Deeper: Apologetics week 3 (Plan)

Apologetics- Deeper- Week 3

The Bible, Jesus the Messiah and reliability

Prayer

Recap (understanding alarm)

John 20:31

The Bible, when we get into the nitty gritty is a complicated book, powerful and lively. But can we trust what it says about Jesus?  There are a number of objections that we have to deal with before saying ‘yes’.

1. We can’t trust what the Bible says (about Jesus) because it’s been translated and changed so many times.

2. There isn’t any good evidence for believing Jesus existed

3. The Bible is incorrect because miracles can’t happen

Let’s look at point 1 first.  Now despite this being a common objection when we look closely we find that it is false.  Translations of the Bible nowadays are more accurate than translations we have closer to the time.  Why? Because archaeologists are constantly uncovering very early copies of the gospels.  So, the more copies we find, the more accurate we can be when translating and knowing what the original gospels said.  Rather than getting further away from what they said we are closer.  We can know exactly what they said, word for word.  But are there enough early manuscripts to put together an accurate translation of the original.  Yes!  We have around 5,000 early manuscripts! Usually for other ancient writings we only have about 10 copies early and late to use.  So the difference is massive.  Also on most Bibles, the translation will have been put together by over 100

experts.  And even then, if you don’t think the English is accurate enough you can always learn ancient Greek!

So answers to point one are as follows:

·         We have a lot of material to work with, around 5000 early manuscripts (compare)

·         Hundreds of experts spend hours getting it right

·         Even if someone did change something we have so many copies we could tell that it has been changed and take the change out.

2.  David Watson writes,

“Of his actual historical existence there is no doubt”

Why because we have lots of evidence that he existed, Christian and non-Christian apart from the Gospels.  Here is a list:

Ancient Historians

Tacitus

Suetonius

Josephus

Thallus

Government Officials

Pliny the Younger

Emperor Trajan

Emperor Hadrian

Other Jewish Sources

The Talmud

Toledoth Jesu

Other Gentile Sources

Lucian

Mara Bar-Serapion

So we have lots of non-Christian evidence supporting the existence of Jesus.  In fact from these sources alone we learn that,

1. Jesus lived during the time of Tiberius 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. [3]

On top of all this we have the gospels which assert Jesus did exist and he was Christ.

The third objection that ‘miracles can’t happen’ is an assumption.  If you look at Jesus life and you’ve made the assumption that miracles can’t happen then of course he wasn’t special.  But we have no reason to say that miracles can’t happen or that it’s improbable that they happen. So no worries there.

We have no reason to say miracles don’t happen.

Miracles happen today we’ve seen them.

John 15:5

Remember faith is based on a relationship with God not arguments for God.

( Q and A )

Response

Prayer

Naturalism and the death of morality

Blog #2: Naturalism and the death of morality

“The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”

 -- Richard Dawkins, "God's Utility Function," published in Scientific American (November, 1995), p. 85

No good. No evil.  The desperate cry of naturalism echoes forth into a chasm of moral despair.  One of the main arguments for God’s existence from natural theology is termed the moral argument.  It asks the question, can one; if one is a naturalist retain the ability to make moral judgements?  What basis do we have for affirming an objective morality?  Where do we get this idea of right and wrong, moral action and obligation?  If at bottom we are the results of purely natural evolutionary processes, can we affirm objective morality?  No.  We cannot.  Dawkins and many an atheist before him attest to this fact.  In a purely naturalistic reality all we are left with is social Darwinism and Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche’s nihilism, will to power.  This topic has long been discussed, the foundations of morality, and indeed whether morality itself exists have long been debated amongst the most eloquent of philosophers.  C.S.Lewis writes,

“My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?” - Mere Christianity

If we are purely the product of natural processes,  if we are just the products of Darwinian evolution, then our morality or sense of morality is just a by-product.  We end up with moral relativism, we can neither affirm something as truly good or truly bad.  Indeed over a period of time acts like rape, murder and genocide may have become socially and culturally taboo, but nevertheless they remain empty human inventions.  Their only use is in prolonging survival. Who are we to say that those indigenous societies that drop their babies from hut roofs to test whether they should be allowed to live are wrong?  Who are we to say that eating our enemies is worse than loving them? Echoing Professor William Lane Craig and Richard Taylor, a lion kills a zebra, but the lion doesn’t murder the zebra.  Are we, out of all of creation the governors of what is right and wrong?  To say so seems to me in agreement with Craig a kind of specie-ism.  Affirming an objective morality, if one is an atheist, is purely an exercise in self-delusion, inconsistent with a naturalistic worldview, a wild fantasy of moral grandeur. (Sam Harris ‘Moral Landscape’ springs to mind)  But do you seriously doubt the existence of morality?  When faced with the holocaust can you hold up your hands and say Hitler wasn’t doing anything morally incorrect?  I submit that I myself cannot make this statement.  Craig formulates the argument as follows,

1.       If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.

2.       Objective moral values and duties do exist.

3.       Therefore, God exists.

(Craig, Reasonable faith, pg172)

When we speak of objectivity we are saying that the objective something exists independently of what people think or perceive.  Craig states,

“To say that we have objective moral duties is to say that certain actions are right or wrong for us independently of whether any human being believes them to be so.”

(Reasonable Faith pg173)

Now Let me clarify this argument is not saying that atheists are bad or that atheists are incapable of making accurate moral judgements.  I believe they can.  The question is whether they have grounds for believing morality to be objective.  What we are looking at here is not a moral epistemology but a moral ontology.  To reach the conclusion that a moral law requires a moral lawgiver we have to assess the naturalistic options available to us and understand where they go wrong.  How then might the naturalist reply to premise one of the argument?  They try to affirm objective morality apart from God’s existence.  But why think that those morals we have are objective if they are just a product of evolutionary development.  Indeed, if we rewound the evolutionary history of the earth and started again we may come to end up with a wholly different set of morals.  Evolution selects what aids survival, it does not care about the truth value of a belief it only cares about survival value.  Thus this objection leaves us with no ground for objective morality.  It leaves us with moral relativism, which is the equivalent of no morality at all.  A second objection that could be made is that of atheistic moral Platonism which affirms moral values exist but are not rooted in God. But what does it mean to affirm this proposition?  Are we to believe that the moral property goodness exists in metaphysical ether? Craig makes it clear in his formulation of the argument that atheistic moral Platonism is incompatible with moral duty or obligation.

“On this view moral vices such as Greed, Hatred, and Selfishness also presumably exist as abstract objects.  Why am I obligated to align my life with one set of these abstractly existing objects rather than any other?” (Reasonable Faith pg179)

It seems to me clear that to feel moral obligation under a moral law can only be the result of a moral lawgiver. A cosmic, transcendent ground for morality.  The God hypothesis gives ample explanation of why, if objective moral values and duties exist, they should be attributed to him.

Why affirm that premise two is true?  Because of  our own moral experience.  One finds it increasingly difficult to deny that genocide is not evil.  That child rape is not bad.  On atheism we are forced to conclude that we can make no moral judgements. But to say this seems self evidentially incorrect.  If like me, you cannot ignore that nagging moral pressure, the existence of objective morality.  The reality of the holocaust being a truly evil act, then it logically follows that God exists.

Peace and Grace

Tim

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj2BeUP52Dc

 I would suggest reading Reasonable faith by William Lane Craig and Mere Christianity by C.S.Lewis as they put this argument much better than me.

Deeper: Apologetics week 2 (Plan)

Apologetics-Deeper- Week 2

The existence of God

Prayer

Understanding alarm

Recap

You will remember that last week we talked about what apologetics is.  Can anyone remember what we said? 

·         Apologetics is a form of evangelism

·         Apologetics is mainly concerned with defence of our faith

·         Apologetics should be used appropriately, with gentleness and respect

Colossians 4:6

Arguments For the existence of God

The argument from a beginning

1.       Everything that ‘begins’ to exist has a cause

2.       The universe began to exist

3.       Therefore the universe has a cause

What’s being asked here is where did everything come from? Did it all just pop into being from nothing?  So someone might say to you everything started with the Big Bang to which you might reply what caused the Big Bang?  When you say to them that God caused the Big Bang, that God kicked everything off you’ll probably be met with the reply: what caused God, where did he come from?  The answer is God didn’t come from anywhere, God has always existed, he never began to exist so he doesn’t need a cause.

If you think about point one it seems obvious, you began to exist because your parents had a special hug.  So no one in their right mind would say this is wrong.  What they’ll probably say is that the universe has always existed, that its always been here.  You can reply to this by pointing out that the universe began to exist at the Big Bang, which scientists say was the beginning of everything, planets, space, time, everything.  Then you can ask, what caused the Big Bang? 

The cause must be:

1. Timeless

2. Space-less

       3. Immaterial

       4. Eternal

Why?  If God created the time, then he must be outside of time.  If God created space then he must be outside of space.  If God made materials he can’t be material.  So God has always been around, outside of time and space.  He must also be a person because things that think are the only non-physical things that can do anything or cause things to happen.

The argument from design

Give the watch analogy first, maybe quote Paley.  Point out that it’s the same with the universe.

1.       The appearance of design in the universe is due to either chance, necessity or design

2.       It is not due to chance or necessity

3.       Therefore the appearance of design in the universe is indeed due to a cosmic designer or mind.

When we talk about chance, we’re saying that the universe just came together randomly.  But this is so unlikely it fails to be a good explanation

Another explanation of the fine-tuning of the universe is saying it had to be like this. But if that’s the case then why?  Things could have happened differently, you had a choice when you decided to come to deeper tonight, you didn’t have to, but you did.  It’s the same with the universe, it didn’t have to be like this.

The argument from good and bad

1.       If objective moral values exist then God exists

2.       Objective moral values exist

3.       Therefore God exists

This argument says that for there to be a good and bad, we need a good and bad giver, someone who says good is good and bad is bad.  Without God there is no ultimate person saying that something one thing is good and another bad.  So without God we have no good or bad.  When Hitler killed all those Jews in World War 2, someone can say I make up my own good and bad and I think Hitler was bad, but then some people think Hitler was good. If everyone decides their own good and bad then that’s the same as not having any good and bad.  But if we believe in God we have someone who has the power to tell us what is truly good and truly bad, people who don’t believe in God don’t have this.  When something is clearly evil they can’t say that it is because on their world view there is no good or evil.  This isn’t to say that Atheists can’t be good or bad, they can!   But for Christians we can say that something is good or bad that isn’t our opinion, because we have a moral lawgiver.  Someone who knows what true goodness and badness are!  So with this argument we have to point out that certain things are really bad, if the non-believer agrees we can then point out that the only thing that justifies this judgement is God.

There other arguments, you don’t have to understand these arguments to know that God exists, these arguments don’t even have to be true. ( but they are)

2 Corinthians 10:5

Putting these arguments in our evangelism

Remember, someone in need does not necessarily want to hear arguments for God’s existence we would be better to be loving and sensitive than logical and cold in this type of situation.

In our own faith

We must also remember that arguments are useless without faith.  Our faith is not based on arguments but on a relationship with God.  Of course arguments are not useless, they are incredibly persuasive, but we must take a step of faith and enter into a relationship with God to fully understand our true purpose and salvation through Christ.

(Q and A )

Response

Prayer Time

Next week we will be learning whether we can trust the Bible and looking at the historical reliability of Jesus Resurrection.

Deeper: Apologetics Week 1 (Plan)

Deeper- Apologetics series

Part 1: What is apologetics?

Prayer

Explain that there will be an understanding alarm, if someone doesn’t get something they make a beeping sound!  Begin by asking everyone if they’ve ever been asked or questioned about there faith.

What is apologetics?

Who knows what evangelism is?  Evangelism is basically ‘the spreading of the Christian Gospel’.  There are loads of different ways to evangelise and spread the Gospel.  Apologetics is a form of evangelism.  But what does apologetics mean?  The word ‘apologetics’ comes from the Greek ‘apologia’ which means defence.  Christian apologetics is the defence of our faith, so we’re not saying sorry to anyone for being a Christian, we’re showing them why Christianity is correct.

Here’s the definition : The branch of theology that is concerned with defending or proving the truth of Christian doctrines.

When to use apologetics

When talking to people about our faith, or evangelising we won’t always need to give a detailed defence of our faith. When talking to someone who’s just lost a loved one we don’t want to go straight into showing logically why God allows suffering.  When we evangelise we should be sensitive and caring.  (1 Peter 3:15)

Our primary aim when evangelising is to present Christ, not to win an argument or put someone down but to draw non-Christians to Jesus.  But of course this does not mean that apologetics is unimportant.  Knowing how to defend your faith is all important.  It can show others that your beliefs are reasonable and support your own journey with Christ.  So if someone says to you there is no evidence for God you can show them that there is, and at the same time share the gospel with that person.

Fiiiiiiggghhhhttt!!!!!!!!!!!

Now over the next few weeks we’re going to be looking at a series of arguments for the truth of the Christian faith.  When I talk about arguments I don’t mean a fight or row but a number of defensive statements showing Christianity to be true.  Arguments are made up of sentences that lead to conclusions.  Here is an example:

1 All men are smaller than 20ft

2 Jack is a man

3 Therefore Jack is under 20ft

Ask if there are any questions on understanding at this point.

In our Christian lives where should we be using apologetics?

It is important to say at this point that ultimately our faith must come down to something more than arguments.  It is all very well and good to explain why God exists but it is another thing to experience God’s existence.  Our faith must be based in a relationship with God and must be centred on prayer and worship.  Spending time with God, reading the Bible and seeking the Holy Spirit.

(Q and A) and response and prayer

Evolutionary objections to Christianity

Blog 1:  Evolution as an objection to Christian theism

As my first proper blog post I would like to address an issue commonly pressed by atheism.  Has evolution destroyed a rational basis for Christian belief?  Of course, as a Christian (specifically an evolutionary theist) I reply no, it has not .  The majority of objections ‘I’ have encountered to Christian belief from evolution have been based in the explanation of religion as an evolutionary phenomenon and objections to the creation story in the book of Genesis.  After careful thought, I am convinced that these objections fail for a number of reasons.

Evolutionary origins

Does an evolutionary explanation of religious origins indicate their falsity? When addressing this objection we should notice that it makes the claim that a belief is false on the basis of how it originated.  For example we might be met with the statement,

“ The earliest men developed belief in God due to fear of death, therefore belief in God is false”

I pose the question; does the explanation of a belief’s origin make it false?  If you were to say that my belief that ASDA are selling donuts at half price is because I saw it on an advertisement, does it make that belief false?  If I were to explain someone’s rejection of theism by pointing out that they despised father figures because they were beaten as a child, so they abandoned the notion of God because of this, what bearing does this have on whether the belief is true or false?  None at all.  Statements like these all commit what is known to logicians as the genetic fallacy (arguing that a proposition is false on the basis of how it originated).  The genetic fallacy invokes what is known as ‘psychological transference’, where one transfers one’s disapproval of the source of an idea to the content of the idea itself.  The objection fails because the truth of an idea depends on whether that which it affirms is true or false and not where the idea originated.  So, even if it were true that belief in God originated because people feared death, we are not in any way obligated to conclude that belief in God is false on this basis.

Furthermore, many atheists I know are willing to admit that the existence of a God (a grand designer as Hawking might put it) would have been a good explanation for how the world works for our ancestors, my great great great great grandfather Ezekiel didn’t have a detailed understanding of quantum physics so God was an apt explanation for the gap that it filled.  But now we are told that aspects of modern science have done away with God.   I know of a number of great physicists who would disagree (Sir John Polkinghorne, Professor Rodney Holder etc.).  Either a great many clever people are actually very stupid or quantum physics poses no actual threat to Christian theism.  I am persuaded by the latter option.  It is interesting to note that Richard Dawkins himself conceded in one of his debates with John Lennox, ‘Has science buried God?’, that the debate on God’s existence needed to be decided on other grounds than evolution.  It is interesting to note that Michael Ruse, himself an atheist, wrote that;

“When John Paul II wrote a letter endorsing Darwinism, Richard Dawkins’ response was simply that the pope was a hypocrite, that he could not be genuine about science and that Dawkins himself simply preferred an honest fundamentalist.”  (McGrath, Dawkins Delusion, pg 26)

Genesis!

Let us now turn to objections to the creation story in Genesis. If evolution is true scientifically does it not follow that Genesis is unreliable and untrue and, therefore, the reliability of the whole Bible is in question?  It does not.  Firstly, the Bible itself is a collection of books written by different people (not by God as many outside of the Christian circle seem to assume.  Not that I deny the influence of the Holy Spirit in its creation) at different points in history.  If one individual book is ‘proved’ incorrect, or its content’s literality becomes ambiguous, it does not follow that all of the other books of the Bible come under question in this aspect.

                In light of the point explained in the previous paragraph we know that if we find discrepancies in the content we should not automatically assume there to be discrepancies in the rest of the Bible. The theologian Connor Cunningham illustrates the points I hope to raise perfectly in his documentary on this subject ‘Did Darwin kill God?’

               

Now it has always been my contention that if the Bible seems to contradict itself then we should not look upon the passage (we’ll say passage as a generalisation to indicate a ‘contradictory’ section) as literal in a physical sense.  For example we could perhaps live in a world where all we know about the American President is that he is a ‘political lion’.  To our surprise after assuming for a good deal of time that the president was literally a lion interested in politics we then happen to meet the president and find he is not a lion.  It does not follow that the ‘political lion’ description is untrue or irrelevant.  Of course we would have misinterpreted the text, but just because of a misinterpretation one should not dismiss a statement as false or untrue. If there is a contradiction in the aspect of literality concerning a passage we should not dismiss the core of its meaning or assume that the passage’s message is false.  This is what I find to be the case when looking at the creation story in Genesis.  In my view the Genesis creation story, in light of evolution, retains its meaning, truth and power and, perhaps, when we look at the story in this way these factors are even more effective.  Genesis communicates powerful spiritual truth and reveals a great deal concerning man’s relationship with God.  If something in the Bible is found to be ambiguous by way of literality we should not then dismiss it but look for a deeper meaning.

               

Often when faced with this idea the reply is made as follows: ‘Why then didn’t God reveal the theory of evolution in Genesis?’  Now we come to our second important factor that should not be ignored when analysing the Genesis creation story, the Bible is not a science book.  The Bible is a theological book, it communicates valuable information concerning spiritual reality and especially man’s need for redemption and salvation.  These can be found in Jesus Christ as we know from the New Testament scriptures, and indeed the prophecy in the Old Testament.  Further, if God was to include a reference to the theory of evolution in Genesis (See the ‘Genesis Enigma’ concerning this point) or the whole theory would the primitive Mosaic culture concerned in Genesis understand? To appeal to this kind of argument is clearly unreasonable.  These people didn’t know about DNA, these people didn’t know about atoms or molecules, electrons, protons or quarks.  It is not logical, therefore, to assert that evolution would have been relevant, or appropriate to this kind of society and it is self-evident that if evolution was alluded to in Genesis or the process revealed it would not be understood.

“Philo allegorised the whole story” writes Barclay (Barclay, Romans pg96)

It is apparent that many centuries before Darwin, then, the great thinkers of the day did not necessarily interpret the Genesis story as literal. And I think it is clear that we are not obligated to do so either.  Perhaps we should pay heed to the late Dr. William Neil when he writes,

“They (the authors of Genesis) are not attempting to give a scientific account of how the world was made, and it would not perturb them to learn that our modern conception of the universe in the light of what the astronomers can tell us is vastly different from theirs.”

Now I hope I’ve cleared a good deal of rubble away regarding this subject.  It’s certainly very heavy stuff!  There are a number of Philosophers who would argue that atheism, or more specifically materialism is in conflict with evolution itself, but I should probably leave that for another day…probably…..

(http://philofreligion.homestead.com/files/alspaper.htm)

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbjp9PrtPS8)

A blogging genesis

Hello, this is my blog. Yep, a blog, written by me. Primarily this blog is really aimed at helping friends who have gone to university to engage in intellectual discussion about God, rationality and the Christian faith. Over the past few years I’ve done a lot of reading, and I suppose this blog is one of the results.  I expect that there are people much more capable than me who I’m sure will poke holes in what I’ll say, but it’s a learning process and I hope it engages hearts as well as minds.  I hope this is a friendly place to discuss pressing issues.  By no means do I expect to cover whatever i write about very thoroughly but I hope it points peole to further contemplation, discussion and research.  I’m about to start a theology course, so I expect what I learn in that will be well reflected in what is covered here.  Hope you all enjoy it and I hope I’ve written clearly enough to make the subject matter understandable. I’ll probably post about once a fortnight, or if I’m busy once a month.

Peace and Grace

Tim