truthislight:

This were people revolting against Moses leadership and not just for food.

This rebels had leaders pushing them on.

Was it also hunger that made them to build a cafe for worship also ?

They had food, they were only making trouble for Moses.

Dont forget they had not gotten to the promise land yet o.

When they got to the promise land and hard no food, yes, but in transit they were asking for another God ? Smh.

Well, they themselves said they were wrong.

Ok i get u, they were wrong, they therefore deserve to die

OlaoChi:
He's listening to you but why should he believe again since he claims to have surpassed your level of Bible understanding
You have to prove you are right and he's wrong and not just come claiming he doesn't understand Bible; He was once Christian like many other atheist

He's not listening and he was never a christian. A christian is a follower of Christ, who has become BORN AGAIN, saved and FORGIVEN.

Being a child or servant of the devil is not optional, it is inherent in what one does.

Image123:

i'm not trying to make him feel bad. Does the doctor try to make one feel bad by telling the truth of one's condition? A human is either a child oof God or a child oof the devil, there is no sitting on the fence.

"Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?" (Romans 6:16).

OlaoChi:
calling someone a liar and son of the devil just in attempt to make the person feel bad or what?

frank3.16:

Ok i get u, they were wrong, they therefore deserve to die

What kind of food will you have and preserved in a war condition and on the move ?

What kind of food will you have on transit ?

Was it a supposed party time ?

Be realistic men

...

frank3.16:

Ok i get u, they were wrong, they therefore deserve to die

Yahweh was the judge, if he says they should die, so be it.

There was a time that moses said that those for Yahweh should move to one side and those against Yahweh should move to the other side.

What happend then ? Many moved to the side against Yahweh.

So, it was more than what that meets the eyes.

They asked for a calf to worship the devil, hence the Devil had a say in the actions of those rebbels that were against Yahweh and Moses and murmuring against them to thwart Yahweh's plans.

So, if Yahweh decided to kill them, so be it, he knows better.

Peace.

Image123:

i'm not trying to make him feel bad. Does the doctor try to make one feel bad by telling the truth of one's condition? A human is either a child oof God or a child oof the devil, there is no sitting on the fence.

A human is either a child of the flying spaghetti monster (pbuh) FSM, or a child of the smiling skeleton. See how it rhymes with your jehovah and satan?

Image123:

Are you blind? You quoted the passage, i quoted YOU. You're being very childish, i just saw your post about me running away on some other thread. This is a social forum, not 2go or any other instant messenger. You need to start behaving your age at the least. Atheism is not an excuse for immaturity.
So, when you tell me that you're settled on the colt passage, we'll proceed to another, okay?

Still lying? I thought you said you did not quote the passage?

Image123:

i understand that the devil is a liar and that he is your master. But you would e lying so shamelessly nd blatantly if you cannot show where i quoted that passage. You quoted that passage, not me. If you want help on the passage, you're going to have to state that you've now understood the colt passage better and would not repeat your thoughtless mistake. Its one step at a time, i have all eternity, you don't.

Still lying after picture evidence? Bro you need to come out of this religion cos religion will only teach you how to lie and fight and kill people. See how you are lying confidently after proof in picture. That is what religion teaches you.

^^^

Oh come on. What you printed on screen is a quoted post. And not a new post.

The original post must have been from you, in an effort to reply you, he quoted your post with the bible portion and not that he was the originator of the post.

Check your post on 9:19pm on Dec.29

You must have a dubious mind, you are very much at ease to twist and lie.

Yahweh have no interest on such people.

Clean your self and mind from all this deceit and lies and be honest for goodness sake!

Smh for some people. Anything goes, "No God to judge me". Smh.

Image123:

i'm not trying to make him feel bad. Does the doctor try to make one feel bad by telling the truth of one's condition? A human is either a child oof God or a child oof the devil, there is no sitting on the fence.

Prove he's a liar and stop making baseless statements

Image123:
He's not listening and he was never a christian. A christian is a follower of Christ, who has become BORN AGAIN, saved and FORGIVEN.

Yh and when a follower of Christ realizes that 'christ is a scam' he should still be deceiving himself and deceiving people right?

rudedough:

Still lying? I thought you said you did not quote the passage?



Still lying after picture evidence? Bro you need to come out of this religion cos religion will only teach you how to lie and fight and kill people. See how you are lying confidently after proof in picture. That is what religion teaches you.

Oh, so you think you are the passage? You need help.

truthislight: ^^^

Oh come on. What you printed on screen is a quoted post. And not a new post.

The original post must have been from you, in an effort to reply you, he quoted your post with the bible portion and not that he was the originator of the post.

Check your post on 9:19pm on Dec.29

You must have a dubious mind, you are very much at ease to twist and lie.

Yahweh have no interest on such people.

Clean your self and mind from all this deceit and lies and be honest for goodness sake!

Smh for some people. Anything goes, "No God to judge me". Smh.

don't mind the unserious fellow, he thinks it is all a joke.

OlaoChi:

Prove he's a liar and stop making baseless statements

Those are not baseless statements, he is lying on me by saying that i quoted a passage that i did not quote. He quoted the passage, remember?

OlaoChi:
Yh and when a follower of Christ realizes that 'christ is a scam' he should still be deceiving himself and deceiving people right?

i defined a christian for ou, did you miss it? the guy was never a christian.

Image123:

i defined a christian for ou, did you miss it? the guy was never a christian.

It's not even about him but millions of atheist in the world who were first Christians

^^^, true! "All you see in the bible".

Yeah, like seeing the word 'kill' in a sentence and shouting murder! Ignoring the context.

You most be a genius.

frank3.16:


He gave them meAt and bread, they complained so he killed them. They deserved death because they complained?
Let me ask u, if u complain to ur fAther that u dont like d food u ate last night and he flogs u mercilessly for complaining, wont u shout 'i am sorry dad, i wont complain again!!'?

How did you detach this from what Truthislight said? I quote him.

I thought there was a time that there was no food and the people complained and Yahweh killed them ?

Yahweh gave them meat, they complain and talked about Egypt, Yahweh gave them bread and they complained.

It was not that there was no food but that they murmur and talked about Egypt that they had cried in slavery to be freed.

Are you justifying their error of murmuring because slavery was better than freedom ?

If they were freed from slavery and they murmured and wished for slavery, how can you justify their muring for cucumber even though Yahweh gave them manner from heaven ?

I put it to you that they were not lacking food and asking for food to feed but they were ingrates that keep complainingg and murmuring against moses and Yahweh

How did you deduce what you wrote from this write-up? God did not kill them for such complaint, but I remember that He once punished the cantankerous and denying them the promised land.

rudedough: Olachi leave these people alone. They're ready to fight you to the grave and they won't give up because they feel if they do, God will send them to hell. They call it a "Holy Fight"

I haven't made a single assumption on this thread, every thing i say have been backed up with bible verses. Can you say the same for these Christians? No but will engage you in an endless argument without facts.

Let them be please.

The worst wrong you do to yourself is to lie to yourself. See how you are misusing your life, a life that you dont know what it is, a life you cannot explain.

I pray that one day you realize your mistake before it's too late. Krauss and Krauss-like geezers keep leading you guys to destruction.

Only the gullible will be inveighed into believing your sophistry.

rudedough:

Please tell us why God killed them?

Numbers 21:4-5

They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea,[a] to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; 5 they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!”

6 Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died.

The kind of answers you Christians bring up and the way you lie about it is ridiculous even when the bible says otherwise. Anyway please tell us why God killed the Israelites with bible quotations to proof it. I will be delighted to know.

ok. thanks for that.

JMAN05:

How did you detach this from what Truthislight said? I quote him.



How did you deduce what you wrote from this write-up? God did not kill them for such complaint, but I remember that He once punished the cantankerous and denying them the promised land.

Oh please... Whats d meanin of this? Its beginin to get irritating. Ok pls teLl me what u deduced

I know you ve gotten a basis to flaunt ur ego. well sincerity is better than insincerity to which you display.

rudedough:

I've told you twice now that these Christians don't know their bible, religion history or the truth about God. But they're ready to engage in a hot argument with you.

Notice how he denied that God did not kill the Israelites for only complaining. This goes to show you that he doesn't know the true story. I hope he's beginning to see the true nature of the God he's serving.

How can you starve people on purpose, then give them a strange kind of food. And when they complain about their welfare, you kill them.

God is still merciful, He provided a means for deliverance when Moses pleaded for Him.

God is just disappointed in them cos of their behavior. Who know exactly how they despised God in their heart. God delivered them from egypt, where they were treated badly by the egyptians, gave them manna, which they were happy to receive at first, forgave them even when they broke his commandments, yet they keep complaining, not just for food, but for another type of food, even referring to egypt where they were treated badly.

The reason for God's action may not have been just complaint, but the insult He received cos of their request. They even scolded God for bringing them out of egypt. imagine that kind of statement!!

Remember God sees the heart, so we do not really know all the fact about how their heart was when they spoke agaist God, whether the speaking against God took hours before God acted is still not indicated. But as a just God, which many egs in the bible foreshadows, we know that their actions were really offensive to deserve that punishment.

If they presented the issue in a repectful way, I dont think Jah would have killed anybody. He seemed to be fed up with their cantankerous lifestyle. He taught them obedience, so that other's will learn from it not to despise their creator.

God have power to supply whatever they need, however, man must not live by bread alone. If they valued God's laws, stop over complaining, I think God wouldnt have meted out such punishment. This is a lesson for all of us. God hates murmurring or being enraged against Him, He values it when you respectfully express your grievances. And follow His decision even if its not satisfactory, He knows the best. after all, if He had killed Adam and Eve, no one will be alive today, so we owe Him big time.

When Jesus learned that his sufferings were imminent, he cried to God to let the suffering pass. that was a good way to express your opinion, not with a bad mouth. God knew they delibrately did it, after all, do they not know He is capable of supplying whatever they need? why do it arogantly as if God had alterior motive of bringing them out of egypt? Are they ganging up against someone who have done alot for them? do they see only choice of food, why wont they see the suffering they underwent as slaves in the past and be thankful? why cant they have faith and stop making it sound as if God hates them. with appreciation of what God does for them, they would have earned more, instead of resorting to murmurring.

Why wont they accept that God has their interest at heart? why wont they accept God's decision and view it as good for them?

When Jesus suffering were not removed, he knew it was God's will for him and thus for his good.

When Abraham was told to sacrifice his son, he went without thinking that God hates him or that He has alterior motive of given him a son, he went immediately to do it, with faith that since God is a just God, what He demands of him is really for his good, though its really not easy. yes its not. But God gave him a surprise. whatever God wants you to do, just do it, stop complaining. You can register your worries, but do it in a respectful way. that He is merciful is not a certificate to insult Him.

Who know what God would have done had abraham not shown a desire to offer his son?

Moses once requested that God lifts his punishment to enter the promise land respectfully, did God kill him for that? No.

But had Moses benn murmurring or despising God's decision, this would have been damaging to him, he may even have no hope or resurrection.

JMAN05: @ Rudedough
I know you ve gotten a basis to flaunt ur ego. well sincerity is better than insincerity to which you display.

As it were, Yahweh is the owner of the Bible, the Book of Yahweh is an honest book that repored the story as it were.

Can satan do the same ?

Can satan give an account of his activities honestly like that ?

The answer is obvious, the deceitful one that operate in the dark cannot give an honest account like this.

There is no basis to compare Yahweh with the deceitful one

Philip Vander Elst describes his journey from atheism to Christianity via the apologetics works of C.S. Lewis.

From atheism to Christianity: a personal journey

Do you find it difficult to believe in God or accept the claims of Christianity? I did, when I was an atheist, but I changed my mind, and my reasons for doing so may be of interest to you in your own personal journey and attempts to make sense of life.

I am a freelance writer and lecturer. Since graduating from Oxford in 1973, with a degree in politics and philosophy, I have spent most of my professional life in politics and journalism, loving, as I do, the world of books, ideas and debate. Two questions in particular have always interested me. Is there a God? And, if there is, what is the connection between God and freedom?

Growing up in a non-Christian family with intellectually gifted but unbelieving parents, I used to think that belief in God and the supernatural had been discredited by the advance of science, and was incompatible with liberty. Religious faith seemed to me to involve the blind worship of a cosmic dictator, and the abandonment of reason in favour of ‘revelation’. Why, in any case, should I take religion seriously, I thought, when the existence of evil and suffering clearly discredited the Christian claim that our world owed its existence to a benevolent Creator?

My scepticism and hostility towards Christianity, which developed in my teens under the influence of thinkers like Ayn Rand and Bertrand Russell, grew even stronger while I was at Oxford. Then, at the age of 24, I met my future wife, who turned out to be a Christian. Shocked by the discovery that this highly intelligent and beautiful woman was ‘one of them’, I determined to find out whether there was any good evidence for the existence of God and the truthfulness of Christianity, making it quite clear from the outset, however, that I was not prepared to become a believer just to cement our relationship!

I started to read C.S. Lewis, whose Chronicles of Narnia I had enjoyed as a child. I did so for three reasons. First because he had himself been an atheist, and might therefore be able to answer my many questions and objections. Secondly, because I respected his intellect. Here was a man who had graduated from Oxford with Triple First Class Honours in Classics, Philosophy and English, and had then become one of the greatest British academics of his generation. If he could have made the journey from atheism to Christianity, perhaps I was mistaken in thinking that you had to bury your brain in order to believe in God. Furthermore, and this was my third reason for studying his writings, you couldn’t accuse C.S. Lewis of being glib or shallow about suffering. Having lost his mother at the age of 10, been unhappy at school, and then gone on to experience the horrors of trench warfare during the First World War, he was obviously only too aware of the problem of evil. His discussion of these issues would surely, I thought, be illuminating.

This proved indeed to be the case. As I read Lewis’s three most important books, Mere Christianity, Miracles and The Problem of Pain, I found myself not only following in the footsteps of a person who had wrestled with all the issues that were troubling me; I was also discovering intelligent and convincing answers to all my doubts.

C.S. Lewis’ illuminating insights about the problem of evil

Since my own father had died when I was only 17, I found what Lewis had to say about the problem of evil particularly pertinent. As he rightly points out, we cannot complain about the existence of evil and suffering, and use that as an argument against the existence and goodness of God, unless we first believe that the standard of right and wrong by which we judge and condemn our world is an objective one. Our sense of justice and fairness has to be a true insight into reality, before we can we be justified in getting angry and indignant about all the pain and injustice we see around us. But if this is the case, what explains the existence within us of this inner moral code or compass? According to atheism, human beings and all their thinking processes are simply the accidental by-products of the mindless movement of atoms within an undesigned, random, and purposeless universe. How then can we attach any ultimate meaning or truth to our thoughts and feelings, including our sense of justice? They have, on this view, no more validity or significance than the sound of the wind in the trees.

But if, on the other hand, we refuse to accept this conclusion, insisting, for example, that it is always and objectively true that you should love your neighbour and you shouldn’t torture children, we are led away from atheism. The presence within us of an objective moral law ‘written on our hearts’ points instead to the existence of an eternal Goodness and Intelligence which created us and our universe, enables us to think, and is the eternal source of our best and deepest values. In other words, Lewis argues, atheism cuts its own throat philosophically, because it discredits all human reasoning, including the arguments for atheism. “If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be a word without meaning.” (Mere Christianity). Only by acknowledging that there is a God, he concludes, can we hope to make sense of human existence, the world we inhabit, and, paradoxically, the problem of evil.

But if God is goodness personified and therefore, as our Creator, the divine source of all that is good, true and beautiful, why is there so much evil and suffering? What has gone wrong? The Christian answer to that question, Lewis argues, is that our world has been damaged by rebellion against God. An originally good creation has been spoiled.

If you find this hard to believe, consider the evidence. Look at all the many examples there are of benevolent and intricate design in Nature: the nest-building instincts of birds, the incredibly complex structure of the human brain, the navigational systems of bats and whales, the biological software of DNA in every cell of our bodies, sexual reproduction, etc. All this exists side by side with harmful viruses, disease and death. Can its obvious implications be ignored? Consider, too, the significance of the fact that human beings possess an inner moral code they cannot get rid of yet seem unable to obey. Does all this not suggest some process of deterioration from hopeful beginnings? Is it not also significant that many ancient peoples and cultures, including the Chinese, have some tradition of a lost Paradise in the dim and distant past?

A convincing explanation of the origin of evil

Speaking for myself, I find this evidence convincing, but what has really persuaded me of the truthfulness of the Christian explanation of the origin of evil and suffering, is its inherent philosophical credibility. As C.S. Lewis points out, true love is a voluntary union of free individuals giving themselves to each other for their mutual delight and for the mutual enjoyment of life and all its blessings. Consequently, when God created the first human beings, He gave them the gift of free will. He did so in order that they and all their descendants might share His life, His love, His joy and His beauty, with Him and with each other. As part of this gift of free will, God also gave human beings creativity and intelligence in order that they might be good stewards of the world in which he had placed them, sharing its joys and adding to its wonders and beauty. But the problem with free will is that it can be corrupted and misused. Our inner freedom to relate to God and other people in harmony and love, can be turned on its head. We can choose, instead, to reject our Creator and live only for ourselves. And that, sadly, is what has happened to the human race. It is what lies behind the famous biblical story of the ‘Fall of Man’ in the Garden of Eden: our ancestors disobeyed God, with deadly consequences for themselves and posterity.

For the reasons I have already mentioned, I have no doubt that the ‘Fall of Man’ was a real historical event, but what gives the whole story its ‘ring of truth’ is its totally convincing picture of the disastrous consequences of turning away from God. A creature rebelling against its Creator, Lewis argues, is like a plant refusing to grow towards the sunlight. It results in a broken relationship which separates that creature from the eternal source of all life, love, truth and well-being, including its own. It was therefore inevitable that when the human race separated itself from God through that original act of disobedience long ago, hatred, disease and death came into the world. Some creationist scientists and theologians believe that the ‘Fall of Man’ damaged the whole of God’s originally perfect creation (as described in the book of Genesis), introducing death and disorder into the animal kingdom and the natural world. Others argue that even before the ‘Fall of Man’ the natural environment had already been damaged by rebellion against God in the angelic realm. But whatever you may think about all this, one thing seems crystal clear and made perfect sense to me: separation from our Creator is inevitably self-destructive.

It is inevitably self-destructive not only because it results in death, but also because it is destructive of freedom. Apart from God, we lack the inner strength to resist the downward pull of our fallen natures. Without His help, we cannot overcome all the temptations we face to give in to our lowest impulses and pursue our own interests at the expense of others. And if, in addition, this diminution of our inner freedom is accompanied, as in so many lives, by positive disbelief in God, a new danger arises. We lose our sense of accountability and belief in moral absolutes because we no longer believe that there is a Divine Judge to whom we are ultimately responsible. That is one of the reasons why militantly atheistic socialist regimes have produced the bloodiest tyrannies in history, slaughtering 100 million people in internal repression during the 20th century. It also helps to explain the growth of crime, delinquency and sexual immorality in post-Christian secularised Western societies.

If the human race has cut itself off from God through sin, what has been God’s response? Has he abandoned us, and all His creation, to corruption and death? On the contrary. The whole of the rest of the Bible after the third chapter of Genesis describes God’s rescue plan. And at the heart of that rescue plan is the greatest and most extraordinary event in history: the incredible but true story of God coming down into our world to live and walk among us as a human being – as a first century Jewish carpenter from Nazareth, called Jesus.

Before I started reading C.S. Lewis, I dismissed this whole idea as an absurd fable. Even if Jesus had really existed, how could one believe that he had performed all those miracles recorded of Him in the New Testament? Hadn’t the advance of science revealed that our universe is a beautifully ordered cosmos governed by physical laws which cannot be broken, but which can be described in the precise language of mathematics? Didn’t the laws of physics and chemistry rule out the possibility of a man walking on water or rising from the dead, as Jesus was said to have done? And how could one believe that Jesus had once turned several jars of water into wine at a wedding feast, or fed five thousand people with only five loaves of bread and two fish? You could only believe such stories, I thought, if you were scientifically illiterate, as everyone clearly was in ancient times. Furthermore, I asked myself, how on earth could Jesus’ death on a Roman cross ‘save’ us from our sins and reconcile us to God? No-one had ever explained this mystery to me!

Re-examining my objections to the supernatural and miracles

Once again, however, Lewis’s writings forced me to re-examine my objections to Christianity and the historical claims about Jesus on which it is based. As he points out in his brilliant book, Miracles, you cannot rule out the supernatural on scientific grounds without first begging the question of God’s existence. Atheism denies the supernatural by definition, but if atheism is false and God exists, who is to say that God is not able to intervene in His creation? If a human author can change the ending of one of her plays or novels at the stroke of a keyboard, then surely the Creator in whose image we are made can alter the natural environment, reverse the progression of a disease, or conquer death in ways we consider ‘miraculous’.

In any case, argues Lewis, the whole idea that it is somehow unscientific to believe in God and therefore in the possibility of miracles, is both historically and philosophically mistaken. Modern science owes its very origin to monotheistic religion. To quote Lewis: “Men became scientific because they expected law in nature and they expected law in nature because they believed in a lawgiver.” (Miracles). That is why most of the great founding fathers of modern science believed in God and were Christians who took the Bible seriously. To mention just a few of them and the scientific disciplines they helped to establish, they include: Galileo and Kepler (astronomy), Pascal (hydrostatics), Boyle (chemistry), Newton (calculus), Linnaeus (systematic biology), Faraday (electromagnetics), Cuvier (comparative anatomy), Kelvin (thermodynamics), Lister (antiseptic surgery), and Mendel (genetics). All these men believed in an ordered universe and in the possibility of discovering how it functioned because they were convinced that the evidence of intelligent design in Nature indicated the existence of an Intelligent Creator. As Kepler put it, writing in the 17th century: “The chief aim of all investigations of the external world should be to discover the rational order which has been imposed on it by God, and which he revealed to us in the language of mathematics.”

Lewis not only persuaded me that there is no reason to disbelieve in miracles and the supernatural on scientific grounds; he also pointed out the absurdity of attributing all belief in miracles to ignorance of the natural laws revealed by science. Jesus’ contemporaries in first century Palestine may have lacked the knowledge of modern physicists, but they were perfectly well aware that His virgin birth or His instantaneous healing of lepers were events which went against the normal course of nature, otherwise they would never have regarded them as miracles. Joseph, as we are told in Matthew’s Gospel, was resolved to break off his engagement to Mary precisely because he knew as well as you and I do that women don’t usually become pregnant without first having had sex with a man! Similarly, as we are told in John’s Gospel, ‘Doubting Thomas’ refused at first to believe the report of the other disciples that Jesus had risen from the grave, since he knew as well as any modern atheist that the victims of a Roman crucifixion did not normally return from the dead. It is therefore irrational to dismiss all reports of miracles as the unreliable testimony of credulous witnesses. You must examine the evidence for them with an open mind.

If, responding to this challenge, we look with an open mind at the accounts in the New Testament of the miracles of Jesus, Lewis argues, we are brought face to face with an interesting and significant fact. Instead of finding there the stuff of fairy tales – talking animals or frogs turning into princes – we are confronted with something much more rational and believable. What we see in most of Jesus’ miracles is what God does in the natural world, as its Creator, but localised and speeded up. Thus every year, for example, tiny seedlings of grain created by God grow into vast harvest fields of wheat and thousands of loaves of bread. The same process of multiplication took place in Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand, but localised and speeded up. Similarly, God is always turning water into wine by the action of sunlight and rain on the fruit of the vine, and by the involvement of human beings in all the stages of winemaking. At the wedding feast in Cana (recorded in John’s Gospel), Jesus, as God the Creator Incarnate, also turns water into wine, but here again the conversion process is localised and speeded up. Exactly the same parallels apply to Jesus’ miracles of healing. Human beings created by God are constantly recovering from illnesses and diseases through the medical stimulation of their bodies’ God-given immune systems. So when Jesus healed lepers with a touch of His hand or a word of command, we again see God the Healer at work, but localised and speeded up, as man to man in ancient Palestine. In other words, says Lewis, the purpose of Jesus’ miracles was not just to show God’s love for humanity but to reveal to the people around Him (and to us) the presence among them of their Creator and Saviour.

In addition to convincing me of the inherent reasonableness of the New Testament record of Jesus’ miracles, Lewis’s writings also helped me to understand why the Christian concept of God as a union of three persons within one Godhead (the ‘Trinity’) made sense, and why ‘God the Son’, the second person of that ‘Trinity’, had to come down into our world as Jesus, to ‘die for our sins’ and conquer death on our behalf.

As Lewis explains in his most readable book, Mere Christianity, God is Love personified since, as our Creator, He is the divine source and origin of all human (and animal) love. But since love involves relationships between people, we should not be altogether surprised to discover that God in His own Being is a loving union of three distinct persons – described in the New Testament as ‘Father’, ‘Son’, and ‘Holy Spirit’. It is of course true that this revelation may at first appear startling and strange, but it does not seem unreasonable once you think about it. The same thing applies to the apparently perplexing and contradictory notion of unity in diversity. How can God be a union of ‘three-in-one’? Well, says Lewis, what appears to be an impossibility in our dimension of being is not necessarily an impossibility in God’s dimension of Being. To use his very helpful analogy, you can’t picture a union of six separate squares in a two dimensional world, but you can picture a cube in a three dimensional world. So just as a cube is one body made up of six separate squares, so God is one Being made up of three separate persons. Again, this revelation may come as a shock, but it does not seem unreasonable. And this, argues Lewis, is another reason why Christianity has that strange ‘ring of truth’. It gives us information about God which no-one would ever have thought of making up, yet still manages to make some kind of sense. It involves a mystery about God which goes beyond our human understanding but not against it, which is surely what we ought to expect if there is a God.

I must emphasise, at this point, that the Christian concept of the Trinitarian nature of God is not something that Christian theologians simply invented many decades after Jesus’ death and resurrection. It emerged quickly and naturally as Jesus’ first disciples and followers came to understand the logical implications of His life and teachings, and reflected on what He Himself had said about His relationship and union with His ‘Father’. And since love was and is at the heart of that relationship, and explains why God created the universe and gave us the gift of life, it also tells us why His rescue plan for the human race necessitated His arrival in our world as a human being, and His cruel death under Pontius Pilate.