Tag Archives: Apologetics

Tolle, Lege – Not Just for Church Fathers!

One week last year our Friendship circle had “a good read” as its theme – and that is a good theme indeed! In times gone by, Baptists in Sweden were sometimes called “readers” because they read more than other people, both the Bible and other publications. It’s somewhat sad to think that it was actually meant as a put-down; but they were proud to be called “readers”, and so should we.

Obviously every Christian should read the Bible; since God has made sure the story of his salvation plan has been written down, we would be foolish to ignore it! But there’s a lot of other good books around, that will help you grow in your faith. Some are just inspiring, others deal with difficult topics, some are amusing and others dead serious… Here are some of my favourite Christian books:

The Case for Christ (Lee Strobel): great defence of the reliability of the Bible.

The Atheist Who Didn’t Exist (Andy Bannister): funny and convincing defence of our faith.

Mere Christianity (C S Lewis): well, yes – obviously!

The Shack (W P Young): a gripping novel about wrestling with why God allows tragedies.

I sold my Soul on eBay (Hemant Mehta): an atheist goes to church every Sunday for a year, and describes how it seems to an outsider. Challenging!

Last year I read Paradoxology (Krish Kandiah), which deals with all the paradoxes of the Christian faith, and Inventing the Universe (Alister McGrath) about the (non-existent) clash between faith and science…

My favourites so far this year must be Pete Greig’s God on Mute and Dirty Glory, both about prayer and compassion and what a great God we serve.

The list goes on, but this space doesn’t. So to conclude: keep reading! Books, magazines, online blogs – it’s always worth it, and you will be blessed!

(PS: “Tolle, lege” is Latin for “Take and read”, the words which St Augustine heard in the garden and which caused him to pick up and open the Bible, which led to his conversion.)

 

The One Question I Don’t Like…

I wrote recently about asking questions, and how we shouldn’t be scared to do so. But what about hostile questions from outsiders? Are you worried by difficult questions about your faith? Don’t be!

It’s inevitable that opponents of the Christian faith will ask difficult questions, and we should welcome them: many of the important doctrines of the church were formulated as a response to difficult questions!

Yes, there are difficult questions, but there are also answers. I have yet to come across a single genuine question, however difficult, that doesn’t have an answer.

Having said that, I have to admit that there’s one that I find particularly difficult and even embarrassing. It’s this one: Why, if there’s only one faith and one Lord, is the Christian church so divided?

One thing is certain: God never intended for the church to be splintered like this. In the New Testament, there’s always only one church in every city; even if that church might have gathered in several house-sized congregations, it was the same church, one and undivided.

But there’s someone who will do anything to hamper the ministry of the church, and causing division in the church is an excellent way of gagging it. And so our ancient enemy, Satan, has done everything he can to break up the unity of the church; and sadly he has often succeeded.

Sometimes churches split because of power struggles or misuse of authority. This should never happen, and if all of us put Phil 2:3 (“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit”) into practice, it wouldn’t happen.

Sometimes churches split because of personal preferences as to worship style, outreach methods or whether to have coffee after the service. This is very sad: we should be able to listen and respect each other, as well as allow for greater variety in how we exercise our faith.

There’s only one legitimate reason for church splits: one group has started teaching or practising things contrary to the Bible, and another group insists on sticking with biblical teaching. In this case, it’s quite obvious who is right. The Bible is God’s Word, and we can’t pick and choose what we believe and not: either we trust the Bible in its entirety, or we are simply making our own religion.

Sometimes it’s not clear exactly what the Bible teaches on a particular subject. In those cases, we need to keep studying the Bible in order to understand it better, while allowing for different ways of understanding difficult topics. The important things are crystal clear, and as long as we don’t deviate from the core truth of the gospel, we can listen and learn from other followers of Jesus, and maintain spiritual unity even when we disagree on secondary issues.

 

Questioning Questions?

Are we allowed to ask questions in church?

That might seem like a strange question; why shouldn’t we be? Well, it seems that in the world of religion, asking questions has not always been acceptable. When going door-to-door we once met a woman who gave up on church while still at school. Why? Because she asked her teacher how Jesus could multiply bread and fish, and was sent to the naughty corner!

Where did this strange idea come from, that it’s wrong to ask questions? How else are we supposed to learn things? Jesus was constantly asking and answering questions – after all, that was the standard rabbinical method of teaching.

I think the explanation is quite simple. Teachers and preachers, who were simply passing on religious teaching they didn’t quite understand, discovered they didn’t actually have answers to certain difficult or unexpected questions. They then assumed – wrongly – that since they didn’t know the answers, there were no answers.

Some also seem to believe that questions equal doubts. The Bible never says that. Even though faith, in the sense of trust and commitment, is commended in the Bible, it never means “blind faith”. Our faith is based on eye-witness reports, OT prophecies and personal experience: evidence that can be analysed and investigated. God doesn’t have a problem with questions, only with people who refuse to accept the answers.

So, are there any questions?

 

THINKING THROUGH THACKEREY’S THEORY THEISTICALLY

As presented in my previous post, Ken Thackerey’s The Christianity Myth is a very clever attempt to explain, based on atheistic assumptions, how Christianity started all those years ago. I promised to read it, and so here you are, Ken: my analysis of your arguments, and why your book failed to convince me.

THE APOSTLES

To begin with, you claim that the original apostles knew nothing of a resurrection; this had obviously never been part of the teaching of the “historical Jesus”. So why did they stay in Jerusalem? Why did they keep preaching Jesus as the Messiah?

On all counts, an executed Messiah was a failure, and if the disciples neither expected nor experienced a resurrection, there is no reason to believe they would have hung around for years in Jerusalem, where Jesus’ enemies held sway.

You acknowledge that the Jewish authorities persecuted the followers of Jesus – Paul was a persecutor before his conversion. So why would the disciples have stayed in Jerusalem? OK, maybe a few days, maybe a week or two, but after that? The obvious thing to do would be to go back home and forget all about Jesus; surely the foolishness of continuing to follow an executed Messiah would be worse than the embarrassment of going home and admitting they were wrong!

I would also question your explanation that Peter was living comfortably off tithes from his followers, for two reasons. 1) He wasn’t entitled to tithes; they were for the temple and the priests. 2) Even if he was claiming a leadership position that entitled him to financial support, how many would his followers have been? The Jesus movement can’t have garnered many followers, if all they had to offer was an executed prophet and a new moral code, coupled with persecution from the religious leaders. I think he would be lucky if he still had command of the 120 that Acts tells us were present on the day of Pentecost; and even so, there can’t have been much money to be had from that group!

You then suggest that when Peter was confronted with Paul’s experience he was quick to lie, just as he had been before when he denied Jesus. The problem is: how do you know he ever denied Jesus? You claim the gospels were all written long after Peter was dead, and even though they incorporated some stories about the “historical Jesus”, most of the content was made up.

The denial episode is actually one of the stronger pieces of evidence in favour of the reliability of the gospels. Nobody in their right mind would make up a pious story about the first Christian leader denying Jesus! But if it wasn’t made up, it goes back to the original disciples – in fact, back to Peter himself; who else would have known about it? And why would Peter admit it, if he hadn’t met the risen Jesus and been forgiven and restored – in short, if the whole story wasn’t true?

PETER AND PAUL

In your version of events, Paul suddenly appears in Jerusalem and excitedly tells Peter that Jesus is alive. Peter is taken aback, but quickly replies that yes, they had also seen Jesus risen. Then what? All the other disciples would have known that wasn’t true; so you have to assume that they all colluded with Peter to start propagating what they knew wasn’t true.

PAUL

You seem to agree with standard Christianity in saying Paul was persecuting the church, when he had an epileptic fit and had a “vision” of Jesus, which convinced him that Jesus was alive and calling him to preach to the Gentiles. I’m no psychologist, but I believe hallucinations generally support what you already believe (as in the case you quote as an obvious parallel), so it seems highly unlikely that Paul’s total change of belief could have stemmed from a subjective hallucination.

Even if we grant that Paul somehow had a hallucination that contradicted his strongly held convictions, where did the gospel inclusiveness come from? Paul was a Pharisee, and the idea that Gentiles could be saved without being circumcised and obeying the Law would have been utterly unthinkable to him (you state that that’s the disciples retained standard Jewish beliefs on this, so the “historical Jesus” clearly never said anything about it). Your scenario implies that a devout Pharisee was suddenly compelled to change his whole theology, purely based on an unexpected (and unwelcome) vision. To me, divine intervention actually seems a whole lot more credible…

THE GOSPELS AND ACTS

I find it quite hard to imagine that large numbers of pious church leaders, claiming to worship a divine Saviour who told his followers to be honest and trustworthy, would feel free to make up untrue stories about said Saviour. And if Jesus had never said the things about letting your yes be yes etc, why would anyone invent it – who would fabricate sayings that made their fabrications immoral?

I also don’t agree with your assessment of Acts. Much has been written about it, but it seems that as a fabrication, it’s quite strange: the “we” sections that suddenly become “they” and then “we” again, and the fact that it ends with Paul in prison in Rome, waiting to appear at the court of the emperor. Surely a fabrication would have been more consistent, and at least have included the imperial verdict!

There actually seems to be quite compelling evidence that Acts is historically reliable. The author includes administrative terms and titles that have been verified from other sources, and the switch between “we” and “they” passages suggests that he either used primary sources or was himself the primary source. The fact that the book ends with Paul in prison suggests that that was the point when he concluded the book – why else end on such a cliff hanger?

If that is the case, your whole construct falls apart – because we know (beyond reasonable doubt) that Acts and the Gospel of Luke were written by the same person, and Acts after the Gospel (see Luk 1:3 and Acts 1:1). If Acts was written while Paul was still alive, then so was the Gospel of Luke – not decades after all the main characters were dead, but while all (or at least most) were still alive, only a few decades after the Easter events.

There’s another study that throws doubt on your contention that the Gospels were written much later and far away from the events.1 The frequency of Jewish names that feature in the Gospels tally with what is known about name frequencies in first-century Palestine. The usage was quite different among Jews outside of Palestine. Compare it to writing a novel about Victorian England: how easy it would be to use names that actually weren’t very common in the 19th century, and miss out on common names that are no longer in use! So in order for the Gospels to be Gentile forgeries, we have to postulate that all the Gospel writers did some serious research into what names were common among Palestinian Jews some 50-100 years earlier…

There are many books and studies that contend better than I can do for the reliability of the Gospels and Acts – let me just conclude by saying that they contain an awful lot of stuff that it would be hard to imagine anybody making up, if they were trying to convince people to follow the dead Jesus just through human persuasion!

THE HOLY SPIRIT

Which brings me to my main problem with your theory. Your whole foundation is that there is no god, and therefore every detail that includes God must be legend, misinterpretation or plain fabrication. But I don’t think there is any way to explain the explosive spread of Christianity without taking the Holy Spirit into consideration. What power of persuasion would the message of a Jewish redeemer have to Gentiles, if it wasn’t accompanied by the power of the Spirit?

Paul keeps reminding his readers that they had already experienced the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit features prominently in all his letters. Seeing that you seem to accept some of his letters as genuine and that Paul is genuinely convinced himself of his new faith, I guess you have to assume that he was such a powerful character that people thought they experienced God when it was really just his powerful charisma. Yes, similar things happen in churches today – but that’s because people already believe in the preacher and are willing to be caught up in the “spirit” of the event. There would have been no such fertile ground for Paul among Gentiles, who generally despised Jews for their strict moral code and rigid monotheism. His gospel was not in itself congenial to the Gentile world!

No, as far as I can see, the description in Acts 2 of the coming of God’s Spirit, empowering the disciples and convicting thousands of the audience, makes more sense as an explanation of the rapid spread of Christianity, than any version which leaves out the Holy Spirit.

Leaving out the Holy Spirit also denies the experience of millions of subsequent followers of Jesus. When I was 14 I was a nominal Christian about to fall away, not really identifying as a Christian any more – until I had an encounter with God at a summer camp. Every summer thousands of young people still have similar experiences. Christians experience the presence of God in their lives in many different ways, but most of us can testify to the truth of what Paul writes in Rom 8:16: The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. This is one reason why we’re not so easily swayed by arguments that presuppose that God doesn’t exist; we have personal experience to the contrary!

CONCLUSION

There are lots of other, minor points I could have discussed (e.g the Jerusalem council), but this is already far too long! I enjoyed engaging with your theory, but as you notice I still find your arguments lacking; I hope this rather long review has helped you (and any other readers) understand why. And any comments are of course welcome!

Notes

How Christianity Started with a Fit and a Lie

As you know, I tend to get involved in debates with atheists on the Internet. In the most recent one, I complained (?) that no atheist had ever managed to explain how Christianity started, if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead. To my delight, Ken Thackerey replied and told me he had written a book answering that very question: “The Christianity Myth”. I mulled it over, but couldn’t resist the challenge: I bought the book.

I have now read it, and will write a review of the theory as soon as I can. But to whet your appetite – and to give Ken a chance to correct me if I’ve misunderstood him – here’s my summary of the actual theory.

Chrity myth cover2000 years ago there was indeed a Jewish preacher called Jesus, who was executed for his radical views. His followers stayed put in Jerusalem, led by fisherman-turned-patriarch Peter, trying to convince their fellow Jews that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah, all the while wondering whether they had got it wrong after all.

Then, after six years or so, a man called Saul suddenly turns up and tells Peter and the others that he has seen Jesus alive! Peter quickly makes up a story that he and the others also saw Jesus alive – a complete fabrication; Peter just lies in order to make sure this new guy doesn’t eclipse him as leader of the church. Until this point, the resurrection was not part of the Jesus story at all!

According to the theory Saul, who started off persecuting the church, has had an epileptic fit on the road to Damascus; he saw Jesus risen and heard him call him to take his message to the Gentiles. This he proceeds to do, and whereas the Jews reject Jesus as their Messiah, the Gentiles are happy with the new all-inclusive message, and the Jewish Messianic movement becomes the Christian church.

Actually, that last statement isn’t quite true; according to Ken, the new Gentile religion had very little to do with the Jewish Messiah. He postulates a serious rift between the original Jerusalem church, which would have assumed that Jesus was only for Law-abiding Jews, and Paul’s message of forgiveness for all, Jew and Gentile alike. So it might be more correct to say that the Gentile Christian church is born from Paul’s missionary activities, with no real connection to the historical Jesus…

As the new religion spread, Gentiles started wondering about the life of this Son of God; so different Gospels were written – fabricated – by well-meaning church leaders, to provide some more background. These might have been based on legends and recollections of the original Jesus, but most of it came from pagan mythology (like the virgin birth) or the imagination of the church leaders. Then Acts was written to explain the origin of the church, and to gloss over the rift between Peter and Paul.

It’s a very interesting theory, and probably more coherent than other atheistic attempts at explaining the origins of Christianity without involving any kind of God. If I wanted to discard supernatural Christianity, I would definitely go with Ken’s version of events – for lack of a better one.

Unfortunately, there are several important problems with the theory, and I will discuss these in another post – watch this space!

UPDATE: My review is now published, as the next post on this blog.

The True Fallacy of the Fallacy of the True Scotsman

No, this is nothing to do with the recent referendum in the northern parts of the UK – as a Swede living in England, I don’t really have the right to say anything on that issue!

Instead, I want to discuss a logical fallacy which atheists often accuse us Christians of employing: the “No True Scotsman Fallacy”, the desire to disassociate oneself from being lumped together with undesirable members of one’s “group”.1 Basically, we’re told that in our attempts to defend our faith, we can’t say that somebody who claims to be a Christian isn’t a Christian.

I have had it thrown at me a few times recently, sometimes with a smug “I thought I heard bagpipes”, sometimes as a sincere attempt at educating me about logic. But sadly methinks those who wield this weapon against Christians are often guilty of a few other fallacies…

  • Assuming that the word “Christian” always means the same thing to everybody. Well, I guess that’s not really strange, as it’s a reasonable assumption. Unfortunately, in this case there are two competing definitions.
  1. a) Cultural Christian: in surveys, self-identifies as Christian rather than Muslim, Hindu or any other religion; lives in a country generally considered “Christian”; gets married and buried in a Christian church; and might even go to church occasionally. By this definition, yes – Hitler was a Christian. By this definition, there are an awful lot of Christians in jail. But by this definition, a number of people who call themselves atheists or agnostics are also Christians. A recent survey tells us that some 20% of Anglican clergy don’t believe in a personal God1 – but despite this denial of a rather basic aspect of Christianity, they would still considered “Christians” by most people!
  2. b) Biblical Christian: this is the definition that I and most other apologists use. A Christian in this sense is somebody who calls Jesus their Lord and Saviour, believes Jesus died to provide forgiveness for their sins and rose again from the dead, and endeavours to live according to God’s will. This is how the Bible defines a Christian, and when we discuss what Christianity is all about, this is the definition we have to adhere to. The fact that for historical reasons, most of the Western world is considered “Christian” in the cultural sense, is irrelevant: if Christianity is founded on the Bible, we must surely let the Bible define what it really means to be a Christian!

If this seems to be exactly what the True Scotsman fallacy disallows, consider this: is a tomato a fruit or a vegetable? That actually depends on which definition of “fruit” you use. If you use the biological (technical) definition, tomatoes are fruit. If you use the ordinary, every-day definition, tomatoes are vegetables. So it’s not impossible for two competing definitions to be used at the same time, by different people or in different contexts. You just have to be aware of it!

The four suicide bombers of the 7/7 attack in London were all British – but I’m sure most people would agree that “no true Brit would do that”! They fulfilled a technical requirement for citizenship, but did not represent or identify with Great Britain as a nation – we could say they were never “proper Brits”. In the same way, there are many who have the formal label “Christian”, but still don’t fit the biblical definition. If somebody chooses to ignore basic Bible teachings, they are not “proper” Christians. Hitler clearly did not submit to Jesus as Lord, and thus cannot be counted as Christian, even if he was christened a Catholic and went to church sometimes. Most British people do not believe in the resurrection, and are thus not proper Christians, regardless of how many times they tick the “Church of England” box on official forms.

Now you may think I’m just defining Christianity to fit my specific version of it. That’s not quite true. I quite happily include churches and people that I disagree with on many issues: Anglicans, Calvinists, Dispensationalists… There are many groups I have serious disagreements with, but if they believe Jesus died for their sins and rose again, and that we’re brought into the kingdom of God by trusting in Jesus rather than through our own effort, I consider them “proper Christians”, even if we disagree on certain issues.

  • Assuming that what Christians do is what defines Christianity. Now, there’s obviously some truth to this; but it’s very far from being the main thing. There are bad Christians, there are mistaken and misguided Christians, and every Christian is a sinful human being! But actually, that has no bearing on the discussion.

Maybe your Christian neighbours are racists. Maybe a Christian CEO is a tax dodger. Does that make any difference to whether Jesus is who the Bible claims he is? Does that affect the message of the gospel? Not at all. It’s a shame that there are people who claim to be Christians while dishonouring him through their lifestyle, but it doesn’t make any difference to the claims of Jesus; if anything, it demonstrates all the clearer that the Bible is correct in saying everybody is a sinner…

You could almost say that using the “no true Scotsman” argument is in itself a fallacy: by painting all Christians with the same brush as the Crusaders or Westboro Baptist Church, our opponents are trying to make Jesus (and us) “guilty by association”.3 This misses the point. Either Jesus rose from the dead or he didn’t. It’s a matter of fact that can be investigated.4 And I’m not trying to convert anybody to “my religion” – I just want as many people as possible to get to know Jesus and become citizens of his kingdom. I don’t preach “religion”, I preach Jesus. I don’t want people to be like me (perish the thought!) but to be like Jesus.

So in future, when people bring up the old “Hitler was a Christian” argument, I’ll just ask: even if that were true (which I deny), does it have any bearing on the matter under consideration? Does it affect whether God might exist, or whether Jesus rose again? Or is it really another fallacy: a red herring,5 detracting from the real question: what is the truth?

Footnotes

Let’s Not Be wrong on the Internet!

I have never liked stories of confused or mistaken identities (such as The Comedy of Errors or Accidental Hero); truth is so important to me that I find even fictional misunderstandings painful. This is why I so often find myself arguing with atheists online; their portrayal of my faith is simply not accurate, and I can’t stand people being wrong – even on the Internet!someone is wrong

Not that Christians are necessarily correct in their statements either – which is even worse, seeing as we claim to follow a man who said he was Truth incarnate!

So here are four statements that are simply not correct, and should never be used in serious debate:

  • Faith is believing without evidence. Really? I am quite a sceptic, and don’t accept claims without having good reasons for doing so. There is a lot of evidence for Christianity (see e.g. Lee Strobel’s book The Case for Christ); nobody should accept Jesus simply because I say so!
  • Atheists have no morals. Easy to refute: there are lots of atheists who are faithful to their spouses and care a lot for social justice. Their moral system might be different from mine, and I would argue that it stands on shaky ground – but ‘no God’ doesn’t equal ‘no ethics’.
  • Science is incompatible with faith. Again, a rather stupid thing to say: there are innumerable Christian scientists (John Lennox, Edgar Andrews and Francis Collins spring to mind), and there are aspects of blind faith in certain scientific hypotheses (e.g. nobody has as yet found the Oort cloud). Believing that God can make a donkey talk or raise a dead man doesn’t contradict the scientific observation that normally, neither donkeys nor dead men tell no tales…
  • Atheists believe in God deep down, they’re just denying it because they don’t want to repent of their sin. This is of course casting serious doubt on the intellectual integrity of atheists. Yes, there are people who try and keep away from God because they don’t want to change their lifestyle; but that proves they do actually believe in God – otherwise they wouldn’t worry! Genuine atheists are convinced there is no God, and base their lifestyle on that conviction. Hopefully they would change their position if presented with convincing evidence; but let’s not be condescending and question their intellectual integrity.

The truth is out there, for everyone to seek and find. The one thing we mustn’t do is spread misconceptions or outright lies about others. Deception never helped anyone!

Oh No – I’m a Grumpy Old Man…!

A few weeks ago, I turned 48. That’s not a lot, especially not in this part of the world – I’ve got a church member twice my age – but it’s still older than I used to be… Which surely entitles me to play “grumpy old man” once in a while, right? So here are three of my favourite rants – and only one of them has anything to do with faith!

1) The UK cannot leave Europe. No, not because of legal wranglings or Brussels bureaucracy, but because Europe is a continent. Britain can’t leave Europe any more than Peru can leave South America! It really annoys me when people confuse Europe (geographical) and the European Union (political). OK, it’s easier to say, but it’s factually wrong. We used to live in Albania, and it was very frustrating when Post Office staff would ask if Albania was in Europe (which is it) when what they really needed to know was if it’s in the EU (which it isn’t). There are many European countries not in the EU; it’s both ignorant and somewhat rude to exclude them from their own continent!

2) There’s no such thing as bad grammar. Well, actually not quite true: obviously foreigners like myself might sometimes say and write things that no native English speaker would say – but that’s the only genuine kind of grammatical error there is. Technically, the only way to define what’s “correct” in any language is by studying how native speakers speak – and this changes over time. Once upon a time, “you are” would have been wrong; it should be “ye are”. Once, both “thou art” and “he hath” were part of normal, every-day speech. One day, it might be perfectly acceptable to write “we was”, a form that is already common in many spoken regional versions of English. The singular “they”, as in “Somebody hurt themselves”, is already standard in most varieties of English, even in writing (including the form “themself”). Not that long ago, that usage would have been frowned upon, if not banned altogether – even though it’s been in use since Shakespeare’s days!

[For the sake of clarity, I guess I should add that it’s quite reasonable for a national language to have one written standard, which differs to varying degrees from the many spoken varieties. What I’m ranting about is people who think that the current written standard is somehow intrinsically and eternally “correct”, when it really is just a convention that has emerged out of centuries of writing.]

3) Christians are not science-hating, illogical morons. Seriously. OK, there are illogical Christians, and there are Christian morons – but they’re not the standard. A few weeks ago, my daughter shocked a classmate of hers, when he realised she was a Christian – how could she be, when she was so good at science?! *facepalm*

Why do people believe Christians are anti-science? Because Dawkins and others insist on saying we are. It’s not true, and we need to be clear about this. There are lots of Christian scientists (e.g. Edgar Andrews and John Lennox), and even creationists use scientific principles in their attempts at disproving evolution.

I especially take issue with Richard Dawkins calling me (well, all creationists) “history-deniers” in The Greatest Show on Earth. History is based on documents, eyewitnesses and artefacts; there aren’t any of those for evolution. People who claim the Holocaust never happened are history-deniers; I find it quite offensive to be lumped together with them, just because I don’t accept certain interpretations of scientific data!

Another aspect of this is the atheists’ insistence that Christians approve of “blind faith”, believing something with no evidence and even in the face of evidence to the contrary. The British magazine Christianity (October 2014 issue) relates the findings of a survey about this very topic. The survey question was, “Do you agree that when Christians use the word ‘faith’, they mean ‘believing something even though it is not supported by evidence’?” Interestingly, whereas 72% of non-Christians answered ‘yes”, a whopping 91% of Christians disagree with that statement!

Which just proves my point: there’s a huge misunderstanding around, and we need to get rid of it. When we talk about “faith”, we do not mean “blind faith unsupported by evidence”. There is no conflict between faith and reason; in my judgment, it’s perfectly reasonable to put your trust (= have faith) in Jesus, based on the available evidence – because there is plenty of evidence that supports Christianity. Pitching faith against reason is unbiblical, unnecessary, and only plays into the hands of atheist propagandists.

The Proof Delusion

Did you know that the royal family are actually alien reptiles? There’s evidence in a taped interview with Princess Diana’s personal confidant1… or not. I think most of us would want something a little more substantial to accept that thesis!

But what about Christian claims that Jesus rose from the dead? That there is a Creator God who we regularly communicate with, even though he can’t be seen or touched? Aren’t those claims just as bizarre and impossible to verify as the royal reptiles? Where’s the evidence?

In my recurring on-line debates with atheists, I’m often asked for “evidence”. When I produce my evidence, it is invariably discarded as not valid, since it doesn’t amount to what they would consider incontrovertible “proof” of God’s existence. Sounds legit – except it’s not.

According to Wikipedia, evidence is “anything presented in support of an assertion”, and as such it can be strong or weak. If you’re not willing to trust Wikipedia, here’s the Oxford Dictionary definition: “The available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid”.2 This means that “evidence” is not the same as “proof”; but accumulated evidence can point to an inevitable conclusion about what is true or valid in a specific case.

Interestingly enough, it seems science doesn’t actually operate with “proofs”, only “evidence” – and scientists themselves know this. One of them writes on the (decidedly secular) website Psychology Today:

Proofs exist only in mathematics and logic, not in science. Mathematics and logic are both closed, self-contained systems of propositions, whereas science is empirical and deals with nature as it exists. The primary criterion and standard of evaluation of scientific theory is evidence, not proof. All else equal (such as internal logical consistency and parsimony), scientists prefer theories for which there is more and better evidence to theories for which there is less and worse evidence. Proofs are not the currency of science.3

This means that my atheist friends are actually deceived in their demand for absolute “proof”: it’s not a scientific attitude. As another webpage (again, not related to religion) states: This strident demand for “proof” while ignoring the evidence is abnormal in science4– which is ironic, seeing as atheists insist that they’re the ones that are being scientific about it!

In a court case, eye-witness reports are accepted as evidence. They can be called into question or invalidated if it can be demonstrated that they had a reason for not telling the truth, or they can be corroborated to the point of near-absolute certainty by other eye-witnesses. Many a criminal has been convicted on eye-witness accounts – despite the lack of absolute, irrefutable “proof” of their guilt.

A finger print on a gun might be considered “proof” – but it’s only proof that a particular person handled the weapon, not that they used it to kill anyone. Other factors, such as motive, opportunity and character will therefore still be important when the evidence is evaluated; and in the end, the killer will be convicted on strong evidence, not on scientific “proof”.

Atheists often say that the burden of proof is on us Christians. I agree. But I think we have more than fulfilled our obligation. Elsewhere5 I have listed the main points of the evidence supporting my claim that the God of the Bible exists; they vary from factual (the empty tomb) to personal (my own experience of God in my life), and I would say that anybody who wants to persuade me that I’m wrong needs to interact with that body of evidence.6 Simply saying “there is no evidence” is both disrespectful, disingenuous and dishonest, and will not make me willing to listen to your point of view.

The only way you can discard the evidence for God is by deciding beforehand that nothing supernatural exists, and thus concluding a priori that every single piece of information that suggests otherwise is either fake or misinterpreted. Fair enough; but that’s not a scientific approach. You can’t investigate the claim that God exists if you have already decided beforehand what the outcome is going to be! Or if you do, please don’t pretend to be scientific!

I came across this meme recently: “Prove to you that God doesn’t exist? Prove to me that the invisible pink unicorn doesn’t and I’ll use your method.” However, this isn’t actually relevant. I agree that asking atheists to disprove God is not particularly helpful; but whereas there’s nothing anywhere to suggest that a pink, invisible unicorn exists, I can present stacks of evidence indicating the existence of God. The two simply are not comparable.

So, please don’t keep insisting “there is no evidence”, when what you mean is that you don’t accept the evidence presented to you.  You may choose to interpret the evidence in a different way, or claim that it’s all been faked and manufactured. But you can’t hide forever behind the “no evidence” blinker. We have been presenting the evidence for nearly 2000 years. It has been vilified, ridiculed and ignored; but it has not yet been refuted.

 NOTES:

1)     http://www.davidicke.com/forum/showthread.php?t=64998

2)     http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/evidence?q=evidence

3)     http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/200811/common-misconceptions-about-science-i-scientific-proof

4)     http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/03/19/how-linguists-are-pulling-apart-bering-strait-theory-154063?page=0%2C5

5)     https://milfordpastor.wordpress.com/2014/01/20/defending-the-truth-on-twitter-is-hard-work/

6)      Other sources would be Lee Strobel’s The Case for Christ, Edgar Andrews Who Made God?, C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity, John Blanchard Has Science Got Rid of God? etc etc.

The Problem of the Divine Elephant

Last year I did a study series for our mid-week meeting, based on common objections to the gospel; one day the topic was “The Problem of Other Religions”. Why is that a problem? Well, because a lot of people wonder why, if there is only one God, there are so many other religions and belief systems. Aren’t we just a tad arrogant saying that Jesus is the only way to God?

You may already have come across the elephant allegory, a very common argument against our intolerance. It goes like this: four blind men discover an elephant. Since they have never encountered an elephant, they grope about, trying to understand this new thing. One grasps the trunk and concludes it is a snake. Another explores a leg and describes it as a tree. A third finds the tail and announces that it is a rope. And the fourth blind man, after discovering the elephant’s side, concludes that it is actually a wall. But despite their differing descriptions, they are actually describing the same thing: an elephant.

Conclusion: all religions describe the same spiritual reality, but only part of it. Despite the differences between religions, all of us – Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists etc – are really describing the same ultimate reality, and thus it doesn’t matter which one you follow.

Sounds nice and enlightened – until you start thinking about it. It doesn’t make sense. For one thing, the four blind men aren’t all correct; they are all wrong! What they are exploring is neither a snake, a tree, a rope, nor a wall; it’s an elephant. So the only thing that story could possibly prove is that it doesn’t matter which religion you follow, because they’re all mistaken anyway…

Secondly, the elephant is obviously totally uninterested in the men. It just stands there, letting them discover what they can, neither encouraging them nor helping them, not even caring whether they get it right or not…

What a different story from the one the Bible tells us! It shows us a loving God who wants us to find him and actively reveals himself to us – even to the point of living on earth as a human being, taking our sins upon himself to make it possible for us to know him. The only way those blind men will know the truth about the elephant is if they regain their sight – and that’s what Jesus does: he opens blinded eyes and enables us to see the truth. Other religions may try and grope their way to God; surely it’s better to follow Jesus the Son of God who is himself the one and only way.