By Nathaniel Gamble
In Reinder Bruinsma’s book I Have a Future: Christ’s Resurrection and Mine, readers are introduced to questions about life and death in a win-some, pastoral, and sensitive way. I Have a Future focuses on the meaning of death and the hope of life after death in the light of Jesus Christ. Bruinsma helps his readers face the reality and finality of death in Chapters 1 through 3, so that he can present the answer to death in Chapters 4 and 5: the resurrection of Christ, which is the foundation for our own resurrection and new, glorious life in the future. On the basis of Christ’s resurrection, Bruinsma details how we can live our present lives with hope and have assurance of a future life with Christ in Chapters 6 and 9, as well as better understand the nature of heaven and the truth about hell in Chapters 7 and 8.
While this work has several features to recommend it, perhaps its two strongest aspects are its treatment of heaven and hell. In Seventh-day Adventist presentations on the state of the dead, we often give heaven scant attention; generally, we are either highly neglectful of the promise of heaven, devoting only a limited amount of time to its beauties and reality, or leave it out entirely when discussing the nature of death. This move is theologically inappropriate, since it gives just as much of an unbalanced view on the nature of death as do articulations of the immortality of the soul.
Bruinsma provides a fantastic correction to this neglect. In Chapter 7, “Eternal Life: Heaven and the New Earth,” he enumerates several questions that people often ask about heaven and eternal life: whether heaven is simply a never-ending repeat of your favorite hobby; how we will spend eternity with people we love, without anyone ever becoming frustrated or annoyed with each other; whether our age in heaven is determined by our age at death, and whether we will retain distinguishing features like race, gender, sex, and height; what location will look like in heaven, given that the only locations we can envision are terrestrial ones; and how our spiritual bodies will function with respect to food and activity (pp. 144-146).
These questions are often uncomfortable to think about (which might be one reason why Adventists tend to avoid them in evangelistic presentations!), but they are absolutely essential to a better understanding of the full-orbed view the Bible has on life and death. And Bruinsma does not shy away from them, which makes this book all the more uncomfortable and an incredible contribution to biblical discussions about life and death. With theological humility and pastoral courage, Bruinsma admits that he doesn’t have answers to many of these questions; instead, he focuses our attention on Christ and the meaning of his resurrection for us, as well as the fact that Christ has promised to give eternal life to everyone who trusts in Him. According to Bruinsma, heaven will be an exciting place of reunions, growth, and discovery, though our final hope and home will ultimately be living in a recreated earth and enjoying a perfect relationship with God that includes unmediated access to his presence.
Bruinsma’s treatment of hell in Chapter 8, “Is ‘Hell’ as Terrible as People Think?” is likewise biblically balanced and spiritually helpful. Adventists often struggle with being fair to the doctrine of hell. In our zeal to present God as loving, we often pillory the traditional doctrine of hell as some- thing only spiritual sadists believe. Bruinsma will have none of this and presents traditionalists’ arguments for hell in a sympathetic manner: traditional proponents are primarily concerned with recognizing that sin is always against an infinite God (and thus has infinite consequences), as well as paying attention to a correct application of the concept of eternity in “eternal life” and “eternal damnation” (pp. 161- 162). Bruinsma’s fairness enables him to present what the Bible says about hell in an uplifting, Christ-centered, and joyful manner, which can serve as a model for how we talk about the subject with our neighbors and Christian brothers and sisters, who are not of our persuasion.
In light of these positive aspects, I Have a Future contains a peculiar hindrance to Bruinsma’s overarching focus on Christ’s resurrection. Bruinsma’s discussion of the nature of history and faith in Chapter 4, “He Is Risen,” tends to obfuscate the meaning of Christ’s resurrection for our knowledge of God. After discussing the historicity of Christ’s resurrection (pp. 64-76), the author addresses an important concern: how do we face the fact that we cannot know with absolute certainty that Christ rose from the dead? Bruinsma explains that the philosopher Alvin Plantinga offers him assistance in this respect: “He [Plantinga] acknowledges that there is no absolute proof for the essential Christian beliefs . . . . But, he says, there are enough reasons to accept those beliefs as ‘war- ranted’—that is, as reasonable and defensible” (p. 76). It is important to hold reasonable and defensible religious beliefs, but Bruinsma’s definition of a warranted belief overlooks what Plantinga says regarding the function of belief in our knowledge of God.
In his trilogy Warrant: The Current Debate (1993), Warrant and Proper Function (1993), and Warranted Christian Belief (2000), Plantinga articulates an epistemological function to beliefs: if beliefs can be shown to be reasonable and defensible, and if a person can be justified in holding those beliefs, then those beliefs can also be identified as proper knowledge—basically, warranted beliefs about God can help us know God better. The goal of Plantinga’s “warranted belief” was to help individuals not simply know the truth of something intellectually, but also see that they exist as a knower in a relationship with what is known. Bruinsma’s desire to have a reasonable faith is admirable, since the Bible calls us to have faith in God and know why we trust him. Nevertheless, defining a warranted belief as only having a good reason to believe a position tends to sap that belief of its ability to serve as part of our knowledge of God. This might seem like a small matter, but the tension it creates between merely believing something for good reasons (e.g., that Christ actually rose from the dead) and further recognizing it as part of the knowledge a person has about a subject (e.g., that you can know Christ because he is no longer dead, as well as trust that you have a future because he is now alive) is subtly felt throughout the remainder of the work.
Despite this apparent hindrance, I Have a Future is a fantastic book. It is easily accessible, theologically rich, and faithfully follows the thinking of Scripture. Similarly, it is written with an irenic spirit that is respectful of others’ beliefs while also being honest about what the Bible teaches. Bruinsma’s work is a good resource to give those who have questions about the meaning of Christ for life and death, and is a wonderful sharing book for new converts to Adventism, spiritual seekers, or use in a public evangelism series. Bruinsma succeeds in lifting up Christ and shoring up our faith in God by ably reminding us that, in Christ, we all have a promising future.
–Nathaniel Gamble is senior pastor of Fort Lupton Seventh-day Adventist Church and associate pastor of Aspen Park Seventh-day Adventist Church. He is in the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) program at Calvin Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Email him at: [email protected]