What follows here are two chapters of the book by Pauline Holmes: Hell and Madness; Grace and Sanity: the true biblical basis for mental health, 1992 and 1998, published by Ransom Press, a division of Grace and Sanity Ministries, P.O Box 191334, San Francisco, CA 94119.

Copyright Pauline Holmes

Grace and Sanity Ministries

P.O Box 191334

San Francisco, CA 94119-1334





Chapter One



THE INNATE FEAR OF HELL



GENESIS AND GUILT

At the outset, it may be hard for the reader to see that the human mind cannot be fully understood outside of the context of the Bible. Harder still, even for some who consider themselves Christians, may be the fact that such understanding requires a literal belief in the Genesis account of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Yet Genesis explains all, and does so with beauty and economy. Genesis shows us that we humans have inherited innate knowledge of a universal dire predicament. Furthermore, this predicament is the root cause of every type of mental disorder.

From Genesis we learn that God gave a single command to the first humans he created: they were not to eat the fruit of a specific tree, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God said: "In the day that thou eat the fruit of that tree, thou shalt surely die" (Genesis 2:17). This death was separation from God which led to physical death and the dark abyss of hell. However, Adam and Eve naively listened to a competing source of authority: Satan, a fallen angel out to destroy the creation he could not have dominion over. Satan wanted God to lose the humans he made and loved. He knew disobedience would rupture their connection with their heavenly Father. So he told them the promised consequence of death would not apply if they ate the forbidden fruit. Appealing to their desire for power, he said: "Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods knowing good and evil" (Genesis 3:4-5).



LIES, TRUTH, AND LAW

In accepting Satan's advice, Adam and Eve broke with God. Once they disobeyed him, they immediately found the truth: they were doomed and Satan is a liar. God did not have to tell them this; they had ingested the Knowledge of Good and Evil, God's law. The law had become part of them and it told them the price for sin is death. In other words, the consequence of lawbreaking is alienation from God, meaning separation from the Tree of Life. Now they could put two and two together and make foreboding. They not only knew they were lawbreakers, they also knew they faced the terrible penalty of eternal darkness.

All of us face this penalty because we, too, are disobedient. Satan's lies--the promises of godhood, omniscience, and immortality--continue to appeal. Wanting to be gods, we rebel against God's authority. Implicitly, we do what Satan did before God kicked him out of heaven: try to build a "throne above the stars of God" (Isaiah 14:13).

Moreover, Satan's lies are the basis of all false religions. Their doctrines appeal to our rebelliousness. We think knowledge--enlightenment--will empower us. Instead it shows us how utterly vulnerable we are. In fact, "knowledge increaseth sorrow" (Ecclesiastes 1:18).

Genesis reveals our universal predicament. Paul, the apostle, puts it in a very simple way: "The wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23). Disobedience lost our forefathers the protection afforded by their union with God. They were now wide open to Satan's onslaught, condemned for eternity. Their dilemma is our dilemma.

Indeed, everything Adam and Eve learned in the Garden of Eden has been passed on to their descendants, the human race. God's damning law was planted deep in our psyche. Interestingly, the word for law in the Danish language also means "doom." The knowledge of good and evil is God's law which tells us we are doomed.





GUILT

After disobeying God, Adam and Eve noticed their nakedness; they felt a need to hide. What they were experiencing was guilt. Guilt is the awareness of deserving punishment. Our ancestors' feeling was not sexual guilt but an existential type of guilt, a general sense of deserving punishment for missing the mark of perfection. The guilt was accompanied by a sense of their need for protection, a place where they could hide from punishment, a "cover."

Like them, we are all in hiding...physically, emotionally and spiritually. Because we have inherited God's law in our psyche, we know our sentence. But our flight from the truth means it may not be conscious knowledge. We feel bad about ourselves but have no idea why. Somewhere inside we carry tremendous guilt plus shame, terror, rage and despair because of these two ominous facts that are printed on our hearts: one, we fall short of God's standard and always will (i.e., we are sinners); and two, unless we are fortunate enough to have "ears to hear" (Deuteronomy 29:4) of God's rescue, we are stuck with the penalty.

In psychodynamic terms,(1) existential guilt, or the awareness of deserving eternal punishment, puts the psyche under enormous stress. Guilt sends us into whatever hiding our psychological defenses afford us until either the punishment occurs or there is a total reprieve. Our defenses aim to keep the conflict out of consciousness. They also strive, unsuccessfully, to lift the sentence off our heads. However, there is a price to pay for defenses: pathological patterns of behavior and thinking. These include self-punishment, self-purification, compulsive work, and delusions of grandeur.

Theologians and psychologists have made futile stabs at explaining our ubiquitous guilt outside of the biblical context. Adlerian psychology says guilt stems from a refusal to accept one's inferiority. Jungian psychology says guilt stems from a refusal to accept the "shadow," the darker aspect of being human. Martin Buber says guilt arises from our refusal to accept others. But all of these are outgrowths of the preexisting guilt. This is the situation: I cannot accept others until I accept my self; I cannot accept my self until I know my flaws no longer doom me; I only know my flaws no longer doom me when I have proof that God has forgiven me; but until I have that proof, I dare not look at myself.

HELL AND MADNESS

If we humans explore ourselves deeply enough, we become aware of the terror of a place of utter darkness. It is there in all of us regardless of familiarity with the Bible. We have all inherited a sense of the reality of an endless hell, the "lake of fire" (Revelation 19:20), or "gehenna" in Hebrew. Until this fright is put to rest our minds are bent out of shape by it. We humans cannot get rid of a feeling that we are completely vulnerable to the abyss, unable to stop ourselves from falling in.

Satan, envious of God and knowing he is destined for hell, actually stole the human race, thinking he would drag us all down with him.

How can we be at peace in such a predicament? We cannot. It produces an unending sense of affliction. God says that until we turn to him: "I will set my face against you, and ye shall be slain before your enemies: they that hate you shall reign over you, and ye shall flee when none pursueth you" (Leviticus 26:17). Also: "The Lord shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart" (Deuteronomy 28:28). And: "There is no peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked" (Isaiah 48:22). "Wicked," of course, applies to all humans in their natural state.

Human race: Look be'ind yer! Burying our heads in the sand, rejecting the idea of Satan and eternal torment may enable us to survive in this world without completely caving in. But superficial ignorance will not save us, nor still the storm. This false respite offers existence but not life. It means forfeiture of psychological integrity.

Many of us make the mistake of thinking hell not only endurable but more interesting than heaven. It might even be fun, like an endless cocktail party in an overheated room accompanied by joke-cracking sinners, perhaps all our best chums. Nothing could be further from the truth. Eternal disconnection from God will not be bearable. It will be worse than anything we can imagine, with neither fellowship nor respite.

Living in the present world without God is bad enough. It is like being a trapeze artist performing without a safety net, no support to fall into. There is an indefinable sense of something missing, of insecurity, emptiness, and ungroundedness. Somehow, we always feel "wrong." Traditional psychotherapy tries to assure us about our potency and goodness. But these affirmations bounce off like water from a duck's back.

Only a dilemma of this magnitude is adequate to explain the depth, pervasiveness, and content of all our human neurosis and psychosis. Even the more transient mental disorders stem from a sense of disconnection from God with only the prospect of eternal darkness ahead. In some fashion, all religions and psychotherapeutic methods attempt to heal this terrifying sense of being shut out in the cold, isolated and unprotected. The terms change but the intent is the same.



THE NATURE OF SIN

How we hate the "sinner" label, that finger pointing in accusation! Sin is accompanied by the resented burden of guilt. The Freud-based mental health profession helps us to blame "them" for the guilt...our parents, society, or that first grade teacher. We think "they" did it to us with "their" rigid standards and hypercriticality.

To combat this, we establish our own standards. We redefine "sin" to mean only the more serious transgressions which we consider avoidable. Psychological justification makes everything permissible. We are not sinners, we say. The erasure of the "s" word from our language has been noted even by the psychiatric profession.(2)

What is sin? To sin is to break God's law in thought, word, or deed. The Hebrew and Greek words for sin, "hattath" and "hamartia," respectively, are archery terms meaning "missing the mark," or "falling short." The "mark" is God, essentially the mind or wishes of God. The instant a sinful thought enters our head, we break connection with him. Our minds are not in the same place.

For its consequence of death to apply, sin does not have to be willful disobedience, and it does not have to be major. The minutest transgression, the tiniest impure thought, puts us on the wrong side of the law. Since one false step is all it takes, every one of us, from axe murderer to dedicated do-gooder, is in the same bind. "There is none righteous, no, not one" (Romans 3:10).

We are, as David said, "fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139:14), yet we have inherited a proclivity for disobedience. Sin is not only what we do, it is also what we say and think. Despite what all the non-Biblical religions tell us, we just do not have sufficient self-control to completely eliminate sin, particularly in our thinking process. Actions and tongue may be governable by us to some degree, but the stream of our consciousness is fed by dark springs. Sin is inevitable. Over and over again, the Bible states that man's heart is desperately wicked (Genesis 6:5; Romans 7:18, 7:25, 8:20).

Belief in human godliness, sometimes literal but usually implied, is the ultimate psychological defense mechanism, a common feature of both false religions and the delusional thinking of psychotics. Only as gods would we be be able to resolve our terrible dilemma through our own power, stepping outside of human nature. Only as gods could we escape hell by changing ourselves into creatures that did not miss the mark.

The directives, "Love thy neighbor as thyself" (Leviticus 19:18) and "love your enemies" (Luke 6:27) go against our selfish and unforgiving nature. When we apply these standards to our own thought and actions, we see how far short we fall. We cannot avoid it; God's love alone is perfect.

Evolutionists try to minimize our sinful nature by attributing it to the outmoded "reptilian" portion of the brain which will disappear further down the great chain of being, millions of years hence. But there is no evidence that ontogenesis, or the development of the individual, recapitulates phylogenesis, the evolutionary development of the phyllum. Nor is there evidence for evolution; the facts contradict it (see Chapter Two). Our nature is no better now than it ever has been.

Our nature is the problem: its egocentricity, its killer instinct, its selfish desire to avoid pain at all costs, its tendency to get lost in sensual pleasure, its laziness, its pride, its greed, its envy, and its covetousness. We are inherently self-centred and worldly.

However, there is one ultimate rebellion: to assert there is no higher authority than ourselves. It is the "sin unto death" (I John 5:16), since it implies rejecting God. This is what Samuel, the prophet, meant when he said: "For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry" (I Samuel 15:23). But just like Adam and Eve, we fall into this trap. Often unaware of how dangerous our assumptions are, we conduct our lives as if we hold the reins that control our destiny.



THE CONSCIENCE

Our insides acknowledge the true predicament. Guilt, fear and rage seep up from an innate sense of the sentence our humanness puts us under. The conscience, God's inborn law in our hearts, does not rest when our nature transgresses. Psychological defenses hide the conscience and the guilt, but at the expense of our mental health.

In spite of what secular psychologists say, our sense of morality is not acquired through learning. However, learning can distort it like a veneer on the surface. Superficial layers of popular morality can separate us from God's law deep inside. Even so-called "Christian" morality often departs significantly from God's law. For example, God reveals in the story of Noah and Ham (Genesis 9:20-27) that he is far more upset about gossiping than drunkenness. He also shows us he considers pride (Psalm 10:4) and stubbornness (I Samuel 15:23) to be worse than either of these. Conversely, we humans are often willing to tolerate gossiping and stubbornness, we value pride, and we make temperance a condition for church membership. Yet the tongues of many smug "Christians" wag over someone with a weakness for alcohol, blind to their own transgression.

Secular humanists deny that moral sensitivity stems from God. They claim that doing what is right comes from innate human goodness. But that does not explain the existence of moral absolutes like "good" and "bad," nor why doing good feels good. Humanists are unaware that this speaks of an unconscious sense of accountability to God. And they invariably display huge, unacknowledged moral lapses as they deny sin to attain the illusion of their own goodness.

THE TORAH AND JESUS

Now we come to the good part: the rescue. God's law both dooms and frees. It is laid out in detail in the Pentateuch, or Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament written by Moses. The death and resurrection of Christ completes it.

Satan made humans disobey God's one prohibition, bringing down on themselves an impossible law that spelled doom. So God put a special provision in that law. He gave humans a key to the straightjacket, embedding possibility within impossibility.

For many reasons, it is hard for humans to grasp that the key is a gift. Yet grace is God's unmerited forgiveness, the gift of a total pardon to humans. This gift, for which God paid dearly, stems from his love for us, not from any deed or greatness on our part. God has given us tangible proof of this pardon. It is our ransom, the entrance fee to a relationship with him, the ticket out of hell that is essential to sanity. To make it tangible, he builds us a composite image of that gift throughout the Torah and Old Testament prophecies, then shows us the real thing in the Gospels.

God tells us what he wants of us, but acknowledges that we will be unable to do it perfectly--that sin is inevitable. His mercy is in giving us an easy "out" that still fulfills the requirement that the consequence of sin is death. This is the fundamental difference between the Bible and all other religions. God does not say we must be without sin before we can come to him. Rather, he gives us a provision for access to him as sinners. Since sin is inevitable, if we do not take the provision, we are permanent outlaws...lost, without hope.

Some think that the condensation of the law expressed by Jesus is softer than the version God gave to Moses. But this is not so. Jesus tells us "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself" (Luke 10:27). He is not making it any easier for us to keep the law than it would be to keep the six hundred and thirty odd commandments listed in the Pentateuch. Much of the Pentateuch addresses relatively "do-able" actions, rather than emotions we have no control over. Humans cannot love on command.

However, the point of the law, particularly Jesus' version of it, is to show us that we cannot save ourselves. As Paul states, the law is given to us to show us that "by grace are ye saved through faith: and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9).

Comparing our behavior with God's standard certainly makes boasting impossible. Our taking his provision is the only thing that counts for righteousness as far as God is concerned. Perfect performance is neither expected nor is it an option. We have to go to God with a bent neck, not waving our credentials, which are as "filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6). Our basic sense of unworthiness is no delusion, for it applies to our inability to pay the entrance fee to God and survive eternal darkness. If the price for sin is death, we cannot pay it and live. The only fee of any worth is the one God gave to us: Christ.



THE DAY OF ATONEMENT

The "gift" aspect of salvation is especially clear in the directives for the annual Day of Atonement. The people were asked to take a day of rest (i.e., a sabbath) while the priest made a sacrifice of burnt offerings in payment for the sins of the people (Exodus 30:10; Leviticus 16). This was to fulfil an agreement whereby God would forgive all their sins--the ones they knew about and the ones they were ignorant of.

Despite popular misconceptions about the God of the Old Testament, we certainly see no mean and vengeful old Yahweh here. Instead we see a loving lawmaker who provides an escape hatch in the law, a doorway that we lawbreakers can take to stay out of jail. This provision or cover was, and is, available at no cost to the sinner. No strings are attached.

It is critical to note that the required actions or rather, inaction, in no way earned the forgiveness. The definition of the Day of Atonement as a sabbath highlights the fact that no human effort can pay for sin. The human observance of this day of rest merely performed the function of signing a contract.

Why was an animal slaughtered? Bloodshed is absolutely essential. The law says that the price, or redemption value, for sin is death. The forgiveness contract must be signed with blood (found from Genesis on, but explicit in Leviticus 17:11, Matthew 26:28, and Hebrews 9:22). Blood ransoms us out of the hands of Satan, but it does not have to be our blood, nor can it be. The shed blood of any human, i.e., a sinner, cannot save anyone. That is why the pagan practice of human sacrifice is abhorrent to God. God lets us off the hook only through the blood of an unblemished substitute.

In the Old Testament, this substitute came from a specified group of animals. On the Day of Atonement, the shedding of the blood of the ram substituted for the blood of humans. Since it was to be observed once every year as an "everlasting statute," humans obviously need constant cleansing. We do not stop sinning. The cleansing does not remove sin from our nature, but removes the price of sin from our heads. Without this pardon, we cannot approach God. Blood is the entrance fee; otherwise sin is the barrier.

Right from the start, God made it clear that he would provide the substitute. Adam and Eve found fig leaves to cover themselves, but that did not suffice because there was no shedding of blood. God replaced them with animal skins. Wearing the cover God gave them, Adam and Eve no longer had to hide from him.

Humans cannot approach God without protective covering. Nor can we face life or ourselves without it. Our own flimsy psychological defense covering is just a bunch of fig leaves; the cover has to come from God. When Moses went up to talk to God in Mount Sinai, God provided a cloud cover, yet Moses returned glowing from the intensity of the brilliant light emanating from God, the Shekinah glory (Exodus 33:10-11). A cover is essential or we will be burnt to a crisp.



ONE STIPULATION

One of the many parallels between Adam and Eve's original situation and our present one lies in the fact that God only makes one reasonable stipulation on our relationship with him. Adam and Eve were given all the freedom in the world except for one thing they were forbidden to do: eat the fruit of a specific tree. That was the only way they could rebel. Nevertheless, albeit under Satan's influence, they committed that one sin.

On the other hand, we who are strapped under a law that makes it impossible for us to avoid sin, balk at the one thing God asks us to do if we want to escape its terrible consequence. All we have to do is claim Jesus. Despite God's clear warnings, we got into a mess by doing the one thing he asked us not to do in the Garden. Now we refuse to do the one thing that gets us out of our quandary. Satan has a strong role in that, too. He blinds us to our predicament and the easy escape God has given us.

Partly because the air is filled with false teaching about the Bible, and partly because pride makes us want to control our own destiny, we fail to see how easy God made it for us to avoid hell. Even if we consider such a place or state to be only a slight possibility, we are utterly foolish if we reject the offer. As Pascal(3) pointed out, we have nothing to lose by accepting it, and everything to gain. On the other hand, we have nothing to gain by rejecting it, and everything to lose.

Jesus is the definitive covering for sin, our hell insurance. He fulfils all the metaphors and prophesies in the Old Testament with stunning accuracy. All we have to do is claim his death as the payment that buys us out of the separation from God that leads to hell (John 3:16; Romans 5:12-21)). When we go to God holding up the perfection of Jesus in front of our tainted selves, there is no barrier between us and God. Jesus took all the punishment that we deserve. We are under "no condemnation" (Romans 8:1), because God accepts his death in place of ours. He is the free pardon, the lamb of the Atonement whose blood was shed for us.

Moreover, he fulfils the requirement of the law that the sacrificed animal had to be "without blemish" (Exodus 12:5), or perfect and without sin. To fit that criterion Jesus must be God, because all humans are blemished.

Jesus said "I am the way, the truth, and the life: No man cometh unto the Father but by me" (John 14:6). In other words, without Christ as our cover or payment for sin, we are naked in our uncleanness and cannot come to God. Our sense of our own corruption tells us this. To state that we can reach God outside of Christ is to lie to ourselves.

From an intrapsychic perspective, reaching out for the free pardon is the one way to alleviate not only the guilt, but also the fear, rage and despair that otherwise torment humans. The guilt is dispelled when we have proof we are forgiven; the fear dissipates when we know we have a permanent rock beneath us; the rage is calmed when we know we have escaped from between a rock and a hard place; and the despair is replaced by hope. Now we have open access to God's loving ear and he sends the Holy Spirit to guide us. From this time on, our psychological defense equipment is redundant; psychological integrity is attainable. In fact, this is the only way we can be sound of mind.









ASLEEP ON THE TRACKS

However, the central importance of salvation from hell has slipped away from view even among today's Christian church attendees. In one study, members of different Judaeo-Christian denominations were asked to rank order the importance of salvation as compared to other values such as honesty, love, family security, a world at peace, forgiveness, and pleasure. Protestants ranked salvation fourth, Catholics ranked it thirteenth, and Jews and nonbelievers ranked it eighteenth. The Protestant ranking would have been lower if it had not been for the fact that the high proportion of Baptists in the sample ranked salvation first.(4)

Moreover, "salvation" for many who consider themselves Christians means being rescued from some sin, often an addiction, rather than from eternal darkness. In response to my question regarding whether or not her cocaine-addicted husband had been saved, one of my clients answered: "No, he's dead." We are falling asleep on the railway tracks.



WHY DIE THE FIRST TIME?

Because a just God keeps his promises, we all inherit the same fate as Adam: "Thou shalt return unto the ground; for out of it thou wast taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return" (Genesis 3:19). From the day of their rebellion, God cut off the Tree of Life from Adam and Eve, and our forefathers had to leave the Garden (Genesis 3:22).

Losing the connection with God not only meant physical death, it also meant losing God's protection from Satan. From that point on, humans have suffered physical decline, death, and darkness beyond that. Satan has been free to inflict upon us trials, tribulations, disease and confusion. His intention is to keep us lost by making us angry with God so we reject the door to salvation.

Some humans are born in hostile environments with the decks apparently stacked against them. They think: "A loving God would not have let me suffer like that." But, as the book of Job shows, God uses the work of Satan for his own purpose. Generally, we do not come to God willingly. He has to break our proud hearts many times over. Through that he forges us into stonger metal. Research shows that eighty percent of spiritually-committed people report that some crisis occurred prior to their commitment.(5)

God could have made faithful robots, but he gave us free will. He lets us suffer because he loves us and wants us to choose him; he is testing us. The choice to take his provision would be too easy if humans saw that those who did so never died nor suffered. We need to look at the larger picture. Instead of focusing on present ills or past hurts, our eyes need to be on the future, on the dire predicament our loving Father rescued us from. The fact that he uses suffering to achieve his ends is proven by Christ.

So claiming God's provision for sin does not restore us to our pre-Fall freedom. We all suffer physical death in this relatively brief pre-test for eternity, where the sheep are separated from the goats. But after death, physical life is restored to those who claim Christ.



WHAT IS MENTAL HEALTH?

Mental health is peace of mind about our eternal destiny through reconciliation with God. When we see the truth about our dilemma and reach out for the "life-belt" God has thrown to us, we can become sane. Our appreciation of the enormity of God's mercy initiates a major transformation inside us. Because he has given us proof that he loves us unconditionally, we cannot help loving him in return. We want to please God by doing what he asks; after all, his commandments are for our benefit. As our hearts of stone begin to change into hearts of flesh, helping others becomes natural. We can even find ourselves playing good Samaritan to an enemy. More than anything else, we want to warn others, friend or foe: "Look be'ind yer and claim Christ!"

Even so, the transformation is never total. At times we still find ourselves blindly giving in to our "secret faults" (Psalm 19:12), the darkness of our nature with its selfishness. However, the blanket pardon from God means we can stop hiding this and be relieved of the constant sense of unforgiven guilt nowadays called "low self-esteem." Perceiving God's mercy through his rescue enables us to see the cracked vessels we really are and internalize his compassion.



FREE AT LAST

"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32). In freeing us from the dark abyss, the truth of the Gospel frees us from psychological bondage:

It frees us from the constriction of internal defenses. We can openly engage with God in confession/repentance.

It frees us from the burden of layer upon layer of guilt, self-hatred, bitter rage, and the constant plague of fear.

It frees us to give and receive love.

It frees us to make decisions, to create, to take risks and act in faith because we know we have God's continuous support.

And it frees us from insanity and despair, putting our minds at rest and filling us with hope for the future.





Notes













Chapter Two

WHY WE REJECT THE BIBLE

DESPITE ITS SCIENTIFIC BASIS





So...mental illness stems from an innate, universal sense of eternal damnation. This claim is based on the Bible's being literally true, from cover to cover. But is there evidence for this? And how many of us believe it?

Thirty one percent of all U.S. adults endorse the statement that "The Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally, word for word."(6) The remainder express some degree of skepticism. Even many "Christians" ridicule the idea of complete, literal acceptance of the Bible.

The problem is that when humans begin to question the authenticity of the Bible, they have no idea where to stop. Each book in the Bible is a building block that adds to the credibility of its most important feature: the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. What hope is there for any of us if we reject this center stone? This is the most important issue affecting the human race. Why do we fail to notice how important this is? Why do we spend so little time studying it?

Partly because we are too blind and afraid...afraid to find there really is nothing to hope for. However, our fear denies us access to surety. The fact is, when we explore the authenticity of the Bible, we discover the considerable support it has from other sources.



HUMAN CHARACTERISTICS THAT BLIND US Before briefly surveying that support, let us consider several personal and cultural factors that Satan uses to lead many to reject the Bible before giving it a fair appraisal. These include fear, pride, pluralism, rebelliousness, scorn, cynicism, complacency, and ignorance.

FEAR

Adam's response to God after disobeying him was: "I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid..." (Genesis 3:10). Our death sentence fills us with blinding fear.

There is a chicken/egg aspect to dealing with the fear. We have to see the bad news (our doom) before we can appreciate the good news (our free rescue). But we are afraid to see the bad news until we know the good news.

Somehow, a sense of God's total forgiveness must accompany a realization of the terrible danger we are in. Otherwise, fearing destruction, we block all thoughts of it from consciousness. We sense that a single transgression puts a gulf between us and God and this keeps us shut. False teaching makes us blame the Bible for the fear before giving ourselves a chance to learn that God's Word is the only refuge from it.

But once we are tucked under the safety of God's blanket pardon, we can loosen up and admit to that "one little sin." Our psychological defense apparatus begins to dissolve, gradually revealing all the other sins, big and small.

The more we see our depravity, the more we appreciate what God has done for us, and the more we love him. Although we will always be tainted, when we put on the cover of Christ we are connected with God. We are free to ask God to take charge of our pathological tendencies and meet all our needs.



The approach-avoid conflict

Benar(7) aptly describes the approach-avoid conflict we have regarding confession. On one hand, we want to confess because it relieves guilt and anxiety. It reestablishes a sense of connection with God.

Yet on the other hand, we run from it. The most important reason for this is not, as Benar, a Catholic priest states, out of our embarrassment in front of another human. Non-Catholics, who are not required to speak to a human confessor, avoid confession too.

The avoidance stems from two falsehoods: 1) God's forgiveness is not total; and 2) it is not given to us freely. The truth is 1) absolutely everything is covered, and 2) we do not have to earn or beg for it. By claiming Christ as the sacrifical lamb, the one who takes the blame for us, we are freed from all condemnation (Romans 8:1).

"Confess" comes from the Latin "con-" meaning "together," and "fatere" meaning "to acknowledge." It means "to acknowledge together." Confession is, in fact, an acknowledgement of what God already knows. In confessing we are agreeing with God instead of arguing with him.

So when we duck confession, we are trying to hide from God. It is a farce, because deep down we know when we have sinned and we know he knows. But we dare not consciously acknowledge sin knowing it damns us. It would be impossible for us to function from one moment to the next if we knew Satan's axe could fall at any time. So we hide behind the self-deception of psychological defenses. Sticking our heads in the sand, we leave our tails exposed.

The hiding and the terror abate when we perceive that God's forgiveness is a foregone conclusion. It is critical to understand that grace, the unmerited pardon, precedes repentance from sin, not vice versa.(8) If repentance were a prerequisite, grace would not be grace. It would not be unmerited. Grace comes first...the uniqueness of Christianity realized by relatively few.

It works this way: we cannot repent (reject sin) until we confess, we cannot confess until we see our sin, and we defend against seeing our sin until we are sure of being forgiven. But when we see the enormity of God's mercy towards us, repentance is natural. There is nothing forced about it; we are no longer under the gun. This is why salvation produces works, not vice versa. Works come out of the sense of freedom and gratitude towards God. No real transformation can occur otherwise.

Yet fear is the doorway to this freedom. The same fear that can keep us away from God is the entrance to salvation. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge" (Proverbs 1:7). God gives us fear for a reason. Once we realize the bind we are in and see the open door of grace, it is clear that there is nowhere else to go. We are driven towards him.



PRIDE

Pride is another reason we reject or ignore the Bible. Nobody truly believes it possible for humans to shed all their flaws, to never miss the mark one iota. Nevertheless, pride makes us delude ourselves about our purity or power to attain it. Pride makes us fail to see the awesomeness of God and our dependency on him. We cannot stand the idea of being dependent on anyone or being in anyone's power.

Pride causes our downfall. Satan appealed to Adam and Eve through their pride. He told them they could have godly power and immortality if they ate from the forbidden Tree of Knowledge. But they went from freedom under God to enslavement under Satan. There are we all unless we claim the God-given pardon, Christ.

Claiming God's forgiveness means admitting we need it and dropping pride. Most of us refuse to do this until desperate. It is tough to acknowledge we are neither gods nor even "nice people" but flawed human beings who have no power over their destiny.

Perhaps we can achieve much through our own efforts. Unbelievers seem to be able to succeed. But the wicked only prosper temporarily. The fact is, the blessing of God's rain falls on the just and the unjust. A basically God-fearing nation receives a good portion of that rain. Many of us who became believers later in life can look back on our atheistic days and recall times we felt that a supernatural force was helping us. The invisible hand of God extends to all his children. None of us has a clear view of his involvement in "our" attainments. However, even if we could claim all responsibility for success in this world, the most important feat is beyond our capability. All our good works are minuscule compared with God's rescue from hell.

Self-inflation can be defensive. The grandiosity of a "false self" covers up the depravity we dare not face. Jung called this false self the "persona," believing its universality meant it was archetypical, or innate (see Chapter Four). But the false self is not innate. It loses its utility when we claim the safe cover of Christ.

For the most part, our propensity to glory in ourselves is not defensive. It is a basic element of our egocentric nature. Safe in heaven, Satan needed no defense, yet pride is what influenced the fool to try to build a throne higher than God (Isaiah 14:13). And until they disobeyed God, Adam and Eve had no need for defense.

False religion is filled with pride. Liberal "Christianity" is filled with pride. Said one prominent Methodist pastor in San Francisco: "I don't need anybody's blood to wash me clean."(9) Pride will keep us away from the truth that saves us.

PLURALISM

Ignorance of the Bible does not stop human beings from having strong opinions about it. These days a kind of pluralistic "openness" is valued as a "good." It is accompanied by a "holier-than-thou" condemnation of the "narrow-mindedness" of Bible-believers. These supposedly open-minded people would never dream of reading the Bible. Yet they declare they accept all "truths," all creeds, and all philosophical systems. And yes, they accept the Bible, too. They fail to realize that being open to the Bible means being closed to everything else. The God of the Bible tells us to reject every other source of spiritual knowledge, for Satan's influence is in all of them. Only the Bible offers a God-given reprieve from eternal darkness.

Nothing is examined in depth, particularly a person's own assumptions. To examine any non-biblical belief system in depth only exposes the holes (see Chapters Nine to Thirteen). The fact is, only the Bible can withstand scrutiny.

There are those who consider lack of closure on a religious belief system a sign of maturity.(10),(11) If that were applied to politics, "mature" people would find themselves unable to vote. Mature action must be based on commitment to some set of beliefs about the nature of reality, even if it is a provisional commitment where doubt plays a part. Gordon Allport characterized mature religious sentiment as "fashioned in the workshop of doubt...theoretical skepticism is not incompatible with practical absolutism. While it knows all the grounds for skepticism, it serenely affirms its wager." Allport goes on to state that in acting on the commitment to God, the doubts gradually disappear.(12)



REBELLIOUSNESS

Rebelliousness grows out of pride. It opposes rules, which ultimately means God's law. Question authority, it says, as it leads down the pathway of corruption.

Breaking away from moral absolutes permits the blinding, self-justifying influence of selfish needs and desires to dominate. It gives license to do anything a person feels like, because everything has equal validity and there is no higher authority than the personal ego.

Taking this to its logical extreme, rape, murder, and theft can become part of the terrain. Everything is beautiful in its own way. Guilt feelings are an artifact of a judgmental society which takes its standards from that tool of manipulation, the Bible. Such a statement was made by the existential psychologist, Rollo May, at a conference for pastoral counselors held in Berkeley, California.(13)

I can make it in hell, I'm tough, nobody can break me. Oh yeah? Find out. Spend eternity appreciating the stupidity of rebellion.



SCORN AND CYNICISM

"Blessed is the man that...sitteth not in the seat of the scornful" (Psalm 1:1). To sit on that seat is to stay on the fence as a disdainful observer who cannot be a participator. It is paralysis in the guise of personal freedom. Nothing has meaning or value; nothing is fully embraced or trusted except nihilism, a rejection of all belief systems. Scornful fence-sitting leads only to despair, isolation and powerlessness. There is nothing to lean on and no basis for the faith which has to precede action. The cynic cannot believe there is no catch in God's grace, that he does not have to pay for it.

To believe the Bible requires the openness of a child, the very opposite of scorn and cynicism. Perceiving God's gift of ransom will give us the true sense of personal freedom, the freedom to move instead of sitting on the fence.



COMPLACENCY

Complacency is a kind of tunnel vision...a narrowed focus that avoids existential reality. Just as long as we do not look at the juggernaut...



IGNORANCE

It is remarkable that ignorance of the Bible goes largely unnoticed by unbelievers. In fact, this "Scripture-deafness" is consistent with prophesy (Matthew 4:12). So many humans feel compelled, somehow, to possess a Bible but do not bother to read it. At the "Great Books"-oriented small liberal arts college I attended as an undergraduate, the greatest book of all, the world's most widely-owned book, was not on the syllabus.

Not only are most of us ignorant about the Bible, we are also ignorant of the increasing evidence for its factual validity...

SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE

Many suppose that history and science contradict the inerrancy of the Bible. Not so. In all fields of study, even the occult, if there is apparent lack of support for the Bible it is only superficial. Close inspection reveals the chinks in the armor through which biblical truth shows. Consequently, science can be a tool to help us deepen our belief in the biblical truth that will save us. To prove this, let us dip into a variety of areas of empirical investigation.



THE BIBLE IS NO MYTH

There is growing trend among anthropologists and other students of folklore to treat the Bible metaphorically. They reject the factual and historical in it, while seeking the parallels it has with "other" mythology. Joseph Campbell,(14) for example, is an adept portrayer of the Bible as myth. Although there is truth in Campbell's view that the Bible has the same underlying message as folklore, this is because all myths point to the true facts in the Bible.

Campbell's misconceived notion of the message told by both the Bible and mythology is that humans can transcend the limitations of their earthly existence and achieve immortality. Jesus follows the line of the universal hero archetype, a blueprint for the godhood which, according to the Jungian psychology Campbell espouses, all humans can manifest (see Chapter Four).

For theorists such as Campbell, the factual basis to the Bible is irrelevant. The flood, the Exodus and the resurrection are merely symbols, unconscious templates which point the way for an upward human journey, a journey that in no way depends on the Creator's work of atonement.

However, it makes sense that the common flood "myth" found in many cultures has a historical basis. This is the "no smoke without fire" approach that can, and should, take us to believe the detailed account of a great flood in Genesis (7:10-24).

The underlying themes of the world's myths support the Bible as historically correct. The smoke of the myths agrees with the fire of the Bible. We miss the biblically-validating aspect of myths if we fail to conceptualize the Bible as fact.





The woman in the river

For example, in one mythical illustration described by Campbell,(15) we find a woman who seems to be helplessly caught in a river. Her torso is half in the water and half out. Standing on one bank of the river is a shaman (priest) who is pulling her out of the water; on the opposite bank are several snakes in pursuit of her.

Campbell interprets this as signifying the journey each of us can make from the darkness of the unconscious submarine world into the light. But it would be more fitting to interpret the river as our existential dilemma, a breech that must be crossed. From a biblical point of view, this is an accurate notion of the human condition: no way out of our doom without a rescuer (the shaman in the present case) who in some way bridges the gap between God and man. The devil, frequently symbolized in snake form, waits to get us on the opposite side.

Campbell fails to mention the sharp contrast of the two banks of the river, one of which appears to represent safety, the other, doom. Also he makes no comment on the pivotal role of the shaman rescuer, a type of Jesus Christ. When we dismiss Campbell's interpretation, we see that what really comes out in the myth is our inherent knowledge that we depend on a God who comes to our rescue in human form.

The Bible is filled with metaphors for Christ, but that does not mean Christ is a metaphor and the resurrection not factual. Throughout the Bible, the book God wrote for humans, he uses what humans have found to be a basic principle of human learning, such as we see in the research of Piaget,(16) Bruner,(17) and Heidbreder,(18) and find systematized in Montessori education. This principle is that we derive abstract concepts from concrete experiences. God uses actual elements and metaphors to get the message of salvation into our minds. Without such tangibles, the concept of God's grace would be incomprehensible.

Campbell, Jung (see Chapter Four) and others correctly see archetypical programming in the thematic similarities of the mythology from widely spread cultures. Because they are blind to the message of the Gospel which is evident in myths, they deny biblical truth as being the source of archetypes. Instead, they postulate Satan's theme: that we are gods able to transcend mortality as we seek the enlightenment contained inside us.

The fact is, we walk around with the most amazing information programmed into us, dating back to the very first humans and the promises God made to them. As Jung pointed out, we do possess a "hero" archetype in our collective unconscious. This is based on the real one who laid down his life for us. This truth is more exciting than any of the myths and legends derived from it (see Chapter Four on biblical archetypes).



THE BIBLICAL BASIS OF ASTROLOGY

Likewise, studying the underpinnings of astrology points us towards biblical truth. It is common knowledge that the stars have been identified with the same zodiac signs for thousands of years. Less well-known is that the zodiac signs actually foretell Christ, both in the images viewed in the constellations and in the names of the brightest stars.

The Bible says that God named the stars (Psalm 147:4; Isaiah 40:26). Our planet is peopled with the descendants of Adam and Eve who fanned out after Great Flood (Genesis 10), carrying all the ancestral knowledge God put into them. Thus it is hardly surprising that the Hebrews, the Aztecs, the Babylonians, the Norsemen, the Egyptians, and the Chinese all recognize essentially the same meanings of constellations and have identical names for the stars.(19)

The stars tell a story of doom and redemption. Each constellation makes a different statement about Christ. The heroic Orion, for example, has one foot raised to crush the head of a serpent, consistent with the first biblical prophesy on Christ. God told the serpent, Satan: "...it (Christ, the seed of the woman) shall bruise thy head (plan), and thou shalt bruise his heel (body)" (Genesis 3:15).

In Job, reportedly the earliest-written book of the Bible, several stars are mentioned by name, including Arcturus, meaning "he comes," a reference to the Messiah (Job 38:31-32).

It is clear that the biblically prophetic meaning of the stars was widely known at the time Christ came into the world. The wise men of the east used the heavenly timetable and map to learn of the birth and location of the Messiah that the stars foretold (Numbers 24:17). But this was not astrology, the worldly practise of attempting to read the course of individual

human lives from the stars. The biblical theme on which astrology was founded has been contaminated by an overlay of the occult, an outcome of Satanic influence. Astrology has become the fatalistic worship of stars as the guiding forces in our lives. This is a form of idolatry, the reason why the practice of an "observer of times" was forbidden by God (Deuteronomy 18:10).



THE EVOLUTION HOAX

Says Julian Ripley: "It hardly seems wise to base a philosophic outlook on the meaning of life upon the generalities of contemporary science, no matter how well founded these may appear to be at the moment."(20) Yet even though Darwin's theory of evolution lacks scientific foundation, the civilized world has adopted it as if it were fact. Even the popular theory of reincarnation feeds off it, with its notion of the evolution of the soul.

Despite the fact that what Darwin called the "theory" of evolution is generally treated as established fact, the scientific community is producing more and more data which conflict with the evolutionary hypothesis. These data lend increasing support to the Genesis account.(21)

Actually, devolution, rather than evolution, accords with our laws of thermodynamics, which predict entropy in a closed system. With energy running down in our universe, we would expect decreasing differentiation and specialization. Counter to the law of entropy and without a mechanism to explain it (teleology assumes a master planner), evolution defines the "ascent" of man. The most complex life forms appear last in the "great chain of being," an order which happens to coincide with the Genesis account of life appearing on the earth.(22)

As far as the fossil evidence goes, a series of creations is a better fit to the data than any of the evolutionary theories, particularly with regard to the concept of "punctuated equilibrium." Due to lack of any evidence of intermediate forms, punctuated equilibrium describes sudden "evolutions" of new life forms in local geographical areas. The new life forms are radically different from anything else in existence, and their appearance cannot be resolved with a slow and gradual evolutionary process which requires fossil evidence of links in the great chain.

Evolutionists can give no explanation for the apparently sudden, dramatic appearance of a totally new creature. It just sort of happens as an exciting facet of the "evolutionary" process. Yet punctuated equilibrium, which has no adequate causal explanation outside of a supernatural one, is now widely accepted by eminent anti-creationist scientists such as Stephen Gould.(23) In a most unscientific manner, these theorists try to bend evolutionary theory to fit something that looks exactly like creation. It seems that only blindness could stop scientists from seeing how much closer is the phenomenon of punctuated equilibrium to Genesis than any hypothetical evolutionary process.

Recent research in genetics similarly supports the Genesis story of the creation. Since there is such detailed similarity in the genetic structure of all members of the human race, and since this genetic structure is radically different from that of even the "closest" great ape, it points to the human race having descended from one original "Eve." What is even more remarkable is that this Eve presumably had a genetically identical mate. So there were two genetically identical mutants popping into existence in the same place at the same time, an event bearing great resemblance to a miracle. The same genetic research postulates that this appearance was relatively recent, perhaps one hundred thousand years ago. This is much closer to some Bible historians' stabs at dating Adam and Eve six thousand years back than any previous "scientific" date for the advent of humans.(24)'(25)

Furthermore, recent research on the history of language points to Hebrew as the basis for all existing tongues. Linguists have concluded that the ancient root language they call "Indo-European" originated in Anatolia, resting place of Noah's ark. This lends further support to the Bible account of the first humans and their descendants in Genesis.(26)'(27)



If we did not know, somewhere inside us, that God created the universe, the findings of a 1991 Gallup Poll would make no sense. In spite of the ban on teaching creationism in our public educational system for most of the present century, 47 percent of all Americans report that they believe God created man in his present form within the last 10,000 years; another 40 percent favor the idea of a God-guided evolution over millions of years.(28)









THE BIG BANG

Scientists claim to have reconstructed the events that took place during the first few seconds after the hypothetical Big Bang. However, they are still unable to explain this incredible creative explosion as a non-supernatural event. They think that because they seem to have been able to extrapolate back to a little from a lot, they will therefore be able to extrapolate even further back from a little to nothing. But this contradicts the first law of thermodynamics. Nothing can come from nothing.(29)

To detractors, the Genesis account of the creation seems implausibly geocentric, proof of the immaturity of its writer. It does not follow the steps scientists hypothesize, but describes the creation of the sun, moon and stars following the creation of the earth. However, the facts show that the earth is special. No other heavenly body appears to support life as we know it. Moreover, the scientific community knows nothing with any surety. We are finding that other planets do not behave in the manner predicted by current scientific theories. Neptune, for example, has two moons that go in a direction opposite to all the other moons. It is clear that we do not know enough to refute the biblical view of the creation. There is now a growing body of research in the area of creation science that supports the Bible's account.(30)



SCIENTIFIC VALIDITY AND GOD'S WORD

How well does the Bible stand up to scientific scrutiny? Can we say the Bible is an accurate measuring instrument of God's word according to scientific standards? There are several accepted criteria for determining the scientific validity of a psychological testing instrument. To answer the question we have just posed, we can apply four of these criteria to the Bible: concurrent, predictive, face and construct validities. This may appear an unorthodox way to attempt to establish the authenticity of the Bible as God's word, but the truth is that we can, and must, use our minds as well as our hearts in this matter.



CONCURRENT VALIDITY

Concurrent validity requires that there be agreement between the instrument in question and other measuring instruments sensitive to the same phenomenon during the same time period. If the Bible has concurrent validity, we should be able to find independent witnessess who report the same facts that are recorded in Scripture.

Through archaeological discoveries, increasing amounts of evidence show that biblical historical accounts coincide with accounts found in other ancient documents.(31) In the last century, some of our knowledge has been unlocked by the discovery of the Rosetta stone, the key to the hieroglyphic writings of early historians.

Consider the flood. Inscribed on twelve tablets written by king Gilgamesh in a form of Akkadian dated to 1700 B.C., an epic story of a flood was found in the ancient library at Ur at the turn of this century. The events described bear much similarity to the Genesis account; only the names are changed.(32)

Consider also the Exodus. Other historical documents coincide with the Biblical account of the sudden departure of thousands of Israelites from Egypt.(33) Aside from the Bible, we have not found a historical account stating that God was responsible for this. Yet without supernatural intervention, it is very hard to explain why a Pharaoh with an ambitious building program would suddenly let go of thousands of useful slaves, complete with flocks of animals, gold and jewelry.

Detractors have claimed the very personage of Jesus Christ to be a myth, but several early historians made reference to him. Among the non-Christian ones were the Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus,(34) and the Roman historian, Cornelius Tacitus,(35) both of whom described the false charges leading to the cruxifiction.

So far, nothing suggests the Bible to be historically inaccurate. It has concurrent validity because other historical accounts agree with it.



PREDICTIVE VALIDITY

If the Bible has predictive validity, then the prophecies in it cannot err. The reader is invited to discover, through personal biblical inquiry, that they do not. Bible prophets accurately described both events that would take place soon after their words were uttered, and events that would take place many hundreds of years later.

The first type of prediction established the authenticity of the prophets, ensuring an immediate audience. The second type, concerning Christ and end times, were for the salvation of humankind. With the exception of events connected with end times that still await us, every other prophesy has taken place as predicted.

Anyone who pays serious attention to the Bible prophets and studies history has to regard the Bible as a supernatural source of information. The only other possible explanation for the degree of accuracy displayed by Bible prophecies is that they were written post hoc, but there is considerable evidence against that.(36)

The Gospel according to Matthew conveniently refers us back to the Psalms, Micah, Isaiah, Zechariah and other prophets for a host of uncannily accurate predictions concerning events in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The prophesies about Christ date from as far back as God's previously mentioned promise to Satan in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:15): "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." The Bible gives us the genealogy between Eve and Jesus (Luke 3:23-38)(37) so that we make no mistake that Jesus was the seed of the woman who bruised the head of the seed of Satan. In other words, Jesus thwarted the entire plan of Satan, whereas Satan only managed to maim the body of Jesus, symbolized by his heel.

Such consistency in the fulfilment of prophesy means that according to the criterion of predictive validity, the Bible is an accurate measuring instrument. It measures, or describes, something of a supernatural order operating over thousands of years: the word of God.

Now, even if we have doubts about reportage, and concern ourselves ad nauseam with whether or not Moses really wrote the books biblically attributed to him, this prophetic aspect of the Bible cannot be dismissed. It should warrant attention from those among us who are even slightly curious about the world. Yet we humans are largely blind to Bible prophesy. If curious about the future, we take our information from the devil's minions. These are the world's "scientific" forecasters who present extrapolation as if it were revelation, not to mention the more obviously occultic stargazers and spirit channelers.

Our blindness to the importance of Bible prophesy only makes sense if we factor in the prophecies concerning this very phenomenon. For example, Isaiah (6:10) related God's intent to "Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed."



FACE VALIDITY

Face validity refers to whether or not an instrument bears an immediately discernible resemblance to the underlying construct it is supposed to tap. If the Bible is the word of God, we expect to see miracles in it, and, of course, we do. With few exceptions, the credibility of all writers of the Bible is established by miracles God performed in front of or through them.

Scorners try to explain these away as natural phenomena, but they are unsuccessful, especially concerning the one miracle that counts most. The cornerstone on which all the importance of the Bible rests is the resurrection of Christ, which has not been refuted as a historical event. In fact, the few serious attempts to do so have led to the very opposite; hard-headed detractors have become firm believers.(38)

Much as anyone may try to argue against the resurrection, we cannot get away from the fact that none of Christ's foes ever came up with a contradictory account that stuck. The chief priests paid the Roman guards to spread a story (Matthew 28:11-15), but that was as far as it went. They could easily have produced a mutilated body that they claimed to be his. We have no report of their trying this. The reason they did not seriously try to contest the resurrection was because the return of Jesus was seen by so many of his followers. These followers were completely transformed by the experience. Mice turned into lions. For example, Peter, who once hid his connection with Christ, became an eloquent spokesman for him (Acts 2:14-38).



CONSTRUCT VALIDITY

Lastly we have construct validity, a complex concept bearing on many facets of the fit between instrument and data, including soundings from other types of validity and reliability. We focus here on two aspects of construct validity: internal consistency and parsimony.

Internal consistency refers to the degree to which an instrument taps a unitary concept. Many people see the Old and New Testaments as conveying two entirely different messages. This is not so. The Bible is internally consistent in the sense that a series of witnesses all report the same theme throughout the Old and New Testaments. The theme is that although we are doomed by God's law, there is potential redemption through claiming his provision for sin.

The second aspect of construct validity of interest to us is parsimony, which appears to be an inherent facet of the human mind. Parsimony has been the subject of considerable research by the Gestalt school of psychology.(39) In the 1930s, researchers in Gestalt theory determined some principles by which the human mind perceives and organizes information. Parsimony is collectively defined by the basic perceptual tendencies towards closure, good figure and Pragnanz (a combination of meaning, simplicity and completeness).

Parsimony is a major standard for the applicability of a construct or theory to a set of facts. The most parsimonious theory is generally the one that gets the most votes. That is, the one that is most inclusive, explains data in the simplest and most elegant way, and gives a sense of closure. God has given us a parsimonious eye for a reason: so that we will find him when we look around us. His handiwork is everywhere. "God did it" is the most parsimonious explanation for the origins of the universe, the coming of life to this planet, the history of mankind and the structure of the human psyche. What is simpler yet more inclusive than the Bible's account of a Creator? So far, we have been unable to refute it. As we will see in the following chapters, the sin/death equation is the most parsimonious explanation for psychopathology.

Overall, based on consideration of these criteria borrowed from psychological test construction, the Bible has every appearance of being a valid instrument of God's word.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

The core mental health problem is a universal, innate sense that humans are destined to spend eternity in darkness. This claim can only be as as true as the Bible. However, it is commonly assumed, even among many who consider themselves Christian, that the Bible is largely myth. This is dangerous. It leads us to question the truth of Christ as the payment for sin; it will lose us our salvation.

In this chapter we looked at some human characteristics that Satan uses to makes us refuse to take the Bible seriously. These are fear, pride, pluralism, rebelliousness, scorn, cynicism, complacency, and ignorance.

We went on to see that our ignorance is vast. Not only does it apply to the Bible, but also to science. The physical and social sciences are generally considered irrelevant or antithetical to the Bible. In fact, not only the sciences but also some occult practises support the Bible as factual. This is true of myths and folklore; astrology; fossil data and genetic exploration; the laws of thermodynamics; history; and psychological research and theory. Over and over, the Bible fulfils the major criteria for the scientific basis of a measuring instrument. It measures, or taps, God's word.







Notes

1. "Psychodynamic" is a term originating in Freudian psychology. It has come to have a broader usage, referring to underlying emotional and motivational processes that operate below the level of consciousness.

2. Menninger, Karl (1973). Whatever Became of Sin? New York, New York: E.P. Dutton, Inc.

3. Pascal, Blaise (1958). Pensees. Translated by W. F. Trotter. New York.

4. Rokeach, M. (1973). The nature of human values. New York: Free Press.

. 5. Hall, C. M. (1986). "Crisis as opportunity for spiritual growth." Journal of Religion and Health, 25, pp. 8-17.

6. Princeton Religious Research Center (1990). Religion in America. Princeton, New Jersey: Author.

7. Benar, C. A. (1989). "Personality Theories and Asking Forgiveness." Journal of Psychology and Christianity, 8(1), 45-51

. 8. "Repent" is translated in the Old and New Testaments from words with two different meanings. (1) The Hebrew "shub" and the Greek "metanioa" both imply turning or changing the mind; (2) the Hebrew "naham" and the Greek "metamelomai" imply regret, or sorrow. According to the first meaning, repentance does precede grace: we must turn our heads to look at God so as to perceive grace. Regret and sorrow come after we are freed by grace to see ourselves as we really are.

9. Personal communication from Cecil Williams at a Sunday service at Glide Memorial Methodist cathedral on August 3, 1987.

10. Batson, C. D., and Ventis, W. L. (1982). The religious experience: A social-psychological perspective. New York: Oxford University Press.

11. Meadow, M. J., and Kahoe, R. D. (1984). Psychology of religion: Religion in individual lives. New York: Harper and Row.

12. Allport, G. W. (1950). The individual and his religion: A psychological interpretation. New York: Macmillan, p. 72

13. Rollo May stated, in a speech during a workshop for pastoral counselors at Calvary Presbyterian church, Berkeley, May 11, 1987, that "guilt is a product of fundamentalist religion."

14. Joseph Campbell (1972). Myths To Live By. New York: Viking Penguin, Inc.

15. Joseph Campbell (1988). The Power of Myth. New York: Doubleday, page 157.

16. Piaget, Jean and Inhelder, B. (1969). The Psychology of the Child. New York: Basic Books.

17. Bruner, Jerome S., Olver, Rose R., Greenfield, P. M. et al. (1966). Studies in Cognitive Growth. New York, New York: Wiley.

18. Heidbreder, E. (1945). "Toward a Dynamic Psychology of Cognition." The Psychological Review, 52(Whole No. 1).

19. Fleming, Kenneth C. (1981). God's Voice in the Stars. Neptune, New Jersey: Loizeaux Brothers, Inc.

20. Ripley, Julian (1964). The elements and structure of the physical sciences. New York, New York: John Wiley and Sons, Incorporated, p. 235

21. Morris, Henry (1976). The Genesis Record. San Diego: Creation Life.

22. Peck, M. Scott (1978). The Road Less Travelled. New York, New York: Simon and Schuster, Inc., p.265. Peck points out the inconguence between evolution and entropy.

23. See Newsweek, March 29, 1982, p. 45, for a discussion of the debate following Stephen Jay Gould's assertion that punctuated equilibrium is an evolutionary phenomonon

24. "How we came from Eve" (April 29, 1990). San Francisco Examiner, pp. 15-16.

25. Ackerman, P. D. (1990). In God's image after all. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House.

26. For example, we know that certain Hebrew abstract formulations are common to Babylonian and Aramaic languages. The code of Hammurabi of Babylon, written around 2,000 B.C. displays Hebraic linguistic influences.

27. "The Mother Tongue" (Nov 5, 1990). US News and World Report, pp. 60-70.

28. "The Creation." (December 23, 1991). U.S. News and World Report, pp. 56-64.

29. The first law of thermodynamics refers to the conservation of energy in a closed system. According to this law, it is impossible for any form of energy to emerge from no form of energy.

30. For example:

Gange, William (1986). Origins and Destiny. Dallas, Texas: Word Publishing.

McArthur, John (1991). Voice of Calvary tape series, Box 2000, Eugene, Oregon, 94702.

Sunderland, Luther D. (1988). Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems. Santee, California: Master Book Publishers.

Schroeder, G. L. (1991). Genesis and the big bang. New York, New York: Bantam Books.

31. Keller, Werner (1981). The Bible as History. New York, New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc.

32. Ibid, Chapter 4, p. 50.

33. Ibid, Chapter 10, p. 118.

34. Josephus, Flavius (early second century). Antiquities, xviii, 33.

35. Tacitus, Cornelius (A.D. 80-84). Annals, XV, 44.

36. For example, the book of Daniel purports to be a first person account written during his lifetime, after the Babylonian captivity in 605 B.C. Evidence Daniel was written before the events prophesied therein can be found in the fact that Ezekiel, purportedly writing after 586 B.C., refers to Daniel by name, that Daniel uses the Babylonian calender in his writing, and that his account provides details of Babylonian history that could only be known to an insider at the time the events occurred. One such detail is his use of the term "Chaldean" to designate a class of wise men and advisors, a fact only known from the later discovery of Babylonian records.

37. There is some fuzziness about the exact parentage of Mary. Although Luke gives Heli as the father of Joseph, Joseph's father is given as Jacob by Matthew. Since Mary was reportedly a cousin of Joseph, it is possible that Heli was her father rather than Joseph's.

38. McDowell, Josh (1972). Evidence that demands a verdict: historical evidence for the Christian faith. San Bernardino, California: Campus Crusade for Christ International.

39. Wertheimer, M. (1958). "Investigations of Gestalt Theory" in D. C. Beardsall and M. Wertheimer (Eds.), Readings in Perception. Princeton, New Jersey: Yale University Press, pp. 115-135.

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