'Tis the Reason for the Season

The Virgin Conception of the Son of God

You can almost see the traditional skeptic rolling their eyes at the mention of a young woman becoming pregnant without having sex with a man. I mean, give me a break!

Try to imagine yourself in the place of Joseph. You've proposed to your girlfriend, you've been sexually abstinent from her, and then you get the "We need to talk" talk. It may have went something like this:

Mary: "Joseph, I need to tell you something."

Joseph: "What is it my dear?"

Mary: "Well, I'm pregnant. But I promise I haven't cheated! You know I've not been with any man! The child inside of me is from God. An angel came to me and told me that I would conceive a child from the Holy Spirit!"

At this moment I could imagine what kind of thoughts would be going through my head. Jealousy, rage, anger. My initial reaction would be to NOT believe this woman. But the book of Matthew tells us that Joseph was an honorable man and didn't make a spectacle of the situation. Instead he moved to secretly "put her away", suggesting he intended NOT to marry her. But then we're told that an angel came to Joseph in the night and told him the same thing that was told to Mary: that the conception was from the LORD, and that this was to be the the Savior of mankind!

There are just two ideas I want to explore regarding the virgin conception:

1. The virgin conception was prophesied in the Old Testament in the book of Isaiah.

For years the Jewish nation had been awaiting their Messiah. It was prophesied in the Old Testament that a king would rise up and do away with Israel's enemies and establish the nation as the rightful ruler of the earth. This king would be born through the lineage of David and would usher Israel into a golden age of power and influence. In fact there were many would-be Messiah's that popped up before and after Jesus, and each one was crushed by the Roman Empire (as was Jesus) and those who were looking for the conquering Messiah were continually disappointed. 

The book of Isaiah records in 7:14 “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.” Not only was the birth of the Messiah predicted by Isaiah, but in Matthew 2 we are told about the "wise men" that came from the east. Many have speculated that these men were well aware of the prophecies concerning the birth of Christ and had been waiting for a sign. As the book of Matthew records, the wise men "saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him."

2. If God exists and miracles are possible, this isn't such a big deal.

One of the most natural objections to the virgin conception is that it just isn't possible. A better explanation might be that Mary indeed had sexual relations with another man and that she just didn't want to upset her husband to be. So instead of just fessing up, they concocted a story about how an angel came to them and said the child was conceived by the Spirit of God. 

But this naturalistic explanation is a cover something deeper. The commitment to philosophical naturalism means it couldn't possibly have happened the way the Bible records the story. So rather than following the evidence of the history of Jesus, the supernatural conception of Jesus must be discredited on account of the commitment to the naturalism. But if God exists, and miracles are possible, then this sort of thing isn't out of the question.

If God is all-powerful, all-knowing, loving, and eager to forgive us and cleanse of of our sins, then the advent of Jesus makes total sense. God humbled Himself and placed Himself in the shoes of the average Joe. It would have been easy for God to just come down out of Heaven and manifest Himself in some overly fantastic way, but He chose to have His plan of redemption be different. If God's plan is to have humanity choose to enter into a relationship with Him freely, then the kind of grandiose display of power and authority would undermine His ultimate goal.

Lastly, many theologians have argued that for Jesus to be fully God and fully man He couldn't have come into the world any other way than through a virgin. For if He were the natural product of two human parents then His body would be merely inhabited by the Spirit of God and not actually God Himself. Additionally, others have proposed that the plight of original sin would have been present in Jesus if He were to come into the world by two human parents.

If we are to recognize Jesus as being God in the flesh, then His advent into the world must be some kind of special. There would need to be a hallmark of His coming that world could point to as being different. There would need to be some clues left behind for people to follow to come to the knowledge of the savior of mankind.

Science Doesn't Say Anything. Scientists Do.

Science Doesn't Say Anything. Scientists do.

"To say a scientist can disprove the existence of God, is like saying a mechanic can disprove the existence of Henry Ford." - Frank Turek


A very common objection to the claims of theism these days tends to fall into the camp of scientific knowledge. Consider the myths of ancient gods like Thor, the god of thunder. Thor was said to have a hammer that was used to create thunder and lightning. But as scientific knowledge of the earth's atmospheric conditions increased, the belief that such a god exists diminished. A natural explanation had been given to show that what uneducated myth-followers believed was simply a lack of knowledge about the natural world.

Today's anti-theist will use this type of explanation to show that a sort of "God of the Gaps" will ultimately be disproved by science. The idea is that as our scientific knowledge increases, the need for God or gods as an explanation will continue to shrink until the notion finally vanishes. Many conversations that I and others have had with atheists will oftentimes included phrases like, "Science shows..." or "Science says that..." followed by some explanation about how the physical world can account for all reality or that God is unprovable by scientific means.

The problem here is that science isn't a thing and doesn't speak! The real issue is that it is the interpretation of scientists and philosophers of science who say anything at all. As some of my atheistic friends have said, "Science isn't a belief system. Science is a methodology." Well, I agree. Science isn't a thing at all. Science IS a methodology for gathering data. The data must then be interpreted by a mind. And that mind has many presuppositions that form the interpretations of the data gathered.

So what are we really talking about here? A certain philosophy is needed to even start to make sense of any data obtained through the scientific method.

Consider one theory that scientists disagree on: quantum mechanics. There are currently over 10 different physical interpretations of quantum mechanics, and each one is trying to make sense of the same data and are empirically identical in every way. Where the conflict lies between the differing theories are the philosophical presuppositions of the scientists who are interpreting the data. Some are naturalists, others a super-naturalists, and the conclusions obtained will be skewed by the philosophical commitments by the individuals.

So the atheist or anti-theist must be extremely careful when using scientific findings to try and disprove the existence of God. With a commitment to philosophical naturalism, one might be affirming a wrong-headed conclusion before they even start. So the next time someone says, "Science says...", remind them that science doesn't say anything. It is people with a certain worldview that are interpreting what the scientific data shows.