[The translation is from H.C. Bettenson, Documents of the Christian Church (1903), based on Luther’s Opera Latina (Frankfurt, 1865-73]

Background.  In 1520, Pope Leo X issued a bull of excommunication against Luther.  He directed the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation to execute it.  Charles V, however, was reluctant to take this step.  Only 21 years old at the time, Charles had only at great expense and with much diplomacy managed to get himself elected Emperor in 1519.  He was reluctant to alienate the German princes, many of whom were already suspicious enough of the consolidation of Habsburg power. 

A number of these — and most importantly, Luther’s own powerful sovereign, the Elector Frederick the Wise of Saxony — insisted that German subjects be tried only before a German body.  Since the Imperial Diet was then in session at Worms, Luther was summoned to appear before it for examination.  Frederick insisted that Luther be granted a safe-conduct pass guaranteeing that he would not be seized if he were to appear.  The Emperor agreed.  Luther then set out from Wittenberg, passing through city after city where he was received with acclaim and celebration.

The papal representatives at the Diet were acting under instructions from the Pope not to allow the occasion to degenerate into a debate, but to put the accused firmly on the defensive.  On the first day of his appearance, Luther was asked whether he acknowledged authorship of a list of his works which had been determined to be in error.  He did.  He was then asked whether he was willing to recant the errors contained in them.  Unwilling to answer “on the fly,” Luther asked for 24 hours in which to deliberate his response.  The request was granted. 

On the following day the examination reconvened, in the presence of the Emperor and the assembled princes and nobles of the Empire.  The interrogator was Dr. Ecken, an official in the administration of the Archbishop of Trier.  Luther did not compose his remarks for reading from a manuscript, but spoke impromptu.  Nor was any official transcript made of the transaction.  Accordingly, what transpired has had to be reconstructed.  The account that follows was composed by Luther himself, not long afterwards.  Bear in mind that he relates the scene in the third person, speaking in the first-person only when he quotes from memory what he said there.  [Additional accounts have been published, based on the recollection of some of the persons in attendance.]

_________________Luther’s account_____________________

Dr. Ecken:

. . . Do you wish to defend the books which are recognized as your work? Or to retract anything contained in them? . .

Luther: 

Most Serene Lord Emperor, Most Illustrious Princes, Most Gracious Lords . . . I beseech you to grant a gracious hearing to my plea, which, I trust, will be a plea of justice and truth; and if through my inexperience I neglect to give to any their proper titles or in any way offend against the etiquette of the court in my manners or behavior, be kind enough to forgive me, I beg, since I am a man who has spent his life not in courts but in the cells of a monastery; a man who can say of himself only this, that to this day I have thought and written in simplicity of heart, solely with a view to the glory of God and the pure instruction of Christ’s faithful people. . . .

. . . Your Imperial Majesty and Your Lordships: I ask you to observe that my books are not all of the same kind.

There are some in which I have dealt with piety in faith and morals with such simplicity and so agreeably with the Gospels that my adversaries themselves are compelled to admit them useful, harmless, and clearly worth reading by a Christian. Even the Bull, harsh and cruel though it is, makes some of my books harmless, although it condemns them also, by a judgment downright monstrous. If I should begin to recant here, what, I beseech you, would I be doing but condemning alone among mortals, that truth which is admitted by friends and foes alike, in an unaided struggle against universal consent?

The second kind consists in those writings leveled against the papacy and the doctrine of the papists, as against those who by their wicked doctrines and precedents have laid waste Christendom by doing harm to the souls and the bodies of men. No one can either deny or conceal this, for universal experience and world-wide grievances are witnesses to the fact that through the Pope’s laws and through man-made teachings the consciences of the faithful have been most pitifully ensnared, troubled, and racked in torment, and also that their goods and possessions have been devoured (especially amongst this famous German nation) by unbelievable tyranny, and are to this day being devoured without end in shameful fashion; and that thought they themselves by their own laws take care to provide that the Pope’s laws and doctrines which are contrary to the Gospel or the teachings of the Fathers are to be considered as erroneous and reprobate. If then I recant these, the only effect will be to add strength to such tyranny, to open not the windows but the main doors to such blasphemy, which will thereupon stalk farther and more widely than it has hitherto dared. . . .

The third kind consists of those books which I have written against private individuals, so-called; against those, that is, who have exerted themselves in defense of the Roman tyranny and to the overthrow of that piety which I have taught. I confess that I have been more harsh against them than befits my religious vows and my profession. For I do not make myself out to be any kind of saint, nor am I now contending about my conduct but about Christian doctrine. But it is not in my power to recant them, because that recantation would give that tyranny and blasphemy and occasion to lord it over those whom I defend and to rage against God’s people more violently than ever.

However, since I am a man and not God, I cannot provide my writings with any other defense than that which my Lord Jesus Christ provided for His teaching. When He had been interrogated concerning His teaching before Annas and had received a buffet from a servant, He said: “If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil.” If the Lord Himself, who knew that He could not err, did not refuse to listen to witness against His teaching, even from a worthless slave, how much more ought I, scum that I am, capable of naught but error, to seek and to wait for any who may wish to bear witness against my teaching.

And so, through the mercy of God, I ask Your Imperial Majesty, and Your Illustrious Lordships, or anyone of any degree, to defeat them by the writings of the Prophets or by the Gospels; for I shall be most ready, if I be better instructed, to recant any error, and I shall be the first in casting my writings into the fire. . . .

Thereupon the Orator of the Empire, in a tone of upbraiding, said that his [Luther’s] answer was not to the point, and that there should be no calling into question of matters on which condemnations and decisions had before been passed by Councils. He was being asked for a plain reply, without subtlety or sophistry, to this question: Was he prepared to recant, or no?

Luther then replied:

Your Imperial Majesty and Your Lordships demand a simple answer. Here it is, plain and unvarnished. Unless I am convicted [convinced] of error by the testimony of Scripture or (since I put no trust in the unsupported authority of Pope or councils, since it is plain that they have often erred and often contradicted themselves) by manifest reasoning, I stand convicted [convinced] by the Scriptures to which I have appealed, and my conscience is taken captive by God’s word, I cannot and will not recant anything, for to act against our conscience is neither safe for us, nor open to us.

On this I take my stand. I can do no other. God help me.

Amen.

De Servo Arbitrio

(On the Bondage of the Will)

Abridged

1525

A.D.Martin Luther

The Significance of the Issue

It is not irreligious, wasteful, or superficial, but essentially healthy and necessary, for a Christian to know whether or not his will has anything to do in matters pertaining to salvation. Indeed, let me tell you, this is the hinge on which our discussion turns, the crucial issue between us; our aim is, simply, to investigate what ability “free will” has, in what respect it is the subject of divine action and how it stands related to the grace of God. If we know nothing of these things, we shall know nothing whatsoever of Christianity, and shall be in worse than the heathen! He who does not admit this should acknowledge that he is not a Christian; and he who ridicules or derides it should realize that he is the greatest enemy of Christianity. For if I am ignorant in the nature, extent and limits of what I can and must do in relationship to God, I shall be equally ignorant and uncertain of the nature, extent and limits of what God can and will do in me – though God, in fact, works everything in everyone. Now, if I am ignorant of the works and powers of God, I am ignorant of God himself; and if I do not know God, I cannot worship, praise, give thanks or serve Him, for I do not know how much I should attribute to myself and how much to Him. We need, therefore, to have in mind a clear-cut distinction between God’s power and ours, and God’s work and ours, if we would live a godly life.

__________________________

First published in 1525, Martin Luther’s Bondage of the Will is acknowledged by theologians as one of the great masterpieces of the Reformation. It is Luther response to Desiderius Erasmus’ Diatribe on Free Will, written in his direct and unique style, combining deep spirituality with humor. Luther writes powerfully about man’s depravity and God’s sovereignty. The crucial issue for Luther concerned what ability free will has, and to what degree it is subject to God’s sovereignty. For Luther, this key issue of free will is directly connected to God’s plan of salvation. Is man able to save himself, or is his salvation entirely a work of divine grace? This work is vital to understanding the primary doctrines of the Reformation and will long remain among the great theological classics of Christian history.If you have not read this great work, and if you are interested in the true nature of man’s natural will, the remainder of an abridged version can be found here. The complete work is available for audio download here.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

This fine article was written by Pastor Brian Wolfmueller of Hope Lutheran Church in Aurora, Colorado.

“Have you made a decision for Christ?” One often hears this question from radio and television preachers, or even from our friends and family. “Have you invited Jesus into your heart? Have you received Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior? Have you dedicated your life to Christ?” Many churches have a “Time of Decision” at the end of their services, with altar calls and emotional appeals for the person to respond. All of these questions rotate around this same premise: the unbeliever has the ability and responsibility to chose Jesus. But is this what the Bible teaches? Can the unbeliever make a decision for Christ?

What Can We Do?

St Paul speaks of our conversion as a move from death to life. “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins.” [Ephesians 2:1, see also 2:5 and Colossians 2:13] Dead in trespasses and sins. Not sick, not crippled, dead. We are, says St Paul, dead in our sins, completely unable to chose or decide anything regarding Jesus. Again, St. Paul, “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” [1 Corinthians 2:14] The things of the Spirit of God, this certainly includes the truth of Jesus and His cross and death for us, all these things are unknown and unknowable to the natural man, the mind of flesh. The Gospel is “foolishness” [1 Corinthians 1:23,25] to those who do not believe. How, then, could we invite the unbeliever to make a decision for that which is foolish? It cannot.

Again, St Paul says, “For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.” [Galatians 5:17] Far from accepting the good news of Jesus, our sinful flesh fights against it. As Stephen, the first martyr after Jesus’ Ascension, preaches to the Jews in Jerusalem, “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you.” [Acts 7:51] Such accusation stands over all the unbelieving world, “They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.” [Ephesians 4:18]

Far from having a free will to choose or make a decision for Jesus, the Scriptures speak of the natural condition of man as an enemy of God. “For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.” [Romans 8:7] The fleshly mind “does not” and “can not” submit to God’s law. Such sure testimonies should answer the question “Can we make a decision for Christ?” The Scriptures plainly tell us “no”. St Paul quotes from the Psalms, “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” [Romans 3:10-12] And the Lord Jesus testifies, “The light shines in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” [John 1:5]

Conversion: God’s Work

The Bible says that we cannot chose or turn to God, that we are completely helpless when it comes to heavenly things. How, then, are we to believe? Conversion, turning from death to life and from the devil to God is a work of God Himself; a work of God alone. We call this the teaching of monergism, God alone is the cause of our salvation; He creates faith [see Ephesians 2:8-10] and gives repentance as a gift. Such is the testimony of the Scriptures.

When they heard these things they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.” [Acts 11:18]

One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. [Acts 16:14]

Jesus says, “All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.” [Matthew 11:27] And again, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.” [Matthew 13:11]

And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. [1 John 5:20]

Just as the Lord spoke and the universe was created out of nothing, so our knowledge and trust in the Lord is created out of nothing in us. “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” [2 Corinthians 4:6] God’s Word alone creates faith in us. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. [Romans 1:16] So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. [Romans 10:17]

It is the Holy Spirit, working through the Word of God, who gives us faith and trust in Jesus and His cross, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. [Philippians 2:13] So what we learn in the Catechism is a marvelous summary of this Biblical teaching:

I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.

In the same way He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith.

Our faith is a work of God the Holy Spirit through His Word.

Jesus’ Work is Our Comfort

It is plain from the Scriptures that the unbeliever cannot make a decision for Jesus or invite them in to their heart, but that the Holy Spirit, through the Word, converts the heart and gives us faith. But does this matter?

Jesus teaches us, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” [John 15:5] This is a verse of marvelous comfort, for here we have Jesus’ promise that, abiding in Him, we will bear much fruit. But Jesus is also warning us to not think too highly of ourselves. “Apart from Me you can do nothing.” Jesus means what He says, there is no doing anything good or holy apart from Him.

If we think that the unbeliever has the will to chose Jesus or make a decision for Christ, then we undo Jesus’ words, as if He wanted to say, “Apart from Me you can do nothing except invite Me into your heart.” But Jesus wants us to have the comfort that He Himself, through the Holy Spirit, has given us repentance and faith.

Far from making a decision for Jesus, the Lord’s people rejoice that He has made a decision for us, to die for us, to forgive all our sins, to baptize us into His family, and to call us through His Gospel. Our faith is Jesus’ work, and this is our great comfort.

May our Lord’s words to His disciples also grant us peace: “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide.” [John 15:16] Amen.

“What, therefore, is my God? What, I ask, but the Lord God? “For who is Lord but the Lord himself, or who is God besides our God?”13 Most high, most excellent, most potent, most omnipotent; most merciful and most just; most secret and most truly present; most beautiful and most strong; stable, yet not supported; unchangeable, yet changing all things; never new, never old; making all things new, yet bringing old age upon the proud, and they know it not; always working, ever at rest; gathering, yet needing nothing; sustaining, pervading, and protecting; creating, nourishing, and developing; seeking, and yet possessing all things. Thou dost love, but without passion; art jealous, yet free from care; dost repent without
remorse; art angry, yet remainest serene. Thou changest thy ways, leaving thy plans unchanged; thou recoverest what thou hast never really lost. Thou art never in need but still thou dost rejoice at thy gains; art never greedy, yet demandest dividends. Men pay more than is required so that thou dost become a debtor; yet who can possess anything at all which is not already thine? Thou owest men nothing, yet payest out to them as if in debt to thy creature, and when thou dost cancel debts thou losest nothing thereby. Yet, O my God, my life, my holy Joy, what is this that I have said? What can any man say when he speaks of thee? But woe to them that keep silence–since even those who say most are dumb.”

The Confessions of Augustine, Book 1, Ch. 4

“We become ‘free of guilt’ by receiving ‘pardon.’ Nevertheless justification does not consist only of pardon, but, says Edwards in Miscellany 812:

It does not in strictness consist at all in pardon of sin but in an act or sentence approving of him as innocent and positively righteous and so having a right to freedom from punishment and to the reward of positive righteousness. Pardon as the word is used in other cases signifies a forgiving one freely though he is not innocent or has no right to be looked on as such. There is nothing of his own he has to offer that is equivalent to innocence, but he justly stands guilty; but notwithstanding his guilt he is freed from punishment. But the pardon we have by Christ is a freeing persons from punishment of sin as an act of justice and because they are looked upon and accepted as having that which is equivalent to innocence . . .

Justification consists in imputing righteousness. To pardon sin is to cease to be angry for sin. But imputing righteousness and ceasing to be angry are two things. One is the foundation of the other. God ceases to be angry with the sinner for his sin because righteousness is imputed to him….
Persons cannot be justified without a righteousness consistent with God’s truth for it would be a false sentence. It would be to give sentence concerning a person that he is approvable as just that is not just and cannot be approved as such in a true judgment. To suppose a sinner pardoned without a righteousness implies no contradiction, but to justify without a righteousness is self contradictory.”

How do we know whether a particular thing is true or not, especially when it comes to religious issues? Greg discusses several ways we can know the truth…and ways we can deal with those who reply “Who’s to say?”

It’s not unusual for someone to say to me, “I’d like to get together with you and pick your brain.” To this I have a standard response: “You can’t pick my brain unless you’re a brain surgeon, and only then if you use a scalpel. You can only pick my mind .”

I have to modify that a bit when I have dinner with my brain surgeon friend. We get together every couple of months. He frequently brings friends with him, generally non-believers.

The brain surgeon is a growing Christian, learning how to defend his faith and stand up for Christ. On our dinner jaunts I’m sort of the hired gun. He lobs me a softball to bring the conversation around to spiritual issues, then I respond and the conversation moves along from there. It makes for a very stimulating evening.

At our last dinner. my brain surgeon friend invited a radiologist he worked with. He was a very well-trained and intelligent man, but suspicious of spiritual truth claims–an agnostic, not an atheist.

We spent most of the evening discussing whether Christianity is true or not. The heart of the radiologist’s challenge was this: How could anybody know whether a thing is true or not, especially when it comes to religious issues? I was quite surprised to hear what this otherwise very intelligent person had to say against my view.

I outlined three basic ways we know things are true. (I deal with these in detail in the Stand to Reason tape, “Any Old God Won’t Do.”) Incidentally, this is what epistemology deals with. You might have heard this twenty-five-cent philosophical word before, but not known what it meant. Epistemology deals with the field of knowledge. It answers the question: How do we know what we know? So when asked how we test religious truth claims, I give some epistemological tools. These tools are nothing fancy, nothing out of the ordinary. Basically, you respond to religious truth claims in the same general way you deal with any other claims.

The first way we know something is by authority. Frankly, most of the things we think we know we don’t know because we’ve discovered them ourselves, but rather because someone we trust told us they were so.

If I wanted to know something about radiology, for example, I’d ask a radiologist whose credentials I trusted. Even if I consulted books on radiology, it would have amounted to the same thing: taking the word of someone who was an expert in the field. I wouldn’t start from square one to rediscover radiology all on my own. I’d fall back on the books or the counsel of others who know better, and would probably be justified in believing what they had to say.

It’s interesting how people will sometimes balk at the notion at trusting an authority like the Bible, when virtually everything they think they know, they’ve gotten from some authority or another.

Think about everything you know about the past before your own lifetime. Think about everything you know about things that are too small for you to examine yourself–the microscopic world, for example–or too big, too distant for you to examine, like distant stars. Think about every place you think you have accurate information about that you’ve never personally visited. Think about everything you think you know about disciplines in which you didn’t personally do the primary research.

This probably amounts to about 99.9 percent of all of the things we think we know. We don’t know them through testing of our own, but through the testimony of others we think we have reason to trust. So, rather than being odd that we would take certain things on authority, it’s actually the foundational way we know things. We trust the words of other people who are reliable. The reliability and credibility of the authority is the key issue.

This teaches us an important lesson. It’s very natural for us to function on the principle that if the authority is credible, then we’re justified in believing the information he gives us.

I think a good case can be make that Jesus was that kind of authority. First He made certain claims about the nature of the universe, about Himself, and about God. He then worked miracles, cast out demons, raised the dead, predicted his own crucifixion, death and resurrection, and then self-consciously raised himself from the dead.

Now if Jesus, in fact, did those things, I think He’s earned the right to speak authoritatively about spiritual things. He’s got my vote.

So first we might be able to verify the truth of a religious claim, at least in principle, based on the authority of the one who made it. If he’s a credible authority– if he’s trustworthy– then we can trust what he says.

But there’s a second test that’s really valuable. It has to do with the definition of truth. When we say that a thing is true– and this is the garden-variety definition of “truth”– we mean the thing itself corresponds to the way the world really is. This is the “correspondence” definition of truth. A thing is true if it corresponds to the way the world really is. Simply put, if you know what a lie is, truth is just the opposite.

So if I said that it’s true that Greg Koukl is in the studio broadcasting a radio show right now, that claim is true if I am, in fact, in a studio broadcasting a radio show. My claim corresponds to the way the world really is.

So the second test for the truth of religious claims is to see if those claims fit the world.

Hinduism, for example, says the world is an illusion–Maya. We’re not real. God is just dreaming about us and we are part of that dream, so to speak. Our “salvation” involves transcending the illusion and to get back to the godhead.

Now I have to ask myself, “Is that claim true?” I’ll tell you something, I don’t think it is. My own cursory examination of the world seems to indicate that I am real and the world is real. I live my life as if it were real. I experience the world first person, firsthand.

Now, I could be mistaken, but I don’t know how I’d know I were mistaken if I were just an illusion. In fact, it’s almost a nonsensical claim. If I’m an illusion and I don’t really exist as an individual self, then how is it that I could have accurate, factual knowledge that I don’t exist? You see the contradiction here?

You might put it this way: Does Charlie Brown know he’s a cartoon character? I doubt it, because Charlie Brown is fictitious. He only exists in our imagination and therefore can’t know anything. For me to claim that I know I don’t exist turns out to be self-contradictory.

Do you know what that means? That means I don’t even have to pause for more than a second and consider the viability of Hinduism as an accurate view of the world, because its foundational tenet– that the world is just an illusion– is obviously false.

And, by the way, this throws into question everything else built on that foundation including reincarnation. If the foundational tenet is false, then everything built on top of it begins to crumble.

If you’re looking for truth in religion, then you want to narrow your search to religions that take the real world seriously and don’t dismiss it as an illusion. Christianity and Judaism do, by the way, which is why modern science was birthed in the West and not in the East. Since this religious claim corresponds to the way we discover the world to be, it’s evidence that Christianity and Judaism are true, at least at this point. And there are other claims biblical theism makes that correspond to the world as we seem to discover it.

So when the radiologist asks how one could know whether religious claims are true or not, I answer: You apply the same general principles of knowledge to religious claims that you apply to test any other kind of truth: authority and correspondence. If you do, you find that the Christian view of the world is very well substantiated.

As the conversation moved forward I introduced another concept: intelligent design. I’m actually convinced that most people believe the world was designed for a purpose. I know this because there are many things in their language that betray this conviction.

Whenever we talk about things being “made for” something, we’re actually expressing our conviction that they’ve been designed for a purpose. People say our bodies are not “made for” junk food, but for natural, healthy food. The goal is to be healthy. Health is an optimal functioning of something, that is, operating at the level it was intended to operate at.

The notion of health, then, depends for its meaning upon a design concept, an intention. Intentions are functions of minds, not things. Whenever we talk about health of the human body or any other living thing, then, it implies we believe it was intended to function a certain way.

Here’s another way of putting it. How would you know if any machine was broken? Say you stumbled upon some kind of machine on alien planet, a technological remnant of a forgotten culture. How would you know whether the machine was broken or not. How would you know if it was functioning properly? The only way you could know that is if you knew what it was made to do. And if it didn’t fulfill that function well, or if didn’t do it at all, then you could say there was something wrong with it. It was broken.

Our ability to see that things in the world are broken–that some living systems are unhealthy, for example–is evidence that we understand that some things in the world were designed for a purpose. They didn’t happen by accident. Our language reflects our discovery of design and purpose.

Now this discovery in the world corresponds to an important detail of the Christian world view. Christianity teaches that God created and designed things for a purpose. So we have another touchstone, so to speak, a way in which a particular truth claim about Christianity seems to match the world as we experience it. Clearly this doesn’t match certain philosophies people hold about the world, but it does seem to match the world itself. This is evidence that those philosophies which don’t correspond to the world are falsified at that point, and Christianity is affirmed at that point.

I also talked about Big Bang cosmology and how, according to current scientific consensus, everything came into being at a moment called the “singularity” some 14 to 17 billion years ago. If the universe came into being, then it’s an effect, and all effects have causes. So we can ask, what is an adequate cause for the effect of this universe? In one sense, this is a very scientific question about the origin of the universe.

This is where the radiologist started getting very uncomfortable. It was becoming obvious to him that I was leading up to the big “G”– the God issue. He didn’t like that and started objecting.

Maybe something else was responsible for the universe and not God, he said. One could postulate lots of different scenarios. Who’s to say it wasn’t a principle or force that we don’t know about that was responsible for everything? Of course, it’s fair to raise the question, but the question itself doesn’t count as evidence. Yet that seems to be the way he treated it.

The minute I began making sense, building a legitimate and compelling case for design, he began inventing all kinds of stories. They were not probative, offering actual evidence against my view. They were just imaginary speculations ending with the dismissal, “Who’s to say?”

Whenever somebody says to you, “Who’s to say?,” you know you’re probably winning the argument. Usually when they say that they’ begin inventing options that don’t exist. They are giving you phantom arguments because they don’t have any real ones to offer you.

The answer to the question “Who’s to say?” is ” We are the ones to say. We are to look at the evidence, weigh it and draw reasonable conclusions based on what we know, not on what we don’t know.”

My radiologist friend responded with a stunning remark. I’ve often said that some of the most intelligent, educated people say some of the most foolish things when spiritual issues are at stake. This was a stellar example. He said to me, “Wait a minute. You’re saying you believe in something just because you have all this evidence for it and because there is no evidence for contrary views. That’s not a good reason to believe anything.”

I replied, “Did you hear what you just said? Think about it for a moment. You’re faulting me for believing in something because there’s evidence for it, and rejecting things that don’t have evidence for them.” That wasn’t a fault, it was a virtue. “I rest my case.”

This is a transcript of a commentary from the radio show “Stand to Reason,” with Gregory Koukl. It is made available to you at no charge through the faithful giving of those who support Stand to Reason. Reproduction permitted for non-commercial use only. ©1997 Gregory Koukl

For more information, contact Stand to Reason at 1438 East 33rd St., Signal Hill, CA 90755
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During the revival ministry of Asahel Nettleton (1783-1844) more than 25,000 were converted, principally in the New England area. Nettleton, for one, did not shrink back from proclaiming Divine election. This vignette comes from the book on his life by his friend Bennet Tyler.

A certain individual said to him: “I cannot get along with the doctrine of election.”

“Then,” said Nettleton, “get along without it. You are at liberty to get to heaven the easiest way you can. Whether the doctrine of election is true or not, it is true that you must repent, and believe, and love God. Now, what we tell you is, that such is the wickedness of your heart, that you never will do these things unless God has determined to renew your heart. If you do not believe that your heart is so wicked, make it manifest by complying with the terms of salvation. Why do you stand cavilling with the doctrine of election? Suppose you should prove it to be false, what have you gained? You must repent and believe in Christ after all. Why do you not immediately comply with these terms of the gospel? When you have done this, without the aids of the divine grace, it will be soon enough to oppose the doctrine of election . Until you shall have done this, we shall still believe that the doctrine of election lies at the foundation of all hope in your case.” – Bennet Tyler and Andrew Bonar, The Life and Labours of Asahel Nettleton, p. 405. Reprint, Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1975.

– Online Source

Romans, Chapter 1, verses 18-32 tell us that men not only know God, in the sense that there’s ‘something greater out there somewhere’, they know of his power, his nature, and that he is deserving of great honor. Men are also born with an innate sense of morality:

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

These verses also tell us that man is born a ‘religious’ being. It is in the nature of men that they will worship ‘something’ or ‘someone’; if not the Creator of the universe, something or someone else.

If what this passage of Scripture tells us is true, trying to deny God is like trying to deny air.

Sounds redundant, doesn’t it? I was listening to a ministry podcast last Sunday and it left me with that thought. I don’t remember which member of the panel discussion mentioned it, but he made the point that whether it was Moses’ Big Ten, or Jesus’ Two commandments, they were still commandments. Following that train of thought, both sets of commandments are still ‘law’. We don’t tend to think of them that way. We always consider the Big Ten as ‘law’, but somehow think of Jesus Two as NOT law. I had to rethink that.

The Bible tells us that the law was given to lead us to Christ because there is no way we can keep ‘all’ the law and deserve eternal life. When we measure our performance by what we ‘do’ or ‘don’t ‘do’, we might ‘think’ we do. Until Jesus came along and expanded law keeping to attitudes of the heart, some folks thought they actually kept the law represented by the Big Ten, as well as a few additions to them.

So Jesus seemingly simplified things. Now we have Two instead of Ten. We connect the Two to the Ten by talking about half of them representing vertical relationships and half of them representing horizontal relationships, it sounds ‘cool’ and somehow easier for us to handle. But is it, really?

In terms of ‘commandments’, I can’t keep the Ten or the Two. And both sets of commandments take me right back to the Cross and the Grace it represents.

Maybe that’s just where I am supposed to be – living my life in view of the Cross.

Food for thought. . .