The Rational Theologian
Where Faith and Reason Meet
Pierre Gilbert, Ph.D.
Associate Professor Emeritus
Canadian Mennonite University
A word of introduction
Theology and reason are not contradictory. As the Jewish radio talk show host and writer, Dennis Prager, demonstrates in his popular commentaries on the Torah, The Rational Bible, one doesn’t have to put the mind in neutral when reading the Bible or doing theology. The popular belief is that Christianity derides reason is simply false. The Judeo-Christian tradition privileges the heart and the mind in a way that seamlessly and powerfully integrates both. The God of the Bible reveals himself as a God of love and reason, who has created human beings with the capacity for both. It is, in fact, when men and women most fully give expression to the heart and the mind that they function best.
Guilbeault’s Emissions Obsession: Ten Reasons to Call Time Out on Canada’s CO2
Frontier Centre for Public Policy (Dec 18, 2024)
Canadian Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault recently announced a plan requiring the oil and gas industry to cut CO2 emissions by more than one-third from 2019 levels by 2030. This deadline might seem far off, but it also stipulates that at least 20 percent of light-duty vehicle sales must be zero-emission by 2026, a deadline that’s just around the corner. This is all part of Guilbeault’s strategy to achieve the ambitious net-zero emissions target by 2050. There are at least ten reasons suggesting that this plan is absurd.
“Minority Report”: The Sequel. A Warning to the Canadian Church
Frontier Centre for Public Policy (April 9, 2024)
In the 2002 futuristic movie, “Minority Report,” viewers are introduced to a ground-breaking technology that allows law enforcement to preview a crime before it is committed. Then this determination becomes the basis for the arrest and the sentencing of the “pre-crime” perpetrator.In a case of life imitating art, on February 26, the Canadian government tabled legislation containing provisions that are eerily like the plot imagined in Tom Cruise’s blockbuster.
The Written Word Versus the Living Word
MB Herald (October 22, 2021)
Can I be an Anabaptist and believe in the inerrancy of the Bible? While I have been a proud member of the Mennonite Brethren (MB) family since 1984, I no longer count the number of times I have heard colleagues, friends, and various leaders confidently state that biblical inerrancy is “not our thing.” ...Until recently, I did not feel the necessity to publicly respond to challenges to the doctrine of inerrancy, but a couple of recent incidents made me reconsider.
A Journey into the Creation Account
Part 1: only one God
MB Herald (Nov. 2023)
The renowned Oxford mathematician and apologist, Professor John Lennox, often points out that the existence of God cannot be mathematically proven. This is not to say that such evidence does not exist. There is in fact a class of arguments, which taken together, make a powerful case for the existence of God.
A Journey into the Creation Account
Part 2: The Death of the Gods and the Rise of Science
MB Herald (Dec. 2023)
The belief in the existence of supernatural powers that can be manipulated for one’s benefit is nearly as old as humanity itself. And for most of human history, men and women have feared those who claimed to have such powers. Because such beliefs fundamentally distorted how humans were to relate to nature, they represented a critical threat to Israel’s survival as God’s people in the Promised Land. The Genesis creation account was, in great part, written to challenge the underlying worldview these beliefs reflected.
A Journey into the Creation Account
Part 3: Transcendence
MB Herald (Jan 2024)
We owe the Jewish people a debt of gratitude that will forever remain unpaid...
Did you know that about 22 percent of all Nobel prizes given between 1901 and 2023 were awarded to Jewish people? In and of itself, this is remarkable. But what’s even more stunning is that the Jews represent only about 0.2 percent of the world’s population.
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A Journey into the Creation Account
Part 4: Reassurance
MB Herald (March 2024)
Ruach, the Hebrew word for spirit can also denote the wind. That Moses would use a term that can refer both to the wind and a personal entity is not surprising. Ancient Near Eastern people were familiar with the wind as a primordial force. The winds of Babylonian mythology embodied the forces of violence and anarchy. [3] They announced humanity’s enslavement and symbolized terror and ill fortune.
Israel, the Church, and Cultural Witness
January 4, 2024
“Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality.” C. S. Lewis.
We all like to think of ourselves as courageous. Church leaders today are quick to disparage earlier generations of Christians, who in their opinion failed to stand with the oppressed, be they the victims of slavery, racial segregation, or the Nazi genocidal regime. If only they had been there, they would not have looked the other way. While rear-view courage may be sincere and noble, is it of any real value?
Is Your Church Going Woke? And Why it Matters.
Frontier Centre (Sept. 6, 2023)
The “woke” phenomenon seems to be everywhere these days. Universities, businesses and government agencies annually spend millions of dollars to promote wokeness, which, in those settings goes under the well-known DEI acronym: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
Unity in a time of crisis: a Torah perspective.
The Messenger (May 2023).
Can the gospel still unite the church at a time when ideological and theological factions are intensifying? I have no doubt it can, but it doesn’t have to.
Let me explain what I mean by examining three texts found in the Torah: the Shema Israel (Deuteronomy 6:4–5), the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1–17; Deuteronomy 5:6–21), and the creation account (Genesis 1–3).
A Journey into the Creation Account
The interview above brings together three eminent scholars: mathematician and Christian apologist John Lennox, philosopher of science and intelligent design proponent Stephen Meyer, and biochemist Michael Behe, Uncommon Knowledge host Peter Robinson asks a question few intellectuals would even privately contemplate, let alone formulate publicly.
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A journey into the Genesis creation account
Part 6: "On Autopilot"
MB Herald (May 29, 2024)
Exodus 32:1-6 reports an incident that underlines the extent to which the Hebrews were ideologically infected by their neighbours. Some time after Moses went up Mount Sinai to confer with God, the people clamoured for Aaron to make a golden calf they could worship.
To add insult to injury, we learn that after they ate and drank, the Israelites got up to “play,” an expression which in this context carries a sexual connotation.For those who might wonder whether this burst of eroticism was caused by some wilderness aphrodisiac, it should be noted that as reprehensible as it may seem, there is more going on here than mere moral laxity.
A journey into the Genesis creation account
Part 7: "You are my Sunshine."
MB Herald (June 3, 2024)​
And God said, ‘Let there be light’, and there was light” (Gen 1:3).
In and of itself, there is nothing particularly outlandish about this verse. If God created the entire universe, surely turning the light on, as would a carpenter entering his shop, should not be cause for concern. But some readers get bent out of shape when they realize that light appears before the creation of the sun on the fourth day (vv. 14-19). For some, that is even reason enough to dismiss the entire account as a whole lot of nonsense, surmising that if the author was so smart, he would certainly have caught this glaring inconsistency. As with many other things in Scripture, there is more here than meets the eye.
A journey into the Genesis creation account Part 8: "In the Image of God"
MB Herald (June 19, 2024)
The biblical creation account is home to some of the most revolutionary concepts ever to emerge in human history. These “Big Ideas,” as I like to call them, represent the formal codification of the most basic building blocks of every life-giving belief the world has ever encountered. The notion of the image of God must certainly rank as one the most remarkable of these Big Ideas.
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The Three-Pound Brain
A Journey into the Genesis Creation
Part 9: "The Three-Pound Brain"
MB Herald (November 12, 2024)
In essence, in the Bible, human beings are viewed as assets (see Psalm 8).Tragically, the view of humans as liabilities has been the dominant position for most of human history. And that turns out to be particularly true in times of crisis...The creation account suggests a better way forward.
A Journey into the Genesis Creation Account
Part 10: "Freedom" MB Herald (November 12, 2024)
I conclude this 10-part series on the creation narrative by returning to its opening statement: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
Even if history had only preserved these seven Hebrew words, this simple sentence could still ignite a revolution with respect to our understanding of God and, by extension, everything else. Without Genesis 1:1, for instance, we would likely still be sacrificing animals in some futile attempt to appease nature gods who have nothing but utter contempt for human beings. The very concept of empirical science would have remained a fleeting whisper in the dreams of ancient Greek philosophers.
But no exploration of the creation account would be complete without discussing one additional idea: Freedom.
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