Category Archives: General Apologetics

General Apologetics

Who Are The Peacemakers?

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In Matthew 5:9 Jesus speaks very highly of those He calls peacemakers.  He says,

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.”

Occasionally those involved in Apologetics are accused of causing contention and driving away peace.  This is especially true of those who speak out against the heretical teachings of cults.  People sometimes become offended, accuse us of “attacking them” and say we are not being “peacemakers”.  These criticisms got me thinking “who are the peacemakers”?  Who was Christ talking about when He uttered this statement during the Sermon on the Mount?  

In order to answer these questions we need to look at how Christ defined peace.  In John 14:27 Christ says,

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives.”

When Christ talks about peace He is talking about something much greater than worldly peace.  In fact, Christ actually tells us as Christians we should not expect to have the peace of the world.  Instead, we should expect the hatred of the world.  John 15:18-19 says,

“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.”

To make things even more complicated in Matthew 10:34 -36 Christ tells us He did not come to bring peace to the world. 

“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother in law— a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.”

If Christ did not come to bring peace, why did He bless the peacemakers in Matthew 5:9?  How do we reconcile these verses?  The key as I see it lies in the definition of Christ’s peace.  When Christ is talking about peacemakers He is talking about those who bring His peace not the world’s peace.  The world defines peace as lack of contention, no strife, no money problems, etc.  Christ’s peace on the other hand is the eternal peace of being reconciled to God and being assured of your salvation in His kingdom.  This is the peace that only comes from having a saving relationship with Jesus Christ.  Thus a peacemaker is someone who helps to bring others to Christ.  It is someone who shares the Gospel!  This fits well with Matthew 10:34-36.  For sharing the Gospel with others can be like a sword.  It sometimes breeds contention, seperates families and can even bring the hatred of others upon you.  

Are Apologetics Ministries peacemakers?   In my opinion, yes.  Although we make mistakes and occasionally offend people unnecessarily, our ultimate goal is to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to bring others to Him.  There are people coming to Christ everyday due to the work of Apologists.  In fact, my wife and I were brought to The Lord through Apologetics and I will be eternally grateful to those peacemakers who helped us.  They certainly helped to bring Eternal Peace into my family!

Darrell

General Apologetics, Resurrection

Thoughts on Ehrman/Licona Debate – Part 2

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So what about their arguments?  Were they effective?  First let’s examine Mike Licona.

Licona has argued this historical approach for proving the resurrection in a book entitled The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, co-authored with Gary Habermas.  The approach is fairly straight-forward and effective at making a historical case for the resurrection.  Licona, along with Habermas, has clearly done a significant amount of research on the topic, and his claims about the historical facts about Jesus were not at all disputed by Ehrman.

The problem with his approach, however, is that it will always remain unconvincing to any person who does not believe that the God of the Bible exists.  To the person who is a serious skeptic of the existence of God, any explanation will be better than Jesus rising from the dead.  The skeptic has to at least be open to the existence of God, or Licona’s argument will fall on deaf ears.  This is exactly what happened in the debate.

This is a general weakness of historical apologetics.  Worldview and philosophical presuppositions will often prevent the argument from winning over skeptics, which leads us to Ehrman’s case.

Ehrman disputed Licona’s historical argument on the grounds that historians must always reject an explanation that includes the supernatural.  The problem with Ehrman’s claim is that he rejects the possibility of a miracle ever occurring without ever examining the evidence.  Ehrman will tell you that a historian can never show you that Jesus rose from the dead.  But isn’t this a classic example of begging the question?

A person begs the question when they assume what is trying to be proven.  The question before Ehrman is whether historians can prove that Jesus rose from the dead.  He is to give evidential reasons as to why they cannot.  But his response to the question is, in effect: “Since historians can never prove whether the resurrection occurred (because it is miraculous), well then the resurrection can’t be proven by historians.”  Ehrman fails to consider any evidence, and basically rules out the possibility of proving any miraculous event from the start.

There is another problem with Ehrman’s argumentation.  He spent considerable time denigrating the historical reliability of the gospels, claiming they were written by partisan Christians who were trying to convert people.  He also claimed that the oral and written traditions of the early Christians were purposefully changed many times in order to better reach their audiences.  In other words, the writers of the gospels felt free to deceive people to win them over.

In addition, Ehrman cited numerous alleged examples of discrepancies and contradictions among the gospels.  He documents all of these in his books.

Ehrman, while explaining the alleged late dates of the gospels, also mentioned that he believes Mark was written first and that Matthew and Luke copied material from Mark and from each  other.  This is the standard position that many New Testament scholars hold.

What occurred to me while listening to Ehrman is that these positions he is holding do not make sense, when taken all together.  If the writers of the gospels were writing their material to gain converts, and they were copying each other, then why in the world did they make so many mistakes?  Ehrman claims to have found numerous discrepancies and contradictions that are supposed to undermine the accuracy of the gospels, but why are these discrepancies there?

Were the gospel writers so idiotic that they each changed the previous Jesus narratives, knowing they were contradicting previous oral and written testimonies?  Did they think nobody would notice?  By this theory, the writers of the gospels were not only liars, they also were ridiculously stupid and careless.

But it gets even worse.  The church fathers started compiling the four gospels in the second century and left all of the alleged errors in there!  By Ehrman’s logic, they also knew of these issues, they also were hoping to gain converts, and they also were willing to change history to succeed.  Why not change the gospels and clean them up?  If you are Ehrman, you have to believe that the gospel writers and church fathers were all deceptive and all stone dumb.  They were unable to get their stories straight, and in the end just left a big mess for enlightened scholars like Ehrman to clean up.  This theory strains credulity, does it not?

Isn’t a better explanation that the gospel writers wrote the accounts of Jesus from different perspectives, shared their accounts with each other to ensure accuracy, and strove to retain the historical truth?  Almost all of the alleged discrepancies can be readily explained, after all, by realizing that the gospel writers were recording history with different perspectives and different goals in mind.  And maybe the church fathers refused to change anything because the church community had always accepted these writings as authentic and accurate, and maybe, just maybe, they are.

General Apologetics, Intelligent Design

Interesting Comment This Morning

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I attend a Referral Network group every Tuesday morning and this morning a local Chiropractor gave a short presentation on her business.  This wonderful lady (who is a great Chiropractor by the way!!) made a few comments which amused me – in a good way. When talking about the human body she kept referring to “it’s design”.  In speaking about the kidneys, she said they are “designed” to rid the body of toxins.  She also referred to the marvel of how the body is “designed” to heal itself and warn us when something is wrong.

I always find it interesting how even in the most secular of business settings people can, perhaps unknowingly, marvel at the greatness of our Creator.  For referring to the body as something “designed” rather than “evolved” implies a Creator – if it is designed, who designed it? 

I had a huge smile on my face realizing that even without knowing it we praise our great God and Designer, Jesus Christ!!  It was a wonderful way to start off the day.

Darrell

General Apologetics

Empirically Test The Existence Of God?

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In my conversations with atheists and agnostics some have made the statement “the only way we can know if something is true or not is through empirical testing”.  Many then follow by saying this “disproves” the knowledge of the existence of God… saying “since we can’t empirically test the existence of God we cannot know for sure He exists”.  While this line of reasoning may seem logical in a society dominated by the philosophy of Naturalistic Materialism it has one severe problem… it is self-defeating.  For you cannot empirically test the statement “the only way we can know for something is true or not is through empirical testing”.  Therefore, turning the statement against itself we cannot know if it is true!

While empirical testing is a wonderful tool, to say it is the only way to know truth is vastly overreaching.  Of course we can know truth without empirical testing.   We do it everyday using the process of induction – drawing general conclusions through specific observation.  For example, if someone were to tell you they have a friend by the name of Henry who is a 4 legged reptile, you would logically determine Henry is not a man.  Every man you have observed in your life is a mammal (most with 2 legs… none with 4!), therefore, Henry cannot be a man. 

Can induction be used to determine the existence of God?  Absolutely!  We investigate God the same way we investigate other things we cannot see around us (i.e. gravity) – by observing their effects.  We will touch on this in future posts.

Darrell

General Apologetics

Are There Bad Apologetics Arguments?

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Yes, there are, and C. Michael Patton points out a few on his latest blog post, 14 Examples of Really Bad Apologetics.  His conclusion is that the evidence for the resurrection is the most important apologetic argument, and I agree that the evidence for the resurrection is very strong.  However, I think there are many other apologetic arguments (e.g., having to do with the existence of God) that are also powerful.  Hopefully you will see some of them here!

Evolution, General Apologetics, Morality, Philosophy

What Is Wrong With Social Darwinism? Part 2

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Continuing from yesterday’s post on What Is Wrong With Social Darwinism?  Part 1:

Fourth, morality is characterized by an “oughtness” that weighs upon us before we act.  It is prescriptive, not descriptive.  Ethics derived from evolution, however, are only descriptive.   Ethicist Francis Beckwith offers the insight that evolutionary ethics only tells us “what behaviors in the past may have been conducive to the survival of the species and why I may have on occasion moral feelings to act consistently with those behaviors.”  Beckwith continues, “But evolution cannot tell me whether I ought to act on those feelings in the present and in the future.”  

If ethicists grant that feelings of morality stem from a natural process of evolution, they are still left with the question of why anyone should follow those feelings.  After all, people choose every day to act on some feelings and to suppress others.  Perhaps one could argue that humans possess moral instincts that are hard-wired and based upon evolution; these moral instincts force behavior.  This line of argument, however, does not adequately explain the evidence at hand.  C.S. Lewis elaborates:

Supposing you hear a cry for help from a man in danger.  You will probably feel two desires – one a desire to give help (due to your herd instinct), the other a desire to keep out of danger (due to the instinct for self-preservation).  But you will find inside you, in addition to these two impulses, a third thing which tells you that you ought to follow the impulse to help, and suppress the impulse to run away.  Now this thing that judges between two instincts, that decides which should be encouraged, cannot itself be either of them.  You might as well say that the sheet of music which tells you . . . to play one note on the piano and not another, is itself one of the notes on the keyboard.

Fifth, morality is characterized by feelings of guilt and conscience.  Is there any robust support for conscience on a theory of evolutionary ethics?  It is perplexing to see exactly what that support would be.  If nature produced our moral instincts because they would ensure our survival, then why would it produce an opposing force that would pass negative judgment on those instincts?  It seems very odd that a non-material process would have developed feelings of guilt.  Feelings of guilt, like moral intuition, are only discovered through introspection, not by empirical methods using our five senses. 

I know that I have guilty feelings because I examine my conscious states and realize that I am experiencing the state of guilt.  Since there is no ontological status for anything like a mind or consciousness on the evolutionary (naturalistic) worldview, the evolutionist must explain feelings of guilt by purely physical means.  Philosopher J. P. Moreland points out that this simply will not work because the behavior or physical condition that results from a conscious state is not the same as the conscious state itself.  They are altogether different.

Sixth, morality is characterized by motive and intent.  The evolutionary explanation for morality only explains behaviors and actions taken by individuals in the struggle for survival.  As pre-humans evolved there were certain types of behavior that enabled their survival and there were certain types of behavior that hindered their survival.  If behavior A was beneficial, then those animals that acted out A would survive to reproduce more offspring and pass on the genetic traits that forced the animal to behave that way.  If behavior B caused an animal to die at an early age, before it could reproduce successfully, then its genetic traits would not be passed on. 

This explanation is interesting, but where do motive and intent enter the picture?  Motive and intent make morality quite a bit more complicated and evolution does not have the ontological tools to cope with them.  We’ve already seen that true mental states do not exist in a naturalistic world and it would appear that motive and intent are completely ad hoc and unnecessary on an evolutionary explanation of ethics.  Francis Beckwith summarizes that “since evolution, at best, can only describe what behaviors are conducive to the preservation of the species and does not address the role of motive and intent in evaluating those behaviors, evolution is an inadequate explanation for the existence of moral norms.”

In summary, social Darwinism, as an ethical system, fails to account for all seven aspects of morality that we know from our innate moral intuition.  It cannot account for the objectivity of moral norms or the immateriality of moral norms.  It fails to account for the facts that moral norms are a form of communication and that they are prescriptive, and not just descriptive.  Social Darwinism cannot explain why behaving badly affects our conscience, nor does it have the tools to deal with motive or intent.

[quotation references can be provided on request]

Evolution, General Apologetics, Morality, Philosophy

What Is Wrong With Social Darwinism? Part 1

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As we saw in the previous post describing social Darwinism, it was a disastrous experiment for mankind in the twentieth century, but need it have been?  Certainly some dastardly individuals justified their tyrannical reigns with it, but we must take a sober look at the theory and evaluate its ability to explain the moral truths that were discussed earlier.

The ethics of social Darwinism are largely relativistic and subjective.  Any society could develop an ethical justification for its moral actions by claiming that their goal was the advancement of humankind.  This is a seemingly noble goal, but the definition of the “advancement of mankind” is hardly universal.  Under social Darwinism, each society ultimately chooses its own definition and then forges ahead with its own effectual policies. 

A totally relativistic system such as social Darwinism, however, runs afoul of our innate sense of moral right and wrong.  For example, we intuitively know that murdering innocent people is morally abhorrent.  We know that murdering millions of innocent people is especially horrendous.  Certainly a supporter of social Darwinism could argue that the goal of producing a superior race of humans justifies the means (murdering innocents) of reaching that goal.  This utilitarian view, however, does not escape the basic moral intuition that mass extermination of human life is morally wrong.  The end cannot possibly justify the means and so social Darwinism violates our intuitive knowledge of right and wrong.

Second, moral rules are non-physical entities, but strict adherents to social Darwinism believe mankind evolved by completely natural and material processes.  To a Darwinist there is only time, space, and matter, and therefore everything in the universe must be explained by those three things.  Since our moral intuition is not discovered by our five senses, but by self-reflection, then there must be an immaterial or “soulish” aspect to a human person.  Any ethical theory that denies the existence of non-physical objects seems to contradict our innate ability to know objective, moral truth. 

Third, moral norms are a form of communication between two intelligent agents.  Who are the two agents in social Darwinism?  The ultimate source of morality for the social Darwinist is a random, natural, and unguided process (i.e., Darwinian evolution).   In other words, the transmitter is not an intelligent agent and does not possess any sort of rational faculties.  Therefore, there is clearly no communication happening at all, so again the theory violates our moral common sense criteria.

Much more can be said about social Darwinism and we will continue this analysis in a future post!

Atheism, General Apologetics, Morality, Profanity

What Do Political Liberals and Atheists Have In Common?

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According to an August 2008 poll by Barna Group, they are both far more likely than conservatives and evangelical Christians to engage in behaviors such as unmarried sex, viewing pornography, lying, getting drunk, and gossipping.   These results, sadly, are not surprising to me, as previous poll data and personal experience have proven these facts true over and over.

With regard to liberals vs. conservatives, here are the statistics when respondents were asked what behaviors they engaged in during the previous week:

On average, adults who describe themselves as “mostly liberal” on sociopolitical issues were twice as likely as those who describe themselves as “mostly conservative” to participate in activities that conflict with traditional moral perspectives. In particular, liberals were five times more likely to participate in unmarried sex (20% vs. 4%), more than three times as likely to view pornography (30% vs. 8%), more than twice as likely to lie (21% vs. 8%) and to get drunk (17% vs. 7%), and twice as likely to engage in retaliation (13% vs. 6%) and gossip (17% vs. 9%).

Atheists and agnostics don’t fare much better when compared to evangelical Christians:

Examining people’s faith perspectives revealed that evangelicals were the group most likely to follow traditional morality while atheists and agnostics were the faith segment most likely to reject those ways.

Among evangelicals, profanity (16%) and pornography (12%) were the most common transgressions. Fewer than 5% of evangelicals had engaged in gossip (4%), inappropriate sex (3%), gambling (2%), lying (1%) or drunkenness (less than one-half of one percent).

In contrast, among skeptics (atheists and agnostics) participation in the eight behaviors ranged from a low of 11% (retaliating) up to a high of 60% (using profanity). While evangelicals averaged 6% participation in each of the eight behaviors mentioned, skeptics averaged five times that level (29%). Other common acts among skeptics included exposure to pornography (50%), gossip (34%) and drunkenness (33%).

What to make of these results?  Although it is possible for atheists to live moral lives, they often do not, when compared to strong Christians.  Again, there is no surprise here for those of us who have come from non-belief to belief, as adults.  We remember how we were before Christ changed us from the inside out.  If Christ does not live inside you, you face an impossible battle.  Rather than gloat, as believers, we should humbly thank God for what He’s done for us.  The atheist lives just like we would without God’s grace.

General Apologetics

Are Christians Thinking About Christianity?

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No, not many of them.  I suspect that this just mirrors the fact that most people aren’t thinking about anything.  But it shouldn’t be that way for those who call themselves followers of Christ.  He called us to love God with our mind .  Read these quotes below and see if any of them apply to you or someone you know.  If so, what are you going to do about it?  (Hint: reading this blog might be a great start!)

“We are having a revival of feelings but not of the knowledge of God.  The church today is more guided by feelings than by convictions.  We value enthusiasm more than informed commitment.” – 1980 Gallup Poll on religion

“We live in what may be the most anti-intellectual period in the history of western civilization.”  – R. C. Sproul

“Ignorance is the mother, not of devotion, but of heresy.”  – Puritan Cotton Mather

“For many, religion is identified by subjective feelings, sincere motives, personal piety, and blind faith.”  – J. P. Moreland

“I’m always encouraged to use my intellect in how I approach my vocation, select a house, or learn to use a computer.  But within the sphere of my private, spiritual life of faith, it is my heart, and my heart alone, that operates.”  – J. P. Moreland

“Most Christians would rather die than think – in fact they do.”  – Bertrand Russell

Atheism, General Apologetics

Response to YouTube Atheist

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In a recent post, I asked our readers to watch the video of an atheist gentleman who addressed his video to “all Christians.”  In the video, he attempts to convince Christians that they are wrong to believe in the Christian God and Bible.

I wanted to make a few comments about what he said.

First, he badly misunderstands religious truth claims.  In his video he argues that since there are multitudes of religions in the world, that the chance that Christianity is the true religion is extremely small.  The problem with this argument is that it assumes that all ideas have an equal chance of being true.  But that is clearly not so.  The way we determine whether an idea is true is we assess the evidence for it. 

Religions make claims about the world that we can test.  If religion A makes a claim about the world that is false, we can safely say that religion A is not true, or at least that part of it isn’t.  For example, some religions make historical claims that are seriously lacking any evidence and, in fact, contradict known historical facts.  Those religions should be judged false.

Besides, his argument boomerangs back on him, because atheism is only one of multitudes of options, so his chance of being right is just as small as the Christian, by his own flawed logic.

He next compares God to unicorns.  He claims that there is no evidence for God or unicorns, and therefore he doesn’t need any faith to not believe in God or unicorns.  A couple things could be said. 

First, nobody argues that unicorns are real, except for a few kooks, whereas north of 95% of all the people that have ever lived believed in a god or gods.  Surely the atheist has to explain why that is.

Second, there are numerous evidences for the existence of God captured in books that fill up libraries.  Anybody heard of C. S. Lewis?  He may not be convinced of these evidences, but to say that there are none offered is false.  I am not aware of huge libraries filled with books offering evidence for unicorns.

Third, if it is so obvious that there is no evidence for God, then why do so many people not see it?  And really smart people?  I have an electrical engineering degree from GA Tech, and I think there is a difference between unicorns and God.  Unicorns are just concepts that do not exist in reality, but God exists in reality.  Why?  What is wrong with me?  How did YouTube guy figure it out?  He needs to consider these questions.

But perhaps the saddest thing about this video is that he doesn’t understand Christianity.  In a period of a few minutes, he mangles the gospel, he misunderstands the use of metaphor in the Bible, and he misinterprets the doctrine of hell (the Bible never teaches that God literally burns people alive for eternity; it is a figure of speech). 

Based on these gross errors, I draw the conclusion that he really hasn’t studied Christianity, as he says at the beginning of the video.

Dinesh D’Souza coined a term for people who believe in a childish form of Christianity.  He calls them crayon Christians.  These are people who never grow in their understanding of the faith, and are stuck in a childish belief system.  That describes our YouTube atheist.  His Christian beliefs never advanced beyond the crayon stage.

I pray that some day he puts the crayons aside.