We Still Have Questions

By PhD Bill L. Little

This book is intended for people who have had questions about the existence of God, like, "How can we believe in the existence of God.  It is also intended for people who are questioning their own faith and how it can become more real for them and finally it is a book that seeks to answer questions about the interpretation of the Bible

• Language: English
• Publisher: Book Vine Press
• Release date: Mar 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9781951886653

PhD Bill L. Little

Bill Little retired after serving fifty-one years as senior pastor of Christ Memorial Baptist Church in St. Louis County, Missouri. He served two years as a hospice chaplain. As a state-licensed psychologist in Missouri, he spent more than ten years as an on-air counselor for KMOX radio in St. Louis and thirty years as a private counselor. He led seminars for businesses, churches, and schools across America and worked as team psychologist for two major league baseball teams (the St. Louis Cardinals and the Seattle Mariners. He taught marriage and family counseling at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University for seven years. He and his wife, Teresa Gay, cofounded the St Louis Cancer Support Center which they operated for more than ten years, seeing more than a thousand cancer patients and their families. His education includes a Bachelor's degree from East Texas Baptist University in Marshall, Texas; a Master's degree in theology from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri; a Master's degree in counseling from Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville, Illinois; and a PhD in counseling from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. He has twelve published books and numerous magazine articles. He is the father of four children, eight grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. His wife has two children and three grandchildren. His book Self-Destruction Made Easy has been published in Germany and Poland.

Book preview

Contents

Introduction

About God’s Existence

An Early Question

About Loving Our Enemies

About the Meaning of Life

About what Really Matters

About Truth

About the Conflict between Science and Religion

About the Church and the Scriptures

About Believing Every Word in the Bible as Literal and True

About Blending the Old and New Testaments

About the Influence of Jesus on Interpreting the Scripture

About Inconsistencies in the Bible

About the Best Thing We Can Do

About Answers to the Mysteries

About Jesus Being Fully God and Fully Man

About What Difference Does Prayer Make

About What Heaven Is Like

About Right and Wrong Behavior

About Sin

A Question about Death

Some Questions We Will Continue to Ask

The Most Important Question for Me

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

Asking questions about faith and God are vital to seeking truth. When we begin to ask questions about religion, we are immediately under suspicion. So we must examine our motives and aims when we raise questions about Christian faith. Our purpose in asking questions must be clear. We ask questions, not to argue points of view but to honestly seek answers in searching for truth.

Religion is the most important issue in my life, and my faith in God is no. 1 in areas of importance for me. It is too vital for me to ignore questions about that faith. I ask questions because I want to know the answers. I want to know truth and believe I must not be afraid to face questions that relate to this vital issue in my life. I want to know the truth.

There are certainly areas of religious faith that leave many people wondering about the validity of that faith. We must not fear facing their honest wondering in search for truth. The challenge we face is to ask the right questions from the best motives and do so in a respectful way. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, wrong with asking questions in order to get answers about the important issues we face.

My father grew up on a farm and was only able to acquire up to seventh grade education. In spite of his limitations, he was able to become skilled in different jobs and wound up his working life as a union electrician. When asked how he was able to learn so many different jobs, he would raise his eyebrows and say, Well, I was never too proud to say I didn’t know how to do a thing, and I was willing to ask questions about how to do things I couldn’t do.

He told me on a number of occasions, Never be afraid to ask questions for directions or how to do a job. I believe that is good advice for any of us to follow. So I have decided to write a manuscript on questions that I want to ask about religion and life.

Chapter 1

About God’s Existence

When I was about ten years old, I asked my dad where the moon, stars, and sun came from. He, almost nonchalantly, answered, God created them. I then asked him, Well, where did God come from? He responded with more concern, Bill, don’t think about that too much. It can drive you crazy. I wouldn’t ask that question anymore. I did not ask him that question again, but I have tried numerous times to seek an answer to it. I have found no definitive answer, but I continue to believe in God.

My parents were not Christians, but they believed in God. I, however, spent a lot of my time as a young child with my dad’s parents. They were devout Christians and took me to church often. I basically grew up believing in God but not thinking very much about it. Still there were times when the thought about how God could exist came into my mind. I usually just dismissed it. I didn’t want to go crazy.

As an adult, my questions have continued, not so often about where God came from but, how can we know that God exists? I have continued to seek the answer to that because it was one of the most important questions in my life. Philosophers and theologians have offered ideas. Some of them help.

N. T. Wright (referenced in Collins book Belief), a British theologian, suggests that the seemingly innate awareness of right and justice within us are an indication of God’s presence. He says that these ideas must come from somewhere and explaining that they came about as part of evolution does not explain them.

Any group of children on a playground seems to have an idea of what is just and right. You can hear That’s not fair coming from their play. How do they know what is fair? We all seem to have an idea of what is right and just. I know that I do. I almost naturally know the difference between right and wrong, and I am bothered by the fact that I often fail to do right and often do wrong. There is something inside me that causes that concern. Is that God? I think so.

There are several philosophical arguments for the existence of God. I agree with a friend who is an engineer. He says philosophers should be called engineers because we are given impossible tasks with inadequate tools to achieve them. That may indeed be a good description of philosophy. Most of us find it difficult to understand. That does not keep us from trying because it is so important.

Aquinas was influenced a great deal by Aristotle in developing his proofs of God’s existence. The idea that anything can come from nothing (ex nihilo, Latin for out of nothing) is impossible for us to comprehend. It is a philosophical concept that grows out of a faith that God created everything out of nothing. It is a matter of faith, and while it is difficult for us to understand, as most philosophy is, it still offers us the only real arguments for the existence of God.

Listed below are five proofs of God’s existence that at least can start us to thinking and give us clues to help begin to answer our questions about creation and God. I put quotation marks around proof because there is no way we actually prove the existence of God. We can, however, find strong evidence. This list comes from the book Belief by Francis Collins.

Aquinas says that there is motion. Motion exists, we can acknowledge that. He says that motion is caused. What causes motion? In trying to answer that question, we begin to go back from one cause to another until we reach a cause that is immovable. It is motion that has no possible cause. He says that is where we find God—the unmoved mover. I put a book on a table and left the room, and when I came back, the book was on a chair. I asked, Who moved my book? I was told that no one moved it. It just moved. I did not believe that answer. If the book was moved, someone or something moved it. We simply do not believe that things are set in motion without an outside influence. Motion is an indication of a mover. I can understand that concept, and it offers me at least the beginning of a reason I can believe in God.

His second evidence for the existence of God is more difficult to understand. He finds what he calls efficient causes. Efficient cause is what brings about change in things. His argument is that nothing can be its own cause for change. There must be a cause for the efficient causes that change things. He then says that nothing can be its own efficient cause because then it would have to exist before itself. That concept is mind-boggling but somehow seems to make sense. His argument is that there must be a first efficient cause, and that is where we find God.

Aquinas suggests that there exist possible and necessary things. I do not comprehend all that this means. Aquinas is saying that the things in the universe exist but there was a time when they did not exist so they could not come into existence from nothing (ex nihilo). Then he says there was a time when such things did not exist. There was a time when these things were not. Before they came to be there had to be a cause, something had to bring them into existence. I remember that in seminary we called this the existence of an uncaused cause and this is where we find God.

There are some things that are more than others and better than others. A thing is said to be more or less as it approaches to that which is