I wish to propose and allege that if a person objects to the “evidentialist challenge” as Nicholas Wolterstorff defines it (in his chapter, “Can Belief in God Be Rational If It Has No Foundations?”), then they ipso facto surrender the duty of exposing the grounds/foundations of competing systems, worldviews, philosophies, political systems, educational trends, economies, ethical systems, marital practices—any cultural manifestation of those religions, in fact—as insufficient, flawed, spurious, politically ‘interested.’ a hoax, mythical, tyrannically imposed, etc. Hence to argue (without sufficient grounds, need I add?) that such a transcendent (in Herman Dooyeweerd’s sense) exposé and judgement of foundational evidence is futile because ‘impossible in principle anyway,’ is to disarm Biblical religion of its most forceful and characteristic weapon against any and all comers: The Sword of the Spirit, namely, the Statement or Declaration of God concerning a matter. God is on record as inclined to furnish overwhelming historic evidence to back up His words. The fideistic/Calvinistic penchant to cavalierly discount such evidence in favor of their abstract unilateral pre-determinism does more than bury the tomahawk and divest themselves ignobly of any burden of proof. It means opting for unilateral disarmament when Jehovah has commanded an assault on every pretentious assailant of His own integrity. It amounts to calling a retreat when the Commander has ordered an advance. It’s to roll over and play dead. It’s presumptuous insubordination!
To strip apologetics of its foundational evidences (integral to the Biblical documentation concerning Jehovah God) is to strip God of His glory, for His covenant-founding deeds constitute His proof, His evidence, His very glory. His powerful historic deeds—as recorded in Scripture, in the structure of the earth, in the surface of moons and planets, in the artifacts of archaeology, in the records of all ancient civilizations, at the bottom of the oceans, in the magnetic polarity of rocks, in fossil remains, etc.—are the ‘evidences’ He wished to draw our attention to. He is still generating them, so we can still cull them. Such current analogous experience of His covenantal conduct corroborates what we already possess in writing, under His name and spiritual authorship. Thus, there is a mutually vindicating identity among all God’s characteristic redemptive acts, past and present.
Reformed apologetics is hollow talk, an empty shell, to the degree it repudiates the necessity or advisability of drawing the attention of people to God’s deeds and their historic remains. Even so, these would be poor substitutes for authentic Christian character and community among His avowed followers. However, in combination with these complementary veritable ‘evidences’ of His existence in His people by His Wholesome Spirit, the former hold a worthy and indispensable place.
For wherever God’s Spirit has been at work in His creation, it leaves telltale signs of Jehovah’s power and divinity (Romans 1:18-23), so that people are without defense to deny His existence. And how much more are His spiritual contents of favor and troth evident in His covenantal relations with Israel (seen in Old Testament Scripture), in the life of Jesus His only-born Son (in New Testament Scripture), and now (may it be!) in the history and contemporary conduct of His blood-bought people!
No one can come to the Son, however, unless the Father draws them. It is for this reason that the Father ordained his public unjust execution—so that His own Resurrectionary Justice could be once-and-for-all manifested in history on a grand scale. The Resurrection was God’s supreme evidence of His Justice—it proved what He was trying to Explain all along. God was trying to make a behavioral point with the Resurrection, not a mere apologetic point. It was a theodicy to surpass all theodicies! It way overpowered sin and its consequent evils. However heinous a crime, however vicious a sin, however catastrophic an evil, they are far, far overmatched by the overcompensating restoration entailed in the New Creation in Messiah Jesus! God will make sure of that. Accordingly, He demonstrated that in the midst of human history and misery at Messiah’s Resurrection.
The Father elects those who believe His evidence. This was His plan long before the evidence actually showed up in history. He trusts His evidence to do what He designed it to do. And His Wholesome Spirit then seals all who trust Him via that forensic medium. Thus God’s choice of believers can rest entirely aside from their actions (in which they could tend, as sinful humans, to take pride) and remains entirely on the grounds of their trust, which is not an action at all, but a ‘sabbath’ or cessation of action—an assumption of things that are expected (Heb. 11:1-2) rather than an exertion to earn them by dint of labor and toil and thereby place God in their debt. Trust prepares us for gratitude, thanksgiving, and joy—in other words, for worship in spirit and truth—in natural response to such divine favor! In such generosity and magnanimity of favor we are safe—saved from the destruction entailed in His anger against our incorrigible sins. Such a great salvation is a gift of God, pure and simple. Such is His wise plan. [4/26/02]
But what if some distrust Him—disbelieve His Explanation of the-crucifixion-being-reversed-and-far-overcompensated-by-the-resurrection? Does that fateful response deny or relativize this evidence brought to light by God? May it never happen! Shall our blindness nullify God’s illumination? Human blindness of this sort results from hating the evidence thus brought to light and, conversely, loving and seeking the dark (where it need not be admitted).
It is thus that a professional philosopher’s private life may weigh in against her public achievements. It is never actually possible to sever one’s public activities from their existential link to private behaviors and dispositional habits. We are unified beings. It may not be ‘nice,’ polite, politic, or politically correct to reach down into another’s private life and pull out the snake for all to see, but this is routine therapy for God to administer. Howbeit, He may often use us to do it for Him on behalf of deceived individuals whose plight evokes His compassion toward them, along with His rage against the Deceiver.
But for those persons who hate the light and prefer to play the mutual accreditation game, aggregately clutching the darkness around them like a communal blankey—’misery loves company’—they render themselves blind to the evidence lest they apprehend with their heart, convert, and get healed from their blindness. (Isaiah 6:9-10; Matt. 13:13-17; Acts 28:25-28—theologians have dubbed this condition ‘forensic blindness’.) So in response to their own desire and preference and choice to love the dark because they practice bad things and vicious acts (John 3:19-21), God, for His part, lets them grow calluses on their heart, the core of their personality, so their understanding progressively diminishes. He blinds their eyes so their perception of the clear evidence deteriorates.
This means, for the discerning Christian, an incipiently enlightened thinker, that we must take into account the dullness of our opponents when they show signs of withdrawing from, denying, or reproaching our presentations of Biblical documentation as well as veritable scientific evidence. This is only to be expected. Justin Martyr was martyred for blowing the whistle on self-hardened fellow-philosophers of the second century. We should prepare ourselves, our children, our Christian communities, including the Christian sub-community of scholars and scientists, for analogous treatment, which only provides further evidence for the truth we proclaim. By such sacrifices God is pleased and honored.
Yet we must ever keep before us that by such means the Father is drawing all to the Son. No one can come to the Son unless the Father draws them (John 6:44-45, 12:28-33). And the Father orchestrated His Son’s suffering abuse and crucifixion precisely to demonstrate that He could more than reverse it, even to the satisfaction of the aggrieved Victim, so that we could possess expectant trust! This core event of our Proclamation IS God’s drawing power! And by this means of public, eye-witnessed, legally recorded, shockingly tragic, boundlessly unjust ‘exaltation’ of Jesus, God can justly save anyone who wants to be saved! This spectacle of injustice in indissoluble connection with the subsequent display of justice at the Resurrection, generated a nuclear shock wave of light that revealed God’s invisible heart of love for humanity. It is God’s supreme evidence of His existence-cum-nature-cum-character. You reject it, you die off the vine. Your choice. You choose Him by this means He has chosen, and thereby you are chosen. That’s the plan. God endorses His choice of your choice by pouring out what He promised as the gift-wrapped Present of the New Covenant in Messiah’s blood—the Wholesome Spirit, the very contents or essence of His favor and troth. [4/27/02]
The Premial Atonement 