Study of Mark's Gospel Part 2 (continued): More on John the Baptist

⁵ People from the whole Judean countryside and all of Jerusalem were going out to him, and he was baptizing them in the Jordan River as they confessed their sins.

There is definite hyperbole (exaggeration for literary effect) in these verses, as it is highly unlikely that every single person in Jerusalem and the Judean countryside came to see John. The purpose of the hyperbole is not so much to point out that John’s ministry was popular, as is it is to show that countless people were ready for repentance and forgiveness. In other words, by telling us that huge crowds were accepting John’s baptism, the author indicates that John was doing his job (as stated in the quotation in verses 2 and 3); namely, preparing the way for the forgiveness of sins that would come through Jesus by getting people ready to hear the message.

I want you to keep this verse in the back of your mind because I will revisit it later as one of the ways that the author will show how Jesus surpasses John the Baptist (another being the actual ability to forgive sins, rather than just preaching repentance).

It is not known exactly where Mark has John baptizing. It had to be a wilderness place on the Jordan River accessible to people from Judea and Jerusalem, but the Jordan River stretches for more than 60 miles between the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee. The “traditional” site of Jesus’ baptism is east of Jericho and north of the Dead Sea, within a short travel distance of Jerusalem and in the region of Judea. However, if this is even close to the location Mark had in mind, there will be repercussions for Jesus’ decision to focus his ministry in Galilee (as we will see at the end of this study). Another possible site places John’s ministry in the region of the Decapolis, significantly closer to Galilee but much farther from Jerusalem and Judea. It would still be feasible that people would travel from Judea to be baptized by John, but they would have to travel through Samaria to get there. Another possible explanation is that John moved his ministry, baptizing up and down the Jordan River, and Mark, in his brevity, simply used a city and region that his audience would have known without need for explanation.

⁶ John wore a garment made of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.

Hopefully as you read through this study, you will also be learning ways in which to critically examine a Gospel narrative. Recall in the introductory post my assumption that the Gospels are intentional. Because of this assumption, I work from the idea that the details inside the Gospels were included for a reason. As a general rule, then, any time you see a specific detail mentioned in a Gospel that seems strange or out of place to you, stop for a moment and ask “why?” Mark makes his statement about John’s dress and diet so briefly and changes gears so quickly that we can be tempted to pass by this sentence without giving it any thought. He does not take time to explain what, if any, significance there is to John’s clothing or eating habits. However, he does mention it, and it is a strange detail if you think about it, so we are left to pause and wonder, “Why does it matter (to the author or the audience) what John wore? Of all the foods John could have eaten, why are those two mentioned? Why does the author give no explanation at all about these details?”

I emphasized in the introductory post that Mark was most likely written to a primarily Roman Gentile audience. This doesn’t mean that there was no Jewish presence in his church community. The Jewishness of Jesus (and the characters surrounding him) is not downplayed in the Gospel. In fact, Mark does an excellent job of presenting his message in a way that appeals to both a Jewish and Gentile perspective. Jesus can be viewed in both the light of a Jewish Messiah (but redefined as the “suffering servant” who dies for mankind) and a Greco-Roman “divine man” (but surpassing any of them because of his suffering and death). As can John the Baptist:

In a Jewish context, the details about John’s clothing would have placed him as a prophet in the mold of Elijah. Elijah was described in 2 Kings 1:8 as a “hairy man” with a leather belt tied around his waist (The NIV translates the phrase as “a garment of hair”). Elijah’s “mantle” (his outer -- possibly “hairy”-- cloak), passed on to Elisha after Elijah was taken to heaven, became symbolic of a prophet’s ministry. Zechariah 13:4 states: “...on that day each prophet... will no longer wear the hairy garment of a prophet...” Mark clearly has John the Baptist working within this tradition, wearing a hairy garment and leather belt and preaching repentance, an image that would have immediately resonated with a Jewish audience as following the Elijah archetype.

John’s food choice, however, has no connections with Elijah at all; so why the locusts and honey?  Since Mark gives no clarification at all as to why John eats what he eats, this is an example of not being able to know what the author had in mind when he was structuring this part of the narrative. There is an explanation, but it involves a lot of conjecture and speculation about authorial intent. This explanation has John working within the tradition of OT prophets who delivered God’s messages with symbolic actions rather than words (e.g. cooking over a dung fire, marrying a prostitute, walking around barefoot and naked, shooting an arrow, tearing a garment, breaking a pot). As such, locusts could be symbolic of either God’s judgment (Deuteronomy 28:38), or the Gentile enemies of Israel (described as locusts in Judges and Jeremiah). Honey brings to mind the Promised Land (flowing with honey) or God’s promise of provision (Psalm 81:16), or possibly Ezekiel’s scroll (that tasted as sweet as honey and contained God’s words to his people). Thus the locusts and honey could be symbolic of God either covering his judgment with provision and promise, or God’s inclusion of the Gentile nations in his provision and promise. But again, this is pure speculation, because there are absolutely no clues inside of the Gospel text explaining the reason for John’s diet. It could also have been something as straightforward as John decrying the material wealth and extravagance of the religious authorities by rejecting comfortable clothes, living in the desert, and eating only food he could find in the wilderness (i.e. by God’s provision).

In a Greco-Roman context, John’s actions could have placed him in the mold of the ascetic Greek and Hellenistic philosophers, who were known for their eccentric behaviors and dress, their rejection of material goods and wealth, and their criticisms of society. To give a few examples, Socrates is said to have worn the same clothes every day, no matter the season, and to have stood still, lost in thought, for days on end, neither eating, drinking, or sleeping. Diogenes (the founder of Cynicism) lived in a barrel, regularly wore no clothes, and is said to have walked around Athens in broad daylight holding a lantern, searching for “a genuine man.” Zeno (the founder of Stoicism) was known for eating food that didn’t require cooking, drinking only water, and wearing thin clothes despite the season. All three of these philosophers were also extremely vocal critics of the societal customs and morals of their day, calling for people to change their ways.

Thus to both a Gentile and a Jewish audience, John’s actions could have had significance. But Mark does not dwell on John’s appearance. Instead, he mentions it and then pushes forward to the message, indicating that although it is a detail that helps to characterize John in some way for the audience, it is also not where the author wants to focus. The Gospel is about Jesus Christ, the Son of God, not John the Baptizer, the voice in the wilderness. In the Gospel of Mark, John is more of a plot device to allow Jesus to enter the narrative than he is a developed character (as he is in the other Gospels):

A Study of Mark Part 2: John the Baptist and the Beginning of Jesus' Ministry (Section One)

The introductory post in this series examined the first sentence from the Gospel of Mark. This post will continue from where we left off, covering Mark 1:2-20. I encourage you to read the entire section of text ahead of time, more than once and from multiple translations, before you read my analysis. If you don’t, you might find it difficult to hold the “flow” of the narrative, because I will be interrupting regularly to discuss or explain, sometimes on a verse-by-verse basis.

Where I do not work from the original Greek text, I will be using the NET Bible translation for most of my verse citations, a version which I think strikes a good balance between literal translation and equivalent meaning, and which also provides ridiculous amounts of footnotes to explain translator decisions, manuscript variants, linguistic features of the text, and exegesis. I would recommend reading the verses in the NIV (for “dynamic equivalency”) and the NASB (for literal rendering from the Greek). The Holman Christian Standard Bible also does a pretty good job of finding a balance between equivalent meaning and literal translation. All these versions are available on the YouVersion Bible app and on BibleGateway.

² As it is written in Isaiah the prophet,

“Look, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way,
³ the voice of one shouting in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make his paths straight.’”

The author starts the narrative by quoting from the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible). This quotation is actually blended from a couple of different places. The first half most likely comes from Malachi 3:1 – “‘I am about to send my messenger, who will clear the way before me. Indeed, the Lord you are seeking will suddenly come to his temple, and the messenger of the covenant, whom you long for, is certainly coming,’...”

Only the 2^nd half of the quote comes from Isaiah (verse 40:3) – “A voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make straight the paths of our God...’” It was very common for Christian writers to take pieces of verses out of context and reframe them or combine them to demonstrate the point they wanted to make (Matthew is best known for this, although it is done in multiple other NT books as well).

As I mentioned in the introductory post, Mark 1:1 could be interpreted as a title in more than one way. Following the “title” with these OT quotations could mean that the author of Mark is stating that the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ can be found in the Old Testament prophets.

⁴ In the wilderness John the baptizer began preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

The quote about a voice crying out in the wilderness followed immediately by the statement that John was in the wilderness preaching repentance leaves absolutely no doubt that John is meant to be directly linked to the figure mentioned in the OT quotations. If we interpret Mark 1:1 as a title for the ministry of John the Baptist, then we can read John’s ministry as the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ. With this viewpoint the gospel is the message of John the Baptist: repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

It is important to keep in mind that the audience hearing/reading this Gospel would have already been Christians. The main purposes of the Gospel of Mark are related to Christology (the identity of Jesus), discipleship (what it means to be a true follower), and the “gospel” message (the good news of salvation): it provides believers with a depiction of a Son of God who redefines Messiah and surpasses “divine men” by his suffering; it teaches the community about the cost of authentic discipleship; and it strengthens faith and hope in the face of persecution. As believers, the Markan community would have understood that forgiveness for sins would have come through Jesus. The author is not stating that John the Baptist was forgiving sins; rather, he was preaching repentance. This makes John’s preparation work for the Lord a call for people to recognize their need for the forgiveness of sins.

A Study of Mark - Part 1

Introduction

I used to not like the Gospel of Mark. Over the last several years, however, Mark has grown to become my favorite of the four.

John and Matthew are the most frequently read of the Gospels, and have been since antiquity. Both have episodes that quickly come to mind as unique to each Gospel (e.g., Matthew: the birth story with Wise Men, infant slaughter, and flight to Egypt; the Sermon on the Mount; Peter being named the rock and getting the keys to Heaven; finding the coin in the fish’s mouth to pay taxes; posting of guards at Jesus’ tomb and claim that disciples stole his body; John: pretty much all of it).     

Luke is also frequently read because it is (mistakenly) believed to be the most “historical” (i.e. chronological and factually accurate) in its recording of the sequence of events in Jesus’ life. Luke also has a lot of unique and memorable episodes. Luke's birth narrative features the Christmas story, in which Mary and Joseph travel to Bethlehem for a census, baby Jesus is laid in a manger, and angels announce his birth to shepherds.

Also unique to Luke is John the Baptist's birth story and the story of the 12-year-old Jesus at the Temple. More than a dozen of Jesus’ most memorable parables are unique to Luke, including the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son. Luke also tells the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus.

In contrast, try to think of an episode that is unique to the Gospel of Mark...

...

...

...

It’s hard, isn’t it?

Because Mark is the shortest of the four Gospels and over 90% of Mark is included in some form in Matthew, Mark is an oft-neglected Gospel. Until the 19^th Century, Mark was actually considered to be merely a summary of Matthew (which is why it is placed after Matthew in the Bible), and was read less frequently as a result. A little of this stigma still hangs over Mark: think about it – why read the abbreviated version when Matthew has much more detail and depth? As a result, Mark still lags behind the others in how frequently it is read and how much people know about it.

However, this perspective only focuses on the quantity of events recorded within the Gospel. But each Gospel presents a unique picture of Jesus, reflecting a blending of the author’s perspective, the audience the work was written to, the issues being faced by the community at the time the work was written, and the aspects of Jesus’ character the author wished to emphasize. Even events that are present in all four Gospels (e.g. feeding the 5000) give different representations of Jesus when read in context. To neglect Mark simply because nearly all the events are also in Matthew is to ignore a unique portrayal of the character of Jesus, one that is just as theologically deep, as literary, and as artistic as any of the other three Gospels.

So, this is my chance to support the “underdog” of the Gospels. Hopefully by the end of this study, you will have gained a greater appreciation for the Gospel of Mark, just as I did as I learned to let it stand as a work of literature in its own right.

To introduce the study proper, let me give you some background information to the Gospel:

·         Mark is considered by almost all scholars to be the earliest written of the four Gospels. It was probably written after the start of the Jewish War in 66 AD but before the destruction of the Temple in 70, most likely near 68-69 AD.

·         Mark was written to a predominantly Gentile (Greek and Roman) audience, rather than to Jews. Many scholars think Mark was written to Christians in Rome.

·         Mark’s structure and storytelling show influences of Greco-Roman popular biographies, dramas, novels, and epics.

·         The author is never named within the Gospel, and there are up to three different Marks mentioned in ancient Church tradition: John Mark, traveling companion to Paul and Barnabas (mentioned multiple times in Acts), Mark the cousin of Barnabas (mentioned in the closings of Philemon, Colossians, and 2 Timothy), and Mark the Evangelist, not mentioned in the New Testament but associated in patristic tradition with Peter and not with Paul. Whether or not these multiple Marks were one and the same is somewhat unclear.

·         Mark is frequently described as “a passion narrative with an extended introduction.” The suffering of Jesus is a central focal point to the Gospel, and fully 1/3 of the Gospel is devoted to Jesus’ last week.

I am assuming that, if you are reading this study, you have at least a passing interest in the historical and cultural context of the New Testament. However, for people who may not find this information as incredibly fascinating as I do, why does any of it matter?

·         Knowing that Mark was most likely written during the Jewish War can help give context to some of the more subversive and apocalyptic language in the Gospel. And if it was written to Christians in Rome, the subtle jabs at the Emperor become that much more forceful.

·         Understanding the background of Mark’s audience can help explain some of the ways Jesus is characterized, as well as the Greco-Roman influences on the structure and style of the narrative.

·         Recognizing that even early Christian fathers weren’t sure about how many Marks there were can redirect us to what matters in our reading of the narrative. Regardless of who the author was, what he has to say is ultimately more important.

·         Understanding the central focus helps to explain the author’s decisions about pacing the narrative: namely his speeding up the events in Jesus’ ministry and pushing the action towards Jesus’ Passion Week in Jerusalem.

Finally, before we jump into Mark itself, let me explain a little bit about the standpoint from which I will be writing this study:

I will be looking at Mark from a blending of 3 perspectives:

·         Historical criticism – I will be reading with questioning eyes, treating the text as an intentional document whose purpose is to make the author’s points. The author is writing down what he believes to be the single most important and life-changing message of his age. It is not done haphazardly. He is telling the story to present the message. As such, I will be asking questions about authorial intent (e.g., Why would the author choose to write this episode in this way?). Can we ever completely know what was on “Mark’s” mind when he was writing? Of course not, but we can read between the lines and infer quite a lot about the author’s perspective.

·         Theological – I will be examining the theological message(s) intended for the original audience. Jesus’ teachings were recontextualized as early Christian communities formed their community theologies, dealt with individual struggles, persecutions, disagreements, and splits, and tried to live in a multicultural world. I will not be attempting to determine what the “original” words of Jesus were. This is not a quest for the historical Jesus; this is an examination of how Jesus’ teachings were integrated into the community receiving the Gospel of Mark.

·         Literary – I will be looking at the literary elements of the Gospel; particularly at the characterization of the protagonist, secondary characters, and antagonists, the themes and motifs, the structure, tone and mood, the symbolic and figurative language, and the influences from other literary genres. I will take Mark as standing alone, as much as possible bringing no interpretive clues from outside sermons or theology. I will not “harmonize” (i.e. attempt to reconcile seeming contradictions with other Gospels). I will also do my best to avoid anachronism; that is, the literary interpretation has to make sense in 1^st C. Greco-Roman-Jewish context. In other words, I will not read the Gospel as a 21^st C. American biography.

With that said, we can begin reading the Gospel of Mark:

1:1 The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Despite this being only a single sentence, it is loaded with information. We can learn a lot about the text by unpacking this sentence.

·         We are told this is the “beginning” of something

·         We are told this is a “gospel”

·         We are told that this is a work either about Jesus or recording his message

·         We are told that Jesus has a title, “Christ”

·         We are told that Jesus has another title, “Son of God”

The first verse of Mark appears to function as a title or chapter heading. It is unclear, however, whether this “beginning” refers to the entire Gospel, the ministry of John the Baptist recorded in the next 8 verses, or is intended to make an allusion to Genesis 1:1 (in the context of Jesus’ appearance being a “new beginning”). I think that one of these interpretations is more likely than the other two, but I will come back to this verse and explain my thoughts at the end of the study. For now, you decide which makes more sense to you and go with that.

The word “Gospel” is a translation of the Greek word “evangelion,” meaning “good news.” Mark introduces his book as a “gospel.” It could be enough to say that Mark is recording the “good news” about Jesus. However, Mark does not explain specifically what the message is that would make his book good news (if you have read it, then you know the original ending doesn’t really close on a positive note). This hints at the idea that by the time Mark was written down, the word “Gospel” had evolved into a technical term describing a specific narrative style (as a biography of Jesus’ life, ministry, and death) conveying a specific message (the saving power of God through the death of Jesus), and was something that did not need to be explained to the audience, because they already knew what it was.

The phrase “the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ” contains a series of genitive cases (marked by “of” in English). Genitives in Greek can show possession/ownership or can be “objective.” These different meanings lead to two possible interpretations of the phrase:

1) the gospel about Jesus Christ (i.e. Jesus’ life and ministry is the gospel message); or

2) the gospel message that belongs to Jesus (i.e. what Jesus himself taught).

This could be an example of an intentionally ambiguous sentence structure by the author. By using the language the way he does, the author is able to convey both meanings simultaneously: that the message that Jesus taught was the message about himself.

The titles given to Jesus in Mark 1:1 (Christ and Son of God) give us an understanding of the Christology (understanding concerning the person or nature of Christ) of Mark’s community. Mark does not explicitly tell us what the title “Christ” means, so it is up to us to figure out from the text. In Jewish context, Christ, “anointed one,” came to mean a king who would come at the end of time, one who would be far greater than all God's previous messengers to Israel, ruling in justice and glory, or a king who would overthrow the yoke of Roman domination and reestablish Israel’s preeminence as a world power. However, we will see through our study that Mark redefines what the term “Christ” means. The Christ in Mark had to suffer and die, suggesting that, for Mark, Jesus can only be fully understood in that context.

Mark also does not explicitly state what he means by the title “Son of God,” nor when sonship was given to Jesus. The term "Son of God" had a specific range of Jewish meanings. One of the most significant of these was a king at his coronation, adopted by God as his son, legitimizing his rule over Israel. But in Greco-Roman culture, the phrase had a different meaning; it meant a “divine man.” Legendary heroes like Hercules, specific Roman Emperors, or famous philosophers like Plato all had the status of “divine men.” I already stated that Mark was written to a Greek and Roman audience. It makes sense, then, that Mark would use a framework that Gentiles would understand. When Mark calls Jesus “Son of God,” the intention is not to identify him as a Jewish ruler but to place him in the class of Greek and Roman divine men, the “sons of God” who were endowed with divine authority and power to perform healings, exorcisms and other miraculous deeds. However, Mark also redefines the title “Son of God,” pushing the character of Jesus beyond just that of another in a series of Greco-Roman heroes, leaders, and miracle-workers. As we read through Mark, keep in mind the ways in which Mark will redefine expectations about these titles (and the others Jesus receives).

Another interpretation puts a more subversive spin on the sentence. A writing from 9 BC known as the Priene Calendar Inscription declares the birth of the “god” Augustus (Caesar) as the “beginning of the good news for the world” and naming Augustus as “savior.” However, by the late 60’s AD, the “Golden Age” ushered in by Augustus had degenerated into chaos and disorder. Julius Caesar and the Emperor Augustus had been deified after their deaths, but Augustus was the only Roman Emperor to have that status conferred on him (Claudius had his divine status rescinded by the Emperor Nero). Nero was forced to commit suicide in 68 AD, and by that time, the Jewish War had been waging for 2 years, and had been going rather badly for the Romans. After Nero’s suicide, Rome was thrown into a period of civil war and assassination called the “year of four Emperors.” However, even within the period of moral decay, paranoia, instability, and murder, the propaganda of each Emperor’s coronation would have been the same as that of Augustus, a divine herald of a new golden age. If Mark was written around 68-69 AD (which is a very probable date of composition), and written to Christians in Rome (as is thought by many scholars), then this single sentence introducing the Gospel of Mark would have been very powerful and takes on much more significance. Craig A. Evans describes the impact of this sentence very well:

          “the social backdrop [in Rome] would have been one of anxiety and foreboding.   One emperor after another, each seemingly worse and more impotent than his   predecessor, had failed—and each one had been hailed “son of God”! The      emerging cynicism would have been equalled only by the growing fear and alarm.             It was against this setting that the Markan evangelist dared to put forward the           Christian gospel and declare that the true son of God was Jesus, the Messiah of           Israel and “king of the Jews”— not some would-be Roman emperor.”  

Whew! That’s a lot of information contained in one sentence!

“The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God”

(Future postings will cover more verses, I promise.)

At the beginning of this introduction, I had challenged you to think of some episodes unique to the Gospel of Mark. Because you are probably dying to know, here are some examples:

·         The quote, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath”

·         Jesus’ family trying to restrain him because they think he is crazy

·         The Parable of the Growing Seed

·         James and John having the name “Boanerges"

·         Jesus using Aramaic in his healing commands

·         The two-stage healing of a blind man

·         The naked young man running away when Jesus is arrested

·         Pilate being surprised that Jesus died so quickly

A Logical Case for the Existence of God Part 3: The Language of DNA

Scenario #3: An archaeologist is digging in the desert when she unearths a stone tablet with writing on it. She immediately knows that a human civilization used to inhabit the area around that location.

                              

Explanation: In Scenario #3, the reason the archaeologist knows that humans inhabited that area is by the presence of language. Other animals have ways of communicating with one another. Dogs bark to warn of danger, bees “dance” to point to food sources, dolphins have calls that “introduce” their pod to another one, but these are all considered “low-level communication,” not language. Complex language, spoken or written, has only ever been created on the Earth by human beings (i.e. the source of high intelligence on the planet); therefore, those things which contain evidence of language are necessarily a product of high intelligence (i.e. human beings).

What is it that defines language as separate from communication? First of all, language itself, as defined by the people who study language itself for a living, is a communication system through which specific and intentional meaning is transmitted by the use of arbitrary symbols (sounds or words). But language is more than this definition. Language also must contain morphology (rules for word formation); syntax (rules for word arrangement); and semantics (word meanings in specific contexts). Most languages also have a written coding system (alphabet), arbitrary and separate from the sounds of the language. The symbols themselves have a material form but they are abstract. i.e., they are not connected in any way to the concept they represent beyond the fact that the speakers agree on the meaning. The letter “a” has no connection whatsoever with the multiple sounds that are associated with it. Bat, Father, Dead, Stairs, Language, Creation, Dollar, all contain the letter “a”, but all represent different sounds altogether in context. Language is also creative and adaptable. That is, it can change over time to accommodate to new experiences.  Language can be infinitely flexible and variable, words can be combined and split apart, speech can be reordered, etc.

DNA is the programming “blueprint” by which the specified complexity of the human body and all life is built and maintained. However, DNA itself deserves a closer inspection, because on its own, DNA is a marker that points to the existence of God.  By the definition of language, DNA transmits specific and intentional meaning (the blueprints and programming for life) through its coding. The coding is a set of arbitrary symbols (a four-letter alphabet, ACGT) that are combined together in different ways to convey different information (semantics). DNA also has specific rules for “word” formation and arrangement (morphology). For example, A only ever pairs with T, and C only ever pairs with G. There are “starts” and “stops” in the genetic code, acting as word breaks and punctuation (syntax). The ways in which the letters and words are combined and the specific context of their combinations change the meaning for the body. The DNA letters combine to make words, the words combine to make sentences, and those sentences tell the cell to make proteins, which perform specific functions in the body.

The DNA symbols themselves have a material form but they are not connected in any way to the concept they represent (alphabet). There is nothing inherent in Guanine, Cytosine, Adenine, and Thymine that convey specific information about how to form a human body, or an oak tree, or a mosquito, or a duck, but when they combine together in specific and intentional ways, they create the blueprints for all life on the planet. In other words, information conveyed by a source cannot be considered in the same category as the source that conveys it. For instance, a book such as the Bible contains information, but is the physical book itself information? No, the materials of the book—the paper, ink, leather, and glue contain the contents, but they are only a means of transporting it. If the information in the book were spoken aloud, written in chalk or electronically reproduced in a computer, the information would not change. The same principle is found in the genetic code. The DNA molecule carries the genetic language, but the language itself is independent of its carrier. The same genetic information can be written in a book, stored in a computer or sent over the Internet, and yet the quality or content of the message has not changed by changing the means of conveying it.

Finally, DNA is infinitely creative and adaptable. In much the same way that the human mouth can only make a finite number of sounds and written systems of language contain a finite number of symbols but language is infinitely variable, the same four-letter alphabet composes the genetic code of all life on the planet, from the smallest virus to the most complex person. Furthermore, DNA can change and adapt to different environment changes. Bacteria adapt to become resistant to medication, people can intentionally breed plants to change the types of crops or flowers they produce, etc.

The language of DNA is so complex that it took humans until around the year 2000 to map the 3 billion lines of genetic code in the human genome, and even with the genome map transcribed, scientists still had little idea about how it was used, controlled or organized, much less how it led to a living, breathing human. Over the past decade, scientists have managed to find out that around 1.5% of the genome codes for protein, another 8.5% acts as start and stop markers (punctuation in the genetic sentences), and that roughly 80% has what the international genetic research initiative ENCODE (Encyclopedia of DNA Elements) calls “functional elements,” scientific jargon for, “it does something.” In other words, DNA is so complex that a multinational team made of some of the best geneticists in the world can’t figure out what more than three fourths of our genetic code says or does or how it works.

In light of all this, DNA clearly meets the criteria of a complex language. And although absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, the fact that no language has been created on this planet apart from a human source, except for the genetic code, and humans can barely figure out what 10% of the genetic code says and does, is strong support for the contention that the genetic code as a language must have been designed by a being much more intelligent than humanity, i.e. a God.

A Logical Case for the Existence of God Part 2: Entropy

Scenario #2: 1000 years from now, long after America has been forgotten, a group of people stumbles across Mount Rushmore, sees the faces carved into the rock, and exclaims, “My! What a fantastic coincidence that wind and erosion patterns shaped this rock into the resemblance of four different people’s faces! Aren’t the random forces of nature amazing?!”

Explanation:

Scenario #2: In this scenario, the group’s reaction to and conclusion about seeing the faces on Mount Rushmore is obviously erroneous. Not simply because we know from experience that someone sculpted Mount Rushmore, but because Mount Rushmore is so specific and complex a pattern that it could not have arisen from random, chaotic forces. It had to have been purposefully constructed by an intelligence with a plan in mind for what the finished product would look like.

A system of any kind can be described in terms of its level of complexity and specificity. Complexity refers to a system that is intricate but has no independent pattern, while specificity refers to a system conforming to an independent pattern. The letter “a” is specified without being complex (i.e., it conforms to an independent pattern but is simple). The sequence of random letters “vnskguthwpalfjtibw” is complex without being specified (i.e., it requires a complicated instruction-set to describe but conforms to no independent pattern). If you were to dump a bag of Scrabble tiles on the ground, you would create a very complex string of letters, but it would not be specified. Your pile of Scrabble letters may even occasionally group to form small words, which are specified but not complex. Your tiles, however, will not randomly fall into this paragraph, which is both specified and complex.

Taking our Scrabble analogy to the primordial Earth, it is perfectly rational and feasible to postulate that the "primordial ooze" of the early Earth may have contained many different kinds of amino acids (complexity), just as the Scrabble tiles contain many different random strings of letters. It is also perfectly rational and feasible to postulate that, in our vast sea of random amino acids, some may have joined together to form simple molecular chains (specificity), just as occasionally our scrabble tiles will make a short word.

However, postulating that the randomly distributed amino acids in our primordial sea would chance to join together into large molecular chain structures (complex) that happened to have arranged themselves in such a way as to make themselves capable of self-replication (specified), which would then combine together to form single-celled living organisms (and not just one, but many different types), which would then combine together to form multi-cellular organisms, which would then diversify into many different types of multi-cellular organisms, which would also begin eating one another and, through a random process of genetic mutations and chaotic chance, would happen to lead to the development of an ecosphere that is self-sustaining, contains all the plant and animal species that fill every biological niche that exists today, and includes a species of animal that is intelligent enough to ponder the meaning of its own existence, all on a planet that, randomly driven by gravity and other physical laws, happened to form at the exact right distance and orbit away from a sun that, by chance, is also the exact right size and temperature to support life, is statistically impossible.

Additionally, one of the most important laws of physics is the law of entropy (the second law of thermodynamics), stating that closed systems tend to move from order to disorder and not the other way around. Screws fall out, sidewalks crack, cars break down, clothes get holes, paint peels, hot meals get cold, the yard constantly needs edging, ice melts, it is easy to spend money and hard to earn it, you can never find a matching pair of socks; all examples of entropy at work in the natural world. And the only way that entropy can be overcome is by some external force inputting large amounts of energy into the system. In other words, once salt dissolves in water (i.e. it moves from a solid, ordered crystalline structure to something more randomized and chaotic), it cannot recrystallize itself again on its own, not without an external force putting enough energy into the system to evaporate all the water.

Entropy is one of the most important physical forces in the universe, alongside gravity, electromagnetism, nuclear binding forces, relativity, etc., and without it the universe would not exist. However, the entire hypothetical process of spontaneously generated specified and complex life that was explained in the paragraphs above is that of a disordered and chaotic system organizing itself into a more and more highly organized and ordered system, seemingly violating the law of entropy.

An explanation for this violation of the second law can be attempted on the small scale, because while the universe as a whole is a closed system, the Earth is not. Since there is an external force inputting energy into the system in the form of the sun, scientists will say that the sun provides more than enough energy to overcome entropy on the Earth, making life on the Earth not a violation of the second law. But simply adding energy to a system doesn’t automatically cause reduced entropy. Solar energy alone does not decrease entropy; in fact, it increases entropy, speeding up the natural processes that cause breakdown, disorder, and disorganization on earth. If this were not so, then frequent sunburn would make you look younger and live longer.

The apparent decrease in entropy found in biological systems on the Earth requires two additional factors besides an open system and an available energy supply. These are: information to direct the growth in organized complexity, and a mechanism for storing and converting the incoming energy into something usable.

Each living organism’s DNA contains all the code (i.e. the program information) needed to direct the process of building the organism up from seed or cell to a fully functional, mature specimen, complete with all the necessary instructions for maintaining and repairing each of its complex, organized, and integrated component systems. This process continues throughout the life of the organism, essentially building-up and maintaining the organism’s physical structure faster than entropy can break it down (though entropy ultimately does prevail, as each organism eventually deteriorates and dies).

Living systems also have the second essential component—their own built-in mechanisms for effectively converting and storing the incoming energy.  Plants use photosynthesis to convert the sun’s energy into usable, storable forms (e.g., proteins), animals use metabolism to further convert and use the stored energy from the plants they eat, and other animals eat those animals to use the stored energy their physical bodies contain.

While the “open system” argument can explain how already existent living organisms may grow and thrive, and it can explain the source of the energy needed to form organized protein chain molecules from random amino acids, it does not offer any solution to the question of how life could spontaneously begin this process in the absence of the program directions and energy conversion mechanisms described above, nor how a simple living organism might produce the additional new program directions and alternative energy conversion mechanisms required in order to produce the vast spectrum of biological variety and complexity observed on this planet.

In light of all of this, we can clearly see that the “open system” argument fails to adequately justify the violation of the second law that is seen in the development of specified and complex life on the Earth, and that a system can have randomly generated specificity, or it can have randomly generated complexity, but not both. Therefore, the premise that living organisms with specified complexity randomly and spontaneously developed within an entropic universe not only violates one of the most important laws of physics, but is so astronomically improbable that it takes more faith and feelings-based, biased, emotional conviction to justify this belief than a belief in a world designed by an intelligent entity existing outside of our “closed-system” universe. Therefore, the specified complexity of the natural world compels the rational person to infer an intelligent designing force guiding the formation of that world.

The burden of proof then falls on the person who is so biased that he or she denies the obvious rational conclusion in favor of the absurd improbability.

A Logical Case for the Existence of God Part I: First Cause

Scenario #1: A homicide detective is investigating a murder. He begins his search for the murderer at the end result of the action (i.e. the crime scene). He uses blood splatter evidence to trace the trajectory of the bullet. He finds the bullet and analyzes the firing pattern to determine the gun it was fired from, etc., working his way back to the murderer (watch any episode of CSI to see this in action).

Explanation:

Scenario #1: In this scenario, a major assumption that the homicide detective makes is the belief that every action has a cause that precedes it, and thus the series of events leading to the murder can be reconstructed and traced back to the originator of the crime, i.e., the first cause of the murder. Whether that is an affair, or money, or abuse as a child, whatever it is, there is the assumption that something (or some-things) happened. And that something(s) set in motion a chain of causal events that led ultimately to the resulting action, i.e. the murder. 

This basic premise can be taken even further, because everything that exists in the universe can be traced down the chain of causality all the way to the beginning; one event causes another, which causes another, which causes another, ad infinitum.  In other words, the whole universe is a vast, interlocking chain of things that come into existence because other things cause them to be. Our murderer would not be here to murder anyone without billions of causes, from the marriages of his parents and their parents all the way back through the development of the first protein molecule to the cooling of the galaxies and the Big Bang.

Everything that comes into existence must either exist by itself (i.e. by its own essence or nature), called an Independent Being, or it must exist because of something else (it was brought into existence/caused), called a Dependent Being. If it is an Independent Being and exists by its own essence/nature, then its being-ness is sufficient to explain its own existence, and it cannot have been created because that would mean it was caused to exist by something else, and thus it exists eternally. It cannot not have these qualities and still exist as an Independent Being, just as a triangle cannot not have three sides and still be a triangle.

If, on the other hand, something is a Dependent Being and exists not by its own essence, then it needs a cause, a reason outside itself for its existence. Dependent Beings cannot cause themselves. They are dependent on their causes. But does the universe as a whole have a cause? Is there a First Cause, an uncaused cause of the whole chain of causality in the universe? If not, then there is an infinite regress of causes, with no first link in the great cosmic chain. If so, then there is an eternal, necessary, independent, self-explanatory being with nothing above it, before it, or supporting it. It would have to explain itself as well as everything else, for if it needed something else as its explanation, its reason, its cause, then it would not be the first and uncaused cause. Such a being would have to be God. If we can prove there is such a First Cause, we will have proved there is a God.

Why must there be a First Cause? If, as previously mentioned, the universe contains only Dependent Beings, then the whole universe is unexplained without a First Cause. If there is no First Cause, each particular thing in the universe is explained in the short run by some other thing, but nothing is explained in the long run, and the universe as a whole is not explained. If there is no First Cause, then the universe is like a train moving without an engine. Each car's motion is explained proximately by the motion of the car in front of it: the caboose moves because the boxcar pulls it, the boxcar moves because the cattle car pulls it, etc. But if there is no engine to pull the first car and the whole train, the train cars cannot move of their own accord. The universe as a whole existing wholly independent of some First Cause is like a train moving without an engine.

Therefore, the universe must have a First Cause, since everything that exists in the universe is dependent (not in its nature sufficient to explain its own existence), and that cause must be an Independent Being. If there is no Independent Being, then the whole chain of causality in the whole of the universe is dependent on nothing and could not exist. But it does exist. Therefore there is a First Cause, that First Cause is itself uncaused and must then be an Independent Being, and this Independent Being is necessarily eternal and explained and justified wholly by its own being-ness, i.e. God.

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The Things of Man

Matthew 16 recounts two contrasting interactions between Jesus and Peter. In the first, Jesus calls Peter blessed because he recognizes and confesses that Jesus is Messiah. In the second, Jesus calls Peter "Satan" the tempter. What happened? How did Simon Peter go from being the rock to the stumbling block?

It all has to do with what Peter's mind was focused on, as Jesus states in verse 23: Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."

When Peter's mind was on the things on God, he recognized Jesus as the Son of the Living God, but when his mind turned to the things of man (perhaps how it affected him for Jesus to talk about going to Jerusalem to die, or perhaps what it would mean to Peter who had given up everything to follow Jesus if Jesus were to then be killed) Peter became a hindrance to the Kingdom.

The same is true for us. When we have our eyes fixed on Jesus and our mind on the things of His Kingdom, we move within that realm, and we hear and know the truth from God, just as Peter had it revealed from God that Jesus was Messiah. Contrast that with when we have our eyes fixed on ourselves and our minds focused on our circumstances, the things of this worldly realm. We cannot, in that position and from that perspective, be fully and truly alive. For when we focus on the things of man, we are bound again by the things of man: earthly concerns, daily distractions - even fear of death (like Peter).

Jesus goes on to teach His disciples what it means to live in His Kingdom instead of focused on the things of man:
24Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25For whoever wants to save his life[h] will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. 26What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? 27For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. 28I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."

Here, Jesus presents the paradox of living for Christ. From the viewpoint of the things of man, we believe we are gaining when we focus on ourselves. Our safety and self-protection, our best interests, and our own position as author of our own lives are paramount - driving our decisions (based on fear of loss and fear of death) toward what we think we want. But Jesus is pointing out that in so doing, we lose our lives (our true selves), for whoever would gain his life will lose it. Jesus is not just referring here to trying to be our own savior, although this is certainly part of how this plays out in our lives. He is referring to all choices based on the things of man. And He is not talking about debasing ourselves or seeing ourselves as useless, worthless, or unimportant. That would be the perspective of the things of man also, that to be valuable we have to be about self, and to not be about self means we do not matter. No, in fact, Jesus is referring to the paradox that when we lose our lives for His sake (when we focus on Him) is when we actually FIND ourselves. It is through living for Him and with Him in all things, focusing our mind on the things of the Kingdom of God, that we are fully alive, and can be our true selves as intended to be at our creation. What we see (in the eyes of man) as a loss is actually the gain of everything that matters. Paradoxically, it is in our own best self interest to let go of the things of man, and to focus our minds on Jesus.

C. S. Lewis says it beautifully: “Your real, new self (which is Christ's and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him. Does that sound strange? The same principle holds, you know, for more everyday matters. Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. The principle runs through all life from top to bottom, Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.” 
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

The Kingdom of God is already come. We are not called to wait for life after death to experience life. Jesus offers us life (more abundantly) now. In order to gain that life, we must let go of the things of man as our focus, and fix our eyes on Jesus. What appears from worldly eyes to be losing is actually to our great gain. "Taking up our cross" from an earthly perspective is a terrible form of punishment; from Jesus' perspective it is love. It is Jesus' profound love for us, the love demonstrated on the cross that He was describing was coming when Peter focused on the things of man and became a stumbling block, that fills our hearts with the Kingdom NOW.  The Kingdom of God within us is the living presence of Jesus in our hearts, and if we fix our eyes on Him, we are already in His Kingdom.  That means that He is everything to us, and the only thing that matters.  The perspectives of this world fade away as we focus on Him and Him alone.  Love becomes the central force in our lives, both from the position of recipient and giver.  This IS the Kingdom of God.