Seeking & Finding God-Part 2...The Necessity of Certainty

Tom and Dave continue their new series of programs based on Dave’s book: Seeking and Finding God.This week we focus on the topic, “The Necessity of Certainty.”Along with Dave Hunt, here’s T. A. McMahon.

Tom:

Thanks, Gary.You’re listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a program in which we encourage everyone who desires to know God’s truth to look to God’s Word for all that is essential for salvation and living one’s life in a way that is pleasing to Him. In this first segment of our program, we are in our second week of going through a new series featuring Dave Hunt’s book: Seeking and Finding God.Now, it’s hardly an imposing book of about 150 pages, but its content is life-transforming.Dave, last week you gave our audience kind of an overview of what the book was about, and why you wrote it—but would you just again tell our listeners, our viewers why you wrote the book.

Dave:

Well, Tom, I am given the privilege by the Lord to meet many people one on one, many of them on airplanes, and the Lord, amazingly, leads me to people who are, generally not always, when they’re not interested that makes the other ones all the more amazing. But generally, those who are searching, really searching and thinking.And so I have the opportunity to present the gospel to them, to reason with them, as we are told to do, to give them a reason, and those who show, when it comes time to part, a real interest. I mean, they’ve been showing the interest, but if that continues and I ask them—I don’t just send something to them, I’ll say, Give me your address and I’ll send you something.No, I say one of my books is called, Seeking and Finding God, would that be of interest to you?Very often they say, oh, yes, yes!Well, I’ll be happy to send it to you.Okay, here’s my address.So, I really wrote it because I didn’t know of anything that was proper follow-up. We have that sort of thing, The Reason Why, for example, a tract written a hundred years ago, I guess.We have a lot of things from the past, but I don’t know of anything that really deals with the way people think today.So I wrote this, hopefully it will lead people to Christ, but it would be a tool for those of you out there listening to us.I would recommend you read it, every Christian ought to read it, give you some ideas how to reason with people, and I think it would be very helpful to you to give to others if the opportunity arises.

Tom:

And, if they’re at least Dave, those who enjoy listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, sometimes it can be helpful to have the book that we’re going through, and we do that quite often.We take some of your books and go through them chapter by chapter.So, to have the book they can just follow along.So, Gary, later in the program will explain how they can obtain a copy if they wish a copy of the book Seeking and Finding God.Now Dave, the first chapter has an interesting title “The Necessity of Certainty.”Now, went over that a little bit last week, but just that phrase, what do you mean the necessity of certainty?

Dave:

Well, Tom, we can’t always have certainty.If you’re going to make an investment, oh, this looks like a good piece of property here, let’s buy that one.Well, it may turn out to not be a good piece after all.You had better read the CC&R’s, what are the conditions, covenant restrictions, and so forth, or what is the zoning? I mean there are many things. You had better be certain, as certain as you can be, before you jump in and do something.

Tom:

Sure.Just every day purchases, especially if they are a little spendy, a car, a refrigerator, you want to make sure you’re checking out, maybe Consumer Reports to see that you are getting something of value.

Dave:

But there’s one thing about which you had better be certain.Tom, I know you like to play golf, never get the chance, but—

Tom:

Well with five kids, I switched to fishing, Dave.

Dave:

Right.The difference I used to have—I like golf, I’ve played a bit of golf in the early days, but I preferred tennis because if you hit a bad shot off into the rough, or behind a tree or something in golf, and it’s going to cost you.But if you hit a bad shot in tennis and you run fast enough you can recover, maybe, and get this thing going again.But you can’t do that when you die.“It’s appointed unto man once to die, and after this the judgment.”So, I think you had better be pretty clear about this, you can’t take a chance.

Tom:

What lies beyond? Is that what you are saying?

Dave:

Yeah, you can’t take a chance; where are you going to end up when you die.And I don’t think we mentioned it last week, did we? Pascal’s Wager?Pascal, if you know who he was, a brilliant philosopher, he was a Christian.He said look, (he’s arguing with an atheist), if I’m wrong in following God all my life, and you’re right, when it ends when I die I’m dead.I haven’t really lost anything, I was happy during my life anyway, I loved to serve the Lord, and if you think that was an illusion, okay.But if you are wrong, and you say, oh when I’m dead I’m dead, and you’re not dead because the Bible is true—“…after death the judgment.”Wow, you have lost everything!And so Pascal reasoned, well I think that’s a bad wager to make, I just wouldn’t go for that kind of a deal.You had better make sure.Look before you leap, in other words.

Tom:

Right.So, you give three opposing views.Again, talking about, “the necessity of certainty” the idea that I can really be certain what’s going to take place after I die, but there are three opposing views, one you just mentioned, when you die that’s it, coffin closes, you’re in the ground, and it’s all over, nothing, period.And then there’s a view that says death and unconditional acceptance is the next step in the progression of our existence.It’s a spiritual advancement, and that’s what some people think.We’re going to talk about that, but also, a third point is death is followed by physical rebirth that improves one’s life through a continuous cycle of death and rebirth.So, these are ideas that people have, and we’re going to look into the certainty. Can you be certain, that’s the way it is?But let’s pick up with, again, we mentioned it, we went over it a bit last week, but let’s pick up with, …death ends it all period.Why isn’t that the case, Dave?

Dave:

Well, again Tom, I can reason this very quickly with someone sitting next to me on an airplane.Materialism is dead:In other words, materialism, an atheist is a materialist.

Tom:

Right, in other words, nothing exists but matter and that’s all.

Dave:

Right, a big bang, energy, they don’t know where the energy came from, they don’t know what energy is, but nevertheless that’s all they have.So you’re an atheist, you’ve got nothing else so you are stuck with matter.Well then your body is everything, that’s all there is to you, just a body.I’m thinking of Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the language of the DNA.He said:“Your hopes and dreams and ambitions and your marriage and your education and all, that’s just an illusion of your genes; you’re just a bag of molecules.”And he called that book The Astonishing Hypothesis.Now, you wonder why he called it astonishing—because nobody really believes this.And Richard Dawkins, for example, a leading atheist, will say well, this is counter intuitive, but these are the facts, and so forth.So, materialism that is falling by the wayside.You cannot explain purpose, and meaning, and hopes and so forth, justice.How much does justice weigh, what does it taste like, what does it smell like, what’s its texture?It has nothing, all of these things in fact, the things that are most important to us.Let’s take Irwin Schrödinger, Nobel Prize winner from Austria, he said:“Science can give you a picture of the physical world, they can tell you about a sunset, it can’t tell you why it’s beautiful.But when it comes to that which is most important: Why am I here? Where am I going? What is truth? What is justice?”Science has no answer to any of these questions, and he says these are the most important questions!So you’re going to have to look outside of physical science.So, my brain does not think:my brain cells, (this is what the atheists say) he’s stuck with it. So he’s got to see, well, how did the brain evolve?And then they’ll take apes, or whatever, and they will try to examine their brain, or they’ll take a schizophrenic and try to examine the brain.No the brain, and I quote, I think, in this book, a few, maybe a Nobel Prize winner, Sir John Eccles, who says the brain is like a computer that a ghost can operate.You are the ghost that operates your brain.Yourbrain doesn’t think, it doesn’t originate your thoughts, otherwise, well, I wonder what my brain wants for lunch, I wonder if my brain wants me to go this university or that university.No, you sit down and you rationally consider—you make the decision, okay.So, if your brain is not making the choices and decisions, who is?You are the thinker, and you make the choice, you decide, you activate the neurons in your brain to follow what you want to do.When you die your brain is dead, it’s rotting, but you—the thinker—you are still alive and you will face your Creator in judgment and give an account.

Tom:

So, Dave, you have an interesting phrase here, I know you give some friends of ours credit for this, but you write: tissues know nothing about issues.

Dave:

Yes, well that is Martin Bobgan, and it’s a well put saying.Matter is just tissues.Do tissues know anything about issues?But issues are what really, that’s what life is involved in, issues and choices, and so forth.So, there again, materialism is dead, and I would say most scientists, except for hard core atheists—and by the way, I think most scientists are not hard core atheists.For example, what book was I just reading?Well, by an atheist, I think you would find god in there a hundred times at least, in this book, and then towards to the end he says:“You know looking back and reflecting on this, I find this word, god, in there all the time.”Well, but he doesn’t mean the God of the Bible.Or you could take Stephen Hawking, the genius in the wheelchair, in his book A Brief History of Time.Stephen Hawking says and this is an interesting phrase, he’s not an atheist, he will tell you that, he’s an agnostic at this point, I think he may become a Christian.

Tom:

So, an agnostic would say well, I’m just not sure, I’m not dead set against the idea of God; I’m just still confused about it.

Dave:

Right, but in that book, Stephen Hawking says, You would be hard pressed to explain the universe, as we have come to understand it, without a God who created it.Now, maybe he is aiming for Einstein’s god, because you have to be careful when you quote these people.I know I’ve read quotes about Einstein, he talks about God, and oh wow, see, he’s on our side.No, you had better look a little further, because Einstein very clearly says, I do not believe in a god who interferes in our lives, who has plans for individuals, and so forth.He would call himself a deist.

Tom:

Which many of the founders—those who came out of the Enlightenment, the founders of this country, Jefferson, maybe Benjamin Franklin to a great degree.

Dave:

They would talk of providence, and what they mean is, God who created everything, we believe that all men are created equal, but then what happened?Well, this creator, he just kind of let things go.It’s up to us.

Tom:

Sure, God helps those who help themselves.That’s Poor Richard’s Almanac, by the way.I used to think that was a scripture verse, Dave, before I was a believer.

Dave:

So, I would say you would be hard pressed to—well; there are not many top scientists who don’t believe in that kind of a god, and that’s the kind of a god that Stephen Hawking believes in.But that’s not the God of the Bible, and that god really doesn’t make sense, because why would God, who has the power to create the universe and individuals within it—well, they would say he used evolution.It’s the most cruel, inefficient means—to get from here to there you’ve got to have so many intermediary forms, I mean, to get an eye, for example, and it’s not going to work this way because an eye that doesn’t work will not help your survival, so it would just be thrown out.Natural selection would throw it out, but they insist on this.Natural selection would just leave so many bodies of imperfect eyes, imperfect noses, and imperfect digestion.Oh, well, it’s working up to it.No, it would be a cruel, inefficient way and take millions and millions of years.Why would a God—so this is what I have against theistic evolution.By the way, Francis Collins, probably he would be looked up to as the greatest or the most knowledgeable geneticist, he’s in charge of the Human Genome Project that is mapping the whole human genome, a billion letters, he’s a theistic evolutionist.He believes in God, but a theistic evolutionist, he’s still hanging in there with evolution.Why would God, who could create everything, why would he go through this laborious, costly process?It doesn’t make sense.

Tom:

Dave, somehow, something falls out here.You mentioned Crick earlier, co-discoverer of the language for the DNA, but a confirmed atheist!What happened there?Language, intelligence, how does he miss that?And now you’re talking about Francis Collins who is brilliant, and yet what you just articulated, something very simple.Why would God put us through a process like this?

Dave:

And furthermore, a process cannot come up with language, you make a good point.Language has meaning; it can only be designed by an intelligence.So anyway, Tom, materialism is dead.When you’re dead you’re not just dead, your body is dead, but you’re not dead, and you will continue forever in heaven or in hell.

Tom:

Right.Well, there are some other points, Dave; I think they’re worth going over, that you mentioned.What about conscience?How does materialism explain conscience?

Dave:

Well, I can tell you how Dawkins would explain it, or Hitchins, probably one of the best known, the two best known atheists out there, they are both brilliant.Well, you know, at the beginning when we kind of swung down out of the trees, and came out of —

Tom:

Primal soup?

Dave:

Oh,no, no, no, this is much later than that, Tom, and we did develop a language and somehow.We lived in small clans, and we—well we discovered, I mean, if you help one another things work out better, and this is not morals, this is just built into our genes because we learned that if you are kind and cooperative, that then things work better.So, that’s all it is, and we can reason about this, and we can say see, there is no God, you don’t have to have a book, you don’t have to have a God, they would say, we can reason about this.Well, Tom, as you know, that doesn’t explain why—let me give you a current example.Tom, it’s interesting that Michael Vick, who sat around discussing?

Tom:

Michael Vick, the NFL football player, who is now being prosecuted for—

Dave:

Well, I think he has been prosecuted, he’s probably in prison, I’m not sure, Tom, I haven’t kept up with the case.But anyway— Who sat around, what society sat around discussing, well, what do you think about dog fighting, and training dogs to fight, and the cruelty of this, and so forth?No, it was just unanimous!You didn’t have to have a discussion, the whole world condemned him.He had nothing to say in his defense.I mean, there are other examples like that.Tom, it surprises me because you know the immorality in movies, and in Hollywood.We’ve got the governor of New York—woops, going to prostitutes, wait a minute!

Tom:

And now we have his assistant—

Dave:

Lieutenant governor who now has taken over.Well, he has had multiple affairs and his wife likewise.Well, there’s a sense of morality that is in all of us, and you cannot explain it in evolutionary terms because again, tissues know nothing about issues.How do we explain it?The Bible says, Romans 2, verses 14 and 15, I believe that’s the proper verses, somewhere around there—that the Gentiles, who have not the law, and yet they do the things that are commanded in the law.They recognize, and they accuse or excuse one another, they bear witness to God’s law written in their conscience!So, there is no other explanation for it, Tom, and that conscience, I believe, will torment the damned in the Lake of Fire forever and ever.

Tom:

Dave, let’s end this segment, but also this issue of, when you’re dead you’re dead; let’s end it with Lennon’s dilemma.Why don’t you explain that?We touched upon it last week.

Dave:

Well, Lennon, of course, was a scientific materialist, that’s what he called himself. He did not believe in God, he was an atheist.But then, he wonders, where did this idea of God come from?Now, Lennon believed, as a materialist you cannot even think of something that doesn’t exist.Where would the thought come from?

Tom:

Sure, because everything is a response.

Dave:

Right, stimulus response mechanisms are what we are.Well, if you can’t think of something that doesn’t exist, where did this idea, “God”, come from?Well, those preachers, they instilled that insidious opiate of the masses.Where did the preachers get the idea?That was a problem, and I think it’s something that whoever is listening to us, or you might want to bring that up to somebody else.Think about it!You can’t—oh, I can think of anything.Really!Come up with a new prime color for the rainbow.You cannot do it!Then where is the idea God, and it is common to all people everywhere.They may have perverted it, but they still have that concept.