Apologetics

Apologetics is not having all the answers and know everything about everyone else’s religion and everything about philosophy.  It is knowing what you believe, and why you believe it, and being able to present it in a clear and winsome fashion. 

 

Objection:  “That’s not my calling or gifting”

 

Apologetics is not for a specific group of Christians with a specific calling.  It is not the navy seals of Christians. It is for everyone.  If you are in Christ you are not called to be an apologist, you are an apologist.

 

Jude: 

 

To those who are called, loved by God the Father, and kept in Jesus Christ:2Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.3Beloved, although I made every effort to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt it necessary to write and urge you to contend earnestly for the faith (ie. engage in Apologetics) entrusted once for all to the saints. 4For certain men have crept in among you unnoticed—ungodly ones who were designated long ago for condemnation. They turn the grace of our God into a license for immorality, and they deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

1 Peter3: 

 

14But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. “Do not fear what they fear; do not be shaken.” 15But in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give a defense to everyone who asks you the reason for the hope that is in you. But respond with gentleness and respect, 16keeping a clear conscience, so that those who slander you may be put to shame by your good behavior in Christ. 17For it is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.

2nd Objection: “Apologetics is not loving”

 

2 Cor 10:3-5

For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.  We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when you obedience in complete.   

• We are not fighting against another person when we are debating or discussing our faith, we are fighting against ideas that enslave.
• Destroy arguments, not people.

 

Isaiah 1:18  Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord  

What best explains Reality?  What best explains all the data?  Does anyone have the box top to this puzzle called life?  What can best answer these questions?

• Origin: Where did we come from?
• Identity:  Who are we? Who am I?
• Meaning:  Why are we here?
• Morality:  How should we live?
• Destiny:  Where are we going?
• Also:
  • What is wrong with the world? 
  • How can what is wrong be made right.

If there is no God, then our lives ultimately mean nothing since there is no enduring purpose and there is no right or wrong way to live.  However if there is a God, then there is ultimate meaning and purpose to our lives and there is real right and wrong and a way we should live. 

 

 Keeping an eternal mindset allows me to be realistic without being hopeless.  I don’t have to deny reality in order to have peace in my heart. 

WORLD VIEWS

 

There are no neutral positions when it comes to belief.  One who claims to be a skeptic of one set of beliefs is actually a true believer in another set of beliefs.

• Theism – God made all (God is is the painter, creation is the painting)
  • Christianity
    • Reformed
    • Catholic
      • Catholic False Teachings
    • False Doctrines within Christianity
      • • • Mormon
          • Jehovah’s Witness
          • Christian Science
          • Prosperity / Word of Faith
          • Progressive
        • Universalism
    • Judaism
    • Islam
  • Atheism – no God at all (the painting always existed, no one painted it)
    • Secular Humanism
    • Moral Relativism
    • Naturalism / Atheistic materialism – nature and this material universe is all that there is and science is the only/best way to arrive at knowledge
    • Scientism (science is the only way to truth)- 
  • Pantheism – God is all (God is the painting, he is impersonal)
    • Buddhist
    • Hindu
    • New Age
  • Agnostic – One who is unsure about God
    • Ordinary – does not know anything for sure
    • Ornery – cannot know anything for sure
  • The Mystery Pagan Religion
    • Worship Lucifer
    • Hermetic Alchemy, Theurgy, Astronomy
    • Free Masonry
    • Theosophy
    • Kabbalah

The 2 main competing worldviews today:

 

Secular Humanism 

• Who am I?  I am the result of random evolutionary processes
• Why am I here?  To consume and enjoy
• What is wrong with the world?  People are either insufficiently educated or insufficiently governed
• How can what is wrong be made right?  More education and government

Christian Theism

• Who am I? I am the crown and glory of the creation of God made on purpose and with a purpose.  I have inherent dignity, value, and worth, because I am created in the image of God
• Why am I here?   To bring glory and honor to my creator
• What is wrong with the world?     Sin
• How can what is wrong be made right?  Through person work of Jesus Christ

If you don’t believe in God: (Tim Keller: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2tZWriRn7g)

1. there is a problem with meaning,
   • because the meaning you create for yourself will be too thin for you to handle suffering  Secular cultures make you find your meaning in life in something here which means suffering can take it away.   Every other religion helps you locate your meaning outside of this life so suffering can actually help you accomplish your meaning in life.  If you are secular, suffering will destroy your meaning of life.  Secular culture gives you less resources to deal with suffering  (Affliction will either destroy you or refine you).
   • Ps 35: 19Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all.
     20He keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken.
     21Affliction will slay the wicked, and those who hate the righteous will be condemned.
     22The LORD redeems the life of his servants; none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned
2.  there is the problem with it giving you an incredibly fragile view of identity, 
   • religion connects you to something more important than you.  secular culture tells you to find your identity inside yourself and doing whatever you think you want to do most and you assert it over and against everybody else which makes you need a kind of recognition that can enslave you.
3.  there is a problem with freedom,
   • modern culture defines freedom as the absence of restrictions.  Negative freedom is freedom from (I have no restrictions at all).  If that is what freedom is, then that is antithetical to love because the more committed your love relationship is, the less free you are.   The more you are in a wonderful committed relationship, generally the happier you are.   Positive freedom is freedom for.  
4. there is a problem with existence itself,
   • why is there something rather than nothing?
5. there is the problem of moral obligation,
   1. a moral feeling says I feel this is wrong but moral obligation is to say you must stop doing that whether you feel it is wrong or not.  How can you say to another person, “even though you feel it is ok, it is wrong, and you ought to (obligation) stop doing it?”  Why should your feeling trump that person’s feeling.  The only way to say that is to say there is a higher law or a moral source outside both of us that we both have to honor.  What could that be if there was no God.  If there was divine law then there would be no way to tell if a particular human law was unjust or not, because it would just be my feeling vs your feelings.

God created us to share his happiness and love with us but we turned away from Him and that is why things fall apart and there is death, disease, and decay.   Christianity has a story that explains both the ruin and the glory of the human race.  The beauty of the story is a God who wants to share his love and happiness with us, an account of what’s wrong with us, and then 3rdly a love story where He comes into the world as Jesus Christ.  God looks into the world he created and he sees us harming and ruining each other and He wrote himself into the story.  Jesus goes to the cross and pays for our sins so that God can forgive us and still be a just God. ~ Tim Keller

 

CAN WE HANDLE TRUTH?

 

We demand truth in everything but morality and religion because we don’t want to be held accountable to any moral standards or religious doctrine.  Even after seeing the evidence for Christianity people reject it because it would require them to change their thinking, friends, priorities, lifestyle, or morals, and they are not willing to give up control over their lives in order to make these changes.  There is a difference between proving a proposition and accepting one.  Some people choose to suppress the truth rather than live by it.  We try to adjust the truth to fit our desires rather than adjusting our desires to fit the truth.  We love truth when it enlightens us but hate it when it convicts us.  So we resort to saying truth does not exist, everything is relative, and there are no absolutes, its all a matter of opinion.

WHAT IS TRUTH? 

 

PSALMS 119:60  May you word become the sum of all truth to me 

John 17:17 Sanctify them with truth, your word is truth 

John 8: 31-32  If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know truth, and the truth will set you free.

 

Truth can be defined as “telling it like it is”.  That which corresponds to its object or that which describes an actual state of affairs.  

• Truth is not relative but absolute. 
• If something is true, it is true for all people, at all times, in all places. 
• All truth claims are absolute, narrow, and exclusive. 
• All truths exclude their opposites.
• Truth is discovered, it is not invented (it exists independent of anyone’s knowledge of it. ie gravity previously existed prior to newton)
• Truth is transcultural meaning if something is true, it is true for all people (2+2=4)
• Truth is unchanging even though our beliefs about truth change
• Beliefs cannot change a fact, no matter how sincerely a belief is held
• All truths are absolute truths.  Even truths that appear to be relative.
• Truth is not dependent on our feelings or preferences.  Something is true whether we like it or not.
• Truth about reality is knowable.

Contrary beliefs are possible, but contrary truths are not possible.  

 

How to deal with the self-refuting postmodern assertion that there is no truth.

• There is no such thing as truth – Is that true?
• There are no absolutes – are you absolutely sure?
• Its true for you but not for me – Is that statement true for you, or is it true for everyone?  Try telling that to the police or IRS

Ideas have consequences.  Why should we tell people to act right when we teach people there is no such thing as “right”.  If you kill the concept of truth then you kill the concept of morality.  Agnostic and skeptics make the truth claim that truth claims cannot be made.  They say truth cannot be known but then claim their is true.

 

How to deal with Religious pluralism, that all forms of belief and faith are valid.  Truth vs Tolerance.

• Tolerance now means that you are supposed to accept every belief is true.  Religious beliefs cannot all be true, because many religious beliefs are contradictory – they teach opposites.  They are mutually exclusive.   
• Pluralist believe that it is intolerant and exclusive to believe there is only one way or questions someone else’s beliefs but yet at the same time teach that all non pluralist beliefs are wrong so they are just as dogmatic as a Christian or Muslim. 
• They are taking an absolute moral position by prohibiting questioning religious beliefs.  Whose standard are they judging that it is immoral to question someone’s beliefs?  It is there own personal opinion that they are imposing on the rest of us.  It is not very tolerant of them to impose this moral position on us. 
• We are commanded to question religious beliefs so pluralist by their own standard should accept this belief but they do not.  They only tolerate those who already agree with them, which is not tolerant. 
• The pluralist claim that we should not question religious beliefs is derivative from the false cultural prohibition against making judgements and misinterpreting Jesus’s comments on judging in Matt 7:1-5.  He was referring to making hypocritical judgements.  The prohibition against judging is false because it fails to meet its own standard because it in of itself is a judgement.  
• Are pluralists ready to accept as true the religious beliefs of those who believe in child sacrifice?

As a Christian, accepting everyone’s belief as true is not loving because if Christianity is true, then it would be unloving to suggest to anyone that their opposing religious beliefs are true as well.  If the bible is true, then any specific claim that contradicts the bible must be false.  ie Any claim that denies theism must be false.  The Qurans claim that Jesus did not rise from the dead must be false.  

 

SUBJECTIVE VS OBJECTIVE TRUTH

 

Postmodern pluralists say truth is relative to the individual, that it is subjective not objective.  It’s all a matter of preference and opinion.  Whatever works for you. 

 

(Illustration: The 6 blind men and the elephant) Each blind man feels a different part of the elephant and therefore reaches a different conclusion about the object in front of him. 

 

We are told that truth is relative to the individual, that it is subjective not objective.  No religion has the truth.  It is all a matter of opinion and preference.  Whatever works best for you.  This may seem persuasive until you ask “What is the perspective of the one telling the parable”?  He appears to have an objective perspective of the entire proceeding because he can see that the blind men are mistaken.  He wouldn’t know the blind men were wrong unless he had an objective perspective of what was right.  If the blind men are given eyes to see then they also would have an objective perspective of what is right.  

 

(F. Lee Bailee illustration)

 

Truth is that which corresponds to reality, as it is perceived by God because God sees reality in its fullest measure from the perfect perspective, the depth dimension as well as the surface.  From the perspective one who is omniscient there is a thing called objective reality.  Our eternal destination will be determined by God’s perception of reality.  The reality and the truth about me.  I can do everything to hide my blemishes when I stand before God but there is nothing i can do to present an image that will stop the penetrating glance of his analysis.  He will see past the image and the impression and get to the truth of the matter of me as a person – R.C. Sproul

 

Ultimately truth is a person. 

 

Jesus made the truth claim that he is the only way, the truth, and the life, and that no one comes to father except through him.  If you understand the claims He makes about Himself you will either be scared of fun, furious at Him, or you will kneel before of in in worship. You can’t simply like Him.  His claims of absolute authority and unconditional loyalty triggers deep resistance within the human heart.  People are hostile to the claims that Jesus made because He is not only declaring an exclusive monopoly an access to God, but that He is God, and people think that is too narrow and exclusive.  The exclusiveness of Christian belief, and their conviction that Jesus was not just a God, but the God puts Christians on a collision course with nearly everyone in that religiously pluralistic society, The gospel message brings hostility because it is seen as intolerant and narrow minded.  Yes it is narrow and exclusive, but it is the most inclusive exclusive truth conceivable because it is freely open to any one regardless of what you have done in your life, your status, how much money you make, your race, or gender.  We all fall share of the glory of God and yet his grace and mercy is freely available to anyone.

 

Relativists live by their own standard, doing what is right in their own eyes.  They draw a bullseye around where the dart lands.

 

Christians live by a standard outside themselves.  The bullseye was their first.

 

Romans 1:

 

18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness. 19For what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from His workmanship, so that men are without excuse.21For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and darkened in their foolish hearts. 22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools, 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images of mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.24Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity for the dishonoring of their bodies with one another. 25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is forever worthy of praise!  Amen.

God has given ample evidence but people suppress the truth because they don’t want to be under God’s authority.  More information is not going to help sway them and make them bend the knee to Christ.

WHY SHOULD WE BELIEVE ANYTHING AT ALL?

 

Something is worth believing if it is rational, if it is supported by evidence, and it if it best explains all the data.  An apologist is someone who shows how good reason and evidence support or contradict a particular belief.  By exposing inadequate justifications for beliefs, the way is cleared for the seeker of truth to find adequate justifications.  Any teaching is worth trusting only if it points to the truth.  Truth that is supported by evidence and not just subjective preferences.  Truth is not a subjective matter of taste-it is an objective matter of fact.  We must give up subjective preferences in favor of objective facts which are best discovered through logic, evidence, and science.

 

What process do we use to discover truths about the world?  The first 2 principles are:

• The Law of Contradiction which says contradictory claims cannot both be true at the same time in the same sense.  The opposite of true is false.  (illustration:  someone asks a couple if they are expecting a baby, the wife says yes and the husband says no).
• The 2nd is the Law of the Excluded Middle which tells us that something either is or is not.  Either God exists or he does not.  Jesus rose from the dead or he did not.  

Although we use these to help us discover truth, they alone cannot tell us whether a particular proposition is true.  An argument can be logically sound but still be false because the premises of the argument do not correspond to reality.  Logic can tell us that an argument is false, but it cannot tell us by itself which premises are true.  We get that information form observing the world around us and then drawing general conclusions from those observations.    When you observe something over and over you may conclude that some general principle is true (gravity).  This method of drawing conclusions from specific observations is called induction (scientific method).  This is different than deduction which is the process of lining up premises in an argument and arriving at a valid conclusion.  

 

Observation and induction help us investigate the ultimate religious question: “Does God exist?”  If God is invisible and immaterial as most Christian, Jews, and Muslims claim, then how can our senses help us gather information about him?  The same way we use it to investigate other things we can’t see-by observing their effects.  From those effects we make a rational inference to the existence of a cause.

SO WHAT?  WHO CARES ABOUT TRUTH? 

 

DOES TRUTH IN MORALITY MATTER? 

1. Even though people may claim that truth in morality does not matter, they don’t really believe that when someone treats them immorally.  Think how much better the economy would be if everyone told the truth.  There would be no Enron’s and there would be no burdensome government regulations.  So the economy is directly affected by morality.  Morality undergirds virtually everything we do.  It affects us socially, psychologically, spiritually, and even physically.
2. Success in life is often dependent on the moral choices a person makes regarding sex marriage, children, drugs, money, business dealings, and so on.
3. All laws legislate morality.  The only questions is “whose morality will be legislated?”  Every law declare one behavior right and its opposite wrong – that’s morality.  Abortion, murder, etc.  The answers we legislate can dramatically affect every citizen’s life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.  Truth in morality matters.

DOES TRUTH IN RELIGION REALLY MATTER?

• If the bible is true, then everyone’s eternal destiny can  be read from its page.  If it is not true then we all just wasting our time.
• If the Qur’an is true then I am in eternal trouble.
• If the atheist is right, then we all might as well lie, cheat, and steal to get what we want because there are no eternal consequences.

Beliefs and ideas have consequences.

THE COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT

1. Everything that had a beginning, had a cause
2. The universe had a beginning.
3. Therefore, the universe had a cause

Einstein’s theory of General Relativity proved that the earth is not self existent.  It had a beginning.  The universe is one giant effect which means it was reliant on an outside cause.  If the universe had a beginning, then the universe had a cause. 

1. PREMISE: Everything that had a beginning had a cause
   • The Law of Causality, which is the fundamental principle of science.  Bacon said, “true knowledge is knowledge of causes”.  Science is a search or causes.  To deny Law of Causality is deny rationality.  The very process of rational thinking requires us to put together thoughts (causes) that result in conclusions (effects).
2. PREMISE: The universe had a beginning.
   • Big Bang evidence : S-U-R-G-E
     • S – The Second Law of Thermodynamics
       • Thermodynamics is the study of matter and energy, and the second Law states, among other things that the universe is running out of usable energy.  One day all the energy will be gone and the universe will die.  The first law states that the total amount of energy in the universe is finite.  So the universe would be out of energy if had been running from all eternity.  So it is not eternal, it had a beginning.
       • This Law is also known as the Law of Entropy which is way of saying that nature tends to bring things to disorder.  Everything begins to fall apart.  If the universe is becoming less ordered then where did original order come from?
     • U – The Universe is Expanding
       • The universe is expanding from a single point.  If we watched a video recording of the history of the universe in reverse, we would see all matter in the universe collapse back to a point, not the size of a basketball or even the size of pinhead, but mathematically and logically to a point that is actually nothing.  No space, time, or matter  There was nothing and then bang there was something.  
       • The universe is not expanding into empty space, but space itself is expanding – there was no space before the big bang.  The universe did not emerge from existing material but from nothing- there was no matter before the big bang.  There was no “before” the big bang, – there was no time before the big bang.
       • Time, Space, and matter exploded out of nothing.
     • R – Radiation from the big bang
       • in 1965 to bell lab scientist discovered cosmic background radiation which is the afterglow, or light and heat from the initial explosion.  The light is no longer visible but the heat can still be detected.  In 1948 3 scientists predicted that this radiation would be out there if the big bang did really occur.  This laid to rest that the universe is in an eternal steady state.
     • G – Great Galaxy Seeds
       • If the big bang occurred scientists believed that we should see slight variations or ripples in the temperature of the cosmic background radiation that the 2 scientist discovered.  These temperature ripples enabled matter to congregate by gravitational attraction into galaxies.  These ripples were found in 1992 by COBE satellite.  The ripples show that the explosion and expansion of the universe was precisely tweaked to cause just enough matter to congregate to allow galaxy formation, but not enough to cause the universe to collapse back on itself.  Any slight variation one way or the other, and none of us would be here to tell about it.  Hawking called the discovery the most important of all time.  
       • Infrared pictures taken by COBE point to the existence of matter from the very early universe that would ultimately form into galaxies and clusters of galaxies.  Smoot the project leader called this matter seeds of the galaxies as they exist today.  These seeds are the largest structures ever detected, with the biggest extending across one-third of the known universe.  That is 10 billion light years or 60 billion trillion miles.
     • E – Einstein’s theory of general relativity.
       • The theory which has been verified to five decimal places, demands an absolute beginning for time, space, and matter.  Time, space, and matter or co-relative.  They are interdependent.  You can’t have one without the other.
3. PREMISE: Therefore the universe had a cause
   • What does this evidence mean for the question of God’s existence?
     • Robert Jastrow, an astronomer who is the founder of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies, and who is the director of Mount Wilson observatory, who is agnostic, states after explaining some of this big bang evidence wrote, ” Now we see how the astronomical evidence leads to a biblical view of the origin of the world.  The details differ, but the essential elements in the astronomical and biblical accounts of the Genesis are the same:  the chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy. ”  Astronomers now find they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own standards, that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every star, every planet, every living thing in this cosmos and on the earth.  And they have ground that all this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover.  That there are what i or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now scientifically proven fact.”
     • There was no natural world or natural law prior to the big bang.  Since a cause cannot come after its effect, natural forces cannot account for the big bang.   There must be something outside of nature to do the job.  That is what supernatural means.
     • Atheists objections
       • cosmic rebound theory
       • imaginary time
       • uncertainty
     • The philosophical Kalam (Eternal) Cosmological Argument
       • an infinite number of days has no end
       • but today is the end day of history (history being a collection of all days)
       • therefore, there were not an infinite number of days before today (time had a beginning)
         • You cannot add to something that is infinite but tomorrow will add another day to the timeline.  So our timeline is undeniably infinite.   
   • Who made God?
     • God does not need a cause.  The law of causality does not say that everything needs a cause.  It says that everything that comes to be needs a cause.  God did not come to be.  No one made God.  He is unmade.  As an eternal being, God did not have a beginning, so he didn’t need a cause.  There are only 2 possibilities for anything to exist, it has always existed and is therefore uncaused, or it had a beginning and was caused by something else.  According to the overwhelming evidence, the universe had a beginning, so it must be caused by something else – by something outside itself.
     • The First Cause must be self-existent, timeless, non-spatial, and immaterial since the first cause created time, space, and matter, the first cause must be outside of time, space, and matter.  So He is without limits and infinite.  He is unimaginably powerful to create the entire universe out of nothing; he is supremely intelligent to design the universe with such incredible precision; he is personal in order to choose to convert a state of nothingness into the time-space-material universe.  These characteristics of the First Cause are exactly the characteristics theist ascribe to God.  They are not based on someone’s religion or subjective experience.  They are drawn from the scientific evidence above.
   • If there is no God, why is there something rather than nothing?
     • In light of the evidence we are left with only 2 options: 
       • either no one created something out of nothing,
       • or else someone created something out of nothing. 
     • Which is more reasonable?
     • “For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream.  He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”  ~Jastrow

 

How does CERN and dark matter fit into this?

THE TEOLOGICAL (DIVINE DESIGN) ARGUMENT

1. Every design, had a designer
2. The universe has highly complex design
3. Therefore, the universe had a designer

The precision with which the universe exploded into being provides even more persuasive evidence for the existence of God.  (Illustration Apollo 13)

 

https://youtube.com/shorts/1MOHrTx0mKg?si=JGejGMmPXmhV_MP5

• Physicists have discovered that the fundamental parameters of forces, gravity, electromagnetism, the strong and weak nuclear forces, the force that is driving the expansion of the universe called the cosmological constant, the masses of elementary particles, the speed of light, etc are just right.  All these things rely on numerous elements falling within narrow tolerances of one kind or another.  These were all designed by an intelligent agent.

1. PREMISE – Every design had a designer
   • “This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being” ~ Newton
   • Every watch requires a watchmaker.  Imagine you are walking along in the woods and you find a diamond-studded Rolex on the ground  What do conclude is the cause of that watch:  The wind and the rain?  Erosion?  No.  There is no question in your mind that some intelligent being made that watch, and that some unfortunate individual must have dropped it there.
2. PREMISE – The universe has highly complex design
   • The universe is more precisely designed than a watch.  It is specifically tweaked to enable life on earth – a planet with scores of improbable and interdependent life-supporting conditions that make it a tiny oasis in a vast and hostile universe. 
   • There are over 100 highly precise and interdependent environmental conditions known as “Anthropic constants” that make up what is known as the “Anthropic Principle”.
     1. Oxygen Level –
        • oxygen comprises 21 percent of the atmosphere.  If oxygen were 25% fires would erupt spontaneously; if it were 15%, we would suffocate.
     2. Atmospheric Transparency –
        • If the atmosphere were less transparent, not enough solar radiation would reach the earth’s surface.  If it were more transparent, we would be bombarded with far too much solar radiation.
     3. Moon-Earth Gravitational Interaction –
        • If the interaction were greater than it currently is, tidal effects on the oceans, atmosphere, and rotational period would be too severe.  If it were less, orbital changes would cause climate instabilities.
     4. Carbon Dioxide Level –
        • If CO2 levels were higher than it is now, a runaway greenhouse effect would develop and we would burn up.  If the level were lower than it is now, plants would not be able to maintain efficient photosynthesis and we would all suffocate.
     5. Gravity – 
        1. If the gravitational force were altered by 0.00000000000000000000000000001 percent, out sun would not exist and therefore neither would we.
     6. Others –
        • If the centrifugal force of planetary movements id not precisely balance the gravitational forces, nothing could be held in orbit around the sun
        • If the universe had expanded at a rate one millionth more slowly, expansion would have stopped and the universe would have collapsed on itself before any stars had formed.  Any faster then no galaxies would have been formed
        • If Jupiter were not in its current orbit, the earth would be bombarded with space material.  Jupiter’s gravitational field acts a cosmic vacuum cleaner, attracting asteroids and comets that might otherwise strike earth.
        • if the thickness of the earths crust were greater, too much oxygen would be transferred to the crust to support life.  Any thinner, volcanic and tectonic activity would make life impossible.
        • If the rotation of the earth took longer than twenty four hours, temperature differences would be too great between night and day.  Any shorter, atmospheric wind velocities would be too great.
        • The 23 degree axial tilt of the earth is just right.  If it were altered slightly, surface temps would be extreme.
        • If the lightning rate were greater there would be too much fire destruction; if it were less there would be too little nitrogen fixing in the soil
        • If there were more seismic activity, much more life would be lost; any less, nutrients on the ocean floors and in river runoff would not be cycled back to the continents through tectonic uplift (earthquakes)
   • “Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing and delicately balanced to provide exactly the conditions required to support life.  In the absence of an absurdly-improbable accident, the observations of modern science seem to suggest an underlying supernatural plan”  ~ Nobel Laureate Arno Penzias, co-discoverer of the afterglow.
   • “Here is the cosmological proof of the existence of God-the design argument of Paley.  The fine-tuning of the universe provides a prima facie evidence of deistic design”  ~ Cosmologist Ed Harrison
3. PREMISE – Therefore, the universe had a designer
   • The Bible tells us to look to the heavens if want to get an idea of what God is like.
   • There are 100 billion stars in our galaxy and the average distance between those stars is 30 trillion miles which is another Anthropic constant.  If the stars were closer together or farther apart, planetary orbits would be affected.
   • “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands” ~ Ps 19
   • “To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?  Lift your eyes and look to the heavens (he knows the stars by name) ~ Is 4
   • He tells us to compare him with the heavens because He has no limits, and from our perspective neither do the heavens.  God is the unlimited limiter-the uncreated creator-of all things.  He is the self existing, infinite being who created this vast and beautiful universe out of nothing and who holds it all together today.  Only the heavens scream out infinity.  This is why the bible uses the heavens to help us grasp the infinite height of God’s love.  For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him ~ Ps 103

Romans 1:

 

19For what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from His workmanship, so that men are without excuse.

We tend to consider every amazing facet of this beautiful universe as ordinary.  Now science is showing us like at no other time in history that this is a universe of incredible design and complexity that we should never take for granted.  “to look out at this kind of creation and not believe in God is to me impossible” ~ John Glenn Discover shuttle

1. Every design had a designer
2. As verified by the Anthropic principle, we know beyond a reasonable doubt that the universe is designed
3. Therefore, the universe had a designer.

THE ORIGIN OF LIFE: NATURAL LAW OR DIVINE AWE?

 

Is life merely a product of mindless natural laws?  Many think that because they don’t want to come to a conclusion that they don’t like.

• “Take out the garbage – Mom” in Alphabet cereal (illustration)
• “Mary loves Scott” in the sand (illustration)

These conclusions are the same principles being taught in most high school and biology classes today.  They make this claim in trying to explain the origin of life. 

 

Naturalistic biologists assert life generated spontaneously from nonliving chemicals by natural laws without any intelligent intervention.  They claim the one celled (what they call “primitive”) amoeba spontaneously formed in a warm little pond somewhere on the very early earth and all biological life has evolved from that first amoeba without any intelligent guidance.  This is theory of macroevolution believed by naturalistic evolutionists, materialists, humanists, atheists, and Darwanist’s.

 

For this to be true, first life must have generated spontaneously from nonliving chemicals.  DNA was discovered in 1953, the chemical that encodes instructions for building and replicating all living things so any life form is by no means simple.  It consists of 4 nitrogen bases A,T,C,G.  This 4 letter alphabet is identical to our English alphabet in terms of its ability to communicate a message.  Just as the specific order of the letters in this sentence communicates a unique message, the specific order of A,T,C,G within a living cell determines the unique genetic makeup of that living entity.

The incredible “specified complexity” is seen in the fact that the message found in the DNA of a one-celled amoeba nucleus is more than all thirty volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica combined, and the entire amoeba has as much information in its DNA as 1000 complete sets of the Britannica.

 

So if  “Take out the garbage – mom”, and “Mary loves Scott” requires an intelligent being, then why doesn’t a message 1000 encyclopedias long require one? 

 

IF we can’t directly observe the past, then what scientific principles can we use to help us discover what caused the first life?  The origin of life is a forensic question that requires us to piece together evidence much like detectives piece together evidence form a murder.

 

The central principle in forensic science is the Principle of Uniformity, which holds that causes in the past were like the causes we observe today.

• The Grand Canyon – from erosion, can be replicated
• Mount Rushmore – erosion can not chisel out a highly detailed sculpture of a presidents head into stone, only intelligent beings create detailed structures.

Spontaneous generation has never been observed.  One of the most fundamental observations in all of science has been that life arises only from similar existing life.  Scientist have been unable to combine chemicals in a test tube and arrive at a DNA molecule, much less life.  Why should we believe that mindless processes can do what brilliant scientists cannot do?  Even if they did it would prove creation because their efforts would show that it takes a lot of intelligence to create life.

 

Science is the search for causes .  Logically there are only 2 types of causes: intelligent and nonintelligent (natural).  The grand canyon, natural, and mount rushmore, intelligent.

 

The evidence is so strong for intelligence and against naturalism that prominent evolutionists have actually suggested aliens deposited the first life here called “panspermia” after calculating the probability of life arising by spontaneous generation was effectively zero.

 

Darwinists are acting on blind faith when it comes to spontaneous generation.  Microbiologist Michael Denton, who is an atheist said “The complexity of the simplest known type of cell is so great that it is impossible to accept that such an object could have been thrown together suddenly by some kind of freakish improbable event.  Such occurrence would be indistinguishable from a miracle.

 

The belief that life on earth arose spontaneously from nonliving matter, is simply a matter of faith in strict reductionism (reducing life to its nonliving chemical components) and is based entirely on ideology. ~ Physicist Hubert Yockey.  

 

Life is clearly more than chemicals.  Life contains a message, dna, that is expressed in chemicals, but those chemicals  cannot cause the message any more than the chemicals in ink and paper can cause sentences on this page.  A message points to something beyond chemicals.

 

Darwinists are ironically doing the same thing they long accused creationists of doing – allowing their ideology and faith to overrule observation and reason.  Creationists are simply making a rational inference from the evidence.  Darwinists have defined science in such a way that the only possible answer is Darwinism.

 

Atheists: “Science can explain everything”

 

This is not true, It can’t prove :

• math and logic because science presupposes them
• metaphysical truths such as there are minds that exist other than my own
• ethical judgements (you can’t prove by science that the nazi’s were evil, morality is not subject to the scientific method)
• aesthetic judgements (the beautiful, like the good)
• science itself (the belief that the scientific method discovers truth cannot be proven by the scientific method itself)

Science is a slave to Philosophy.  Bad philosophy results in bad science and good science requires good philosophy.  Why because:

1. Science cannot be done without philosophy.
   1. Philosophical assumptions are utilized in the search for causes, and therefore cant be a result of them.  ie  Scientist assume by faith that reason and the scientific method allow us to accurately understand the world around us.  That cannot be proven by science itself.  You cannot prove the tools of science-the laws of logic, the law of causality, the principle of uniformity, or the reliability of observation by running some kind of experiment.  You have to assume those things are true in order to do the experiment.  So science is built on philosophy.
2. Philosophical assumptions can dramatically impact scientific conclusions
3. Science does not really say anything – scientists do.

The bad science of Darwinism results form the false philosophy of naturalism or materialism as the foundation of their worldview.  Here are 5 reasons why materialism is not reasonable

1. There is a message resident in life, technically called specified complexity, that cannot be explained materially.
2. human thoughts and theories are not comprised only of materials.  chemicals are involved but they cannot explain all human thoughts.  Thoughts, convictions, and emotions are not completely material based.  you can’t weigh love.  Since they are not completely material based, materialism is false.
3. if life were nothing more than materials, then we would be able to take all the materials of life – which are the same materials found in dirt – and make a living being.  There is clearly something beyond materials in life.  How do you explain consciousness?
4. If materialism is true, then everyone in all of human history who has ever had any kind of spiritual experience has been completely mistaken.  If just one spiritual experience in the entire history of the world is true, then materialism is false.
5. If materialism is true, then reason itself is impossible.  If mental processes are nothing but chemical reactions in the brain, then there is no reason to believe that anything is true.  Chemicals don’t reason, they react.

It is supremely ironic that Darwinists who claim to champion truth and reason-have made truth and reason impossible by their theory of materialism.  Our ability to reason can come from one of only 2 places:  preexistent intelligence or mindless matter.  Darwinists believe dead unintelligent matter produced intelligent life.  This is like believing the library of congress resulted from an explosion in a printing shop.  

 

It makes much more sense to believe that the human mind is made in the image of the Great Mind – God.  Our minds can apprehend truth, reality, and reason itself.

 

The very fact that Darwinists think they have reasons to be atheists actually presupposes that God exists because reasons require that this universe be a reasonable one that presupposes there is order, logic, design, and truth.  But order, logic, design, and truth can only exist and be know if there is an unchangeable objective source and standard of such things.  To say something is reasonable, Darwinists must know what reasonable is.  To say something is not designed, Darwinists must know what designed is.  To say something is not true, they must know what truth is, and so forth.  Like all nontheistic worldviews Darwinism borrows from the theistic worldview in order to make its own view intelligible.  Intellect, free will, objective morality, and human rights as well as reason, logic, design, and truth can only exist if God exists.

THE MORAL ARGUMENT : MOTHER TERESA VS HITLER

• “I don’t think one religion can be exclusively true”
• Why should we be faithful to our families?
• Who said we should “help people”?
• Is “helping people” a universal moral obligation, or is it true just for you and not for me?

If there is no objective standard then life is nothing but a glorified monopoly game.  We all have a deep-seated sense of obligation that we all need to help people.  Most of us seem to have that same intuitive sense that they ought to do good and shun evil. 

 

The answers behind these questions is more evidence for a theistic God.  The evidence is not scientific-but moral in nature.  Like the laws of logic and math, this evidence is immaterial but it is just as real.  The reason we believe we ought to do good rather than evil is because there is a Moral Law that has been written on our hearts.  A prescription to do good that has been given to all humanity.  Some call this “conscience”.  Some call it Natural or Moral Law.  

 

This points to a moral prescriber, someone who has given us these moral obligations, which brings us to our 3rd argument.

1. Every law, has a law giver
2. There is a moral law
3. Therefore, there is a Moral Law giver

 There can be no legislation unless there is a legislature.  IF there are moral obligations, there must be someone to be obligated to.  But is it really true that there is a Moral Law?  Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration that “Nature’s Law” is self-evident.  You don’t use reason to discover it, you just know it.

 

Without an objective standard of meaning and morality, then life is meaningless and there is nothing absolutely right or wrong.  Everything is just a matter of opinion.  When we say that a Moral Law exists, we mean that all people are impressed with a fundamental sense of right and wrong.  There is no land where murder is a virtue and gratitude vice.  Everyone knows love is superior to hate and courage better than cowardice. 

 

There are absolute moral obligations.  An absolute moral obligation is something that is binding on all people at all times, in all places.  An absolute Moral Law implies an absolute Moral Law Giver.

 

This does not mean that every moral issue has easily recognizable answers or that some people don’t deny that absolute morality exists.  There are difficult problems in morality, and people suppress, it just simple means that there are basic principles of right and wrong everyone knows.

 

HOW DO WE KNOW THE MORAL LAW EXISTS?

1. The moral law is undeniable
   • Relativists usually make 2 primary truth claims 1) there is no absolute truth and 2) there are no absolute moral values, its all just a matter of opinion.  If there is no absolute truth, then their absolute claim that “there is no absolute truth” can’t be true.  They are absolutely sure that there are no absolutes.  It is self-defeating.
   • Like absolute truth, absolute values are also undeniable.  The person who denies all values, values the right to deny them.  He wants everyone to value him as a person, even while he denies that there are values for all persons.  Even those who deny all values nevertheless value their right to make that denial and therein lies the inconsistency.
2. We know it by our reactions
   • College student who was atheist wrote on the topic of moral relativism stating all morals are relative; there is no absolute standard of justice or rightness; it is all a matter of opinion.  He presented to the professor in a blue folder.  The professor read the paper and wrote on the front cover “F, I don’t like blue folders”.  The student stormed back in and said that is not fair, that is not right, that is not just, you didn’t grade on merits.  The professor retorted, you just said in your paper that there is no such thing as fairness, rightness, and justice.  Didn’t you just argue that is all just a matter of taste.
   • If you really want to get relativists to admit that there are absolute morals, all you need to do is treat them unfairly.  Their reactions will reveal the Moral Law written on their hearts and minds.  Here the student realized that there is an objective standard of rightness by how he reacted to the professor’s treatment of him.
   • Our reactions indicate that relativism is ultimately unlivable.  It contradicts our reactions and common sense.  Our reactions on 911 reinforced the truth that the act was absolutely wrong.
   • The moral law is not always the standard by which we treat others, but it is nearly always the standard by which we expect others to treat us.  It does not prescribe how actually behave, but rather how we ought to behave.
3. It is the basis of human rights
   1. The declaration states “all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights”.  The founding fathers believed human rights are God given.  They are universal and absolute for all people, in all places, at all times regardless of nationality or religion.  They recognized there was a higher authority – the Creator – to whom they could appeal to establish objective moral grounds for their independence.  They appealed to the Creator because they believed his Moral Law was the ultimate standard of right and wrong that would justify their cause which was to end the rule of king George’s rule needed to be ended because he was violating the basic human rights of the colonists.
   2. Nazi war criminals were brought to trial in Nuremburg to be convicted of violating basic human rights as defined by the Moral Law which manifested itself in International law.  If there is no such international morality that transcended the laws of the secular German government, then the allies would have had no grounds to condemn the Nazi’s.  We could not have said that they were wrong unless we knew what was absolutely right.
4. It is the unchanging standard of justice
   • The most popular argument against the existence of God is the presence and persistence of evil in the world.  If there really is a good and just God, then why does he allow bad things to happen to good people.  Atheists assert that is more logical to believe that God does not exist rather than try and explain how evil and God can coexist.
   • We can only detect injustice because there is an unchanging standard of justice written on our hearts.  Indeed, you cannot know what is evil unless you know what is good.  And you cannot know what is good unless there is an unchanging standard of good outside yourself.  Without that objective standard, any objection to evil is nothing but your personal opinion.
   • On what grounds can we say the holocaust is wrong?
   • If there was no Moral Law, then we would not be able to detect evil or injustice of any kind.  Without justice, injustice is meaningless.  Likewise, unless there is an unchanging standard of good, there is no such thing as objective evil.
5. it defines a real difference between moral positions (Mother Theresa vs Hitler)
   • illustration of maps of Scotland.  how can you tell which is the right one?  The only way you can tell is by comparing to the real unchanging map as the standard.
   • the moment you say one set of moral ideas can be better than another, you are in fact measuring them both by a standard, saying that one conforms to the standard more nearly than the other.
   • if the moral does not exist, then there is no moral difference between the behavior of Mother Teresa and that of Hitler.  Statements life “murder is evil, racism is wrong, you shouldn’t abuse children” have no objective meaning.  They are just someone’s opinion.  If we society is getting better or worse we are comparing society to some moral standard beyond ourselves.  That standard is the moral law written on our hearts.
   • So moral relativism is false which means an objective Moral Law exists.
6. Since we know what’s absolutely wrong, there must be an absolute standard of rightness
   1. What makes something right?  You can’t answer “I don’t know what is right, but I do know what is wrong”.  You can’t know what is wrong unless you know what is right.   Claiming certain things are wrong is by default, affirming things are right.  Every negation implies and affirmation.  Without the moral Law , you cannot justify any moral position.  It is all just opinion.
7. The moral law is the grounds for political and social dissent
   1. Without the moral law, atheists have no moral grounds to argue for their pet political causes.  Unless atheists claim that there is a God and that his moral law condones or commands these activities, then their positions are nothing more than their own subjective preferences.  No one is under any moral obligation to agree with mere preferences or to allow atheists to legislatively impose them on the rest of us.
   2. Since we know that issues involving life and liberty are more than mere preferences-that they involve real moral rights-then the moral law exists.
8. if there were no moral law, then we wouldn’t make excuses for violating it
   1. No one makes excuses for acting like Mother Teresa.  We only make excuses when we act against the moral law.

So why do so many people appear to have different values?

1.  Confusion – Absolute Morals vs Changing Behavior
   1. Relativists confuse what is with what ought to be.  What people do is subject to change, but what they ought to do is not.  Sociology is descriptive; morality is prescriptive.   Relativists confuse the changing behavioral situation with the unchanging moral duty.  They think current behavior dictates what is right and wrong.  ie “get with the times, there is nothing wrong with sex before marriage”.   So what if everyone was raping people and you said “just get with the times”.  Relativists also suggest there is no Moral Law because people don’t obey it.  Everyone makes math mistakes as well, that doesn’t mean there are no unchanging rules of math.
2. Confusion – Absolute Morals vs Changing Perceptions of the facts
   1. Witches used to be sentenced as murderers but now they are not.  A relativist might argue that Morality is relative to time and culture because we are no longer seeking to kill them.  But the moral principle has not changed that murder is wrong, what has changed is the perception of whether witches can murder people by their curses.  So the perception of the moral situation is relative (whether witches are murderers) but the moral values involved in the situation are not (killing is wrong)
3. Confusion – Absolute Morals vs Applying them to particular situations
   1. Just because people fail to know the right thing to do in a particular situation like being in a moral dilemma about knowing which person to save does not mean that there is not an absolute moral law.  There would be no dilemma if there was not.  It would not matter what happened.  The fact there there are difficult problems in morality does not disprove the existence of objective moral laws any more than difficult problems in science disprove the existence of objective natural laws.  If just one moral obligate exists such as don’t murder or don’t rape, then the Moral law exists.  If the moral law exists, then so does the Moral Law giver.
4. Confusion – An Absolute Command (What) vs a Relative Command (how)
   1. What should be done is common to all cultures, but how it should be done differs.  The moral value is absolute, but how it is practiced is relative.  ie how people greet differently in each country.
5. Confusion – Absolute Morals vs Moral Disagreements
   1. Relativists will point to the issue of abortion to demonstrate morality is relative.  Some think it is acceptable some think it is murder.  The disagreement exists because each side defends what they think is an absolute moral value-protecting life and allowing liberty.  The controversy is over which value applies (or takes precedence).  The moral disagreement is not because morality is relative or because the Moral law isn’t clear.  This moral disagreement exists because some people are suppressing the Moral Law in order to justify what they want to do.
6. Confusion – Absolute Ends (values) vs Relative Means 
   1. Regarding the poor, liberal believe tat the best way to help is through government assistance but conservatives think that creates dependency  and they would rather stimulate economic opportunity so they can help themselves.  They both agree on the absolute end but they disagree on the relative means to achieve it

Darwinists say that the biological process of people passing their genes on to their offspring “through 1000’s of generations inevitably gave rise to moral sentiments.  In other words, morality is materially and genetically determined.  It is based on inherited feelings or instincts, not on an objective standard of right and wrong.  But just as natural selection is inadequate to explain new life forms, it is also inadequate to explain “moral sentiments” within these new life forms.

1. Darwinists claim only materials exist but materials don’t have morality.  If physical materials are solely responsible for morality, then Hitler had no real moral responsibility for what he did – he just had bad molecules, which is nonsense.  Human thoughts and transcendent moral laws are not material things any more than math and laws of logic are.  They are immaterial entities that can’t be weighed or physically measured.
2. Morality cannot be merely an instinct because we have competing instincts and something else often tells us to ignore the stronger instinct in order to do something more noble.  The moral law tells us the tune we have to play: our instincts are merely the keys.
3. They say social morals have evolved because those “cooperative” morals helped humans survive together but this assumes an end – survival – for evolution, when Darwinism, by definition, has no end because it is a nonintelligent process.  They can’t explain why we have self destructive behaviors and why people often subvert their own survival instincts to help others.  (Jesus, soldiers, parents)
4. They assume survival is a good thing, but there is no real good without the objective Moral Law.  People who say “do what works” or “do whatever brings the greatest good”…toward whose ends – Mother Teresa or Hitler’s?  Whose definition of good?  Such ethical systems must smuggle in the Moral Law to define what ends we should work toward and what really is the greatest “good”.
5. They confuse how one comes to know the Moral Law with the existence of the Moral Law.  Moral values are discovered, not invented.  Morality exists independently of how we come to know it, just like the laws of math exist regardless of how I come to know them
6. They finally cannot explain why anyone should obey any biologically derived “moral sentiment”.  Why shouldn’t people murder, rape, and steal to get what they want if there is nothing beyond this world?

Ideas have consequences

 

If Darwinists are right and there is no God and humans have evolved from the slime then we have no higher moral status than slime because there is nothing beyond us to instill us with objective morality or dignity.  Hitler used Darwin’s theory as philosophical justification for the Holocaust.  Racism and the genocide is the logical outworking of Darwinism.  Love and then self-sacrifice is the logical outworking of Christianity.

 

Darwinist can only consider murder and rape as personal dislikes, not real moral wrongs.  They believe man has evolved naturally, not because they have evidence for such a belief, but because they have ruled out intelligent causes in advance.  They state their conclusion without any evidence.

 

If there is no God, then what Hitler did was just a matter of personal opinion!  

If at least one thing is really morally  wrong like torturing babies, then God exists.  

 

Without an objective source of morality, all so called moral issues are nothing but personal preference.  Atheism cannot justify why anything is morally right or wrong.  It cannot guarantee human rights or ultimate justice in the universe.

 

Do you want to receive grace or justice in the afterlife?

MIRACLES:  Signs of God or Gullibility?

 

So far our coherent picture shows us that truth exists and it can be know.  Any denial of truth presupposes truth, so the existence of truth is inescapable.  And while we cannot know most truth absolutely due to our human limitations, we can know many truths to a high degree of certainty.  One of those truths is the existence and nature of God.

 

From the Cosmological Argument we know that God is:

• Self existent, timeless, non-spatial, immaterial because created time, space, and matter so he must be outside of those things, and so he is without limits, infinite.
• He is unimaginably powerful since he created the entire universe out of nothing
• Personal, since he chose to convert a state of nothingness into the time-space-material universe

From the Teleological Argument we know that God is:

• Supremely intelligent, since he designed life and the universe with such incredible complexity and precision
• Purposeful, since he designed the many forms of life to live in this specific and ordered environment

From the Moral argument we know that God is:

• Absolutely morally pure.  He is the unchangeable standard of morality by which all action are measured.

Theism is the proper term to describe such a God.  Now here is the amazing truth about these findings: the theistic God we have discovered is consistent with the God of the Bible, but we have discovered him without the use of the Bible.  We have shown that through good reason, science, and philosophy much can be know about the God of the Bible.  Theologians call this revelation of God natural or general revelation (that which is clearly seen independent of any type of scripture).  The revelation of scripture is special revelation.

 

So through natural revelation that theism is true and by simple logic and using the law of noncontradiction, mutually exclusive religions cannot all be true, any nontheistic worldview, or way of looking at the world, must be false because it is built on a false foundation.  This leaves us with Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. 

 

It disproves polytheism because their cannot be more than one infinite being.  If one being lacks something that the other one has, then the lacking being is not infinite because an infinite being, by definition, lacks nothing.

 

The right box top for the universe shows a theistic God.  That means that only one of the 3 major theistic world religions can make the cut of truth: Judaism, Islam or Christianity.

 

God has already communicated to us through creation and conscience (natural or general revelation), which gives us basic ideas about his existence, power, and moral requirements.  But how could God reveal himself so that we could get a more detailed understanding of what his ultimate purposes is for us?

 

How are we supposed to tell whose book, if any, is really a message from God?

Through miracles, which is the King’s seal.  King’s seals would be a sign to the recipient of the message that the message was authentic-it really came from the king and not form someone just posing as the king.  To make this work, the seal needed to be unusual or unique, easily recognizable, and it had to be something only the king possessed.

 

A miracle is a special act of God that interrupts the normal course of events.  Natural laws describe what happens regularly, by natural causes; miracles, if they occur at all, describe what happens rarely, by supernatural causes.  A miracles is an act of God to confirm the word of God through a messenger of God.

 

We don’t see biblical miracles today because if the Bible is true and complete, God is not confirming any new revelation and thus does not have this main purpose for performing miracles today.  There is no new world from God that needs to be confirmed by God.

DO WE HAVE EARLY TESTIMONY ABOUT JESUS?

 

Josephus, who was not a Christian, had several references to him in the Antiquities of the Jews.  There are 9 other known non-Christian writers who mention Jesus within 150 years of his life.  When you add those non-Christian writings to the Christian sources over that same 150 years, there are about as many sources who mention Jesus as cite Tiberius Caesar, the Roman emperor at the time of Jesus.  The non-Christian sources (Celsus, Tacitus, the Talmud) do not contradict events in the NT even though they were decidedly anti-Christian.  Piecing together the 10 non-Christian references we see that:

1. Jesus lived during the time of Tiberias Caesar
2. He lived a virtuous life
3. He was a wonder-worker
4. He had a brother named James
5. He was acclaimed to be the Messiah
6. He was crucified under Pontius Pilate
7. He was crucified on the eve of the Jewish Passover
8. Darkness and an earthquake occurred when he died
9. His disciples believed he rose from the dead
10. His disciples were willing to die for their belief
11. Christianity spread rapidly as far as Rome
12. His disciples denied the Roman gods and worshiped Jesus as God.

In light of these non-Christian references, the theory that Jesus never existed is clearly unreasonable.  Since we have shown, the existence of God and the possibility of miracles is firmly established through natural revelation, and the general story of Christ and the early church is affirmed through non-Christian sources, did the miracles of Christ actually occur as the disciples claim?  Do the NT documents record actual history?  Could it be that they are not biased religious writings full of myths and fables as many in our modern world assume, but instead describe events that actually occurred about 2,000 years ago?  If so, we will be well on our way to discovering which theistic religion is true.

 

To see if the NT is a record of actual history, we need to answer 2 questions concerning the documents that comprise the NT:

1. Do we have accurate copies of the original documents that were written down in the first century?
2. Do those documents speak the truth?

1 – DO WE HAVE AN ACCURATE COPY?

 

It was not transmitted like the game of “telephone”.  Numerous people independently witnesses NT events, many of them committed it to memory, and nine of those eyewitnesses/contemporaries put their observations to writings.  The NT documents are 27 different documents that were written on 27 different scrolls by 9 different writers over a 20-50 year period.  So the NT is not just one source but a collection of sources.

 

So far though, none of the original written documents of the NT have been discovered.  We only have copies of the originals called manuscripts but this does not prevent us from knowing what the originals said because all significant literature from the ancient world is reconstructed into its original form by comparing the manuscripts that survive.  To reconstruct the original, it helps to have a number of manuscripts that are written not long after the original and the NT documents have more manuscripts, earlier manuscripts, and more abundantly supported manuscripts than the best 10 pieces of classical literature combined.

 

More manuscripts:

• nearly 5,800 handwritten Greek NT manuscripts and nearly 20,000 NT manuscripts in other languages
• the next closest work is the Iliad by Homer with 1800 manuscripts and most other works survive on fewer than 12

Earlier manuscripts:

• NT has less than 25 years between original and first surviving copies
• the next shortest gap is the Iliad which has an almost 50 year gap and most other ancient works are over 1000 years apart

More abundantly supported manuscripts:

• Even though Diocletian tried to destroy the manuscripts from 303-311ad, he could not have destroyed our ability to reconstruct the NT because the early Church Fathers quoted the NT some 36k times and over 1M citations of the NT so you could read the entire NT from their quotations.  So we not only have 1k’s of manuscripts but 1k’s of quotations of the those manuscripts.

If the NT really is the word of God, then why didn’t God preserve the original?

• because His word is actually better protected through copies than originals because if the original were in someone’s possession, that person could change it but if there are copies spread all over the ancient world, there is no way one scribe or priest could alter it.

How accurate is the reconstruction?

• Textual scholars estimate 98.3% pure.  Of the 150,000 variants known, only 400 changed the meaning of the passage, only 50 were of real significance, and not even one affected “an article of faith or a precept of duty which s not abundantly sustained by other and undoubted passages, or by the whole tenor of Scripture teaching.” 
• No other ancient book is so well authenticated.  NT scholar Bruce Metzger estimated the Mahabharata is copied with only about 90% accuracy and Homers Iliad with about 95%.  By comparison, he estimated the NT is about 99.5% accurate and the .5% in question does not affect a single doctrine of the Christian faith.

2 – IS THE NT HISTORICALLY RELIABLE?

 

Was there really a Jewish man nearly 2000 years ago by the name of Jesus who taught profound truths, performed miracles, was crucified by Roman and Jewish authorities for claiming to be God, and who appeared to many witnesses after rising from the dead 3 days later?

Common objections to reliability:

• History cannot be known because you don’t have all the facts. 
  • If history can’t be known then a jury would never be able to make a verdict because they make a judgement about the guilt or innocence of someone based on knowledge of some past event.  Skeptics are caught in a dilemma because if they say history cannot be known, then they lose the ability to say evolution is true and Christianity is false, and if they admit it can be known, the have to deal with multiple lines of historical evidence for creation and Christianity.                     
• The NT documents contain miracles so it has to legend
• The NT writers were biased because they were already converted
  • their conversion and bias led them to be more accurate.  The question is why were they converted?  What possible motive did the NT writers have to make up the Resurrection story if it was not true?  They did not gain power, they instead suffered persecution, torture, and death.  They had every earthly motive to deny the Resurrection rather than proclaim it.
  • 
  • Why would the Jews who converted to Christianity risk persecution, death, and perhaps eternal damnation to start something that 1) wasn’t true and 2) elevated non-Jews into the exclusive relationship they claimed to have with creator of the Universe?  Why would they almost immediately stop observing the Jewish Sacrificial system and the centrality of the temple?  They would have had to have witnessed some very strong evidence to turn away from those ancient beliefs and practices that had defined who they and their forebears were for nearly 2000 years.
• Converted people are not objective.
  • This is nonsense, people can be objective when they are not neutral, ie a doctor giving an objective diagnosis.  The survivors of the holocaust who wrote their experiences certainly were not neutral.

 

 

There are 7 historical tests used to determine whether or not to believe a given historical document:

1. Do we have early testimony?
2. Do we have eyewitness testimony?
3. Do we have testimony from multiple, independent, eyewitness sources?
4. Are the eyewitnesses trustworthy?
5. Do we have corroborating evidence from archaeology or other writers
6. Do we have an enemy attestation?
7. Does the testimony contain events or details that are embarrassing to the authors?

ARE THE NT DOCUMENTS EARLY?

• All NT books were written before 100 AD
• Most if not all of these books were written before AD 70
  • because there is not one mention in any of the writings about the destruction of the temple
• Many NT  books were composed before AD 62
  • because the deaths of Paul and James were not mentioned 
• Some NT books were penned in the AD 40s and 50s with sources from the 30s 

Skeptics Advocate

• The documents are early enough, Why not earlier?
  1. The writers were living in a culture where the vast majority of people were illiterate, there was no initial need or utility in writing it down.  It was an oral culture where people had the ability to memorize and retain large tracts of oral tradition which was a highly prized and highly developed skill.  The disciples would have exercised similar care with the teachings of Jesus. 
  2. They may have had high hopes that Jesus was going to come back in their lifetime and so they saw no need to write it down
  3. As Christianity spread all over the ancient world, writing became the most efficient means to communicate with the rapidly expanding church.  Time and distance forced the NT writer to write it down.
• Why not more? If Jesus actually did rise from the dead, shouldn’t there be more written about him than there is?
  • Jesus (43x) is referenced by far more authors than the Roman Emperor (Tiberias 10x) within 150 years of their lives.  9 of those authors were eyewitnesses or contemporaries of the events and they wrote 27 documents, the majority of which mention or imply the Resurrection
  • Why do the skeptics think anything is going to be written, much less survive, from an ancient group of illiterate Galilean peasants?

DO WE HAVE EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY ABOUT JESUS?

 

Peter, Paul, and John all claim to be eyewitnesses. Luke and the writer of Hebrews claim to be informed by eyewitnesses.  Paul lists 14 people whose names are known as eyewitnesses of the Resurrection (12 apostles, James, and himself) and claims there were 500 others.  The risk Paul, Peter, and other apostles took to claim that they were providing eyewitness testimony certainly suggests that they were telling the truth.

• Were they really eyewitnesses?  What evidence do we have that the NT writers were really eyewitnesses or had access to eyewitness testimony?
  • There are over 84 facts in the last 16 chapters of Acts that have confirmed by historical and archaeological research.  Skeptics get uncomfortable because Luke also reports 35 miracles in the same book.  And the miracle accounts show no signs of embellishment or extravagance-they are told with the same level-headed efficiency as the rest of the historical narrative.  Why would Luke be so accurate with trivial details like wind, directions, water depths, and peculiar town names, but not be accurate when it comes to important events like miracles?
• Is Luke’s Gospel “Gospel”?
  • Luke’s history is unsurpassed in respect of its trustworthiness.  He is a historian of the first rank and should be placed along with the very greatest of historians.  Luke can be trusted.  Since Luke is telling the truth, then so are Mark and Matthew because their Gospels tell the same basic story.
• What about John?  Critics claim that John is a much later work that expresses an invented deity of Christ theology so it cannot be trusted for accurate historical information.
  • When we couple John’s knowledge of Jesus’ personal conversations with nearly 60 historically confirmed/historically probable details, it is not doubtful John was an eyewitness or at least had access to eyewitness testimony.

Historical Crosshairs

 

By looking at just a few NT documents we have found more than 140 details that appear to be authentic, most of which have been historically confirmed and some of which are historically probable.  We also have 30 plus references to NT figures outside the NT.  

• But is the NT a historical novel or novel history?
  1. This theory cannot explain why independent non-Christian writers collectively reveal a storyline similar to th NT
  2. It can’t explain why the NT writers endured persecution, torture, and death.
  3. Historical novelists usually do not use the names of real people for the main characters in their stories.
  4. The NT contains multiple independent accounts of these events by 9 different authors so the historical novel theory would require a grand conspiracy over a 20-50 year period between those authors who were spread all over the ancient world
• The NT: One source or many?
  • The NT is a collection of largely independent writings from the pens of 9 different authors.  It was not written or edited by one person or the church.  While the NT writers describe many of the same events and may even draw material from the same earlier sources, the evidence indicated the NT documents contain several lines of independent eyewitness testimony because:
    • each major author includes early and unique material that only eyewitnesses would know
    • their accounts describe the same basic events but include divergent details.   This is important because if the accounts were all from one source or a single editor, there would be harmonization, not divergence of details.  The story cannot be made up because independent sources could never invent the same fictional story.
  • There are at least 4 independent sources for the basic NT story and adding Paul and Peter to the mix, there are at least 6 independent eyewitnesses to the resurrection.  6 sane, sober eyewitnesses, who refute to recant their testimony even under the threat of death, would convict anyone of anything in a court of law (even without the additional lines of corroborating evidence that support the NT story.  Such eyewitness testimony yields a verdict that is certain beyond a reasonable doubt.

THE TOP 10 REASONS WE KNOW THE NT WRITERS TOLD THE TRUTH

1. They included embarrassing details about themselves
   • They depict themselves as dim-witted, uncaring, rebuked, bumbling cowards, doubters
2. They included embarrassing details and difficult sayings of Jesus
   • is considered “out of his mind” by his mother and brothers
   • is not believed by own brothers
   • is thought to be a deceiver
   • is deserted by many followers
   • is called a drunkard, madman, and demon possessed
   • had feet wiped by hair of prostitute
   • crucified
   • Difficult sayings:
     • seen cursing fig tree for not having figs when it wasn’t even the season of figs
     • seems unable to do miracles in how hometown
     • unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life in you
3. They left in demanding sayings of Jesus
   • looking at woman with lust you have committed adultery in your heart
   • turn the other cheek
   • love your enemies and pray for them
4. They carefully distinguished Jesus words from their own
5. They included events related to the resurrection that they would not have invented
   • The burial of Jesus
   • The first witnesses being women
   • Conversion of priests
   • Explanation of the Jews for the empty tomb
6. They included more than 30 historically confirmed people in their writings
7. They include divergent details
8. They challenge their beliefs to check out verifiable facts, even facts about miracles
9. They describe miracles like other historical events: With simple, unembellished accounts
10. They abandoned their long held sacred beliefs and practices, adopted new ones, and did not deny their testimony under persecution or threat of death.

DID JESUS REALLY RISE FROM THE DEAD?

WHO IS JESUS: GOD?  OR JUST A GREAT MORAL TEACHER?

 

Messianic predictions:

Genesis 3:15	Seed of the Woman: The offspring of Eve will ultimately crush Satan.  But this human being, unlike other human beings, will be from teh seed of a woman rather than from a man (Matt 1:23)
Genesis 12: 3, 7	Seed of Abraham:  The offspring of Abraham spoken of here literally means “seed” (not seeds).  It refers to only one person-a messiah-who will ultimately bless all peoples on the earth and rule over the land (Gal 3:16)
Genesis 49:10	Tribe of Judah:  The scepter will not depart from the tribe of Judah until the ultimate king, the Messiah, comes.  In other words, Messiah will come from the tribe of Judah
Jeremiah 23:5-6	Son of David:  Messiah will be a son of David, and he will be called God
Isaiah 9:6-7	He will be God:  Messiah will be born as a child, but he will also be God.  He will rule from the throne of David
Micah 5:2	Born in Bethlehem: Messiah, who is eternal will be born in Bethlehem.
Malachi 3:1	He will come to the temple:  Messiah who will be preceded by a messenger, will suddenly come to the the temple
Daniel 9:25-26	He will die in AD 33:  Messiah will die (be “cut off”) 483 years (69×7) after the decree to rebuild Jerusalem(that works out to ad 33).  The city and the temple will then be destroyed (Ad 70).

 

Zechariah 12:10, 14:4

Psalm 22

 

Isaiah’s Servant:

1. He is elected by the Lord, anointed by the Spirit, and promised success in his endeavor (42:1,4)
2. Justice is a prime concern of his ministry (42:1, 4)
3. His ministry has international scope
4. God predestined him to his calling (49:1)
5. He is a gifted teacher (49:2)
6. He experiences discouragement in his ministry (49:4)
7. His ministry extends to the Gentiles (49:6)
8. The Servant encounters strong opposition and resistance to his teaching, even of a physically violent nature (50:4-6)
9. He is determined to finish what God called him to do (50:7)
10. The servant has humble origins with little outward prospects for success (53:1)
11. He experiences suffering and affliction (53:3)
12. The Servant accepts vicarious and substitutionary suffering on behalf of his people (53:4-6, 12)
13. He is put to death after being condemned (53:7-9)
14. He comes back to life and is exalted above all rulers (53:10-12, 52:13-15)

 

There are over 71 messianic prophecies fulfilled by Christ

The OT is Christ concealed; the NT is Christ revealed.

 

Jesus is the only known person who meets the predicted qualifications of the Messiah, but did he claim to be God?

 

He is either liar, lunatic, or Lord.  You can’t say he was just a great moral teacher but don’t accept his claim to be God.  He was and is the Son of God, or else a madman, or something worse.   You can spit on him and reject him or fall at his feet and call him lord and God.  He did not leave it open to just call him a great human teacher.  In light of his miraculous deeds, his resurrection, his supreme conduct and teachings, his prophecies he fulfilled, and the fact that he would be unlikely to die for his own lie, liar and lunatic are eliminated.  All evidence points to Lord.

 

“If you understand the claims He makes about Himself you will either be scared of fun, furious at Him, or you will kneel before of in in worship. You’ can’t simply like Him.  His claims of absolute authority and unconditional loyalty triggers deep resistance within the human heart.  People are hostile to the claims that Jesus made because He is not only declaring an exclusive monopoly an access to God, but that He is God, and people think that is too narrow and exclusive.  The exclusiveness of Christian belief, and their conviction that Jesus was not just a God, but the God puts Christians on a collision course with nearly everyone in that religiously pluralistic society, The gospel message brings hostility because it is seen as intolerant and narrow minded.  Yes it is narrow and exclusive, but it is the most inclusive exclusive truth conceivable because it is freely open to any one regardless of what you have done in your life, your status, how much money you make, your race, or gender.  We all fall share of the glory of God and yet his grace and mercy is freely available to anyone.”  ~ Keller

 

His claims come in many forms: from direct “I am” statements to those that strongly imply his deity.  His actions-including forgiving sins, assuming the authority of God to issue commands, and accepting worship due only to God-also reveal that Jesus really believed He was God.

 

  He then proved he was God by: 

1. fulfilling numerous messianic prophecies written hundreds of years in advance.  (He is the only person in history who fulfills all of these prophesies)
2. He lived a sinless life and performed miraculous deeds
3. He predicted and then accomplished his own resurrection from the dead

Why wasn’t he more overt? 

• He gave enough evidence to convince the open minded, ,but not enough to overwhelm the free will of those wishing to cling to their own traditions.

The Trinity:

• Jesus is 3 persons in one divine nature.
• When Jesus added humanity, he voluntarily subordinated himself to the Father and accepted the limitations inherent with humanity.
• Jesus never lost his divine nature or ceased being God.
• Jesus is equal to the father in his divine nature, essence, attributes, and character.
• Jesus is subordinate to the father in human nature, function, office, and position.

Objections to the trinity:

 

The Trinity may be beyond reason, but it is not against reason.  We may not completely understand the Trinity because we cannot completely comprehend an infinite God, but we can apprehend it, just like we apprehend but do not completely comprehend the vast magnitude of the ocean.  The Trinity does not create theological problems, it solves theological problems.  The trinity helps us understand how love has existed from all eternity.  God is love.  To have lover, there must be a lover (the Father),  a loved one (the son), and a spirit of Love (the Holy spirit)  Because of this triune nature, God has existed eternally in a perfect fellowship of love.  He is the perfect being who lacks nothing so he didn’t need to create us for any reason.  He simply chose to create us, and love us in accordance with his loving nature.  His love is why He sent his son to take the punishment for our sins.  His infinite justice condemns us, but his infinite love saves those who want to be saved.

WHAT DID JESUS TEACH ABOUT THE BIBLE?

 

The real Jesus taught with authority and did not tolerate error. When religious people were wrong, he made righteous judgements and let everyone know what those judgments were.  If Jesus taught that the Bible is the Word of God, then the bible is our primary source of divine truth.

 

Jesus taught that the OT was the Word of God in 7 ways: 

1. Divinely Authoritative:
   • every time Satan tried to envelop Christ in darkness, He used Scripture after Scripture to dispel it.   He answered Satan’s assaults with passages from Deuteronomy.  As He was carrying the cross he cited Hosea, and as he was dying in agony he quoted the Psalms.  He must have considered the OT to be a source of truth in order to dismiss his most powerful enemy with it.
   • on 92 occasions Jesus and his apostles supported their position by saying “it is written” (or the equivalent) and then quoted the OT because Jesus and his apostles considered the OT scriptures to be the written Word of God and thus the ultimate authority of life.
2. Imperishable – 
   • 17Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. 18For I tell you truly, until heaven and earth pass away, not a single jot, not a stroke of a pen, will disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.
   • Jesus could not express the imperishability of the Scriptures more forcefully
3. Infallible: 
   •  34Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’? 35If he called them gods to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be broken— 36do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? 
   • 17Sanctify them^b in the truth; your word is truth.
4. Inerrant:
   • When the Sadducees tried to trap Jesus he responded by saying 29But Jesus answered them, “You are in error (wrong), because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.
   • Implying that the Scriptures are inerrant.
5. Historically Reliable:
   • Jesus affirmed 2 of the most historically disputed stories in the OT:  Noah’s flood and Jonah.
   • Jesus taught that Daniel was a prophet
   • He quoted different sections of the book of Isaiah
6. Scientifically Accurate
   • Christianity is built on historical events such as Creation and the Resurrection that can be tested through scientific and historical investigation.  Truth about the universe cannot be contradictory.  Since all truth is God’s truth, religious beliefs must agree with scientific facts.  If they do not, then either there is an error in our scientific understanding, or our religious beliefs are wrong.  Many of the claims of Christianity are affirmed by scientific investigation.  Christ knew it would be this way.
7. Has Ultimate Supremacy:
   1. He corrected the Pharisees and the teachers of the law by claiming that they should be obeying the OT Scriptures instead of their own man made traditions (talmud).  “You nullify the Word of God for the sake of your tradition” (Matt 15:3-9).  Why would Jesus correct the religious leaders of Israel with the OT unless the OT had ultimate supremacy over their own ideas?

 39You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, 40yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. (John 5:39-40).

 

So Jesus came to fulfill the scriptures that testify of him.  Jesus and the NT writers cited every section of the OT as authoritative as they referenced events in 18 of 22 books of the OT.    There are over 30 NT affirmations of OT events.

 

What about the NT??

 

While Jesus confirmed the OT, he promised the NT.  HE said the NT would come through his apostles because the Holy Spirit would remind them what Jesus had said and would lead them unto “all truth”.  

 

Paul later echoed this teaching of Jesus by asserting that the church is “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone” (Eph 2:20).  The early church devoted themselves to the apostles teaching (Acts 2:42).

 

Paul’s intro to the Galatians:

• 11For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel.^c 12For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

 

Paul affirms with the Thessalonians that he is providing them with the Word of God.

• 13And we also thank God constantly^d for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men^e but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers. 

Paul also quoted Matthew and Luke as scripture and put them on same level with Deuteronomy.

 

Peter agreed that Paul’s letters were inspired in 2 Peter 3:

•  15And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, 16as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. 

Peter also affirms the divine source of this own words and other apostles in 2 Peter 1: 

• 16For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son,ⁱ with whom I am well pleased,” 18we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. 19And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, 20knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. 21For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

The apostles didn’t just claim to be getting messages from God.  They gave evidence by performing miraculous signs which is one of the qualifications of an apostle.  The other was being an eyewitness to the Resurrection.  

• God authenticates his prophets through miracles. 
• The miracle confirms the message. 
• The sign confirms the sermon. 
• Acts of God confirm the Word of God to the people of God.
• It’s God’s way of telling us that a message really comes from him.

Miracles were done for a specific purpose, which was usually to confirm some new messenger or new revelation, which is probably why there is no record of apostolic miracles in Paul’s letters after about ad 62.  By this time, Paul and the other apostles had been proven as true messengers of God, and there was no need for further confirmation.

 

Jesus promised his apostles that the Holy Spirit would bring to their remembrance all of his words and guide them into “all truth” so according to Jesus, the only books that should be in the NT are those that are authored and/or confirmed by his apostles.

 

The church did not determine what would be in the NT, they discovered what God intended to be in the NT.  The canon is a list of authoritative books more than it is an authoritative list of books.  These documents didn’t derive their authority from being selected; each one was authoritative before anyone gathered them together.

 

John had a disciple named Polycarp (ad 69-155) who had a disciple named Irenaeus (1300202) and they collectively quote 23 of the 27 NT books as if they are authentic and in some cases say they are.

 

Most of the NT was accepted before ad 200 and all of it was officially and finally recognized as authentic by the Council of Hippo in 393.  All of the 27 NT books were written in the 1st century by eyewitnesses or by those who interviewed eyewitnesses.  They are either books by the apostles or confirmed by the apostles.

 

HOW CAN  THE BIBLE BE INERRANT?

 

If Jesus confirmed the OT was the inerrant Word of God, then his promised NT must be part of the inerrant Word of God too.

 

The bible cannot have errors because:

1. God cannot err.
2. The bible is the word of God
3. Therefore, the Bible cannot err

This is a valid form of reasoning so if the premises are true, then the conclusion is true.  If the Bible erred in anything it affirms, then God would be mistaken but God cannot make mistakes.  If we are perplexed by any apparent contradiction in Scripture, it is not allowable to say that the author of this book is mistaken, but either the manuscript is faulty, or the translation is wrong, or you have not understood.

 

There are 17 typical errors typically made by critics.  Here is a summary of 4 of them:

• Assuming that divergent accounts are contradictory
  • ie one gospel writer saying he saw one angel and another says he saw two.
• Failing to Understand the context of the passage
  • PS 14:1B, “there is no God”, the context says the “the fools says in heart, there is no god”
• Presuming that the bible approves of all that it records
  •  ie polygamy.  God’s standards are found in what the Bible reveals, not in everything it records.  and it confirms the bible’s historicity because it records the sins and faults of its people.
• Forgetting that the bible is a human book with human characteristics.
  • The writers were human composers who employed their own literary styles and idiosyncrasies.  They wrote historical narratives (Acts), poetry (sos), prayers (psalms), prophecy, personal letters (timothy), theological treatises (romans) etc.  Since God used the styles of about 40 authors over nearly 1500 years to get his message across, its wrong to expect the level of expression to be greater that that of other human documents.

Objections to Inerrancy:

• Humans err, so the Bible must err
  • Yes humans err but they don’t always err.  Fallible people write books all the time that have no errors.  So fallible people who are guided by the Holy Spirit certainly can write a book without any errors.
• Isn’t that circular reasoning by using the bible to prove the bible?
  • no because we’re not starting with the assumption the bible is an inspired book.  we are starting with several separate docs that have proven beyond a reasonable doubt to be historically reliable.  and since the reveal that Jesus is God, then we know his teaching on the OT must be true.  He said the OT is the inerrant word of God and he also promised that the rest of God’s truth (“all truth”) would come to the apostles from the Holy Spirit, who then wrote the NT and proved their authority through miracles.  Therefore on the authority of Jesus, who is God, the NT is inerrant as well.  That is not arguing in a circle.  That is arguing inductively, collecting evidence and following that evidence where it leads.
• But your position on inerrancy is not falsifiable.  You will not accept an error in the Bible because you have decided in advance that there cannot be any.
  • Because Jesus authority is well established by the evidence, we reasonably give the benefit of the doubt to the bible when we come across a difficulty or question in the text.  It is due to our ignorance not that the bible is wrong.  However that does not mean we believe there is absolutely no possibility for errors.  If someone could trace a real error back to an original scroll, but to this day after nearly 2000 years of looking , no one has found such an irreconcilable problem.  
  • 2ndly, Even if inerrancy is falsified someday, that wouldn’t falsify the central truths of Christianity.  even if the Scriptures are found to contain a false detail or two, the historical truth of Christianity will not be diminished.  Unlike most other religious worldviews, Christianity is built on historical events and can therefore be either proven or falsified by historical investigation.  The problem for skeptics and critics is that all the historical evidence points to the Resurrection.
  • 3rdly, those who have “discovered a mistake” in the Bible do not know too much about the Bible – they know too little.  This doesn’t mean that we understand how to resolve all the difficulties in the scriptures, but it means we keep doing research, and as we do the list of difficulties get shorter.  Just as scientist don’t deny the integrity of the natural world just because they can’t explain something.  
  • Finally, critics will not allow facts to interfere with their desire to maintain control over their own lives.  If a critic were to admit that the Bible were true, he would have to admit that he no longer calls all the shots.  there would be an authority in the universe greater than himself, and that authority might not approve of his life.

If Jesus is God, then whatever he teaches is true.  If he teaches that the OT is divinely authoritative, imperishable, infallible, inerrant, historically reliable, scientifically accurate, and has ultimate supremacy, then those things are true.  

• Jesus taught that the OT is the inerrant word of God, and he promised that the rest of God’s word would come through his apostles.  
• The apostles, who were authenticated by miracles, wrote or confirmed 27 books.  
• All major books were immediately recognized as port of Gods word by those connected with the apostles themselves.  
• And all of the 27 books were later recognized as authentic by the early church councils.
• The bible we have today is the true, inerrant word of God.
• Since the Bible is our established standard of truth, anything that contradicts a teaching in the Bible is false.  This does not mean there is no truth in other religions.  It simply means that any specific teaching that contradicts a teaching of the bible is false.

The scripture will never move from being just a set of words on a piece of paper to a vehicle for an encounter with the living God unless you accept its authority in total.  Unless you except it completely, you can read it, but you wont be able to hear it.  It won’t be a living word from God unless you accept it in totality.  If you start to take certain things out, then you can’t wrestle with god.  If you have any kind of real relationship you wrestle.  If you take out the parts that offend you then you are creating  a God that cant wrestle with you, knock you down, or punch you in the chops.  It cant be a life changing encounter with God unless you see it as authoritative.  

 

When you say I want Jesus, but say I cannot believe everything the bible says, you really mean you don’t want the real Jesus, you want to make up your own. You are saying the principle and main spring upon which He based His entire life, I trample.   

 

Many people want to accept the bible without accepting its infallibility.  They say if you approach the bible as truth, you can’t get into a deeper place of intimacy with God, because the conversation is over, which is one of the deepest forms of intimacy. Who are you to decide what things Jesus did were wrong and right? You will never know Him for real unless you allow the contradictions to stand. It’s not until you look into these things that outrage you are first, that you begin to see the beauty and wisdom of who He is. He is the lion and lamb. He alone combines things, excellencies and virtues, that otherwise could never be held together. Highness and lowness, strength & weakness. 

 

How can you ever know Him intimately if you don’t treat everything He says as right?  How can you ever know someone, who says this is the very basis of my life, the secret to my greatness, this is what makes me who I am, and then you say, well I don’t want to accept that, but I want to get to know you.  If you don’t let the bible tell you the bad news you need to hear, how will you ever accept. the good news you don’t want to hear.

 

Jesus is the word of God.  A person’s word is the clearest and ultimate revelation of who you are.

Example: if you rode on a subway with other people everyday, you could know many things about them, but unless you have ever spoken to them, you could not say you know them, because their words, speaking is the clearest of expression of who you are. You reveal yourself through your word.

 

You can’t know God except through His word.  That doesn’t mean you can’t know about God, but to know Him, it takes Jesus who was the word made flesh, because Jesus is the ultimate revelation of who God is.

~Keller

CONCLUSION:  THE JUDGE, THE SERVANT KING, AND THE BOX TOP

 

THE JUDGE

 

God is caught in a dilemma between his justice and his love.  His infinite justice demands that he punish our sin, but because he is infinite love, he wants to find a way to avoid punishing us.  The only way God can remain just but not punish us for our sins is to punish a sinless substitute who voluntarily takes our punishment for us.  He cannot find a sinless substitute from sinful humanity, so God himself became the substitute and took the punishment we deserved.

 

The greatest myth believed today is that being good will get you to heaven.  That is dons not matter what you have done, as long as your good outweighs your bad.  That is relative but God’s standard is not Hitler or the man next door.  His standard is moral perfection because his unchanging nature is moral perfection.  When Jesus said, “I am the way the truth and the life.   no one comes to the Father except through me, he was not making an arbitrary claim but a statement that reflected the reality of the universe.  Jesus is the only way because there is only one way God can reconcile his infinite justice and his infinite love.  If there were any other way, then God allowed Christ to die for nothing.

 

THE SERVANT KING

 

God loves you so much that he even respects your decision to reject him.  If he overwhelmed us with his power we may not be free to love him.  And if we retain our freedom, we may not love him but merely love what he gives us.  So he descended to the lowest possible human level-to that of a servant.  Taking the form of a human servant was the only way he could offer us that salvation without negating our ability to accept it.  He went through unspeakable suffering on our behalf so that we could be reconciled back to the father and saved from our sins.

 

THE BOX TOP

 

Since we no know beyond a reasonable doubt that the box top is  the bible, the answers to those five questions are:

1.  Origin:  Where did we come from?
   • We are created beings, wonderfully made in the image and likeness of God
2. Identity:  Who are we?  
   • Since we are made in the image and likeness of God, we are creatures of supreme worth.  We are loved by God and endowed with certain God-given rights and responsibilities.
3. Meaning:  Why are we here?
   • Adam and Eve were created in a state of innocence, but their choice to disobey condemned the human race to punishment in accordance with the infinite justice of God.  Since that time, each of us has confirmed the choice of Adam and Eve through our own disobedience.  We remain in this fallen state so that we can make free choices that will have implications in eternity.  This temporal life is the choosing ground for the eternal one.  Choices that we can make that will bring glory to God and may bring us eternal rewards, include 
     • accepting the ransom Jesus paid in order to free us from eternal punishment and welcome us into his eternal presence
     • serving as ambassadors for Christ to help others make that same choice
     • learning form our own sufferings to comfort others who suffer and realizing that our sufferings enhance our own capacity to enjoy eternity
4. Morality:  How should we live?  
   1. Since God first loved us, we should love him and others.  In fact, the “whole duty of man” is fear God and keep his commandments”.  This includes making disciples of all nations and enjoying the good things God gives us
5. Destiny:  Where are we going?
   1. God’s infinite justice demands that he punish our sins, but because of his infinite love he has taken the punishment on himself.  The is the only way he could remain just and still justify sinners.  His gift of salvation from eternal punishment is free to all the world.  It cannot be earned through good works or any kind of merit.  And God wants everyone to be saved from the eternal punishment we all deserve.  But since he cannot force us to love him, each one of us must choose for ourselves whom we will serve.

YOUR DESTINY

 

Whom will you serve?  God leaves that choice in your hands.  Love knows no other way.  In order to respect your free choice, God has made the evidence for Christianity convincing but not compelling.  If you want to suppress or ignore the evidence all around you then you are free to do so.    But it would be a volitional act, not a rationale one, You can reject Christ, but you cannot honestly say there is not enough evidence to believe in him.  

• “I believe that Jesus rose from the dead”
  •  Merely believing is not enough, you need to put your trust in him.  You can believe that a person would make a greate spouse but that is not enough to make the at person your husband or wife.  You must go beyond the intellectual to volitional by saying “i do”.  
• What happpens if you freely choose not to walk through the door Jesus is holding open?  
  • You will remain in your condemned state and separated from God forever.  
• “God doesn’t send anyone to hell”
  • True, if you reject Christ, you send yourself there.
• “God will just annihilate those who don’t believe”
  • God is too loving to destroy those who don’t want to be in his persence.  His only choice is to qurantine those who reject him.  That is what hell does-it quarantines evil, which is contagious
• “God will save everybody”
  • How? against their will?  It would be unloving of God to send people who can’t bear to spend an hour on Sunday praising him to a aplace where they will be praising him for eternity.
• “I can’t believe there is only one way to God”  
  • WHy not?  We have shown philosophically and biblically that Jesus is the only way to reconcile infinite justice and infinite love.  If thats not ttrue then God sent Jesus to die a brutal death for nothing.
• “But what about those who have never heard”
  • Why should that affect your decision?  You have heard
• “Because I can’t believe in a God who would torute people in hell just because they haven’t heard of Jesus”
  • Who said God does this?  He doesn’t toruture anyone.  Hell is not a place of externally inflicted torture, but a place of self-inflicted torment.  People choose hell whether or not they have heard of Jeus or not.  Everyone knows of GOd because of the starry heavens above and the Moral Law within.  Those who reject that natureal revelation will reject Jesus too.  
• “You Christians just want to scare people with hell”
  • No we just want people to know the truth.  Without a hell, injustices in this world would never be righted, tghe free choices of pople would not be respected, and the greater good of a redemption could nver be accomplished.  If there is no heaven to seek and no hell to shun, then nothing in this universe has any ultimate meaning:  your choices, your pleasures, your sufferings, the lives of you and your loved ones ultimately mean nothing.  We struggle through this life for no ultimate reason, and Chrsit died for nothing.  
• “Just because you want life to have meaning does not mean it does”
  • True.  But we dont’ just want life to have meaning-we have evidence that it has meaning.

Our choices matter.  Our life does have ultimate meaning.  And thanks to Christ, no one has to experience hell.  Since we are finite creatures who must make our decisions based on probability, there has to be a point where we realize that the weight of the evidence comes down on one side or the other.  We will never have all the the answers but as we have seen though out this book, there are more than enough answers to give GOd the benefit of our doubts.

Handling Objections and tough Questions

• Why did God create Lucifer?
• Why did God create us?
• Was there a pre-Adamic world?
• Who did Cain marry?
• So you believe that anyone that doesn’t accept Jesus Christ is going to hell? 
• Does God send people to hell for their beliefs and values?
• If their were born into a family in atheistic Europe or a remote village, how are they expected to find true faith?

 

• If God is all knowing and he knew how everything would turn out, why did he create people who would go to hell?  Why did he put the tree of good and evil in the garden knowing we would eat from it?  Why didn’t he create a world where everyone believes?  Is God justified to create a universe where some people freely reject him?  Wouldn’t the loving ting to do be to save everyone?
• How does our free will and God’s sovereignty work, election, and predestination?
• Ordaining, Intervening, Sovereignty
• Why does a good God allow so much evil and suffering in the world?  Why doesn’t he intervene to stop all the evil in the world?  
  • what resources best address the problem of evil? – the bible
• What evidence do you have outside of the bible for the existence of God?
• What evidence do you have outside of the bible for the resurrection of Jesus?
• How can you make the claim that Christianity is the ONLY way to get to heaven? If I don’t believe like you then I am going to hell? 
• Why does every single university teach evolution?  Are you saying they are all wrong and you are right?
• If a powerful God exists then why wouldn’t he clear up all the confusion and why does he seem to hide himself?  Why doesn’t he just show up to debunk the false religions and end all the controversy?  
• Why isn’t God more obvious?
  • https://youtube.com/shorts/ShA00MC-7wk?si=UfBiV2orWnVEvAOD
• How can you trust the bible when it was written by man and has errors in it? Why do I choose to believe the bible?  Infallibility, Innerrancy
• Is God a moral monster?
  • Is God Immoral for killing Canaanite’s?  How can you believe in a God who kills innocent people in the OT but then commands you not to kill others?
    • God devoted the 7 nations to “Complete Destruction”.  “You shall save alive nothing that breathes”.
      • Num 21 
      • Deut 2, 7, 20
      • Josh 6, 9
      • God did not want Israel to make a covenant with them, to intermarry with them, or to give their daughters to their sons or sons for daughters because they would turn away the sons from following Him.  He did not want them to teach them according to their abominable practices that they did for their gods.  It is a precursor to final judgement.  The Canaanites wickedness had become complete and God was protecting them from falling into idolatry and apostacy.  The extermination of the Canaanites was a special case of Divine judgement intruding into a period otherwise characterized by common grace.  It is not a pattern for general warfare but anticipates the final judgement that will befall all who persist in rebellion against God
    • If there is no God, why is any OT atrocity wrong?
    • Is God arbitrary or does He give reasons for judging people in OT?
    • Why complain that God doesn’t stop evil, but then complain when he does?
    • Is God committing murder by ending lives on earth?
    • God has the right to user people into the next life whether they are 2 or 82.
    • OT theocracy was unique and temporary, it was not ideal for all time but the means to a promised new covenant.
    • Romans 11:  21For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. 22Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off. 33Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
• Does science confirm the creation story or evolution?
• Is there such a thing as truth or is truth relative to the individual?
• Why is the Christian worldview on issues related to gender and sexuality correct?
• Shouldn’t a woman have the right to do with her body whatever she pleases?
• Why does he allow bad things happen to good people?
• Religion has always held back moral progress.  The bible supports slavery!
• You don’t even have the Bible.  You have copies of copies of copies.
• Do you think homosexuals should be stoned to death (Lev 20:13)
• Shouldn’t a sincere Buddhist or Hindu go to heaven?
• The bible was written by bronze age shepherds and teaches that the earth is flat
• There is no convincing evidence that Jesus even existed.  check out this video!
• Why are there two contradictory accounts of Genesis 1 and 2?
• Your version of Christianity is just one among over 40,000
• Can God make a rocks so big He can’t move it?
• The bible is full of made of stories not historical events
• Do you really believe in talking donkeys and snakes?
• How could a loving God allow bone cancer in children?
• If you were born in India you would be worshipping Vishnu
• I think all paths lead to God.
• If two people love each other should be able to express that love.
• It is wrong for you to force your morals or religion on others.
• It is arrogant and intolerant to think that you are right and everyone else is wrong.
• If God is such a loving God then why doesn’t he just forgive everybody?
  • Because then he wouldn’t be just.  Evil cannot be overlooked and it can’t be dealt with, removed, or healed by just saying “forget it”.  It must be paid for and dealt with, which requires a steep price.  Sin always entails a penalty.  Guilt cannot be dealt with unless someone pays. 
  • True forgiveness always entails suffering.  If someone robbed you of something, justice has been violated and that person owes you.  Once you sense that debt that are only 2 things you can do.   You can either make them pay you back, which does clear the debt of wrong, or you can absorb the cost yourself, which is the only way to right the wrong.  If we know that forgiveness always entails suffering for the forgiver and that the only hope of rectifying and righting wrongs comes by paying the cost of suffering, then it should not surprise us when God says, “the only way I can forgive the sins of the human race is to suffer-either you will have to pay the penalty for sin or I will”.  The only way God can pardon us and not judge us, is to go to the cross and absorb it into himself.  “I must suffer,” Jesus said.
  • The only way that Jesus could redeem us was to give his life as a ransom which satisfied God’s wrath upon the cross and paid the debt that was owed.   God’s wrath is rolling down upon us like a giant bowling ball, not just take out the pins but the whole bowling alley.  It is coming down on evil, injustice, and wickedness.  It is coming down upon those who are sinful.  We have been given the option to take the penalty ourselves and be eternally separated from God, or we can put our trust in Christ who took the wrath for us.  He took it all.  There is now no more condemnation (legal term indicating that someone is to be tried and executed within the criminal justice system) for those in Christ Jesus.
  • Jesus didn’t die despite God’s love, but because of God’s love.  That is because all life-changing love is substitutionary sacrifice.  If you have ever tried to love somebody who has needs, someone who is in trouble or who is persecuted or emotionally wounded, it is going to cost you.  You can’t love them without taking a hit yourself.  A transfer of some kind is required, so that somehow their troubles, problems, transfer to you.  The only way they are going to start filling up emotionally is if somebody loves them, and the only way to love them is to let yourself be emotionally drained.  Some of your fullness has to into them, and you have to empty out to some degree.  The only way to love them is through substitutionary sacrifice.
• Who were the Nephilim (the fallen ones)
  • • Giants, sons of anak, anakim, the fallen ones
    • Goliath
    • The Hill country where the sons of anak were God commanded them all to be killed (heiser)
• Biblical narrative, especially in OT, shows you why something is wrong by showing you the effects of actions instead of commanding you not to do it.  ie in the case of polygamy.  where as in the NT Paul is straightforward with commands
• Interpret difficult passages that are hard to understand and that you don’t know, in light of what you do know about God
• Why were annanias and saphirra judged so harshly?

 

 

 

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