By William Dembski, Ph.D. 

Question: Human designers reuse designs that work well. Life forms also repeat the use of certain structures (the camera eye, for example). Is this evidence for common descent, evolutionary convergence, common design, or a combination of these?

Answer: Within evolutionary biology, there are only two ways to explain similar biological structures. The first is to attribute them to common descent. Thus two organisms share a structure because they inherited it from a common evolutionary ancestor. The option is to attribute similar structures to convergence. Thus two organisms share a structure because it evolved more than once (separate evolutionary pathways “converged on it”). By adopting an engineering approach to biological structure, intelligent design explains similar structures in terms of common design. Note that this is not to preclude that a repeated structure arose via an evolutionary process. But in that case it would be a guided evolutionary process and not a blind, purposeless evolutionary process as in Darwinism. Common design, perhaps expressed through evolutionary convergence, accounts for the repetitions of many biological structures (like the camera eye in humans and squids) far better than common descent or blind evolutionary convergence. 

By William Dembski, Ph.D. 

Question: In trying to understand biological systems, molecular biologists often need to “reverse engineer” them.  Is this evidence that the systems were engineered to begin with?

Answer: In regular engineering one begins with a plan to construct a machine that serves a given function and then builds the machine according to plan. In reverse engineering, by contrast, one starts wth a finished machine and tries to determine what its purpose is and how it is constructed. Scott Minnich, a University of Idaho molecular biologist and prominent proponent of intelligent design, will often remark in his public lectures that the only way for biologists to understand the workings of the cell is to approach its various systems as a reverse engineer. Thus the molecular biologist may take a functioning system in the cell, perturb it, see how the cell behaves differently to infer the system’s function. Alternatively, the molecular biologist may interfere at various points in the system’s self-assembly to determine how the system is constructed. In all such cases, the molecular biologist acts as an engineer making intelligent interventions and not as a gambler throwing dice. If we need the science of engineering to understand biological systems, then it is a good bet that the systems themselves are designed.

By Greg Boyd, Ph.D.

Question: Ephesians 1 refers to believers as predestined before the foundation of the world. How do you reconcile this with your view that free actions of people (like choosing to believe in Christ) can’t be predestined or even foreknown ahead of time?

Answer: It took three hundred years before anyone in Church history interpreted the New Testament to teach that God individually predestines certain people to go to heaven, and “leaves” (viz. a nice way of saying “predestines”) all others to go to hell. Augustine’s interpretation decisively influenced Church history, and was followed by the early Protestant Reformers and those who continued in the Reformed tradition. The fact that you have trouble reading the verses you mention in a non-Calvinist way testifies to how influential this tradition continues to be in terms of how we (as opposed to the pre-Augustinian church) read the Bible.

As you mention in your question, one of the texts most frequently appealed to in support of this view is Ephesians 1.

He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will…. (Eph. 1:4–5)

In keeping with the Jewish practice of his day, I think Paul was speaking of a corporate election in this passage. When Jews thought of election or predestination, they thought primarily of the nation of Israel. Israel as a nation was elected (not for salvation, but for service). But this didn’t mean that every individual born into Israel was part of God’s chosen people. Only those who kept covenant with God were considered “true Israelites.”

Notice that Paul doesn’t say that God chose us to be in Christ. He rather says God chose us in Christ to be holy and blameless. What God chose from the foundation of the world was that whoever is in Christ will be holy and blameless.

Suppose I conduct a conference at which I show a movie clip from The Princess Bride. You choose at the last moment to attend this conference. At the end of the movie clip you raise your hand and ask, “Mr. Boyd, when did you decide that we’d have to watch that silly movie clip,” to which I might respond, “Well, I decide that six months ago.” You then turn around and say, quite accurately, to the whole conference, “Mr. Boyd predestined us to watch this movie clip six months ago.”

But notice, I didn’t predestine that you individually would watch this movie clip. What I predestined is that whoever shows up at this conference would watch this movie clip. Now that you decided (even at the last minute) to be part of this conference, what was predestined for the whole becomes predestined for you. You are part of the “us” who was predestined to watch the clip.

So too, from the foundation of the world God predestined that whoever is in Christ would become holy and blameless in his sight. But he didn’t predestine certain individuals — as opposed to other unfortunate individuals — to be in Christ. This is left up to our choice. Now that you’ve chosen to be in Christ, what was predestined for the group becomes predestined for you. You, with Paul, can say “In Christ WE (who have chosen to believe) were predestined to be holy and blameless…”

I’m convinced this is what Paul is communicating in this passage.

WHAT HAPPENS TO BABIES WHO DIE? 

By Greg Boyd, Ph.D.

The Bible does not directly address the issue of what happens to babies who die before being able to make a decision for or against Christ. People have thus had to arrive at conclusions about this matter on the basis of other beliefs they hold to be true.

The majority of evangelicals today assume that children who die before “the age of accountability” automatically go to heaven. (The same holds true for severely mentally incapacitated adults, though historically this topic has rarely been addressed). What drives this view is the conviction that babies are not guilty of any explicit sin, and therefore, it would be unjust for God not to save them. The view is so self-evident to some today that they are surprised to learn that few church spokespersons throughout history have shared this assumption.

The prevailing opinion from Augustine through the medieval period was that all babies who had received Christian baptism went to heaven, while all others went to hell. This view was driven by a particular understanding of inherited original sin and the belief that baptism washed away this sin. The difficulty of accepting this conclusion led to the qualification that the level of hell babies go to (limbo) was devoid of pain. Some evangelicals within liturgical traditions continue to hold to a form of this belief

Some Christians in the late Middle Ages and Reformation period, focusing on the importance of family covenants in Scripture, maintained that the fate of babies was directly connected to the faith or unbelief of their parents. This view is embraced by some evangelicals today. Children of Christian parents who die go to heaven, while others go to hell.

Yet another view has traditionally been espoused by Reformed theologians. Rooted in a particular understanding of divine election, this view maintains that the fate of babies is decided in the same way as the fate of adults. As spelled out in the Westminster Confession of Faith, elect babies are predestined to salvation; non-elect babies are not. Often this view is combined with the above mentioned covenantal theology, assuring Christian parents that their deceased babies are indeed elect.

Finally, many evangelicals who are convinced that love must be freely chosen hold to the belief that perhaps babies who die are somehow allowed to mature in the afterlife, at which point they, like the rest of us, decide for themselves whether they want to submit to Christ. I find in the New Testament, especially in the teachings of Jesus, a recurring theme that all processes that are incomplete in this age will be completed in the next. On this basis, along with my belief that love must be chosen, I’m inclined toward the view that all people who have not solidified a decision for or against Christ, including infants, are somehow allowed to do so in the next age.

Further Reading

• Boors, L. The Mystery of Death. Trans. G. Bainbridge. New York: Herder & Herder, 1965.

• Buswell, J. O. A Systematic Theology of the Christian Religion. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1962.

• Dyer, G. J. “The Unbaptized Infant in Eternity,” Chicago Studies 2 (1963): 147.

• Gumpel, P. “Unbaptized Infants: May They Be Saved?” Downside Review 72 (1954): 342–458.

• Hastings, Adrian. “The Salvation of Unbaptized Infants.” Downside Review 77 (1958–59): 172–78.

• Sanders, J. No Other Name: An Investigation into the Destiny of the Unevangelized. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992.

• Warfield, B. “The Development of the Doctrine of Infant Salvation.” In Studies in Theology, ed. E. D. Warfield, 411–44. New York: Oxford University Press, 1932.

WHAT MAKES THE CLAIM THAT JESUS ROSE FROM THE DEAD UNIQUE? 

By Greg Boyd, Ph.D.

Question: What makes the story of Jesus’ resurrection different from other pagan resurrection stories, such as those surrounding the Egyptian god Osiris?

Answer: In Lord or Legend? (and more academically, The Jesus Legend), Paul Eddy and I address this, and many other, objections to faith in Jesus. I encourage you to check either of these books out. But basically, if one examines the details of the various mythic accounts of dying and rising gods, there really aren’t many impressive parallels to the Gospel accounts.

For example, consider the example you yourself give. As the story goes (at least according to one of the versions that’s come down to us) Osiris was killed by his brother, chopped up into fourteen pieces and scattered throughout Egypt. Isis then rescued all but one of his body parts, reassembled them and brought him back to life. He was then given rulership of the underworld (the realm of the dead). To claim that this account “parallels” the Jesus story is quite a stretch, to say the least. Indeed, it’s not even clear we should call it a resurrection account since Osiris was never fully reconstituted. Not only this, but poor Osiris really wasn’t brought back to “life” at all since his resuscitated rulership remained in the realm of the dead!

If you examine all the alleged parallels to the Jesus story, this is pretty much what you find. Like they say, “the devil is in the details.”

Having said this, I want grant that there are vague parallels to the Jesus story in pagan myths throughout history and around the globe. But far from concluding that these vague parallels in any way discount the historicity of the Jesus story, Paul and I argue that they actually confirm it. If the Jesus story is in fact true, we should expect parallels like this to exist. After all, one aspect of the Jesus story, extending back into the Old Testament, is the teaching that humans are made in the image of God (Gen. 1:26-28). We’re thus “wired” for God, if you will. Not only this, but the New Testament itself declares that Jesus is the light “of all people” (John 1:4, 9) who is always working in the hearts of all people to lead them back to himself (Acts 17:26-28, cf. Rom 1:19-20). We should thus expect to find “echoes” of the Jesus story expressed in the myths and legends of all people.

DID GOD USE SATAN TO TEST JOB? 

By Greg Boyd, Ph.D.

Question: In Job 1:21 and 2:10, Job seems to accept “adversity” from God while continuing to trust him. Job blames his troubles on God (i.e. “He shattered me” [16:12], “He breaks me down on every side” [19:10], “For he performs what is appointed for me” [23:14]). In Chapters 1 and 2, God even seems to encourage Satan to harm Job. This seems to refute your reading of Job and the “warfare” approach to understanding evil which you advocate (in Is God to Blame? and Satan and the Problem of Evil). Satan has to ask God for permission for all he does—which means God must have a reason for allowing every particular evil in the world. This isn’t about a battle between God and Satan, but about how God uses Satan to test us.

Answer: I will make five brief comments in response to this objection.

1) This objection is rooted in the assumption that Job’s perspective on his suffering is accurate. But throughout his ordeal, Job attributes many things to God that we do not consider accurate or pious. For example, Job claims that God mocks the suffering of innocent people; that God causes judges to make poor judgments; and that God ignores the prayers of oppressed and dying people (Job 9:23–24, 21:17–26, 30–32; 24:1–12). Moreover, Job wrongfully concludes that God must be a ruthless predator who arbitrarily destroys him for fun (e.g. Job 10:8–10, 16:7–17; 30:18, 21). We have to be very careful, therefore, in extracting theological truth from the mouth of Job or his friends.

2) When God finally shows up at the end of this book, he rebukes both Job and his friends for the things they said about him. Job confesses that he spoke of things he did not understand (42:3) and then repents (42:6).

3) The genre of Job is poetic drama, and the prologue functions as a literary device to set up the story (like the conversation between the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16). So I don’t think it’s wise to base doctrine on a literal reading of this passage (i.e. that Satan and God literally have conversations in heaven), since the genre indicates that this was not its intended purpose.

4) Even if one insists on reading the prologue literally, why should we universalize this passage to conclude that Satan must always ask for specific permission to do things or that every atrocity is a “test”? Isn’t there something grotesque about calling (say) the kidnapping, raping and then murder of a child a “test”? What does the dead molested child learn from this “divine testing”?

5) We must also note that Satan was “roaming about the earth” before he came to the throne, and there’s never a suggestion that he got God’s specific permission to do this. Indeed, God asks, “where were you?” This too suggests its unwarranted to conclude that Satan receives specific permission for everything he does.

WHY DOES JESUS TELL HIS DISCIPLES TO BUY SWORDS IN THE GOSPEL OF LUKE? 

By Greg Boyd, Ph.D.

Question: If Jesus is opposed to violence, why did he tell his disciples to buy swords (Luke 22:36-37).

Answer: Given how Jesus responds to Peter’s use of the sword (he rebukes him), and given everything Jesus says about loving enemies, doing good to them, turning the other cheek, and so on, it’s clear that, whatever Jesus was up to in telling his followers to buy swords, he clearly didn’t intend for them to use them.

I think a close look at the passage reveals Jesus’ purpose. Immediately after telling them to buy a sword (Luke 22:36) Jesus says, “It is written: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors’; and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment.”(vs. 37). To fulfill prophecy, Jesus had to be viewed as a transgressor. He had to at least appear to be a political revolutionary to the Jewish authorities for them to feel justified in arresting him. His cleansing of the temple a few days earlier was probably calculated for the same effect. So, to fulfill the prophecy and to provoke the Jewish authorities, he had to have enough weaponry to justify being viewed as a law breaking revolutionary.

This is why, in the next verse, when the disciples say they have two swords, Jesus says “That is enough.” (vs. 38). Obviously, if Jesus ever intended for the disciples to use the swords, that wouldn’t be nearly enough. But it’s enough to fulfill the prophecy by making Jesus look like a transgressor.

When Peter used the sword to cut off the guard’s ear, Jesus rebuked him and then demonstrated the kind of power the Kingdom of God uses to advance its cause by healing the guards ear.

When Jesus later appeared before Pilate and was asked if he was the King of the Jews, Jesus responded that his kingdom is not of this world, and he points to the fact that his followers are not fighting as proof of this fact (John. 18:36). So, a distinguishing characteristic that a person belongs to Jesus’ Kingdom is that they refuse to fight their enemies. They rather pray for their healing and seek to serve them any way they can — including dying for them, as Jesus did, if necessary.

WHO CREATED GOD?  

By John Clayton 

It is easy to make an argument for God’s existence from a cosmological standpoint.  As the years have gone by, a growing amount of scientific data has accumulated which negates atheistic assumptions about how matter and the cosmos came into existence and how it has arrived at its present condition.  As a science teacher and public lecturer on the compatibility of belief in God and science, I have been impressed with an increasing awareness on the part of many scientists and theologians that science and religion are symbiotic disciplines.One question which inevitably comes up in a discussion of this nature is what the origin of God is?  If God created matter/energy and designed the systems that have propelled matter into its present arrangement, who or what accomplished that for God?  Why is it any more reasonable to believe that God has always been than it is to say that matter has always been?   As Carl Sagan has said, “If we say that God has always been, why not save a step and conclude that the universe has always been?” (Cosmos, p. 257).

From a purely scientific standpoint, it is easy to demonstrate that matter cannot be eternal in nature.  The universe is expanding from what appears to be a beginning point in space/time, which appears to be a one time event.  Hydrogen is the basic fuel of the cosmos, powering all stars and other energy sources in space.  If the fuel of the universe has been used eternally, that fuel will eventually be depleted; but the evidence is that the cosmological gas gauge, while moving toward “empty,” is yet a long way from being there—a condition incompatible with an eternal universe.  The second law of thermodynamics insists that the cosmos is moving toward a condition of disorder, sometimes referred to as “heat death.”  Even in an oscillating universe, things ultimately run out of energy and “die.”  All of these evidences, and several others we have not made reference to, show that matter cannot be eternal, as Dr. Sagan and his associates would like to believe.  However, this does not mean that we automatically accept the hypothesis that God is the Creator.  Why is it not equally invalid to suggest that God has always been?

The problem here is that many people have a mistaken concept of God.  If we conceive of God as physical, anthropomorphic (like man) being, the question of God’s origin is valid.  However, such a concept of God is alien to the Bible and to common sense.  Consider the following descriptions of God from the Bible:

John 4: 24
God is a Spirit: …

Matthew 16:17
… for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my father which is in heaven.

Numbers 23:19
God is not a man, that he should … ;

Obviously, the descriptions and concepts of God given in these passages are that God is a spiritual entity.  He exists outside of the three-dimensional physical world in which we live.  The Bible further supports this concept of God in the following passages:

Jeremiah 23:23-24
Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off?  … Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord.

2 Chronicles 2:6
But who is able to build a house, seeing the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain him? …

Acts 17:28
For in Him we live, and move, and have our being; …

Not only is God described as being outside space, but He is also described as being outside of time.  Consider the following:

2 Peter 3:8
But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

Psalm 90:4
For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.

Psalm 102:27
But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end.

Acts 1:7
…It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his power.

If God is a being that is unlimited in time, and if He has access to every piece of time as if it were now, the question of who created God is an invalid question.  The problem is like asking a student to draw a four-sided triangle.  The terminology is self-contradictory.When asked “Who or what created God?” we are making the assumption that God was created.  If God exists outside of time and space, and if He is the Creator of time and space, He obviously was not created!  God began the beginning!  This is why He says, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last” (Revelation 22:13).

God created time.  The statement of Genesis, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,” is making reference to the creation of time.  The reason that things like heat death, the expansion of the universe, and the depletion of hydrogen do not apply to God is because He is outside of time.  God has always been.  He did things before time began (see 1 Corinthians 2:7).  He not only began time; He will also end it.  When time ends, all matter and all mankind will enter eternity—a timeless condition free of the negative things that time brings upon us now.

2 Peter 3:10-11
But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.  Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness.

Revelation 21:4
And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

The agnostic position that there is nothing that can be said to support God’s existence that cannot be said against that existence cannot, in the opinion of the author, stand in the face of this evidence.

Posted at DoesGodExist.org

HOW SHOULD WE RESPOND TO BART EHRMAN’S BOOK MISQUOTING JESUS? 

By Greg Boyd, Ph.D.

Question: I just read Bart Ehrman’s book Misquoting Jesus and it’s sort of rocked my world. How can we believe the Bible is God’s inerrant Word when we don’t even know what the original Bible said?

Answer: I actually went to graduate school with Bart Ehrman (at Princeton). We used to smoke pipes together up in the smokers’ lounge at Princeton Seminary. I really liked him. He was “edgy.” But it was clear, even back then, that he had a sort of chip on his shoulder about the fundamentalism he’d been raised in. I suspect this chip on his shoulder biases his scholarship a bit.

Now, I’ll start by expressing a point of agreement with Ehrman’s work. What seemed to erode Ehrman’s faith in Seminary, so far as I could tell, was the challenge textual variations posed to a belief in “inerrancy” (the belief that every word of the Bible has to be without error). How can anyone hold that it’s important that every word of the Bible is “without error” when we don’t even know what many of the original words even were?

Ehrman’s got a strong point here. If we think it’s important to believe that the Bible is without error, we set ourselves up for the very problem Ehrman ran into — and now exposes with his book. The word “inerrant” only has meaning if we have “inerrant” copies of the Bible to measure “error” up against — and that is precisely what Bart shows we don’t have. (Though this is nothing new really. Textual critics have been saying this for centuries). For me, it’s enough to hold that the Bible is “inspired” and generally historically “trustworthy.”

Having said that, there’s six brief observations I’d make about Ehrman’s work.

1) The book is a good introduction to the science of textual criticism. But some of Bart’s conclusions seem to outrun the evidence — even the evidence that he himself cites. Consider that Bart is looking at the same evidence every other textual critic looks at. He’s “discovered” nothing new. Yet, hardly anyone goes to the extreme Bart goes to in his conclusions.

One of Ehrman’s teachers, whom I also knew at Princeton, was Bruce Metzger. Metzger came to much more conservative conclusions than Ehrman — yet looked at the exact same evidence. The vast majority of textual critics are closer to Metzger than Ehrman.

2) The way Bart phrases things has an “alarmist” ring to it. I think he just likes to shake things up. For example, he makes quite deal over the thousands upon thousands of variations there are in the textual tradition. Uninformed lay readers could easily get the impression that almost every verse in the New Testament is in question.

Well, Ehrman is technically correct that there are thousands upon thousands of textual variations. But it’s also the case that the vast majority of these thousands of variations are simply copies of copies of copies, etc… In other words, once a variation enters the textual tradition, it gets copied over and over and over again. Ehrman sometimes seems to count each of these copies as though it was a distinct variation when it’s not.

3) Even the most liberal textual critics grant that at least 95% of the text of the New Testament is not in question. (The standard estimates I’ve read are closer to 98%). And the 5% or less about which there may be some doubt do not affect anything of substance in the faith. Not only this, but most of this 5% is not totally in question, for scholars assign probabilities to this material. In other words, a text may be (say) 80% certain — but so long as it’s not 100%, it’s put in the “questionable” category.

4) We have over 25,000 manuscript pieces of textual evidence to help us reconstruct the originals of the New Testament documents, and much of this evidence is very early. This is by far and away the best attested work in history. The next closest ancient document in terms of textual support is Homer’s Iliad which has about 900 manuscript pieces of evidence to support it. My point is that if we’re going to seriously question whether we can trust that what we have today is a reasonably close approximation to the New Testament, we should distrust our copies of every ancient author.

5) Bart’s book makes “mountains out of mole hills” all over the place. For example, he makes a big deal over the fact that 1 John 5:7 , which speaks about the Trinity, wasn’t in the original Bible. In fact, it was inserted by Erasmus in the 16th century. But so what? The doctrine of the Trinity has never been based on THAT verse — obviously, since the doctrine of the Trinity was articulated in the first four centuries of church history and this verse wasn’t in the Bible these early fathers were using.

Not only this, but hardly any scholars have taken I John 5:7 seriously for the past four hundred years! That’s why it’s omitted in all translations of the Bible except the King James Version.

6) Bart may (or may not) have substantiated his claim that sometimes intentional alterations were made in the text to make a passage sound more “orthodox.” Even if we grant this (and many textual critics would not), it doesn’t affect much.

First, if we throw out all the texts about which there is some question — including those that may have been intentionally altered — it wouldn’t affect our general estimation of the reliability of the New Testament documents and wouldn’t affect anything important to the faith.

Second — and this is very important — in the ancient world written texts were regarded as expressions of an oral tradition, and it was understood that it’s okay to slightly modify oral traditions to address new issues that have arisen in the community. So even if certain texts were altered slightly (and all the alleged alterations are in fact slight), it doesn’t mean there was anything sinister going on. This is what people expected to be done.

So, if you ask me, Ehrman’s book need not rock anyone’s world. It perhaps challenges those who put a lot of stake in a particular view of “inerrancy,” but in my view it was ill advised to put much stock in that view in the first place

IF GOD IS SO GREAT, WHY WOULD HE CARE ABOUT US? 

By Greg Boyd, Ph.D.

Question: I’ve read that scientists estimate that the number of stars in the universe is 10 to the 24th power (10 with 24 zeros after it). I’m told that finding the earth amidst all these stars would be like finding one particular grain of sand in a sand pile the size of the United States piled 25 feet deep! Plus, the universe has been around for 13.5 billion years, while humans have only existed the last 10,000 years or so. This is a mere nanosecond of the cosmic clock. If this is all created by God, it seems far beneath him to care about us little — and very recent — humans on this little planet.

Answer: The question presupposes a dichotomy between greatness, on the one hand, and caring for little people, on the other. I would argue in the opposite direction, however. Rather than saying God is too great to care about us little humans, I’d say God is great precisely because he cares about us little humans. For the essence of God’s greatness is love, and love between unequals is greater than a love between equals. A story of a prince who willingly sacrifices his whole kingdom out of love for a peasant girl demonstrates a greater love than a story of a prince who marries the daughter of a king. In this light, the story of God caring about us little humans, to the point of becoming one of us and dying for us, despite the fact that we didn’t deserve it, must be seen as the greatest love story ever told. Calvary reveals the greatest, most beautiful, most loving conception of God humans have ever dreamed of.

In fact, I don’t believe humans dreamed this story up. It’s beyond what we are capable of dreaming. And, in any case, there’s a wealth of historical evidence that it’s actually true. (See P. Eddy and G. Boyd, The Jesus Legend [Baker, 2007]). Our most poignant love stories are faint echoes of the love story given us in the Gospels.