About the blog, General Apologetics

Off to the National Conference on Christian Apologetics

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

Today Darrell and I are off to the National Conference on Christian Apologetics, sponsored by Southern Evangelical Seminary.  I’ve been to the conference many times over the past decade and have watched it grow from less than a thousand in attendance to over four thousand.

Some of the speakers that will be there this year are Chuck Colson, Josh McDowell, Gary Habermas, Erwin Lutzer, Marvin Olasky, William Dembski, and Anthony Bradley – an impressive lineup, as usual.

If you live anywhere near Charlotte, NC, you ought to consider coming either Friday or Saturday.  Friday features smaller seminars and workshops, whereas Saturday is when the plenary sessions are held.

Every year I learn a tremendous amount and come away inspired, so I’m sure the conference will generate lots of ideas for new blog posts in the coming weeks!

Darrell and I will take a break from the blog for a few days while we attend, but we’ll be back next week.

God bless and thank you for reading Tough Questions Answered!

Books of the Bible, Creation, Difficult Bible Passages

Does Genesis 2 Contradict Genesis 1?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

A common misunderstanding of the Book of Genesis is how chapters 1 and 2 are related.  Specifically, chapter 1 claims that land animals were created before Adam (see Gen. 1:24-26), but chapter 2 seems to claim that Adam was created before land animals (see Gen. 2:19).  Is it possible that these two creation accounts are contradictory?

The alleged contradiction is refuted when we look more closely at Gen. 2:19.  The NIV translates the verse, “Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.”

Notice that the verse says that God had formed the animals, meaning that the animals were already formed before Adam.  So the contradiction evaporates.

Some translations (e.g., NAS), however, don’t translate the word had, but leave it out (either translation of the verse from Hebrew to English is permissible).  Does this make it a contradiction?

No, not really.  When we look at the focus of chapter 1, it seems to be on the order of creation, but the focus of the passages surrounding Gen. 2:19 is on the naming of animals and the creation of Eve.

According to Norman Geisler and Thomas Howe,

Genesis 1 gives the order of events; Genesis 2 provides more content about them. Genesis 2 does not contradict chapter 1, since it does not affirm exactly when God created the animals. He simply says He brought the animals (which He had previously created) to Adam so that he might name them. The focus in chapter 2 is on the naming of the animals, not on creating them. Genesis 1 provides the outline of events, and chapter 2 gives details. Taken together, the two chapters provide a harmonious and more complete picture of the creation events.

A footnote in The Apologetics Study Bible explains:

Chapter 2 is a second creation account only in the sense that it gives a more detailed accounting, not a contradictory one.  While chapter 1 provides a general description, chapter 2 is specific.  Twofold accounts were common in ancient theories of creation (e.g., the Babylonian story of Atrahasis).  The differences in the order of the creation events are due to the narratives’ respective purposes.  The first gives a loosely chronological account, gathering creation events into a discernible pattern to show the symmetry of creation’s purpose.  The second is topical, focusing on the sixth day by expanding on the creation and the relationship of the man and the woman.  Genesis 2 presupposes chapter 1 and does not duplicate all the creation events.

So Genesis 2 does not contradict Genesis 1 at all, once we see the different purposes for the two different creation narratives.  In fact, they are complementary to each other, with Genesis 2 filling in details from the creation account of Genesis 1.

Inerrancy, Philosophy

Are You Arguing Badly?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

Have you ever been arguing (holding a rational discourse where you are giving evidence to support your position) with someone and realized that they are not arguing against your position at all?  Instead, they are arguing against a distorted or false version of your position.  As I’ve discussed the beliefs of Christianity and the evidence for those beliefs over the last 7 years, I’ve seen this happen frequently.

What is going on when this happens?  After all, it’s pretty hard to get going with an argument if you can’t even agree what you’re arguing about.  There could be several reasons why your opponent is arguing a different version of your position.

  1. They may not understand your position even after you’ve explained it.
  2. They may assume they know your position before asking you.
  3. They may understand your position but purposefully distort it because the distorted version is easier to disprove.

Regardless of the reason, if your opponent is arguing against a false or distorted version of your view, then he is committing what philosophers call the “straw man” fallacy.  The fallacy is thus named because it is easier to knock down a straw man than a real man.

An example might be helpful.  Recently a Muslim commented on the blog that when Christian apologists are confronted with the inconsistencies and contradictions in the New Testament Gospels, they admit the contradictions but argue that the Gospels are still inspired and inerrant because each of the Gospels still contains the same basic message about Jesus and his life.

The problem is that the Muslim has distorted the apologist’s position.  First of all, apologists typically do not agree that there are contradictions in the Gospels.  Second, when Christian apologists are discussing the differences in the Gospel accounts, they are not discussing inspiration and inerrancy at all; rather, they are usually talking about the historical trustworthiness of the Gospel accounts (see this post for more on this topic).

The trustworthiness of the Gospel narratives and the inerrancy of the Bible are two disparate topics that our Muslim commenter is confusing by mashing them together into one phantom argument that no apologist makes.  So our Muslim friend is committing the straw man fallacy.  He is arguing against a false view that no Christian apologist holds.

If you are ever arguing with someone, make sure you understand their view before you engage.  I know this can be difficult sometimes (I struggle to do it myself), but it is so important.  If you don’t engage your opponent’s true viewpoint, you will never make any progress toward understanding his point of view and then making rational arguments against it.  All you’re really doing is knocking over straw men.

Religion, Theology

What Is the Christian Worldview? Part 2

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

In part 1 I introduced eight questions that every worldview should answer.  These eight questions are as follows:

  1. What is ultimate reality?
  2. Where did the world around us come from and what is its nature?
  3. What are human beings and where did they come from?
  4. Why do humans suffer?
  5. Is there a way for humans to be saved from suffering?
  6. How do I know right from wrong?
  7. What is the meaning or purpose of my life?
  8. What happens to me when I die?

Christianity offers profound and, what’s even more important, true answers to these questions.  The first four answers were provided in part 1, so now we will look at the answers to the final four questions.

Question 5: Is there a way for humans to be saved from suffering?

Christians believe that the only way humans can be ultimately saved from suffering is to be reconciled with God.  This reconciliation was made possible by the death and resurrection of the Son of God, Jesus Christ.  Once a person trusts Christ for their salvation, suffering in this life becomes bearable and pregnant with meaning, for the Son of God is with us in our suffering and promises to bring good out of it.

Question 6: How do I know right from wrong?

Christians believe that there exists an objective moral law that is based on the nature of God.  God reveals his perfect moral nature both through moral commands which he has communicated in the Bible, and through a common moral conscience which God has given all humans.

Question 7: What is the meaning or purpose of my life?

Christians believe that the purpose of life is to do the will of God and to enjoy God forever.  One of the beauties of Christianity is that God has given us great leeway to pursue myriad interests and passions in this life, as long as we always keep Him front and center in our lives.

Question 8: What happens to me when I die?

Christians believe that there is an afterlife for every human.  The afterlife can be spent either in the presence of God forever or separated from God forever.  God respects human freedom such that He does not force anyone to spend an eternity with Him.  Jesus Christ’s sacrificial death and resurrection provides the only means for any human to spend eternity with God.  Those who reject Jesus’ sacrifice for humanity will forever be separated from God.  Those who trust in Jesus’ sacrifice will spend a blissful eternity with the ultimate source of all that is good and the only being who can fulfill all human desires, God.

The Christian answers to these eight questions are unique among all the world’s religions and philosophies.  It is important to note that we don’t hold the Christian worldview because it works, or because it feels good, or because it’s emotionally satisfying, but because we think it is true.  We think that the Christian worldview most accurately describes reality the way it really is.

Religion, Theology

What Is the Christian Worldview? Part 1

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

According to James Sire in The Universe Next Door, a worldview is the following:

A commitment, a fundamental orientation of the heart, that can be expressed as a story or in a set of presuppositions (assumptions which may be true, partially true, or entirely false) which we hold (consciously or subconsciously, consistently or inconsistently) about the basic constitution of reality, and that provides the foundation on which we live and move and have our being.

It’s how we view the world!  All of us have a worldview, whether we realize it or not.  For those of us who are Christian, our faith heavily informs our worldview, or at least it should.  A person’s worldview should ideally answer a set of questions which are foundational to human existence.  These questions can be asked in several ways, but here are my versions of these questions:

  1. What is ultimate reality?
  2. Where did the world around us come from and what is its nature?
  3. What are human beings and where did they come from?
  4. Why do humans suffer?
  5. Is there a way for humans to be saved from suffering?
  6. How do I know right from wrong?
  7. What is the meaning or purpose of my life?
  8. What happens to me when I die?

You can evaluate any person’s worldview by asking them for answers to these questions.  Not only will you have a fascinating conversation, but you will learn what makes the other person tick.  You will get to see the world through their eyes.

So the next obvious question is this: how would a Christian answer these eight questions?  Christianity certainly offers compelling responses to these questions, as you would expect.  Below I will give you brief answers and then perhaps we can flesh them out if you (my blog-reading friends) would like to discuss them in the comments.

Question 1: What is ultimate reality?

Christians believe that the ultimate reality is God.  The Christian God has a number of qualities, but here are some of the most important: God is infinite, personal, sovereign, good, holy, transcendent, omniscient, and omnipotent.

Question 2: Where did the world around us come from and what is its nature?

Christians believe that the world around us is composed of time, space, matter, and energy, as scientists have demonstrated.  We believe that this physical world was spoken into existence by God.  We believe that God is separate from the world and not actually part of the world.

Question 3: What are human beings and where did they come from?

Human beings are soul and body.  We possess spiritual and physical dimensions.  We are created in the image of God, which means we represent God on earth as his representatives.  Being in God’s image, humans are also personal, intelligent, and moral beings.

Question 4: Why do humans suffer?

Humans suffer because of the Fall.  The Fall occurred when the first two human beings, Adam and Eve, rejected God and sought to usurp his position.  This rebellion – acting in a way contrary to God’s will –  introduced the disease of sin into the world, a disease which is passed on to every human generation.  All human suffering is ultimately the result of this pivotal event in human history.

I’ll finish up with answers to the last four questions in the next post.  See you then!

Eastern Orthodox, Mind-Body Theory

Are the Human Mind and Body Separate from Each Other?

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Post Author: Darrell

Recently, I have been studying the Eastern Orthodox tradition of Christianity, and quite honestly, I have found it to be a very intriguing faith.  They have a rich history and their faith is filled with traditions that hark back to the early Church.  Their approach to the Christian life and worship is unique, refreshing, and in many respects quite inspiring.

The Orthodox view of the human person is especially interesting.  Many Western Christians hold to a dualistic view of the mind and the body, believing them to be separate types of reality with the mind being equivalent to the spirit and the body being purely material.  While there are many profound advantages to this view, it is not without some serious challenges.  For example, dualism fails to account for the dramatic change in personality and character that can occur from physical damage to the brain and/or chemical imbalances within the body.  If the mind and spirit are separate entities, why do such changes in personality take place when a purely physical entity such as the brain is damaged?  It appears that any rational explanation for this would have to account for a profound connection between mind and body, yet this connection is precisely what the dualistic view seeks to avoid.

The Eastern Tradition of Christianity takes a different approach to mind/body duality, essentially saying that it doesn’t exist.  Instead, Orthodox view human personhood as a unity between the mind and the body.  In The Orthodox Church, Timothy Ware says:

The west has often associated the image of God with the human soul or intellect.  While many Orthodox have done the same, others would say that since the human person is a single unified whole, the image of God embraces the entire person, body and soul as well. . . . Our body is not an enemy, but a partner and collaborator with our soul. [emphasis mine]

This is not to say that Orthodox believe that God has a body… they don’t.  They hold to a very traditional view of the Godhead, believing the Father to be spirit.  However, to the Orthodox, Christ’s incarnation united the physical and the spiritual.  Fourtenth century Saint of The Eastern Orthodox Church, Gregory Palamas, has been quoted as saying, “By taking a human body at the Incarnation, [Christ] has made the flesh an inexhaustible source of sanctification.”

This unified view of the body and soul has a few similarities (although there are still many stark differences) to the mind/body theory known as Emergentism.  Emergentism says the human mind is not wholly separate from, nor entirely connected to, the body.  Instead, the mind, while produced by the brain, is entirely distinct from the brain.  As an analogy, we can look at magnetic fields and gravitational fields.  Both fields are produced by a generating physical object; however, they are also distinct from the generating physical object.  In the same way, Emergentism says that the mind emerges from the body (brain), but is still distinct from the body.

While this view has its challenges as well, it does appear to answer some of the questions left unanswered by the dualist.  Perhaps we Westerners have something to think about?

Miracles, Science and God

Researchers Show How Wind Could Have Parted the Red Sea

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

A study has just been released where researchers have shown how wind could have parted the Red Sea.

Researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the University of Colorado have found a location in the Nile River’s ancient delta where an east wind — blowing at 63 mph for 12 hours — could have pushed back the waters and exposed a muddy land bridge.

When the wind died down, the water would have come rushing back, according to NCAR’s Carl Drews, lead author of a paper published today in the journal PLoS ONE.
The article describes how Drews came to his conclusions:
Drews scoured old maps of the way the Nile River delta and the waterways around the Red Sea’s Gulf of Suez may have looked thousands of years ago. Eventually, he found a map that showed an ancient river merging with a coastal lagoon near the Mediterranean, forming a U shape.

“It formed this bend in the body of water facing east,” Drews said. “When the wind blew from the east, the water would split around the bend — you can imagine that peninsula cutting the water like a ship’s prow.”

Ultimately, Drews didn’t know what was possible until he ran a computer simulation. When he did, he found that if a 63 mph wind blew for 12 hours, the 6-foot-deep water in the east-facing bend would have been pushed back, creating a dry passage more than two miles long and three miles wide.

Who knows if this is really what happened.  We’ll probably never find out for certain, but these sorts of historical scientific investigations always fascinate me, as they pull back the curtain to let us see how God may have used nature to perform some of his most spectacular miracles.
Existence of God, Philosophy

A Simple Argument for God’s Existence

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

A couple months ago, we featured a 7 minute audio clip from philosopher Peter Kreeft’s lecture on arguments for God’s existence.  For this post, we are presenting an additional clip from the lecture – this time on the first cause argument for God’s existence.  Again, Kreeft does a wonderful job simplifying the argument so that anyone can understand.  Enjoy!

[audio:https://www.toughquestionsanswered.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Arguments-for-the-Existence-of-God-First-Cause.mp3|titles=The First Cause Argument]
Creation, Existence of God, Science and God

Is Hawking’s Theory about the Creation of the Universe New?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

I was discussing Hawking’s recent book with a regular blog commenter who mentioned that Hawking’s ideas on the creation of the universe were new and that he hadn’t had time to look into them.  This got me thinking about whether Hawking really was on to some new formulation of physics that had never been published before.

It turns out the answer is “no,” according to physicist Stephen Barr.  In his article, “Much Ado About ‘Nothing’: Stephen Hawking and the Self-Creating Universe,” he traces the genesis of Hawking’s ideas:

The idea that Hawking is now touting is not new—in fact, within the fast-moving world of modern physics it is fairly old. My first introduction to it was reading a very elegant theoretical paper entitled “Creation of Universes from Nothing,” written in 1982 by the noted cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin, who argued that our universe might have arisen by a “quantum fluctuation.”

This idea is sometimes referred to as the quantum creation of the universe. There are different variants, but the basic idea is well-known among particle physicists and cosmologists.

Barr then proceeds to describe the nature of this theory:

Right up front, it must be noted that this idea is extremely speculative, has not yet been formulated in a mathematically rigorous way, and is unable at this point to make any testable predictions. Indeed, it is very hard to imagine how it could ever be tested. It would be more accurate to call these “scenarios” than theories.

Having said this, though, Barr warns readers not to blindly dismiss the idea of quantum creation.  He explains that it is based on applying quantum mechanics to entire universes.  Although quantum mechanics is well understood at a sub-atomic level, Hawking and others are speculating what quantum mechanics might look like at the level of entire universes.

After expanding upon the theory of quantum creation, Barr ultimately comes to this point:

Perhaps my explanations are not really necessary. Even the most casual readers recognize that the cosmological theories put forward by Hawking do not bear upon larger questions that motivate classical views of creation out of nothing. Non-scientists are quick to ask the obvious questions. Why a system obeying quantum mechanics, M-theory, superstring theory, or whatever laws of physics that make scientific speculations possible in the first place? Why not no system at all, with no laws at all, no anything, just blank non-being?

Let’s put Hawking’s theories in perspective.  What exactly can these theories tell us?

Physics scenarios and theories are merely mathematical stories. They may be fictional or describe some reality. And just as the words of a book by themselves can’t tell you whether it’s fact or fiction—let alone have the power to make the world they describe real—so with the equations of a physics scenario. As Hawking once understood, equations may turn out to be an accurate description of some reality, but cannot not confer reality on the things they describe.

Finally, Barr reminds us:

There are two answers to the question: “Why does anything exist rather than nothing at all?” The atheist answers, “There is no explanation.” The theist replies, God. An intelligent case can be made for either answer. But to say that the laws of physics alone answer it is the purest nonsense—as Hawking himself once realized.

Strong Calvinism

Strong Calvinism and Voluntarism

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Post Author:  Darrell

Five Point Calvinism is commonly referred to by the acronym TULIP.  The “T” in TULIP stands for Total Depravity.  Theopedia defines it as follows: “[E]very person born into the world is morally corrupt, enslaved to sin and is, apart from the grace of God, utterly unable to choose to follow God or choose to turn to Christ in faith for salvation.”  The “I” in TULIP stands for Irresistible Grace, which according to Theopedia teaches that “the saving grace of God is effectually applied to those whom he has determined to save (the elect), whereby in God’s timing, he overcomes their resistance to the call of the gospel and irresistibly brings them to a saving faith in Christ.”       

Critics of Five Point Calvinism claim that a strong interpretation of these two doctrines makes God out to be unloving at best and monstrous at worse.  The reasoning for this can be stated as follows.  A strong view of Total Depravity says that man is unable to choose God unless God first regenerates him, thereby giving him the ability to have faith.  In addition, Irresistible Grace says that if God gives a man faith, that individual is unable to resist the call and will come to God in faith.  In other words, those to whom God gives faith are going to heaven.  In fact, they are unable not to go to Heaven, for God’s grace is irresistible.  However, those to whom He does not give faith have absolutely no chance for Heaven because they are totally depraved and are unable to choose God. 

Here is the sticky point though – if man cannot choose God unless God first gives him faith, and if those to whom God does give faith are definitely going to Heaven, why doesn’t God give everybody faith?  Those He doesn’t are destined for Hell and have no other options.  God could save them, but He doesn’t.  How is it all-loving for God to give faith to some yet leave others with absolutely no options other than Hell?

One response I have received when discussing this dilemma with Strong Calvinists is that whatever God chooses to do is perfectly just simply because God wills it.  They then tell me to suggest otherwise is wrong because I am presuming to judge God.  I would like to point out two problems with this response.   First, it is begging the question that the Strong Calvinist positions on Total Depravity and Irresistible Grace are correct.  However, that is precisely the point being discussed.  Therefore, I am not judging God’s actions; rather, I am judging the merit of the Strong Calvinist’s opinion of what God’s actions have been.  Second, this response employs a radical form of Voluntarism – the belief that something is right simply because God wills it is to be so. Voluntarism creates some serious problems for the Calvinist, for it leads to inconsistency in their position on the nature of God and renders the doctrine that God is a simple unchangeable being (a central doctrine of traditional Christianity) untenable.  In his book Chosen But Free, Dr. Norman Geisler pointed this out quite eloquently.

[Strong Calvinists] are inconsistent with their own position on the nature of God.  On the one hand, they claim God’s mercy is based in His supreme and sovereign will – He can will anything He wants to will and show mercy on anyone to whom He wants to show mercy.  On the other hand, they claim that God’s holiness and justice are unchanging.  He cannot be unholy or unjust, even if He wanted to be.  By His very nature God must punish sin.  But they cannot have it both ways.  For as a simple unchangeable being, all of His attributes are unchangeable.  If He is just (and He is), then He must be unchangeably just at all times to all persons in all circumstances.  And if He is loving (and He is), then he must be unchangeably loving to all persons at all times in all circumstances.  To be other than this would be to act contrary to his unchangeable nature, which is impossible (Chosen But Free, Pg.246). 

I couldn’t have said it better.

Bottom line – if God is all-loving, He has to be loving to all.  To irresistibly save some by giving them faith, yet withhold the ability to exercise faith from others, thereby dooming them to Hell, is most certainly not all-loving.  In addition, parsing up God’s loving nature by saying He can show love to some and withhold it from others violates His nature as a simple unchangeable being.  In my opinion, this presents some serious challenges to the Strong Calvinist positions of Total Depravity and Irresistible Grace.

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