular characteristics. He says, verse 11, “I, even I, am the Lord,” and yet in the New Testament Jesus is declared Lord. God says in the same verse, “There is no Savior besides Me,” and yet Jesus is to be named

Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins. God is a Savior; Jesus is a Savior. In that same chapter, verse 13, God says, “Even from eternity I am He.” John 1:1 says that Jesus was in eternity with the Father. Verse 14 says, “The Lord is your Redeemer.”

In the New Testament, Jesus is the Redeemer. The Lord is the Holy One; in the New Testament, Jesus is the Holy Child. Things that God declares for Himself alone are also declared of Christ, which is to say that He is therefore God.

Chapter 42 of Isaiah, verse 8, “I am the Lord, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another.” That’s true. But He gives His glory to Christ, because glory to Christ is not giving glory to another. Christ is one with God. So He is the Savior.

He’s the only Savior; He’s the Savior of the world. There is no other Savior, it is God and God alone who saves His people, and He does it through the work of His Son Jesus. “There’s no salvation in any other” – Acts 4:12. Who is able to save? Who is mighty to save?

Only the virgin-born God-man, Son of David, Son of Mary. And then in verses 22 and 23 you have the virgin birth connected, connected. We saw it conceived and confronted, clarified in regard to the name as the message came to Joseph.

But here it’s connected, and it’s connected to an Old Testament prophecy: “Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: ‘Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,’ which translated means, ‘God with us.'”

That is a direct quote from Isaiah 7:14, Isaiah 7:14. Here Matthew shows us that the virgin birth was promised, was promised. And if you go back to Isaiah 7:14 that’s exactly what you read with the addition of just an

Opening statement: “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and will call His name Immanuel. The Lord will give you a sign.” The word here “virgin” in verse 23 is parthenos in Greek, and it always means virgin and only means virgin.

It’s used about 12 or 13 times in the New Testament. It always and only means virgin. The text of Isaiah 700 years before uses the word almah , and some people say, “Well, almah can mean a young girl. A young girl doesn’t have to mean a virgin.”

Although it is used nine times in the Old Testament, eight of them, it has to mean a virgin. One time it may be just a reference to a young girl. But clearly the intent of almah in Isaiah 7:14 is to be used at virgin, because that’s

What the Holy Spirit inspires Matthew to write. The New Testament writer under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is interpreting the word almah in the Old Testament as parthenos in the New, which is virgin. And that’s the only thing that makes sense.

Critics like to say, “Well, no, Isaiah 7:14 should simply be stated, ‘A young woman will be with child and bear a son.'” There’s something missing in that. And what is it? The opening statement: “The Lord Himself will show you a sign.”

If I say to you, “A young woman is going to become pregnant and have a son,” what sign in that? That’s not a sign of anything, that happens every day. That’s not a sign of anything. But a virgin becoming pregnant and bearing a son, that’s a sign. That’s the sign of Isaiah 7:14.

“Look for a miracle. Look for a virgin becoming pregnant and bearing a son.” Even from the scientific standpoint, critics love to tamper with this, and some have suggested that Mary had a sort of spontaneous generation, a kind of parthenogenesis on her own and produced

Jesus on her own without God intervening, that there is a scientific natural explanation to this. And if you read any science, any of that – I’m reading a big long book on the history of genes; and in studying that, it’s fascinating to say that you can go back into history in

The nineteenth century, and even back before that, and people were trying to reproduce life. There were all kinds of very fine insects, and there were sea urchins, and they were trying to see if they could generate without the normal male-female coming together.

And there had been some indications in history where this could happen, and then there was Pincus and his rabbits, and there’s some machinations done with animals like that. But the problem is this: even in those cases where you have that, you have a problem.

Mary, if she spontaneously generated Jesus, could only have a daughter, because there’s no Y chromosome. Y chromosome comes from the man. That’s what’s so important about, “She will bear a son, she will bear a son.” And this son will be the one prophesized in Isaiah 7:14, “And the sign will be that she

Will be a virgin bearing a son, and you shall call His name Immanuel, which translates into God with us. She will have the Son of God.” You know, the rabbis kind of hovered around this notion that Messiah would have a unique birth. They said Messiah may not have an earthly father.

Some rabbis said Messiah will be born without defect. One rabbi said Messiah’s birth will not be like the birth of other men. One other rabbi, one other rabbi said that Messiah’s birth will be like the dew of the Lord as drops on the grass without the action of man.

The book of Enoch 150 years before Christ says, “Of the Messiah, He appears by the side of the Ancient of Days.” In other words, they even seem to acknowledge Messiah’s pre-incarnate existence. But they really didn’t understand it and they rejected, they rejected Him. “He came to His own, His own received Him not.”

But the prophecy was fulfilled. The coming of the King, the virgin-born Son of God, son of David, fulfills the sign prophecy of Isaiah 7:14. Galatians 4:4, Paul puts it this way: “In the fullness of time, God sent forth His Son,

Born of a woman,” – born of a woman, but the Son of God. A final word, the virgin birth completed in the last two verses: “Joseph awoke from his sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, took Mary as his wife.” They had the wedding ceremony.

Kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son; and he called His name Jesus.” He got the message, believed it, and named her Son, Yeshua, Jehovah saves, because He came to save His people from their sins.

He kept her a virgin, by the way, until she gave birth to a Son, which means that He didn’t keep her a virgin after that, and that’s clear in the New Testament, because Jesus had brothers and sisters born to Joseph and Mary, and they’re named and referred to.

She was not a perpetual virgin, and she was not immaculately conceived without sin. Those are fantasies of the Roman Catholic system. She had many other children, but not until after Jesus was born did Joseph come near her. So that’s the story. That’s the story from Matthew.

Paul looks at that same story in these words: “He, the Lord Jesus Christ, existed in the form of God. Did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave and being made in the likeness of men, being found in appearance as a man.

He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason God highly exalted Him, bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, those in heaven and earth, under the

Earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.” The supernatural birth of Jesus is the only way you can account for His life. An unbeliever once said to a Christian, “If I told you that a child had been born without

A father, would you believe it?” The Christian answered, “Yes, if he lived as Jesus lived.” The King is revealed. His birth proves who He is. In Christ, God came to dwell with us – with the sick, to heal them; with the demonized,

To liberate them; with the poor in spirit, to bless them; with the meek, to lift them up to His kingdom; with the fearful and guilty, to free them from care and dread; with the lepers, to cleanse them; with the diseased, to cure them; with the hungry, to feed them;

But most of all, with the lost, to seek and save them. Through His poverty we are made rich. The King is born. Next week, we’re going to see who and why the wise men were. Father, thank You again this morning for an incredibly wonderful, rich time in fellowship and beautiful music and worship.

Fill our hearts with joy and thanksgiving through this season as we contemplate the wonderful gift of Jesus Christ who came to save His people from their sins. We are His people by grace, through faith, and we rejoice. May that joy be unbounded and demonstrate itself in our faithfulness to You, we pray

In His name. Amen.

#Supernatural #Birth #Jesus

Why is it important to understand penal substitutionary atonement?



MACARTHUR: If you don’t understand the doctrine of penal substitution, you don’t know why Christ died, and you would assume that if you’re Christian you would want to know why Christ died. If you took one verse, 2 Corinthians 5:21, Paul says, “You’re ambassadors,” right? In 18 to 21.

So, you know, we go into the world, we beg people to be reconciled to God. He’s given us the Word of reconciliation, right? That’s the message we preach, “You can be reconciled to God.” We have the ministry of reconciliation. We have the message of reconciliation. But how is that possible?

How is it possible for a sinner to be reconciled to a holy God? That is the most legitimate question that a sinner could ever ask. Ok, you’re telling me God’s holy, that God is righteous. that God is perfect.

How is it possible for me to be reconciled to a holy God without Him not tarnishing His holiness? Or to put it in the language of Paul, “How can God be just and the justifier of sinners?” That is the absolute apex question of all religion.

The primary question that religion attempts to answer is, “How can I go from being God’s enemy to being His friend? How can I make peace with God?” whatever god that religion espouses. So, all religion is designed to somehow come to terms with the deity.

In Christianity, the question is built around holiness and justice and righteousness. So, how can God forgive me and still be holy? And, the only thing that answers that question is penal substitution because penal substitution says God is so holy every sin will be punished.

Every single sin in the life of every Christian believer through all of human history will be punished, was punished. All sin must be punished. Either the sinner will bear that punishment eternally or Christ took that punishment on the cross.

The only thing that protects the pure, righteous holiness of God is that sin is punished. That’s penal substitution. If you remove that part of the cross, then how does God reconcile His holiness with just wishing sin away without a punishment? There has to be a punishment for God to maintain His justice.

That punishment falls on His Son. BINGHAM: I can remember before I became a Christian but had heard the gospel a number of times, sitting down with the woman that’s actually now my wife and asking her, “Explain to me John 3:16. Why did God have to send His Son?

Why did Jesus have to die? Why didn’t God bake brownies to save the world?” Like, “What’s was this whole ‘dying on the cross’ thing?” At that time, she couldn’t answer the question, and it was actually hard. We had to go into church and try and get information.

“Explain to me penal substitution,” because all the gospel presentations I’d heard was missing that phase. MACARTHUR: You see that is “the question.” That is not some kind of optional issue, penal substitution. You’ve got a massive problem if God just says, “Hey, you’re forgiven.”

Now, the character of God is called into question as to His integrity, His holiness, His virtue, His righteousness, His perfection. And so, God is so pure and holy that He will punish every single sin ever committed by every person either in that person or in the substitute for that person.

That is the purest heart of Christianity and soteriology.

#important #understand #penal #substitutionary #atonement

Suffering and Evil: The Probability Version



In part one, we looked at the logical version of the problem of suffering and evil.This argument attempts to show that since suffering and evil exist, it is logically impossible for God to exist, and we explained why even atheist philosophers admit that this argument fails. But wait. It may still be argued

That while it’s logically possible that God and suffering both exist, is far from likely. There’s just so much pointless suffering, it seems improbable that God could have good reasons for permitting it. This is the probability version of the problem. Suffering provides empirical evidence

That God’s existence is not impossible, just highly unlikely. Is this a good argument? Consider three points. First, we are not in a position to say with any confidence that God probably lacks reasons for allowing the suffering in the world. The problem is that we’re limited in space and time, and in

Intelligence and insight. God, on the other hand, sees every detail of history from beginning to end, and orders it through people’s free decisions and actions in order to achieve his purposes. God may have to allow a great deal of suffering along the way. Suffering which appears pointless within our limited scope of

Understanding may be seen to have been justly permitted by God within his wider framework. Sometimes what we experience makes no sense until we gain a wider perspective and see the big picture designed by the Creator. Here’s the second point. Relative to the full scope of the evidence, God’s

Existence may well be probable. You see, probabilities are always relative to background information. For example, if we consider only how much this man weighs, we would say it’s highly improbable that he’s a world-class athlete. But when we’re willing to consider new information, that he’s a professional sumo wrestler and

The world champion, we quickly revise our view. In the same way, when the atheist claims that God’s existence is improbable, we should ask, improbable relative to what background information? If we consider only the suffering in the world, then God’s existence may very well appear to be improbable, but if we’re

Willing to look at the full scope of background information to take into account the powerful arguments for God’s existence, we may come to a very different conclusion. The third point is Christianity entails doctrines that increase the probability of the coexistence of God and suffering.

Consider four of these. First, the chief purpose of life is not happiness. People often assume that if God exists, his role is to create a comfortable environment for his human pets. They think the ultimate goal of our lives on earth is happiness, and therefore, God is obligated to keep us happy.

However, Christianity presents a radically different view, that the purpose of life is to know God. This alone brings true, lasting fulfillment. Suffering can bring about a deeper, more intimate knowledge of God either on the part of the one who’s suffering or those around him. The whole point of human history is

That God, having given us free will, is drawing as many people as he can into his unending Kingdom. Suffering is one of the ways God can draw people freely to himself. In fact, countries that have endured the most hardship often show the

Highest growth rate for Christianity. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world. Second, mankind is in a state of rebellion against God and His purpose. Terrible human evils are testimony to

Man’s depravity, a consequence of his alienation from God. The Christian isn’t surprised at moral evil in the world; on the contrary, he expects it. The third doctrine states that God’s purpose is not restricted to this life, but spills over beyond the grave into eternal life. This world is just the

Beginning, the entry way to an unimaginable, never-ending life beyond death’s door. Paul, who wrote much of the New Testament, underwent afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, hunger; yet he wrote, we do not lose heart, for this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for

An eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, because we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen, for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. Paul understood

That life on earth, and whatever suffering it holds for each of us, is temporary. Our pain will not endure forever, but our lives with God will. Paul was not belittling the plight of those who suffer horribly in this life. Indeed,

He was one of them; but he saw that those sufferings will be overwhelmed forever by the ocean of joy that God will give to those who will freely receive it. And the fourth doctrine is this: the knowledge of God is an incomparable good. Knowing God

Is the ultimate fulfillment of human existence, an infinite good. Thus, the person who knows God, no matter how much he has suffered, can still say God is good to me. So if Christianity is true, it’s not at all improbable that suffering and evil should exist. In summary, for all these

Reasons, the probability version of the problem of evil is no more successful than the logical version. As a purely intellectual problem, then, the problem of evil does not disprove God’s existence. But even if those intellectual arguments fail, the emotional problem of suffering and evil

Remains very powerful. If you have suffered deeply, or if you’ve watched someone you love go to intense pain, you may be thinking, so what is God exists? Why would I want to respond to him or worship him? I feel cold and empty, and

Want nothing to do with him. You’re not alone. God knows your name; he knows who you are and what you’re going through. God promises to be with you through your suffering. He can give you the strength to endure. Jesus Christ also suffered;

Although he was innocent, he was tortured and sentenced to death.His suffering had a purpose: to provide you and me the life-giving connection to God. Not only does God exist, but he loves you. He seeks after you, he offers you hope, and in time, he will make all things new.

He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death, or mourning, crying, or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.

#Suffering #Evil #Probability #Version

Why did Satan quote Psalm 91 to Jesus?



If you read your whole Old Testament, you never see a demon being cast out of anyone. Ever. How in the world when Jesus shows up and he starts doing that? Did people automatically in their heads think: “Well, this is what the Messiah is supposed to do! This is a sign of Messiahship.”

Where does that come from? Psalm 91. Which, you know, in recent days, you’ve heard this quoted a lot: “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty… he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence.

He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge… You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day,    nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness.” In the corona environment, this passage gets quoted a lot.  

And unfortunately, in some cases deeply out of context to suggest that well, you know, Christians can do whatever they want here because God will protect us and we won’t get sick and. Okay, that is not what the passage is about. The passage is much cooler than that. It’s more sinister too.  

Psalm 91 is a psalm that was discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls in a jar with four other Psalms that are not in the Hebrew Bible. There are extra Psalms among the dead sea scrolls, we have 150 in the Hebrew Bible,   

But this one that is in the Hebrew Bible, obviously, was put in this jar with four other ones. All four of those other ones are exorcism Psalm. So well, why would they lump Psalm 91 in there? That doesn’t look like an exorcism to me,

I’m, you read the whole thing and there’s no like casting devils out or anything like that. Well, if you read it in Hebrew, and you were a literate Israelite, you would know that words like pestilence (Deber). Okay,  there’s pestilence there. Deber down here, Qeteb (destruction), “the arrow that flies by day.” Okay, right here.

This whole motif of the arrow flying by day and the tear of the night. Right here; Pahad. These are names and titles and epithets of Canaanite deities, all of them.   To an Israelite, a Canaanite deity was a demonic, a sinister and evil spirit,  you know, a power of darkness. That’s why Psalm 91 was lumped into that

Because this is a prayer of protection and thwarting of powers of darkness   in ancient Jewish thought. What else is interesting is this psalm in the Hebrew Bible,   you notice there’s no superscription. There’s a psalm of whoever. In the Septuagint, it’s a psalm of David. Okay, also in the Septuagint, there are certain different wordings,

The Septuagint would have been based on a Hebrew text. Is a translation of Hebrew, that don’t always align with a traditional Hebrew text. But in the Septuagint, where it’s a psalm of David, there are a couple of psalms that use specific words for the Psalms, and the hymns and the,  

I want to use the word spell, because that’s what it means, or can mean, of David and Solomon. Okay, that in the poetry, the literature, they produced,   some of that stuff uses vocabulary that you will find in exorcistic material   in the Second Temple period. And so this answers an important question.   

And here’s the question. And maybe you’ve wondered this. If you read your whole Old Testament, you never see a demon being cast out of anyone. Ever. There’s actually only two references in English Bibles to demons;   Shedim is usually translated demon, which isn’t the greatest translation,  

But we’ll run with it for the sake of the illustration, Deuteronomy 32. And then there’s a Psalm.   Okay, but you never see a demon or a hostile evil spirit cast out of anyone.   How in the world, when Jesus shows up, and he starts doing that, did people

Automatically in their heads think: “well, this is what the Messiah is supposed to do! This is a sign of Messiahship.” Where does that come from? It comes from what I just described. It comes from certain Psalms   being associated with David, and a few with Solomon. In the Second Temple Period  

There was the belief that David and Solomon had power over evil spirits. And so if the Messiah is a descendant, he is The David, The Son of David, he should be able to do that too.   So this is something that we wouldn’t get because we’re not living in the culture.  

And we’re not familiar with how Psalm 91 in particular was viewed.   But when Jesus shows up and starts doing this, the bells and whistles are going off in people’s heads. This is an important thing he does to convince them that he’s the Messiah. And Isn’t it odd that Satan would choose Psalm 91  

To quote to Jesus, in a temptation, and he quotes the part, down here, “he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.” So what’s really going on here is Satan is fishing for information.

He’s got Jesus in front of him, he knows who he is, he knows why he’s there.  His silly Kingdom of God stuff, okay. But he doesn’t know what the plan is. So he’s there to tempt Jesus. Try to shortcut the thing. And you know, the last one is the worst because it’s idolatry.

It’s just kind of a terrible attempt. But this one’s interesting because let’s say that Jesus looks at Satan and says, “Yeah, that’s a good quotation. Yep. Yep,  you know, that’s a, that’s an exorcistic psalm. And I’m the son of David,    and I’m supposed to be able to cast out demons.

And if that’s true, then the rest of the stuff in the song must be true too. So go ahead, it’ll take me up to the top here, I’m going to throw myself off.”   What happens? Okay, let’s say the angels catch him. What is Satan learned? He can’t kill him,  

So we’ll take killing the Messiah off the strategy plan.   But Jesus knows, that’s exactly what needs to happen. “So I’m not going to demonstrate   anything for you. You’re not going to learn anything in this conversation.”   He just tells him that you hit the road, “you shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”

And that could be a reference to himself. But it could also be another way of saying;   “You shall not try to convince me to let God show you the hand that he’s going to play.”   He has to die. He must die. Again, it’s an interesting tit for tat conversation

between these two. And again, my take on it is that Satan actually was fishing for information. It’s not a worthless conversation. And the fact that he quotes Psalm 91 I find really interesting because of its nature. You know, the servant (Israel) out in the wilderness. I mean, let’s think of Jesus

Now as the representative of the corporate nation.   Did Israel in the Old Testament pass the test of being God’s servant? Well, yes, and no.   You know, they get to the promised land? Sure, after they fail, and then they wander   around for 40 years. So there’s that checkered past. They don’t really complete the conquest.  

They ask for a king to replace God as the one who fights for them.   And then three kings later they go off and start worshipping other gods and end up in exile. So probably no, they really don’t pass the test of being God’s representative son and his servant, but Jesus does.  

He passes the test. And now it’s Game on. His ministry begins.

#Satan #quote #Psalm #Jesus

What is a Religion? Rethinking Religion and Secularism



– This is what I hope will be potentially a future book, which I’m tentatively calling “The Myth of Secularism”, but I’m basically going to share some of my reflections on what is really a work in progress. And looking at a few questions. What is religion?

We usually think of it as a relatively limited concept. Everyone knows what a religion is when they see one. What is din? That’s usually translated. It’s an Arabic word, usually translated as religion. And I want to look at whether that translation, which has been called into question

By a lot of scholars might have something to it. And finally, what is secularism, and that is an area of considerable sort of contention in the contemporary era, but it’s also in a sense, an ideology that underpins the way in which we organize the world, particularly in the Western world today.

So let me begin actually, by looking at some competing conceptions of the notion of religion. There are in a sense, I mean, there are a number of conceptions of what constitutes religion in academic scholarship today. But I wanted to actually think about, perhaps start by looking at the Oxford dictionary definition of religion.

So this is the Oxford dictionary of English. It’s not the OED that 20 volumes of mammoth piece of scholarship, but it’s basically a work of contemporary English usage you could say. So how is this word used in English today? And they sort of define religion as the belief in

And worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods. This sounds familiar to most people, but if we think about a religion like Buddhism, which we usually refer to as a religion, about 70% of the global population, half a billion people, there’s no concept of God.

Some scholars have described it as an atheistic religion. So already, even with our common sense, understanding of these things, things are starting to break down. And so, in a sense, you have these two conceptions of religion within the academy one is close to the conventional understanding,

Which we’ll have a look at in a moment, but you also have a notion that religion is actually a modern category. It was invented in the modern period after the 17th century, the wards of religion kind of work constitutive of our understanding of religion today.

And some scholars also talk about the fact that secularism as an idea develops with the concept of religion. Scholars talk about the fact that as they would put it, there is no for religion in pre-modern times, what we refer to as religion doesn’t have a pre-modern equivalent. So that’s actually a widespread view

And we’ll have a look at it. I shouldn’t proceed any further without plugging the work of a colleague at Stanford University, Rushain Abbasi, he’s recently written a mammoth article, a 100 page article called Islam and the invention of religion where he’s basically criticizing what he describes

As the kind of modern orthodoxy in the study of religion, which argues that religion is a modern invention. Rather he says, that concept can be found early on in the Islamic tradition. And that’s something I’ll be looking at in a moment. But as I say, the current academic orthodoxy,

And it might be a little overstating of the case. I think that there are a significant number of scholars and I quote one of them in the transcript, but I’ll be sort of quoting him in passing. They hold this kind of traditional concept of religion that I mentioned earlier but this is

The view of Brent Nongbri, a scholar whose recent book is a 2013 book published by Yale University press called “Before Religion:The History of a Modern Concept”. He actually early on in his book defines religion in this way. “Religion is anything that sufficiently resembles modern Protestant Christianity.” Okay, now stay with him on this.

Let’s stick around. So religion is anything that sufficiently resembles modern Protestant Christianity. Such a definition might seem as crass, simplistic, ethnocentric, Christiancentric, and even a bit flippant. It is all of these things, but it is also highly accurate in reflecting the uses of the term in modern languages.

So this is, as I say, this is a very widespread view that basically what happened was modern Protestant Christianity post reformation kind of develops a conception of itself as a religion. That religion is privatized. That religion is in a sense to stay in the private realm, stay out of public life.

At least that’s the dispensation we live with today for the most part in a place like the UK. And then Europe exported that concept around the world and said, “This is what religion is. Get your religions in line with this.” So this is kind of the argument that scholars like

Brent Nongbri are making, that religion has to be privatized. And this is actually something we hear very often in society. We say, “Well, if it’s a religious matter, it’s a private matter. It should be privatized.” And what he’s saying is that conception of religion is actually a distinctly Protestant conception of religion

Developed after the 17th century in the wake of the wars of religion. And that is actually the way religion is used in other modern languages as well. And that’s a point which I will contest in just a moment, at least with respect to Arabic and other what scholars call Islamic cult languages.

Scholars sometimes make a distinction between Islamic and Islamic cult. And Islamic cult is basically a reference to what you could say, the secular components of a Muslim society, which are in some way imbued with the values of Islam, but are not really part and parcel of the religion.

I’m already using the category of religion that we’ll get back to why I think that is justified. Now, I want to ask us to think beyond Europe and I take my cue from sort of a Bengali historian, my own roots of Bengali as well, from the University of Chicago, a very prolific author,

This is an influential book he wrote in the year 2000 called “Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference”. So Dipesh Chakrabarty is a scholar of post-colonial studies. And he basically is arguing in this book that when we do history in an academic setting, we are so deeply embedded within a Eurocentric paradigm

That it’s extremely difficult to escape from it, even though that’s something that we should try and do. So the very concepts that we’re using, et cetera, are deeply embedded within the conceptual universe of Europe. And in a sense, it’s descendants in a place like the United States.

And so in the spirit of Provincializing Europe, I’m trying to ask ourselves, well, what if we discard this conception of religion and start to think about religion in terms taken from another tradition, the Sonic tradition, for example. Not to say that there’s a single unitary conception of religion in any given tradition.

Sorry on the basis of this I’m trying to look at, okay, is there an Islamic conception of religion? And why should that not be as legitimate of basis for our theoretical ruminations on the category of religion, on society, on the way in which society is organized.

Why should that not be as legitimate a source for those sorts of reflections as sort of what some scholars described as the Eurocentric conception of religion, right? And I think, increasingly it’s possible to ask those sorts of questions. I think maybe a generation or two ago

That suggestion would have been sort of dismissed as being, that’s not scholarship. Scholarship means you have to respect the canon, right? And that canon is now being brought into question. I think that’s a healthy development in our studies. So in Islam you have a concept of din.

So the term din is the Arabic word found in the Quran, found in the hadith literature. And I’ve got a hadith up there, section of its terpene on. And that term is usually translated as religion in modern period. Okay. It’s not always been translated as religion,

But in a sense, a language shifts over time. There’s something to be said about that. But what I’ve got on the screen is actually a hadith, a statement that is attributed to the prophet, which Muslims generally will consider to be authentic in this particular case, authentically attributed.

I’ve just made a note of where it’s found in sort of authoritative missing collections. And it’s a hadith where it’s a statement of the prophet or it’s actually a narrative of something that happened to the prophet and his companions where someone came to the prophet completely unfamiliar. It’s known as the Gabriel hadith

And so kind of title gives away who’s coming. So Gabriel appears in the form of a human and asks the prophet, “What is Islam? What is iman?” Which means faith. “What is the lesson?” Which is sometimes translated as spiritual excellence, and then asks a series of other questions.

And at the end of that hadith, the prophet asks one of his companions, “Do you know who asked that question was?” He had gone at that point. And then the companion response, “God and his messenger know best.” It’s very pious response. And the prophet responds, “(speaks foreign language) That was Gabriel.

He came to teach you your din.” And so early on in the tradition you have this term, which kind of identifies the entire project, din. But what’s interesting is and perhaps in contradistinction with some other traditions and some scholars point out people like Wilfred Cantwell Smith made this observation over 50 years ago.

That Islam is almost unique in history as naming itself. The scripture in a sense names itself. It reifies itself to use a bit of an academic term. And so the Quran itself actually has this sort of 109:6 where it says, “(speaks foreign language).” It not only attributes din to itself

Or the Muslim communities practices, but also attributes it to the other. It says that you have your religion, we have ours. Okay. Or I have mine. And this was addressed according to the unbelievers who are persecuting the prophet, okay. Saying, let us be, you have your religion, we have ours.

So the clan in a sense, uses this word. And this is just one instance but throughout the grant, this term is to be found in my estimation, rather transparently refer to beliefs, norms, practices that a given community adheres to, whether it be approved or disapproved by God.

And sometimes it refers to the din or the religion of Muslims as din will have the true religion. So it will sort of make those sorts of claims. But it’s interesting that that concept is in my estimation, very transparently present in earliest time scripture. And this should disrupt in my view,

What Rushain Abbasi calls the orthodoxy that has formed about the notion that religion is actually a modern category. Now, I’m going to change gears now and think about secularism for a moment. Okay. What is secularism? Another of these concepts, as I say, we all think we know what it is,

But when we start to sort of explore what it means, it’s difficult to pin down. And so, philosophy is sometimes called ideas like this, essentially concepts. Concepts where people are arguing about the very essence of it, the concept itself, democracy. And you could say Britishness, like what is Britishness?

And so secularism is often viewed as the separation of church and state. That’s one very popular definition. Something I’ll come back to towards the end of the lecture. And Charles Taylor, and this really it’s an award-winning book, “A Secular Age”. It’s a huge book, I think it’s 900 pages,

Took a long time to finish reading that. But Charles Taylor has suggested that secularism should better be understood as managing pluralism, a kind of neutrality between different competing religious claims, for example, on the part of the state. So the state should be a neutral umpire between different sort of perspectives.

But as I say, secularism is a contentious topic. How do we define secularism? Talal Asad, the chap whose book is on the left, an influential anthropologist of the secular. So he’s an anthropologist, who instead of looking at sort of traditional societies he said, “Well, what does an anthropology of secular societies look like?”

And he says, “Secularity is a distinct product of European history.” And he’s one of these people who described religion and secularism as Siamese twins for example. Charles Taylor, I’ve already mentioned talks about sort of neutrality. And he also highlights that secularism is about sort of the prevention of the persecution of minorities.

For example, the recognition of pluralism is acceptable, managing pluralism. And then you have, I think this is a relatively conventional view, but one which has been brought into question increasingly as he’s a scholar, I think he’s in Budapest at the moment, but he describes secularism as kind of a natural product of history.

So history kind of tended toward secularism and he’s a very sophisticated scholar, but it strikes me as teleological. It’s kind of history arrived at its conclusion with Europe, for some reason, according to that view. And I would sort of question that kind of a reading, but what about secularism beyond Europe as well?

So, I’m sort of going perhaps a bit backwards, sort of in a sense I’ve already mentioned Dipesh Chakrabarty’s “Provincializing Europe”. And so what I’m suggesting here is that account of secularism as sort of emerging and kind of reflecting natural historical development whereby all societies as they mature, as they advance,

As they progress, they will secularize. This is a very widespread assumption within the sociology of religion as well. And so, in a sense, in accord with that sort of an understanding, I want to sort of go back slightly and mention Bruce Lincoln, as another person who upholds a conception of religion,

Which is relatively conventional in that way. And he describes religion as a consisting of four components. The most important of which I want to highlight is a transcendent discourse, but it also is. And I want to highlight Bruce Lincoln’s definition for two reasons. One is, let’s think about religion,

But let’s think about how this might even apply to the concept of secularism as well. So Bruce Lincoln, a scholar at the University of Chicago as well wrote in this book made an attempt to define religion. And he’s a very sophisticated scholar, one of the finest positive religion of his generation,

But someone who in my view, adheres to the conventional view, that in a sense you can attempt to come up with a universal category of religion that excludes secularism as well. So he defines religion fairly extensively. I have summarized it here as a transcendent discourse, a practice, a community and an institution, right?

So, if we think about Christianity, transcend the discourse, the discourse of the Bible, a practice, there’ll be various rituals attached to it, the community, the Christian communion as were and an institution, the church. But in my estimation, depending on how you define transcendent, that can define any community.

So if we think about the British. Britishness as a discourse, it is also a practice that is regulated through laws, laid out through statute or in the form of the British constitution, whatever that is, a community. I happened to have my passport with me today ’cause I’m flying out tomorrow,

But we actually have sort of like these documents with which we can identify ourselves, and an institution. The institution you could say is the British state. But I think Britain is an institution in a sense. So I mean, one of the things that I should perhaps highlight here is these are all ideas

That there’s nothing natural in the world, which identifies someone as being from some country. These are ideas that we generate and we develop into institutions. The idea of progression college is basically a collectivity of people who have continued certain practices over time, right? And in that way, what I’m suggesting here is that

What is so different about secularism as a practice compared to a religion? The term transcendent is what Bruce Lincoln leans on heavily in my estimation, in order to justify the distinction between religion and secularism. So transcendence, he uses in my estimation, and he doesn’t use the term, God

Probably bearing in mind a traditional Buddhism, right? Or other potentially non-theistic practices, I suspect certain forms of other religions other than Buddhism and I’m not an expert on Hinduism would be considered to be transcendent discourses. Buddhism in a sense believes in spiritual practices that elevate people to around that cannot be accessed

By the normal human beings and so on. So in a sense, transcendence is doing a lot of work here, but to my mind, the values that underlie, any of these religious systems are transcended on some level. And I’m happy to sort of take questions later,

Querying my conception of this, but what is liberty? What is sort of liberalism as an idea? What is individualism as an idea? These are transcendent ideas in a sense, they are concepts and conceptions that we elevate to levels of unimpeachability in order to underpin our legal frameworks,

In order to recognize what is an acceptable social practice in our communities, what is equality? And what I want to suggest is that any normative system has to depend on these norms, which are transcendent ideas on some level, I haven’t gotten the book in the slides, but I’m reminded of William T. Cavanaugh,

Has a wonderful book called “The Myth of Religious Violence” where he basically argues that transcendence is something which is a kind of convenient way. It’s a slight of hand to allow for the creation of religion as a category. So he says that someone who works on Wall Street

And has a commitment to capitalism in a sense engages in a kind of deifying of the market and may spend hours and hours in rituals of devotion to the market, I suppose to give a sort of a locally relevant example, be the City of London, right?

And so I personally think that there’s something to that. And I think that the attempt to distinguish between theistic traditions or even something like Buddhism and an idea like secularism hinges on this conception of transcendence, which I think is highly problematic, I should sort of conclude this slide.

I didn’t mean to take quite so much time on it, but I’m going to plug my colleague, Rushain Abbasi’s work again as being an extraordinary history, his PhD, a 600 page PhD is a remarkable history of the concept of the secular not secularism, but the secular meaning.

He talks about the distinction between a religious realm and a secular realm as being present within the Islamic tradition from early on and theorized by scholars through history. It’s unfortunately unpublished. So if you want to read it, you’ll have to fly to Cambridge, Massachusetts and check-in at the library of Harvard University,

But hopefully it’s a different publication in 2023 with Princeton University Press. So if you’re interested that will be a book to look for. Okay. So I’ve already sort of suggested this, inverting the gaze: secularism as religion. And I’m taking inverting the gaze as a kind of a decolonial phrase, so to speak.

In my estimation, the Islamic view of religion resembles Emile Durkheim sort of famous definition of religion early on in his enormous book, “Les Formes Elementaires de la vie religieuse.” “The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life”. So this is 1912 work. He passed away five years later. It’s kind of his… I’m sorry.

I hope that’s not me. So, this is his great work towards the end of his life. And he defines religion interestingly enough, without reference to God. He says a religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things that is to say things set apart and forbidden.

So that’s his definition of sacred. And in all societies, we set things apart and forbid people from transgressing them in a sense. And practices which unite into one single moral community called the church, all those who adhere to them. So he’s used the term church, I think, that’s a little sort of,

I would query the use of that term, but I think to a certain extent, these sorts of conceptions of various modern ideologies religions is not terribly new. Another example. So this is from 1912, obviously, Emile Durkheim. And in a sense argues towards the end of his book that all societies need religions.

If we were to get rid of religion, we’d have to invent a new one. A decade later, Carlton Hayes, a scholar, a historian at Columbia University. And he writes an essay in a collected volume of essays, nationalism as a religion. It’s out of copyright so you can Google it and read it online.

And a really fascinating, I mean, he expands it later on, I think he published the book form in 1961, so 30-35 years later, but the book is called nationalism or religion, and this is nationalism as a religion. But those sorts of reflections on the way in which various modern ideologies in a sense

Take the place of religions is something which is quite widespread. And so I asked this question, could various modern ideologies be viewed as religions and his, one potential way of looking at this, depending on how one defines religion. And I’ve suggested a few definitions, we could view secularism as a broad church religion

While various secular ideologies, such as liberalism, nationalism may be seen as denominations or sects, right? I suppose denominations is a less loaded term, but perhaps Nazism and fascism should be considered sects. And so, in a sense, these are all post-enlightenment ideologies that predicate themselves on a world focused, what Charles Taylor calls,

“They look through an imminent frame.” They look at the world beyond not as transcendent, as connected somehow to a transcendent world, but only as eminent, only as interacting with the here and now, and well the times as well. And so, this is I think a remarkable transition in the history of humanity,

In a sense this kind of a shift beyond transcendence. But I also think that this is simply another manifestation of human religion. So these religions are ones which the secular wealthy realm, sorry, one’s in which the secular wealthy realm has been converted into an encompassing system that has replaced religious traditions.

And what do I mean by that? I’m just thinking about an idea like liberalism as something that imbues all of our institutions, or at least it should in a sense. So, we see ourselves as a liberal society, the values of liberalism and individuality, equality, all of these sorts of notions,

In a sense what Charles Taylor, the Canadian historian of secularism calls the French revolutionary trinity. Liberty, equality and fraternity. And those values in many respects are things that imbue our institutions. They imbue our laws. They are the basis on which we can actually adjudicate disputes among one another. And in my estimation, we engage in philosophical inquiry, which can be described as theological

With respect to those sorts of traditions. So if what I’m suggesting is a legitimate reading, then we live in a deeply religious age, right? And it sort of subverts our self image as a secular society. So in a sense, I mean, this book is slightly unrelated to the slide,

But I’m highlighting the limitations of the prevailing understanding of secularism in light of Islam, that a number of modern scholars know that Islam even as a practice today, even as a tradition today, not only the pre-modern world, but the Western trend of secularization in a form of marginalizing religion from the political sphere.

Now, most of the time people have rather sort of like unpleasant conceptions of this, partly because of the way in which it has been mediatized. But even beyond the more shocking manifestations that people are used to and form, part of a narrative, which is very problematic and skews our understanding

Of what’s actually happening in the world in my estimation. There are interesting things to be said about the fact that religiosity in the Muslim world often manifests also in the political sphere. And there isn’t really a very widespread conception in parts of the world, which have not been deeply touched by secular paradigms

That that is a bad thing, right? And so, that’s something that we can explore in perhaps the Q&A but it’s just something to recognize that the sort of the common understanding that secularism is the natural way for humanity. And it will gradually sort of secularize the whole world

Still held by a sort of respected sociologist of religion today. I think really needs to be brought into question and not in a historical fashion, but in a fashion that’s reflective and thinks about the sort of plurality of perspectives that exist in the world. These perspectives remain discussable marginal.

So in the broader discourse on whether it’s as an academic level, whether it’s I think greater latitude in this sort of discourse, or certainly in the popular level, they are discussing only marginal due to sort of the dominance of certain in my estimation narrow views of how society should be organized,

What we can think in a sense. So let me give one other example of what we can think of as a nation, as a religion. So I’m taking this again from Carlton Hayes, this is his 1961 book or note, it says 1960 on there.

So his 1960 book, and I’m just riffing off of it. This isn’t necessarily what he’s saying, but I’m just saying, what do we think about modern nation states as kind of these religious entities of sorts? They have sacred histories, all nation states have founding myths.

Why are we sort of Britain rather than England or Scotland? I guess Scotland might happen. But what makes France France? And younger nations have to kind of invent mythologies about themselves. They create museums. They sort of write histories that are to a certain extent, an act of creation,

Not an active sort of discussive discovery. You could say it’s a form of discovery question. It can also be a form of discovery. And so we have founding myths, we have sacred scriptures in my estimation, and I had a sort of Marshall Hall Patel’s book earlier “People of the Book”.

Constitutions, I mean, it’s a bit difficult to say this in the UK, of course. But in some respects statutory law can be seen as having elements of this. These are texts which cannot be ignored. They are true by definition, right? That’s how scripture works, right? The constitution of the United States is a good example because to a certain extent, it’s starting to be a bit archaic,

A couple of 100 years old at this point, or more than that. And it’s creating all sorts of complications with respect to, for example, the second amendment and the right to bear arms and things like that, written in a very different time. Yet, it’s not something that can just be discarded.

It’s a sacred text in practice, and you have a clerical class that adjudicates this sacred texts and various rankings of clerics, the Supreme court justices of the greatest theologians, the sort of the doctors of the church. But you do have a massive theological discourse and describing it somewhat facetiously as theological discourse,

But that’s what legal scholars are there for to mull over these complicated questions as they relate to practice, the philosophers are there to explore the philosophical underpinnings. And sometimes those two realms will overlap as well. You have, as I said, sort of a clerical class, you have unequal ingroups and outgroups

So religions will have members of that confession and people who are outside of that confession, but we have citizens and foreigners, for example. In fact, we’re so committed to our in-groups and out-groups that we create documents to prove that we’re number of one and not a member of another,

And people vie over these things, of course, right? I mean, it’s a tragedy that we’re living through in the course of the refugee crisis. And the state, is in a sense this inviolable sort of entity, the state in a sense becomes quite sacred. And we can talk about that,

But in a sense, the way in which sometimes security is used to run roughshod of a liberty is an illustration of some of these crazy theological debates. And yeah, so I hope that this sort of reading of kind of alternative history of the secular, so to speak,

Based on an Islamic sort of set of presuppositions is an interesting, sort of interesting one that people may consider taking up. That’s my friend, Rushain Abbasi, the scholar at Stanford, and here is a book by Noah Feldman, who’s at Harvard. But in a sense, what we have with secularism

Is the kind of in my estimation, the marginalization of traditional religions and replacement with potentially an alternative religion. Rushain Abbasi argues in his thesis at one point, that Islam’s worldliness. Actually, no, this isn’t a separate article, but Islam’s worldliness may have prevented the formation of secularism within Islamic civilization

And the form that we have within Western civilization. In a sense, this is his argument, that there was a kind of harmony, a natural harmony between the secular and the religious within Islam that allowed for that interplay not to create great tension in the way that he suggests was the case in Europe.

And Noah Feldman also sort of points out in the political realm, which is, in a sense of the reason secularism is the separation of the religion, religious and the political. In the political realm historically sort of… Sorry. Historically the political realm was subordinate to a rule of law system.

Yes, it was based on the sheria, but it was a rule of law system that was seen as just, and operated in ways that conform to society’s values rather than what is very often assumed that, pre-modern religious policies were in some way on the basis of religion despotic,

The divine right of kings doesn’t really exist in the Islamic tradition in my reading. Part of the reason I wrote my latest book about the Arab revolutions of 2011, is that there’s an attempt to revive or in a sense manufacture kind of divine right of kings

Or in the case of the Middle East divine right of dictators. So, that is a problem, but yeah, this is kind of my last slide. And then I’m just going to read a brief, sort of the conclusion to the written version of the paper, which I say is a work in progress.

And so, there’s a lot of stuff here, which I don’t talk about in that paper, but under stuff in that paper, which I didn’t talk about here. But, in a sense the implication of what I’ve said for the last 40 minutes is that it creates a kind of contradiction in secularism self-image, right?

How can secularism be a neutral umpire between religions, if it is self is a religion? I think this question indicates the need for reassessing our conceptions of various concepts. And I hope that, in a sense that I’ve contributed to something useful in that regard, I’m just going to read out

And I hope this is not too much, I don’t drone too much, but I just wanted to read out a brief section, the conclusion of my article. Of course, secularism rejects the notion that it is analogous to the religions of old. It sees itself as a uniquely rational enterprise

That has transcended the superstition of pre-modern religions. Those religions now belonged in the private sphere of the modern secular order. This was essential to maintaining the peace and preventing the world from being written by superstitions wars of other world is south Asian, at least in secularism self-conception.

But in fact, secularism was simply even in genuinely reenacting the established pattern of a new universal religious project. It had simply come to recognize its own salvific qualities and thus it was only reasonable, but it supersede the primitive paradigm of religion in the public sphere. Secularism was the new dispensation

Brought for the salvation of humanity. And it was for humanity’s own good that it’d be accepted in one ideological form or another. Yet unlike a religion like Islam, his scriptures offered the ostensibly unbeatable claim that God had sent Islam as the final revelation through the final prophet to end all profits.

That’s the Muslim belief that the prophet Mohammed was the final prophet. Unlike that secularism could make the claim that it had in fact, superseded the category of religion itself. This was in many ways a master stroke of self legitimation for it cleared away all the traditional competitors for authority in the public sphere.

By masking itself as transcending religion, secularism has arguably found the means of legitimizing itself that is proven remarkably effective. It is called for religion to be largely removed from public life except in a symbolic or vestigial form. In doing so, it has rendered the public sphere, a realm over which it exercises

A monopoly of legitimate violence. Yet, I have tried to suggest, as I’ve tried to suggest over the course of this presentation, there is a deep contradiction at the heart of secularism, as it stands today, namely that it upholds the principle of separation of religion and state or in more recent articulations upholds

The states neutrality or equidistance between all religions. But if secularism is indeed itself a religion, then the claims that the secular state is separate from religion breaks down. And I asked the question, how can the secular state be neutral between religions if it is governed by the rules of one particular religion,

Namely secularism? I don’t have the answer to these questions, versions of which have been posed by certain Christian scholars for some time now. But I do think posting such questions from an Islamic perspective is important in helping us recognize the need for our society to acknowledge that the conversations in these areas

Needs to be broadened to include a wider range of viewpoints that better reflect the people who make up our increasingly diverse societies, the conversations these kinds of reflections might open up can be enriching and mind broadening in many ways. And I hope we’ll foster greater mutual respect

And understanding if what I say contributes to such an outcome, I will consider the job of this brief presentation to be done. Thank you. – If secularism is a religion, what should it mean for the separation of religion and the stats in your view? – Oh my, I hope my conclusion made clear I have no idea. I mean, I think we need to have conversations about this because it does make things a lot more complicated in a sense. And I think that that claim that I have presented, and I’ve not presented it as the truth, but I’m presenting it as a claim that secularism is a religion,

Opens up opportunities for conversations and discussions rather than giving us any answers, to be honest. And I think that that’s the opportunity that we should embrace at this point in time. And, I think it will make for a very interesting sort of, and mutually respectful conversation.

– [Man] Thank you for a fascinating lecture. – Thank you. – [Man] I have a number of questions, but I’ll keep it to one. – Thank you. – [Man] Where in secularism or religion does morality come and I think it’s been subtext there actually. – Right, right.

– But is there a universal morality that can be a bit- – That’s an excellent question. I mean, yes, it’s absolutely. It’s been sort of implied throughout and I’ve used the term, norms throughout. And in a sense, the sort of the enterprise of ethics and moral philosophy and philosophy more generally

Over the last century or two has been trying to address what happens to morality when we lose sort of the traditional sources of that morality. So Christianity or Judaism or any given religious tradition, what I’m suggesting is that actually, and it’s not a suggestion. It’s very well recognized.

Political philosophy is a species of ethics. It’s a species of moral philosophy when people like John Rawls, great sort of liberal philosopher from Harvard wrote a theory of justice. He was basically trying to ask, what is ethical for society? How should societies be organized in a way that’s ethical?

So I think secularism has its own traditions of morality. And liberalism is one such tradition of morality. Religious traditions have that sort of discourses on morality as well. So I think that in my estimation and I figured out a definition for religion from an Islam conception,

But what I take to be the broadly speaking, the understanding of religion is a community that religion is basically a set of norms that govern the community, norms mean that there’s morals involved, right? How should we behave towards one another? What sorts of laws? Laws are intimately tied with our ethics as well,

But what kinds of laws should govern our transactions and interactions with each other? And so, I think religions where that source historically and secularism in its various dispensations, liberalism and forms that we might not like so much, communism and so on. We’ll have the morality’s as well.

And I think we need to recognize, of course, that there’s a diverse array of moralities out there. The question of universalism is a difficult one. I mean, one classical and perhaps dominant Islamic perspective was that virtually relativist one, which was to say that you cannot really know

What is right or wrong without the guidance of God. I think that’s somewhat problematic personally, because then how do you know how to accept what God gives you? Is that right or wrong, right? But there’s interminable debates, anyway. So I hope that answers the question somewhat.

– [Man] Would you say that the periods of political Islam revival, the 1970s to 2010s actually represent a wide rejection of secularism within the Islamic world or due times or perceived Islamic revival merely represent Islamic influence coming from the background to the forefront of society. – It’s a very thoughtful question actually.

So the sort of what’s referred to as political Islam, a term which I think reflects and scholars are increasingly noting this, that even that label reflects a kind of Eurocentric paradigm because you have to give a special label to a religion that has a political component phrase.

But, I think that it reflects not necessarily, I mean, what is secularism? A lot of the groups that are labeled as political Islamists are pro-democracy, they want to uphold a certain regime of human rights, which in many cases we would recognize, in some cases, there would be tensions

With dominant liberal traditions, for example, perhaps on questions of gay rights or things of that nature. I think it’s too simple to say it’s a rejection of secularism. Secularism is an entire tradition. There are lots of things that, secularism in my view as a religious tradition

Has to offer and not all of those things are problematic. In fact, many of those things are quite positive in my estimation. And so those elements don’t need to be rejected by political Islam. And I don’t think are rejected by political Islam. The Muslim Brotherhood, an organization that I’ve spent some time studying,

Which is probably the largest and most influential organization under the label of political Islam is an organization that is very pro-democracy that is extremely popular and anti dictatorship in the middle east. And that’s why they are hated by the secular autocrats and the secular autocrats sell themselves as secular to the west.

They’re not actually any more secular or less religious than the Muslim Brotherhood. That’s just a good marketing tool to get sort of the west on your side. So, I think in the region that there are interests, but there’s not much to do with the secular religion divided in my estimation.

– One thing that really came to mind when thinking about your ultimate conclusion, secularism as a religion, is why is the word secularism used? And it immediately made me think of France, the concept of laicite. And to my mind and I’d like your observations on this, it’s a device, the word secularism,

It’s a device basically used to make a particular belief system seem more important, neutral, and acceptable in a society. And that in a sense what happened to France because you have a particular belief system. – Right. – [Man] It’s not called a religion, it’s put forward under the concept of laicite

And it privileges certain historic practices. And what I’m really interested in is what do you think about the use of the word secularism, and why is it used? – That’s again, very thoughtful question. Thank you very much. And France is a very unusual sort of case of,

I mean, compared to sort of the liberal polities that we might be used to in the Anglophone world, I lived in the United States for more than five years. And religion is quite widespread in society there and it’s invoked in Congress and all of those sorts of things.

And France is a very kind of laicite is a very aggressive kind of anti religion in a sense. And some such a sociologist of religion actually call it a religion. I mean, not in the sense that I’m talking about, for some reason, this is something I feel a bit irritated by the way,

Some sociologist of religion will label as religious secular ideologies, which tend to be extreme. So they’ll see Nazis and fascism and perhaps laicite can be considered political religions or something. And I’m like, “Well, everything’s a religion.” Anyway, so I think at the end of the day, we use labels…

These developed very often organically in the course of debates. The word secularism emerges from a sort of important English thinker, George Hollyoke who wanted to coin a phrase that would not suggest atheism and immorality. I believe he’s the one who sort of coined the phrase

Sort of secularism, but then it kind of takes a life of its own. And as a philosophical system, it sort of develops into a very important and central idea. I think those things happen through historical accident and then we become wedded to a particular version of that.

So I’m not sure that there’s a particular sort of effort to engineer something by using a particular word. I think whatever word has ended up representing what we think is appropriate, an appropriate ideology or appropriate philosophy and appropriate religion, we will then argue the best thing since its spread

And therefore we must uphold it. And if you’re not upholding it, we need to somehow marginalize and show society that this is not acceptable. All societies do that with their core concepts. And so, I’m not sure it’s particularly unusual to secular societies. I hope that answers the question somewhat.

– [Woman] I can remember when I did my first thesis long, long time ago, but there’s a theologian, who wanted to encompass a whole variety of different theistic and nontheistic, including dialectical materials. and he had angles his material, his stints in the sense of the material world

Is all that counts and the highest (indistinct) but he wanted to call it a religion that would ought to include that in this broad conception of what religion might be. – So I mean, as you can see, I’m quite sort of liberal with the liberal religion, no pun intended.

But what’s interesting about dialectical materialism is that even someone like Bruce Lincoln who holds this sort of notion of religion as transcendent in a footnote in that book argues that, well, it might be reasonable to say dialectical materialism, given that certainties in this sort of like in the ideas that they’ve generated

Can be considered a religion. But again, for me, this is one of the things that irritates me slightly, which is that, well, why make a special case of bad things is religion, right? I think there’s a kind of prejudice in my estimation in the way in which certain things are called religion,

Because there’s something wrong with them. They come into the political realm, that’s a Protestant prejudice. So to speak that is post 17th century for what it’s worth. – [Man] I disagree with most of it. – Great. – I don’t really think that secularism can be defined as a religion because it doesn’t have

The normal characteristics or religion. It doesn’t have a catechism or membership category or rituals. It’s not a religion, it’s a principle. No, I don’t have a religion but I’m a secularist. But if I had a religion, I’d also be a secularism because I do believe as a principal in the separation

Or the neutrality of the state and institutions. So I don’t think that religion should have a special role in the functioning of the state. That’s all that secularism is. So the examples you give really secularism grew out of conflicts within religion not between religions, whereas the Islamic societies you describe,

Have always been almost wholly Muslim. Not always, not always, not always, but mostly have. And secularism, even before (indistinct) had a history, there were many empires, which were broadly speaking secular. They left people to their own devices. They did not interfere or force conversions, et cetera, et cetera.

So I’m not saying that it’s secular, but there were in some ways secular and so secularism has a long history which you seem to be suggesting somehow it’s a completely modern idea. It’s not. – It’s a lot of stuff that you’ve mentioned. I’m just trying to keep up with which points.

I wonder if you’d like to sort of like summarize the question in one or two components. – Well, your definition of secularism as a religion is not substantiated because it does not have the characteristics of religion. It doesn’t have places of worship, does not have catechism rituals.

– So how do we define anything? On what basis do we define something as religion, something as secularism? Basically the conclusions will arrive that will depend on those decisions that are made early on in that sort of thought process. So early on, I kind of set out my store

On how I conceived of religion. And religions are basically, broadly speaking about norms that allow for the cohesive existence of a society. If I define religion on that basis, then certainly I can call it secularism my religion, your defining religion on the basis of, certain other presuppositions.

So we can then go and question, the presuppositions themselves, is it reasonable to say that, if something has a catechism, it is a religion. If something has such and such a component, it is a religion. And I think there are scholars who have argued in that way, as I’ve mentioned with Bruce Lincoln,

But I would suggest that it’s perfectly reasonable to develop this kind of a conception of religion. And I think the resistance to that is something that we’re better bringing into question because it shows us a kind of attachment to ideas which are somewhat arbitrary and historically

Sort of like have come about at a certain point in time for reasons that maybe need to be brought into question. So, yeah, I mean, that would be my sort of broad response to that. We could take specific questions because you raised a lot of…

There were a number of aspects to what you mentioned, and I can’t recall all of them and I didn’t have the presence of mind to make notes at the time. And I’m happy to discuss this with you afterwards, but really it hinges on how you define the category of religion,

The way in which you’ve defined religion. Obviously secularism doesn’t count as a religion because you’ve defined it in a way that precludes the possibility of including secularism Islam as religion. But I’ve brought into question in the course of my talk, and this is, you’re not the only person who does it,

Plenty of scholars have done that. I brought into question, that approach to the definition of religion. And I think that there are cogent reasons to bring that approach into question, but this will be hopefully a conversation we can take on after the session. – I would just like t thank Dr. Usaama al-Azami

For a really fascinating, stimulating evening. – Thank you all. Thank you all very much.

#Religion #Rethinking #Religion #Secularism

Why Doesn’t God Stop Evil?



You see what the atheist has to say, he’s got to be able to prove that it is impossible or improbable for God to have a morally sufficient reason for permitting these facts of suffering, and that’s a burden of proof which is so

Heavy that no atheist has ever been able to sustain it. [Moderator] Explain that, because the question I was going to ask you is let’s talk about this subject of faith, which is where I was going, so you jumped right where I was headed. When they say

That, okay, explain that idea that you just entered into. [Craig] Take someone’s little daughter dying of leukemia, or getting run over by an automobile. We don’t see why that happened, and we wonder why wouldn’t a sovereign God intervene to stop it? And what the atheist has to say is that it’s either

Impossible or it’s highly improbable that God could have a morally justifying reason for allowing that to occur, but there’s no way given our finitude, our limits in space and time, for being able to make that kind of a claim with any justification. God’s morally sufficient reason for allowing your daughter’s

Death might not emerge until 300 years from now, maybe in another country. Every event that occurs sends a ripple effect through history so that the consequences of any event are simply incalculable and incomprehensible for finite, local persons. So the atheist is making a claim here which is just completely unsustainable;

There’s no way for him to show that it’s improbable or impossible that God has a morally sufficient reason for allowing this evil to occur, and therefore his argument really has no intellectual credibility. It’s a purely emotional argument. [Moderator] And it’s a compelling one, isn’t it?

[Craig] Emotionally compelling, but not intellectually compelling. [Moderator] Correct, and so when somebody says in that moment, in immense pain, I don’t care what good he can bring out of this, [yes] I reject him. And we hear that a lot, [sure] C.S. Lewis drifted towards saying that in his Grief Observed, and

God, when God hears us say those kind of things, okay, his response is one of understanding. Scripture says he too has been tempted in every way, even as we were. [yes] And so God doesn’t shut us off when we

Say that. [Craig] No no, no I think that’s absolutely right. Look at the Psalms, how the psalmist expresses anger toward God, and God where are you, why are you allowing this, why am I going through this? I think the lesson of

The Psalms is come to God with your hurt and your pain and your anger and don’t try to stifle it and suppress it. Let it out and he’ll listen to you. [Moderator] He’ll listen, and if you’ll let him, if you’ll listen to him, as Christopher Hitchens

Acknowledged he gives the only consistent logically constructed plausible answer that frankly even Hitchens acknowledged; you know what? Christianity alone solves this problem. [Craig] Yeah, I remember Bertrand Russell, the great atheist philosopher, once said that no one can sit at the bedside of a dying

Child and believe in God, but when Jan and I were in Paris we met a young minister who was trained and now worked in counseling dying children. And I thought to myself: counseling dying children, what would Russell have said to those children? What could he say? Too bad?

Tough luck? That’s all the naturalist has got to say. As you say it’s theism, it’s belief in God, that provides a hope and a reason for the suffering that its redeemed, whereas in atheism we’re locked in a world that is filled with gratuitous and unredeemed suffering, and there is no hope of escape.

#Doesnt #God #Stop #Evil

Queen of Hell – Mother of Demons – Bride of Satan



Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained.  In today’s video, we’re going to discuss Lilith,   the queen of hell, mother of  demons, angel of prosti.tution,   killer of pregnant women and infants, Adam’s first  wife, and seducer of men. We’re going to start off  

By looking at a couple of allusions to her in  the Old Testament. Following that, we’re going   to look at early influences that originated in  Mesopotamia, and finally, we’re going to look at   the tide of information presented in various  works published throughout the Middle Ages. Let’s get into it.

Lilith barely features in scripture: she’s  absent from the Quran and doesn’t appear in   the New Testament; it’s only in the  Old Testament that she’s included,   and even then, her inclusion depends either  on the translation or on the interpretation.

In the Book of Genesis, which is the first book  of the Old Testament that describes the Cosmogony   (the creation of the universe) and the  anthropogony (the origination of humanity),   the creation of women is described  twice, each with different wording,  

Which has led to some interesting theories and  stories that endeavor to reconcile the two. The first instance reads as follows: “So God created man in his own image,   in the image of God created he him;  male and female created he them.”

One interpretation of this passage is that  God created the first man and the first woman   simultaneously, which, by this  reckoning, places it at odds   with the second instance in which the  creation of the first woman is described. Here’s the passage that  describes the second instance:

“And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon  Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs,   and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and  the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man,  

Made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.  And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones,   and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called  Woman, because she was taken out of man.” To reconcile the two accounts, one version, such  as the one given in the Alphabet of Ben Sira,  

Which we’ll expand on later, explains that  the woman created at the same time as Adam   in the first passage is a different person  than Eve, the woman created from Adam’s rib   in the second passage. Moreover, this version  holds that the woman created in the first passage  

Is actually Lilith, making her Adam’s first wife.   Again, we’ll cover this part of lilith’s  story in greater detail later in the video. The other mention of Lilith in the Old  Testament is given in the Book of Isaiah,   though her inclusion by name depends  on the language and the translation.

In the JPS parallel Hebrew and English version  of the Tanakh, Isaiah 34:14 reads as follows: “And the Wild-cats shall meet with the jackals,  and the satyr shall cry to his fellow; yea,   the night-monster shall repose there,  and shall find her place of rest.”

Night monster is indistinct and ambiguous, but  many other translations, either of the Tanakh or   of the Old Testament, have seen various monsters  and animals substituted in, including: Lilith,   night specter, night creature, night hag,  Lamia (a female monster of Greek origin that  

Preys on children), night bird, and screech  owl. This last is especially interesting   because it parallels a detail of the Queen of the  Night plaque, which is nearly 4,000 years old,   made in ancient Babylon sometime between  1800 – 1750 BCE. It depicts a winged woman  

With talons for feet standing on two lions  flanked by a perched owl on either side.   Who this figure is isn’t known for certain, but  the list of possibilities has been whittled down   to just a few candidates: Ishtar,  goddess of war and sexual love,  

Ereshkigal, ruler of the underworld, or the  demon Lilitu, who became later known as Lilith. And this takes us into the part of the  video that looks at Lilith’s origins. Lilith, a female demon infamous for  preying on infants and pregnant women,  

And for copulating with sleeping men, thereby  birthing a plethora of demons into the world, is   a central figure in Jewish demonology. You could  say that Lilith, as conceptualized in Jewish lore,   is but one expression of an archetype, that of  the demon who targets infants and pregnant women,  

That seems to rear its head across cultures and  millenia, particularly in the near East. If this   is tracked backwards through time, it looks as  though Lilith’s origins can be connected back   to ancient Mesopotamia. She briefly  features in the Epic of Gilgamesh,  

A Sumerian work, and she’s identified with Lilu  and Lilitu, respectively, male and female spirits   of ancient Babylon – both of them notorious for  attacking infants and women in labour. Another   figure who shares this MO is Lamashtu, either  a goddess or demon, who endangered women during  

Childbirth and even abducted infants as they  suckled at their mother’s breast. In appearance,   she was a hideous amalgamation of many animals,  having the head of a lion, the talons of a bird   of prey, the teeth of a donkey, a body covered in  hair, blood-stained hands, and long fingers with  

Long nails. Another variety of demon germane  to Lilith is the Ardat-Lili, which rendered   men impotent as a sort of revenge for itself not  being able to copulate. Sometimes women were also   targeted and rendered infertile. In appearance  it looks like a wolf with a scorpion’s tail.

Much of the best known information surrounding  Lilith comes from the Alphabet of Ben Sira,   a work thought to have been written sometime in  the Geonic period, which lasted from the late   sixth to the mid-eleventh centuries CE. The third  part describes Ben Sira recounting 22 stories to  

Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon. One of these  gives an alternative anthropogeny. Rather than   Eve being created from one of Adam’s ribs, it  describes Lilith, not only as the first woman,   but also as being created from the earth just as  Adam was. Unfortunately, their relationship is  

Characterized by acrimony and incessant fighting,  and ultimately, Lilith refuses to submit to Adam;   so she invokes God’s name and flies  away. Three angels, Senoy, Sansenoy   and Semangelof, are sent after her, and they  eventually catch up with her; but she negotiates  

Her way out of the encounter, promising to be  repelled by any amulets bearing their likeness,   which is why thereafter such amulets were used to  ward her off, safeguarding those she preyed on:   pregnant women and infants. Furthermore, she also  accedes to 100 of her children perishing each day. 

Here’s a quote that describes this: “He also created a woman, from the earth, as He   had created Adam himself, and called her Lilith.  Adam and Lilith immediately began to fight.   She said, ‘I will not lie below,’ and he said, ‘I  will not lie beneath you, but only on top. For you  

Are fit only to be in the bottom position, while  I am to be the superior one.’ Lilith responded,   ‘We are equal to each other inasmuch as  we were both created from the earth.’   But they would not listen to one another.  When Lilith saw this, she pronounced the  

Ineffable Name and flew away into the air…. The angels left God and pursued Lilith, whom   they overtook in the midst of the sea… They told  her God’s word, but she did not wish to return.   The angels said, ‘We shall drown you in the sea.’ “‘Leave me!’ she said. ‘I was created only to  

Cause sickness to infants. If the infant is male,  I have dominion over him for eight days after   his birth, and if female, for twenty days.’ “When the angels heard Lilith’s words, they   insisted she go back. But she swore to them by  the name of the living and eternal God: ‘Whenever  

I see you or your names or your forms in an  amulet, I will have no power over that infant.’”  In one account, after the fall of man, which  resulted in the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the  

Garden of Eden, the first man and the first woman  became separated for 130 years. During that time,   Lilith returned to Adam and copulated with him in  his sleep; supposedly the son that resulted from   their coupling turned into a frog. Another  account, the one given by Rabbi Eliezer in  

The Book of Adam and Eve, claims that at one time  Lilith was bearing Adam 100 children per day. The   Zohar depicts Lilith as “a hot fiery female who at  first cohabited with man”, who “flew to the cities  

Of the sea coast” when Eve was created. The cabala  portrays her as the demon of Friday, who appears   as a naked woman with a snake’s tail for legs.  Another description maintains the nude upper body,   but gives her a column of fire for legs. And in  Talmudic Lore, Lilith is presented as an immortal  

Demon who will continue to plague mankind until  God eradicates evil from the face of the earth. Eventually, a profusion of early traditions  coalesced, and from them emerged two predominant   activities associated with Lilith: the strangling  of newly born children and the seduction of men.  

Regarding the latter, it was thought that  anytime a man woke up with wet undergarments,   made so by the nightly discharge of seed, it was  indicative of Lilith having paid them a visit   and seducing them in their sleep. And in this she  was thought so prolific that a virtually infinite  

Number of demonic spawn were attributed to her,  said to be her brood – legions upon legions   sired by unwitting men as they slept. Apparently,  people were so wary of her erotic powers   that in some Jewish communities it was commonplace  for sons not to accompany their father’s as their  

Bodies were laid to rest in graveyards, sparing  them the shame of bearing witness to all their   demonic half-blood siblings, those conceived when  Lilith seduced the father. Because of this, In the   Zohar as well as other sources, Lilith is known  by many colourful appellations that denigrate  

For lasciviousness and wantonness. These include:  the black, the wicked, the false, and the harlot.  In Zoharaistic cabal, Lilith, along with  Eisheth Zenunim, Naamah, and Agrat bat Mahlaht,   three angels of prostitution, was one of the  consorts of Samael, a figure with many identities,  

Not all of them evil, depending on the version;  among them were: the great serpent with 12 wings,   a prince of hell, and another name for Satan,  especially in Jewish lore. As conceptualised in   Kabbalism, Lilith was given preeminence, becoming  the principal and permanent partner of Samael –  

Basically, in effect, crowned queen of hell. And that’s it for this video! If you enjoy the   content please LIKE the video  and SUBSCRIBE to the channel As always, leave your video suggestions down below

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