Christians Respond to the Extreme Claims of the Reason Rally

posted by Caitlin Bendall, Ratio Christi

Authors of new book highlight irrationality of atheists’ claim to be defenders of reason

Charlotte, NC, March 12, 2012 — Leading atheist Richard Dawkins has said, “The time has come for people of reason to say: Enough is enough!  Religious faith discourages independent thought, it’s divisive and it’s dangerous.” Today, Christian thinkers from around the world announce the publication of the Patheos Press ebook “True Reason: Christian Responses to the Challenge of Atheism.”

Featuring chapters by Dr. William Lane Craig, Sean McDowell, and eleven other Christian scholars and thinkers, “True Reason” presents a well-reasoned rejoinder to the arrogance of the New Atheists and their upcoming “Reason Rally.” The book:

• Demonstrates New Atheist leaders’ consistent failure in the use of reasoning.
• Explains how the Christian faith and good reasoning work well together.
• Clarifies the reasonability of Christian practice now and throughout history.

“This is a book to encourage, inform, and equip Christian believers. It’s also bound to raise controversy,” said general editor Tom Gilson. “The careful reasoning of this book will deliver a tremendous challenge to the New Atheists as they prepare for their ‘Reason’ Rally in Washington. And it will benefit Christians long after that, by equipping them for challenges to the faith that are bound to keep on coming,” added Gilson.

“True Reason” is co-edited by Gilson, a ministry strategist and author working jointly with Campus Crusade for Christ and the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, and Carson Weitnauer, director of Telos Ministries, a campus ministry that reaches the intellectual elite at Boston area universities including Harvard.

The book is being released in conjunction with an initiative to bring dozens of thoughtful Christians to the Reason Rally, to create an obvious contrast between the Reason Rally and True Reason. The Reason Rally takes place on the National Mall in Washington D.C. on March 24, 2012, with headline speakers including Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss, and Adam Savage of Mythbusters, and the rock band Bad Religion.

The united Christian outreach to the Reason Rally is being led by: Ratio Christi, ThinkingChristian.net,Reasons for God, The Apologetics Bloggers Alliance, and The Christian Apologetics Alliance.

Blogs related to the True Reason book:

• True Reason: Christian Responses to the Challenge of Atheism by Luke Nix
• Announcing True Reason! by Carson Weitnauer
• Announcing True Reason: Christian Responses to the Challenge of Atheism by Tom Gilson

Click here for Ratio Christ’s blog to see more about the reasonable Christian response →

Editor’s Note:  Once I have completed the reading of this book, I will be posting my review.   So far, I appreciate what the contributors have set forth.

Sam Harris’ Book on No “Free Will” Will Be Unreasonable Rhetoric

Tomorrow, March 6th, marks the date for Sam Harris’ book on “Free Will” hits the news stands and book sellers’ shelves.  This book is promoted on Richard Dawkins’ web page, and states the following:

“A BELIEF IN FREE WILL touches nearly everything that human beings value.  It is difficult to think about law, politics, religion, public policy, intimate relationship, morality — as well as feelings of remorse or personal achievement — without first imagining that every person is the true source of his or her thoughts and actions.  And yet the facts tell us that free will is an illusion.  In this enlightening book, Sam Harris argues that this truth about the human mind does not undermine morality or diminish the importance of social and political freedom, but it can and should change the way we think about some of the most important questions in life.” (Source:  http://richarddawkins.net/articles/645155-free-will)

What?  No free will?  You might  think that kind of strange coming from one who holds to a balanced view of the doctrines of grace (reform theology, “Calvinism”), but I can’t help but take a swing at this.

First off while some of you let the fur go down on the back of your neck, I want to let you know that I do believe in “freedom”.  The question is what kind of freedom do I believe in?  First it is not a fatalistic view that those who want to say that Calvinist’s hold.

Then what does it mean to be free or what does it take for a decision to be free?  I mean we believe that God causes faith to come to the person seeking truth, and in some sense that faith is even secured by God Himself.  Supposedly at the opposites of the spectrum is the conflict between the freedom of choice and the view that God causes and secures salvation for the individual by the provisions of His grace and mercy and not the individual.

What does this have to do with Sam Harris not believing in free will?  Well, I would like to ask Sam a pretty vital question, “what does it mean to be free?”  This is a question that many people have never really thought about carefully, and I suspect that Sam’s book is going to be a production of his illogical rhetoric to say that you and I are not free.  I suspect that Sam, like many others think that there are only simple and obvious alternatives.  Those alternatives are:

1.  We are determined, puppets on a string making mechanistic decisions completely dictated from the outside like one domino falling against the other.  I think this is probably where Harris is landing.  My question here are as follows:   Does he think that because one does not have a choice in when and where one is born that the rest of life’s choices are the same?  How did he freely think up the thoughts he put on the page?

What about those thoughts or the initial thought to write a book on no free will?  He cannot say that he did not freely think up the thoughts he put together for the book.  He cannot say that he was a puppet on a string hammering out the rhetoric that he was not free to write what he was writing.   Does he really think that each thought was “a domino” of one thought falling upon thought “domino” after another and on and on?  Where did the initial thought come from?

One of the problems that Sam and atheists parroting his rhetoric need to admit but will refuse, is that there cannot be an infinite regression of current causes of thoughts.  There must be a starting point; a thought has to start somewhere and usually that is one that is freely thought up.  Just like thoughts on this posting; they are not the production of random chemicals and neurons firing.  There is information, and where there is information there is design.  Hmmm, sounds like a teleological argument brewing, eh Sam?

2.  The second option is more liberating!  We are not determined.  What I had for breakfast this morning and what Sam had for breakfast whatever morning was chosen freely.   My choice, under the sovereignty of God this morning, of a blueberry bagel, toasted and spread with Promise margarine with a glass of orange juice was a free choice that I made.

We are not chess pieces or puppets being strung by an unseen maniacal cosmic puppeteer.  We are completely free with all choices available to us, no matter whether one is a Christian or a skeptic.  There is a free choice that is made.  The former is a free choice, that is given, to respond to the liberating work of God toward redemption. The latter is the freedom to continue in bondage, in the deadness and bankruptcy of atheism.  What about Sam’s thoughts that are going to be bound between the covers of his book coming out on the morning of March 6th?

My question to Sam would be:  ”Where did those thoughts come from Sam, for you to weave your web of rhetoric”?  We know that all the atheist groupies will parrot his words, will they do this by some fatalistic domino factor of thoughts wrought by a chemical reaction of neurons and stuff?  No, Sam and those who read and believe his nonsense will make a free volitional choice to push it on those that they freely believe are deluded by their belief in a supernatural “God”.

You see I believe God does elect those who He draws to Himself and we respond.  I also believe in evangelism.  At the same time there are those, I believe, that are spiritually dead in their sins who are freely making the volitional choices to disbelieve and do the works of unbelief or false religion, or the diabolical things done in the past of Western civilization where millions were killed under atheistic regimes.  (I am sure some skeptic will get riled up on this one.)

I started off in making a statement that I believe in the doctrines of grace, but I do not believe in pre determinism.  What we do as believers will either glorify God or the self.  Those who are atheists and agnostics and skeptics of whatever flavor will do what they know to do and they will do it FREELY.

So what about Sam’s book that is coming out tomorrow?  What am I guessing it will be like?  My prediction is that it will be nothing more than rhetorical banter and a futile attempt to continue his rant in hopes to bash and destroy Christianity. Yes, he will have some folks cheering his work.  You know that his cheerleader, Richard Dawkins will be singing the book’s praises at the Reason Rally on March 24th.  But what will that prove?

It will prove that as a free “moral agent”, Sam freely wrote a book, and he freely expressed his thoughts and put them in a book about the fact that he [freely] does not believe in free will.  Sam is freely going boldly into the realm of unreasonable rhetoric. . . once again.  As a free moral agent, is he really willing to go there and think that he is being reasonable?

Sam, surely you jest!

Looking for Bloggers Responding to March 24th’s Reason Rally?

For those who have been reading The Real Issue, you are finding out that there is a movement among us to do outreach at the Reason Rally which is hosting speakers like Richard Dawkins and P. Z. Meyers.  Here are some of the bloggers and their postings that are responding and resounding a rally cry among evangelicals and apologists with polemical writing.  

If you have a link or know of a link from an apologetics ministry that you would like to put on this list, please contact us and we will review and post.

Posts from friends on The Reason Rally:

• Reasons for God: The Reason Rally and Generosity
• Another Ascending Lark: Exhortation to Pastors
• Ratio Christi Ohio State: How Does the God Delusion Lead to Rationality?
• The Apologetics Guy: The Reason Rally and Reasonable Faith in an UncertainWorld
• Deeper Waters: Reasonable Whining and Reason Ralliers Coming to a Church Near You and The Reason Rally and Jesus Allergy
• Faithful Thinkers: The Reason Rally and True Reason
• The Real Issue: A Response to an “Anonymous” Commentator
• The Real Issue:  My Rejoinder to My Unreasonable “Anonymous” Commenter
• Say Hello to My Little Friend: Dollars or Sense?
• Thinking Christian: Reasoning with Unreason
• True Reason - a central hub for reasoned responses to the Reason Rally
• Greg Reeves –  Reason Rally: Secular “Values” and Reason 
• Ratio Christi - Is Reason Reasonable?
• Glenn Peoples –  Reason Rally 2012  
• Tom Gilson - Come to the Reason Rally!
• Mikel Del Rosario - The Reason Rally and Reasonable Faith in an Uncertain World  
• Carson Weitnauer - The Reason Rally  
• Austin Gravely - A Brief Word on the Reason Rally 
• Steven McAndrew - Reason Rally 
• Christina Szymanski - Reason Rally 2012 
• Edgar Andrews - God, Black Holes and Stephen Hawking
• Deeper Waters - The Reason Rally and Dawkins’ Boeing Crash and Reason Rally Reasoning?

Is the Mormon Church a Christian Church?

by Rob Lundberg

Whenever Mormon missionaries come knocking at your door, one of the first things you will hear, after they introduce themselves as Elder “So and So” and Elder “Such and Such”, is that they will tell you that they are from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (a.k.a “Mormons” or “LDS”). Or you may be watching the political debates and hear all kinds of ad hoc rhetoric about politics and religion and someone mention Mitt Romney being a member of the Mormon Church. You might even be watching FoxNews and seeing the Glen Beck program with him pontificating on the battle between Islam versus the West. Christian (Baptist) universities like Liberty University have even had Beck as a commencement speaker. Some think there is no difference between Romney and Beck’s faith and biblical Christianity.

My desire for this article is not politically motivated. Let me state for the record that NEITHER conservative politics NOR liberal politics; NEITHER Republican NOR Democrat, NOR Tea Party will restore America! The restoration of this nation will only come, if the LORD wills, when the church stands up and defends and proclaims the gospel. Only then, if the LORD wills, we will see a revival in this nation. That being said my motivation is not political but apologetics minded in nature to assist in the exposing the ruse that the LDS Church is a “Christian church.” When you say Christian there are different connotations as to what that means, depending on who you or I are speaking to or what the talking head on the television is pontificating.

For the record, the Mormon Church is NOT a Christian church, but a non-Christian cult that claims to be “the true Christian church.”[1] The Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 11:3-4, 13-15 and Galatians 1:8,9 tells us that there will be those who will appear Christian but they will not be truly biblically Christian.

Now I know that there are folks who may be reading this, and they listen folks like Oprah, and the media pundits who know little to nothing about religious differences. But they will most likely read this article and call it or myself bigoted. Let’s all be reminded that such an accusatory charge boomerangs back to the one making the accusation. Most folks making such an accusation also hold to the false notion of “religious pluralism”, which states that all religions are equal or that they say the same thing or worship the same “God”. These charges show an ignorance on religions and to equivocate all religions being the same demonstrates that ignorance. We can thank the institutions of higher learning for brainwashing such nonsense into the minds of those echoing the charge.

To keep this article at a worthy scope, I am going to deal with just two of the doctrines that are cardinal to Biblical Christianity versus the religion of the Latter-Day Saints. You might be a Mormon reading this and might be wanting to ask where I get my authority to speak on such things. First off my credentials, though they mean little, are all in order. The second thing is that I have been granted by Brigham Young himself who said, “I say to the whole world. . .Take up the Bible, compare the religion of the Latter-day Saints with, and see if it stands the test.”[2] Also there is another quote that I would like to remind folks of and that is another by Brigham, “Mormonism is true in every leading doctrine, or it is false as a system altogether.”[3] So, let’s move forward shall we?

All this aside, I am just going to detail two doctrines that show the wide divide between biblical Christianity and the non-historical heretical teachings of the LDS Church. Those doctrines are the historical doctrines of God and of Jesus Christ. These are right at the heart of the issue for if you have a wrong view of God and Jesus Christ, you have the wrong God and the wrong Savior.

If you have the wrong God and wrong Savior, you have a wrong view of salvation (which will not be discussed in this posting). Let’s look and see first that Mormons have a different view of God from historical Christianity.

The Christian Church historically has believed and taught that there is one God who is Spirit, and a personal, eternal, infinite Creator of all that exists. God is a necessary Being and by stating that He is also necessary for all other things to exist. God has manifested His existence as a Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Deuteronomy. 6:4; Isaiah 43:10; 44:6-8; Matthew 28:19; John 4:24; 17:3).

The Mormon church holds to a different view of God. The god of Mormonism is an exalted man with a physical body of flesh and bones. The founder of the Mormon church, Joseph Smith stated, “If the veil were rent today, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit, and who upholds all worlds and all things by his power, was to make himself visible-I say, if you were to see him today, you would see him like a man in form”[4] The biblical doctrine of the Trinity is denied with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost seen as three separate entities. Smith states, “The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s; the Son also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of Spirit. Were it not so, the Holy Ghost could not dwell in us.”[5]

With these two diametrically opposed views of God, we that the God of the Bible is infinite, meaning without limitation in His attributes. The Mormon view is a finite god, that was once a man as you and I and became a god through spiritual evolving into godhood. Former LDS “Prophet” Lorenzo Snow once prophesied his couplet, “As man is God once was, as God is man may be.” My question to any well meaning truth seeking member of the LDS church is this: How can the finite man take on characteristics of an infinite God? Truth is, one cannot.

The Mormon church also has a faulty view of Jesus Christ. Earlier in this post, I referenced two passages that spoke of “a different Jesus.” The Mormon Church believes in a “different Jesus” that is not the same Jesus of the Bible.

The historical teaching of the Christian church has always been that Jesus was the virgin born God incarnate who existed in all time with the Father and the Holy Spirit in the eternal Trinity. In His earthly life and ministry, Jesus was fully God and fully man, possessing two natures – human and divine (100% of both at the same time.) Jesus lived a sinless life and willingly died on the cross at Golgotha as a sacrifice for the sins of humanity. (See John 1:1-18; 8:56-59; Philippians 2:5-11; Colossians 1:13-22 and Hebrews 1:3; 13:8).

What do the Mormon missionaries, Glen Beck, and Mitt Romney believe about Jesus Christ? What does the Mormon church teach about Jesus? To best give you the crux of the false view set forth by the LDS church, first off they teach that Jesus was the spiritual “first born” Son of Go in the pre-existence. “Every person who was ever born on earth was our spirit brother or sister in heaven. The first born to our heavenly parents was Jesus Christ, so he is literally our elder brother.”[6] So Jesus is our brother pro creatively speaking according to the Mormon Church? Continue reading further. . . “And now, verily I say unto you, I was in the beginning with the Father and am the Firstborn.”[7]

Jesus to the Mormons is also the “only begotten” physical offspring of God by procreation on earth. This is a flat out attack on the historical doctrine of the virgin birth. “Jesus is the only person on earth to be born of a mortal mother and an immortal father. That is why he is called the Only Begotten Son”[8]

As you can see there are some stark contrasts to Jesus’ birth. Even more so is the LDS view of Christ’s work of atonement on the cross. Mormons believe that Jesus’ atonement (death and resurrection) provide immortality for all people regardless of their faith. “Christ thus overcame physical death. Because of his atonement, everyone born on this earth will be resurrected. . . This condition will be called immortality. All people who ever lived will be resurrected, ‘both old and young, both bond and free, both male and female, both wicked and righteous’”[9]

So what about Adolf Hitler, Mao Tse Tung, Ghengis Khan, Josef Stalin et al? They are part of the subset of all people who have ever lived. They are going to be resurrected but it will not be to one of the three levels of heaven that the LDS embrace. (See Revelation 20:11-15)

What are we to make of those who say that Mitt, Glen and the friendly little missionaries knocking at your door, are all Christians? Do they share the same views on the nature of God and of Jesus Christ as evangelical Christians? No they do not. You see, just because someone says they believe in Jesus, it does not mean that they worship the Jesus of the Bible.

Today more than ever it is important to nail down our biblical convictions and make sure they are truly biblical. That also includes the cordial conversation with one who says they “believe in Jesus” or they “believe in God.” Friends, even the word “Christian” is thrown around in this culture as meaning anything but Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu or some other religion. We have to understand that we say we are a Christian, it means that one has been redeemed by God and claims a vital personal relationship with the risen Jesus Christ.

So the next time you are in a cordial conversation, and it goes “spiritual” and someone tells you that they are a Christian, you might want to take a page from the detective Columbo and ask something like this: “When you say you are a Christian, can you tell me what you mean when you use the word ‘Christian’”?

If you would like more information about Mormonism, I have a side website that deals specifically with the differences between historical biblical Christianity and the LDS church. Even though it is needing some revision and updating, the links are still “live”. You can find it here.

Also after interacting with this article, you have some questions come to the forefront, please feel free to email them to stand4truthapologetics@gmail.com. I will be more than happy to respond to your question in a timely manner.

Notes
[1] Walter Martin’s definition of a cult is where we are landing on this issue. He states in his classic volume, The Kingdom of the Cults, “A cult, then, is a group of people polarized around someone’s interpretation of the Bible and is characterized by major deviations from orthodox Christianity relative to the cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith, particularly the fact that God became a man in Jesus Christ” (The Kingdom of the Cults, 12).

[2] Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, Volume 16, 1873: 46.

[3] Brigham Young, Millennial Star, Volume 27, 1865: 675-76.

[4] Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 345.

[5] Doctrine and Covenants, 130:22.

[6] Gospel Principles, 11.

[7] Doctrine and Covenants, 93:21. The Mormon church mixes the commits the equivocation fallacy with the word for being created (gennao) versus the word for being firstborn meaning pre-eminence (prototokos).

[8] Gospel Principles, 64. The Prophet Isaiah wrote about Jesus’ birth as being born of a virgin (Isa. 7:14) and sent forth from God (Isa. 9:6-7). No where do we see any physical union between a god and the virgin Mary.

[9] Book of Mormon, Alma 11:44; Gospel Principles, 74, see also Gospel Principles 11, 17-19, and 71-77.

Rob Lundberg is the founder and the director of Stand4Truth.Net Apologetics Ministries, located in Fredericksburg, VA. To contact Rob or this ministry for information or provide feedback to this essay you can call 540.424.2305 or email Stand4Truth.Net at stand4truthapologetics@gmail.com

The Three Faces of Evil and a Christian Response

by Rob Lundberg

Introduction

One of the most popular objections for the existence of God coming from skeptics is the problem of evil.   The objection sounds something like this:  “How can there be a ‘God’ when there is all this evil in the world?  Where was God when 9/11 happened, the tsunamis wiped a whole coastline of Japan, and when tornadoes devastate a community?  On this tenth anniversary of 9/11, I want to answer this objection, as we reflect back to an event that shook our nation.  Having listened to and read the new atheists over the last few years, I am convinced that this event of terrorism is a catalyst to boosting their campaigns, in writing and speaking tours.

It is on this anniversary of 9/11 that my brothers and sisters in the task of apologetics are taking the time to write responses as to the problem of evil which will provide a prompting to faith rather than skepticism.  My task in this endeavor is toward addressing the “Three Faces of Evil and a Christian Response.”

As we trudge through this objection I am going to first provide a brief yet succinct definition of “evil”.  Then I plan to show how evil (active) and suffering (passive) show their ugly heads in the form of three “faces.”  Lastly, I will provide a Christian response to the problem of evil with hopes of showing why it is most reasonable to believe that God exists, and He has intervened even when we do not understand all there is to this objection but have to rely on faith after knowing all there can be known.

How Does One Define Evil?

If you were to ask the average person on the street (or in the church), how they define “evil”, one might hear answers stemming in the forms of events like acts of terrorism, natural disasters like tsunamis, hurricanes, or whatever natural forms they can think of.  Others might put a face or a person to their definition like, Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Josef Stalin or any of the personalities who remind us of atrocious acts of evil.  The new atheists like Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris (and those who follow these individuals) will say, “religion”.  But these “definitions” are not really definitions but just mere examples rooted in one’s approach to explaining “evil.”

I am convinced that no matter who you talk to, the approach to defining the problem of evil will be encased in one’s worldview. One popular approach to coming to understanding the problem of evil is found in a three step argument known as a syllogism that goes something like this:  (1) God created all things; (2) Evil is a thing; (3) Therefore God created evil.

If this approach were true, and I am happy to say that it is not, then Christianity has been rocked off of its moorings.  Why is this syllogism fallacious?  Because “evil” is not a “thing” in the sense of it being created “thing.”  In fact, evil did not need to be created thus we need to look at it from  a different direction.

The direction I will take in this comes from Saint Augustine.  It was Augustine who asked the question: Do we have any convincing evidence that a good God exists?  If we have independent evidence(s) that lead us to the conclusion that God does exist and that God is good, then God would be incapable of doing something outside of his very nature, like creating evil.  Thus evil has to get its definition from another source.

In looking at it from Augustine’s viewpoint, we find him offering evidence through natural theology which I will demonstrate on how the three “faces” of evil show themselves.  So allow me to work out the definition of evil from this perspective. It moves as follows:

Oh, right, I have mentioned this word “God”.  Before I move further, I probably ought to give a quick definition of what I mean by God?  God is the only being in existence who is the uncaused Cause, is absolutely moral, transcendent, infinite, and personal.  So in order to get to our definition of evil, believing that God exists and is ultimately good, we can deduce the following: (1) We know that God, being good, cannot create evil, so all things that God created are indeed good. (2) We also know that evil is not good.  (3) So if evil is not good, then evil can be defined as the absence of good.

More could be said about the approaches to defining evil, but the scope of this essay causes me to leave this point right here so that we can move on to the faces with which evil presents itself.

II.  Evil’s Three Faces

Evil shows its ugly head from three (3) different faces.  Where does evil come from?  Christians believe that prior to man’s falling into sin (Genesis 3), evil had not existed in the three faces this section will discuss.  It was a misuse of God given freedom that has its origins starting with the fall of Satan.  Lucifer (Satan) fell (Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28) and later tempted the man and the woman in the Garden of Eden.  We do not know all the historical facts of when, but the record from Scripture being reliable gives us this foundation.  It is at the fall of man in Genesis 3 that we see from Scripture, evil falling upon the world. It was not until the moment when the man and the woman, using their God given freedom, chose to disobey God.  The result was evil coming into the world through three ugly faces.  I now move to a summarization of them for you.

A.  Face Number One:  Our Mortal Bodies. 

The first face of evil I would like to present is the evil that inflicts our mortal bodies. From the time that we are born until the time we die, and those times in between, we are afflicted with injuries, and illness.  We think of the horrible disease of cancer, along with other terminal illnesses.  Some of us are immune from some of these but in the long run we are all breaking down to the point where we will one day encounter the grave.

These bodies have a spirit in them which drives our desires, and our passions. They house our soulishness,  (our minds, our wills, and emotions) from the time we are born.  We might fall on black ice and break a leg.  We might participate in a sport activity like softball, hit the ball a ways, and round first base, and blow out an Achilles tendon while running to second base.

These bodies as they get older every day will continue to  experience the phenomenon of irreversibility of the aging process.  We need to admit that these mortal “power packs”, known as our bodies are breaking down.  Some of us have cavities in our teeth, others need eyeglasses or hearing aides, and as we age we have achy aging muscles. Why is this?  Because we are competing with the law of entropy by decaying, breaking down, and moving toward a time when these bodies of ours will no longer work.

This is the first face of evil that we cannot do anything about. The humanist will say, you are born, you live, and then you die; and that is all there is.  But is that all there is?  Though this is an inescapable fact of life, the last part of this essay will give a response to the problem of evil pointing to an answer to the fact that this is not all there is.

There is a second face of evil rearing its ugly head, and that face is seen in the natural world.

B.  Face Number Two:  The Natural World

We not only experience a form of evil from our mortal bodies, experiencing illness, and ultimately death, but there is a second face to evil in a form coming out of the natural world.  You see, death and disease are not the only things that seek to overtake these power packs we call our bodies.  We also experience an evil that comes from the phenomenon of the natural world.

Not too long ago, here in Virginia where I live, we experienced an earthquake that registered 5.9 on the Richter scale.  Later in that week we had the potential of experiencing the wrath of Hurricane Irene.  However we did not experience the full brunt of Irene, but only had tropical storms that were formidable in their own right.  There were those who felt the greater impact of that hurricane losing property; with some even losing their homes and a few lost their lives.

We think of other parts of the world where there have been greater force hurricanes leaving wreckage.  We think of the recent tsunamis in Japan that were the aftermath of underwater earthquakes and have devastated a whole coastline and shut down parts of the Japanese auto industry for a handful of months.

These are things that we cannot escape.  This too is one of many results from the fall of man that we read about in the third chapter of Genesis 3.  But there is a final form of evil that we cannot ignore. In fact, it is this third face that is forced upon many in our world.  This face I refer to as the form of evil that comes from our fellow human beings.

C.  Face Number Three:  Our Fellow Human Beings

There is an ironic twist to writing this essay.  As I write this, I happen to be watching the conversation of a particular thread when all of a sudden I notice a Facebook ad promoting tee shirts from an atheist merchant.  Being rather curious, I click on it and notice one ad showing a tee shirt with the following statement: “Science flies you to the moon.  Religion flies you into buildings.”  How providential of an illustration as I will explain momentarily.

In this section we are looking at evil coming from our fellow human beings.  We think of the atrocities over the last century, some yes, done under the banner of religion, but heinous actions were committed coming out of the realm of skepticism, yes even atheism.

The following chart shows the amount of loss of life just in the last century under a banner of “unbelief”:

Government Leader	Total Loss of Lives
Josef Stalin	42,672,000
Chiang Kai-shek	10,214,000
Mao Tse Tung	37,828,000
Vladimir Lenin	4,017,000
Pol Pot	2,397,00
Hideki Tojo	3,990,000
Adolf Hitler	20,946,000

Looking at this chart from R. J. Rummel’s work “Death by Government” I am not so convinced that religion is totally guilty of the countless lives that have been lost over the past century.  Of course we think of 9/11 and the fact that the terrorist action against the United States was an act of religious war (‘jihad”).  We see that religion has had its place in committing heinous actions; but let’s not just blame religion!  Remember that Nietzsche predicted that the twentieth century was going to be the bloodiest century to date.  Look at Rummel’s chart again and tell me he was wrong.

If we are totally honest, we could look at the actions of the Nazi death camps and see the loss of over 12,000,000 lives in the ovens that were orchestrated in the academic halls of nihilistic scientists.  How could reasonable “sane” commit such heinous evil?  Why?

Just cast the religious and philosophical language aside and check out the news on the internet.  This morning I read a local news story that reported a twenty year old male shooting someone in the back of the head at point blank range.  The reason for his killing his victim was over a spilled bag of sunflower seeds.  Are we kidding ourselves?  A spilled bag of sunflower seeds earned a point blank shot to the back of the head?  Why?

What is all this telling us?  What it is telling us is that there is something more than religion that is responsible for the evil that we see from one human being against another.

You see, I don’t think religion is the total culprit as much as it is the worldview of the one who is committing, or ordering an evil act.  It is the one embracing a bankrupt worldview who is the culprit.  The atheist or the anti-theist who says “religion kills” is committing the same fallacy as an anti-gun rights activist who says “guns kill.”

Guns by themselves do not kill people.  You have to have a person puling the trigger.  Religion, good or bad, does not kill as long as the worldview is sound.  It is only when the teachings of a bankrupt religious or philosophical worldview are put into action that we see evil committed by one human against another human manifesting itself.  This was evident with the razing of the Twin Towers on September 11^th  of 2001.  I also think about the actions this past July by the terrorist action upon a girls school in Norway; even the shooter at Virginia Tech a few years ago.  Each of these sets of terrorists had a worldview, a bankrupt religious or philosophical worldview.  It was the actions from a bankrupt worldview that were manifested on those days.

Is there any response to this problem of evil?  Where can we run to in order to find an answer?  Let me finish up this essay with a response to this question.

III.  Christian Response

To sum where we have been, in the first section, I gave a brief definition of evil as the absence of good.  In the second section, I shared briefly three faces or sources from which evil shows its ugly face.  We looked at evil from the natural world, our mortal bodies, and finally the evil that comes from fellow human beings.  All of us have or will experience each of these to some varying degree.  We may come face to face or we may see them from a distance, or both.

Allow me now to move to the Christian response to the problem of evil. The first face (natural evil) does not really prompt us to ask the question as much as the remaining two.  Why do we suffer from terminal illness?  Why does man commit such heinous actions?  Why did God allow the earthquake or the tsunami?

Who is asking the question?   Each of these questions imply a moral framework that is naturally wired to our souls.  Whether you believe that God exists or not, we cannot escape asking this “moral question” in varying ways.  I believe that only the Christian can ask this question legitimately because of the Christian worldview provides a solid foundation for a response.  Allow me to explain.

The world views of the Eastern religions cannot answer this problem.  If you were to take a look at the ideas behind the problem of evil, it is seen as either non-real or it is one’s karma being played out.  The Buddhist will tell you and I that they are deeply concerned with overcoming suffering but they must deny that suffering is real.  The Hindu has no concept of rebellion against a holy God, or against his fellow man. The Hindu views this as ignorance of the unity with Brahman and a violation of one’s social duty (dharma) are humanity’s problems.  But calling it ignorance or calling evil non real does not solve the problem when one is suffering. It only sweeps it under the rug until it re-emerges and shows up as a vicious circle.

The Islamic worldview is fatalistic when evil manifests itself.  Evil is often explained as the will of Allah.  There is this concept of ‘shirk’ speaking about those who violate the “laws of Islam” or commit sin against the religion or ‘Allah’, but that’s as far as it goes.

What about the skeptics?  What about the atheists who try to say that God does not exist because of all the evil in the world.  This too is a problem.

If one were to “follow the path or reasoning of the unbeliever, we would find some fascinating contradictions.  The main one, I see, is that if the atheist lived out the baseness of his or her worldview, they would have to conclude that there is nothing wrong with rape or torturing human beings.  They have to admit that there is nothing morally wrong with the loss of millions over the last century at the hands of Hitler, Stalin and others  Therefore it is my contention, the atheist cannot ask the questions on the problem of evil without smuggling in terms from a moral Lawgiver.

Where is the solace amid those times of suffering for one embracing any of these religions? Where does the comfort come from?    I am convinced that one must look to the Christian worldview for the answer to these questions.

The Christian points to the paradox of the cross of Christ.  It is at the cross of Christ on Golgotha where the problem of evil has its answer.  For in the cross, we see love, justice, evil and forgiveness all coalescing at one point in human history.

At the cross you have an act of evil upon an innocent man.  That evil act was death by the horrible means of crucifixion.  This was not the death of a misguided martyr but an act of justice for our sin.  This was not an act of suicide by a lunatic but an act of love to pay the penalty for the evil within our own hearts.  In Paul’s letter to the Christians in Rome, we read,

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners [transgressors against a moral Lawgiver], Christ died for us. (5:8; bracketed remark is mine)

It was in the sacrifice of Christ that we see God’s justice being carried out upon Christ so that we might have peace.  Again we read the Apostle Paul in His letter to the believers in Rome (5:1)

“Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ”

An act of evil turned around into a work that would justify, forgive, and show the love of a God who recreates man truly free to worship Him, or in his spiritual deadness reject Him .  This is why I say along with my mentors in the task of apologetics, God made evil possible by creating man free; and it is that free man who makes that third face of evil actual by misusing his God-granted freedom to commit acts of evil not only against his fellow man, but also against a holy, righteous, loving and just God.

None of the religions, as great as they are (quantitatively) can solve the problem of evil.  If any of them could come up with a better solution to solve the problem of evil and the evil within our own hearts, God would have to apologize for putting HIs Son to death on the cross.  Thankfully we will not see this happening any time soon.

 PDF Version Here

Rob Lundberg is the Founder and the Director of Stand4Truth.Net Apologetics Ministries, located in Fredericksburg, VA.  To contact Rob or this ministry for information or provide feedback to this essay you can call  540.424.2305 or email Stand4Truth.Net at stand4truthapologetics@gmail.com

Posts on the 9/11 Tragedy

• Christianity and 9/11: Guilt by Association?- The Point
• Do all roads (and flights) lead to God?- Sarcastic Xtian
• America After 9/11 – Is Religion Evil?- Apologetics Guy
• Where was God on 9-11?- Neil Mammen’s Blog
• Atheism, Evil and Ultimate Justice- Faithful Thinkers
• The Three Faces of Evil and A Christian Response- The Real Issue
• Resources on the Problem of Evil- Apologetics 315
• From Ground Zero to Ten Years Later– Sententia
• Suffering and the Cross of Christ- Hieropraxis

The Difference between Apologetics and Evangelism

by Rob Lundberg

As an elder in our church and as an apologist, I am reminded that there is a difference between the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20) and what I call “the Apologetic Mandate” (1 Peter 3:15-17). This difference is found from conversations with folks on both sides of the scale have some confusion between evangelism and apologetics. One group thinks that apologetics is irrelevant and that you just need to give the gospel. The other group says you must do apologetics as a means of evangelism. Both of these groups are way off kilter.

First off let me say, that we are called and commanded to do the task of apologetics. We are also called to do the work of an evangelist (2 Timothy 4:5). So what is evangelism and what is apologetics?

First off let me qualify apologetics with the term “Christian apologetics”, which is the branch of philosophy that is devoted defending the reasonable content of the Christian faith with particular refererences to those criticisms of that content that comes from outside and even inside the Christian faith.[1] In other words, apologetics answers questions and objections that people may have about our Christian beliefs. There may be times where apologetics may be a part of a evangelism, but it is not evangelism in the purest sense of the usage of the terms.

So what is “evangelism”? One of my professors from seminary put it this way.

“Evangelism involves the presenting of Jesus Christ to men and women that under the conviction and leadership of the Holy Spirit, they will confess their need for the Savior, repent of sin, and trust Christ as Lord and serve Him in one of His churches.” (Gray Allison, Winsome Words for Willing Witnesses).

John Stott, at the Lausanne Convention in 1974 confirms Allison’s definition with the following, “To evangelize. . . does not mean to win converts. . .but simply to announce the good news irrespective of the results.” Stott and Allison are not in conflict with one another. The gospel is good news! What is that good news? What is the gospel? The gospel is found in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5,

“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scripture, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas (Peter), then to the Twelve. . .”

The gospel is not about sharing your testimony. It is not imposing the truth or the f-a-c-t-s of the gospel upon someone. It is not about social action as noble and needed as social action is in a corrupt global world. Lastly it is it not about accruing results.

Earlier in this essay, I mentioned that I graduated from seminary. Let me say that it is one of the most, if not the most, evangelistic seminary in America! Yes, I am very very grateful to have graduated from such a very evangelistic seminary, where students were required to develop a lifestyle of evangelism, however I am concerned about its pride in keeping track of I have this issue about keeping track of the number of professions, recommitments, and church starts students have been a blessing to participate in. Where are those professions? Where are those recommitments? What are we doing to train our students to equip the people in the pews not only to do evangelism but dovetail its handmaiden to our evangelism. What is that handmaiden? The task of apologetics.

Seminaries today are weak, and by weak I am meaning that spiritual formations may bring a person closer to God intimately, but if you leave out apologetics studies, one will only be learning about God with the heart and the soul.[2] Bring IN apologetics studies (an not just a one semester course) and bring the mind in as well.

There is a difference in evangelism and apologetics. Let’s make sure that we appeal to the soul as well as to the mind as we point to the problem of man’s sin, but then bring in the solution, not being afraid of any objections in the process.

Notes

[1] The reason I mention inside the Christian faith as well is because of the recent statistics of kids that are leaving home for college and ‘walking away from the Christian faith. I believe (and have been ranting on this for years now) that apologetics is needed in our churches to help reinforce the faith and that is (or is not) being preached from pulpits.

[2] There are very few seminaries that are equipping their students with concentrations in apologetics. Biola University, Southern Evangelical Seminary, and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary are pace setters in this discipline.

Six Characteristics Which Make Up a Good Worldview

by Rob Lundberg

  Have you ever realized that you have a worldview? It may be a Christian worldview, an atheistic   worldview, or one that believes in many gods or that all is god. You might be thinking, whoa wait a minute, what on earth is a worldview?

There are a variety of definitions that are presented by different authors. One of the more popular writers on the subject of worldviews is James Sire, who states that “a worldview is a commitment, a fundamental orientation of the heart, that can be expressed as a story or in a set of presuppositions (assumptions, that may be true, partially true, or false) which we hold (consciously or subconsciously) about the basic constitution of reality, and that provides that foundation on which we live and move and have our being”.[1] Another writer states that “a worldview is, first of all, an explanation and interpretation of the world, and second, an application of this view to life. In simpler terms, our worldview is a view of the world and a view for the world.”[2]

Having taught a couple of courses on worldviews, I like Sire’s definition because of its specificity. If you look at Sire’s definition worldviews can be true or they can be false. They can be consistent or inconsistent. We can embrace them consciously and volitionally; or we can embrace a little bit from one worldview, and a little from another worldview without even thinking that what we believe is consistent or sound. Again, the question is not about everyone having a worldview. We know that everyone has a worldview. The question is whether or not the worldview that you embrace is a good one or not.

Take for example the questions, “Where do I come from? (Origin); “Why am I here?” (Meaning); “How can I change?” (Condition); and “Where am I going?” (Destiny). Each of these questions all fit the specific definition of Sire’s definition. Is it possible to have an inconsistent worldview? If you are a professing Christian how would you answer those questions, and are each of the answers consistent with the previous questions? What does it mean to have a “good worldview?” Here is a set of criteria that I found in a great source by Ravi Zacharias that will help in the framing of your worldview.

• A good worldview will have a strong foundation in correspondence. This means that is it will have factual support. Conversely, it will refuse that which is known to be false. It must harness all areas of reality and not retain a selective sovereignty. To refuse to include facts that challenge the thesis or to arbitrarily make some subservient to others because they better fit a predetermined conclusion betrays a prejudice that distorts the worldview.

• A good worldview should have a high degree of coherence or internal consistency. A logically contradictory system cannot be true. To be internally consistent it cannot have contradicting deductions, regardless of what “experiential need” are met in the process.

• A good worldview has explanatory power. The collation of facts leads to initial postulations, from whence we devise our theories, our hypotheses, and then finally delineate our “laws.” United facts and integrated deductions lead to systems. Facts ultimately do not just speak for themselves; they help build a theory, or provide the prescriptive elements, the eyeglasses, through which we see the world.

• A good worldview will avoid two extremes. It will not be too simple nor will be too complex. This is the famous Occam’s Razor Test (William of Occam (1300-1349)) who supposedly said “do not multiply entities without necessity,” which basically means that we are to resist the temptation to make our explanations too complex. IF an explanation becomes too complex, Occam’s razor will cut it off. On the other hand, an explanation should not become too simplistic that it commits the reductive fallacy. To make a man an incomprehensibility is to go to one extreme. To consider him a mere brute is to reduce him to the other extreme.

• A good worldview is neither too simple nor too complex in its explanatory power. This is pretty self-explanatory.

• A good worldview has more than one line of evidence, not just one knockout argument. Cumulative evidence converges from several sources of data.

• A good worldview is not complete in itself until it is able to refute, implicitly or explicitly, contrary worldviews. The law of non-contradiction applies not only within a worldview, but also between worldviews. Thus, it is more reasonable to say that all religions we know of are wrong than to assert that all are right. Any system that opens its arms wide enough to incorporate everything will end up strangling itself when the arms close in.

As you can see, these are some great criteria that you can use to help shape your worldview. If one examines all six of these elements, taking the elements of the biblical Christian worldview, it will be easy to see that it meets the standard set forth by these criterium.

Over the next several weeks, I hope to have a short summation of the worldviews that are right now competing with the biblical Christian worldview using the four main questions hinged upon origin, meaning, condition, and destiny. Stay tuned as there is more to come. — RL

Notes

1. James W. Sire, The Universe Next Door. (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1988), 17. Even Wikipedia has a page that defines a worldview pretty well and can be found here at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_view.

2. W. Gary Phillips and William E. Brown, Making Sense of Your World (Chicago: Moody Press, 1991), 29.

3. Ravi Zacharias, A Shattered Visage: The Real Face of Atheism. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 189-91; This section of the appendix of Zacharias’ work is worth the whole book. These six points are taken from Appendix 2, entitled The Establishment of a Worldview. In this section Ravi references Arlie J. Hoover’s work The Case for Christian Theism. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1976 and Ron Nash’s Faith and Reason.

Stephen Hawking Meets Puddleglum the Marshwiggle

by Rob Lundberg

Not long ago, Stephen Hawking made a statement that “a belief that heaven or an afterlife awaits us is a ‘fairy story’ for people afraid of death”.  Here is a man, who’s body is plagued by ALS (Lou Gherig’s Disease, a motor neurone disease) since the age of 21, and is being kept alive along with his brilliant mind by a machine which enables him to communicate through a voice synthesizer and types the words that he wishes to communicate through selective eye movements.  Indeed in his condition we see the wonderful meeting of man and the wonderful technology of computerized machinery.  But that does NOT mean that man is a mere machine!  More on Hawking can be found here.

No heaven?  Afraid of death?  At one point and time, shortly after his wife’s passing, Stephen Hawking was attending (I am not assuming anything more than that) a church.  But Hawking has been very clear that despite his physical condition that he has been suffering with for the last 49 years he is another atheist that does not fear death.  He also states that he is also “not in a hurry to die.”

But no God, no heaven, and not being afraid of death?  I wonder where Hawking finds comfort in knowing that he is going to breath his last one day.  No doubt he is a brilliant individual.  But what if he is wrong?

Well, to share with you a thought I was mulling over after reading Hawking’s remark, I thought of an episode of one of my favorite movies that I like to watch with my wife and daughter.  It is the BBC’s version of C. S. Lewis’ The Silver Chair.  

In the movie there are three heros in the movie, (Eustace Scrubb, Jill Pole, and Puddleglum the Marshwiggle), in search of the Prince Rillian.  Though Puddleglum appears to provide a comedic outlet for the receivers of the story, this marshwiggle also reflects a lot of C. S. Lewis’ theological and philosophical depth to the storyline.  

When Eustace, Jill and Puddleglum finally respond to all the signs given to Jill by Aslan, they rescue and release Prince Rillian from the Queen of the Underworld’s curse.  The next scene is an encounter with the Queen of the Underground who is the villian.  The queen puts the children and the Prince under a spell, telling them that there is no Narnia, there is no sky, no moon, no stars, and no Aslan.  

You might be wondering what in the world does this have to do with Stephen Hawking’s statements.    Dr. Hawking, I would like to introduce to you to Mr. Puddleglum the Marshwiggle.  Mr. Puddleglum I give you the floor.  Here is a video that links all this musing together. . .

Puddleglum:  Dr. Hawking, ”Suppose… suppose we have only dreamed and made up these things like sun, sky, stars, and moon, and Aslan himself. In that case, it seems to me that the made-up things are a good deal better than the real ones. And if this black pits of a kingdom is the best you can make, then it’s a poor world. And we four can make a dream world to lick your real one hollow.”

Mr. Hawking, you say there is no God (no Aslan).  You say there is no heaven (stars, moon, sky, overworld); that it is just a fairy tale?  What if your atheism and atheism in general is nothing more than a ruse, a childish ranting of fantasy in pursuit of autonomy?  Years upon years have shown atheism to bring no meaning, no purpose, and no moral law.  Atheism is a philosophy that has to smuggle in theistic language from a worldview that it rejects in order to defend its arguments. 

I only pray that Stephen Hawking will be “grabbed by the heels by the Hound of Heaven” before it is too late, and he will find that his worldview has no recovery.

Harold Camping is Bewildered About His Failed Doomsday Prophecy, Do Ya Think?

by Rob Lundberg

Over the past couple of weeks I have spent some time responding to folks who [were] concerned about Harold Camping’s prophetic declaration of the “end of world” and the coming judgment which was to begin on May 21, 2011. Well, May 21, 2011 has come and gone.  The Church is still here. However the ramifications for this false prophecy is giving Christianity a “black eye”, that Christianity’s critics are having a field day.  What an exciting day for us apologists!

At the same time, it is an exciting time (loosely speaking) for ministry there are bunches of bewildered people who have been deceived by a false prophet who has made claims like this in the past.  For those who think Camping is a Bible scholar, you need to know that Camping holds to an unbiblical modal view of the Trinity, where Christ is a mere mode of God, and not a different Person within the Godhead. Take this heresy and combine it with a theology regarding the end times and the date of the rapture is based on numerology instead of the use of a sound  biblical hermeneutic and you have the makings of a “Christian cult leader who has lead a lot of people into delusion with his false prophecy.

Today, two days after the failed prophecy (See Matthew 24:36 and Deuteronomy 18:20-22), Harold Camping is now having to wrestle with himself over the bewilderment of his error, with back peddling. (I might add, that is unfortunate that the American Atheist societies are having a field day with this.)  But what should we expect after making a dogmatic pronouncement that does not come true?  What we can expect are opportunities to respond to the critics, and minister to those who believed Camping’s false prophecy.

Here is an article that sums Camping’s bewilderment and how he expects to recover:

Harold Camping ‘Bewildered’ After Failed Doomsday Prediction

What about Camping’s followers, and how will can the Bible believing church assist the disgruntled, disillusioned and disappointed followers of Camping?  What are the consequences for believing and can the Church respond?   Yes, here is one article to assist in furthering one’s understanding of error’s outward repercussions:  

Harold Camping:  The Consequence of Believing in His ‘rapture.’

Can anything good come out of this?  Absolutely!  There are plenty of lessons that we can learn and apply as it awaits real imminent Parousia.  Check out the following article:

Camping’s Rapture Doomsday Prediction Doing Anything Good?

One of the members of our Christian Apologetics Alliance on Facebook, Austin Gravley has also added some insights, if you would like to know more about Harold Camping.  Check out his Ascending Lark entry here.

Lastly here is our Real Issue podcast summing up The Aftermath of Harold Camping’s False Prophecy.

Is the Bible Reliable?

by Rob Lundberg

Many times a Christian will be asked, how do you know that the Bible is true?  The response is often rooted in circular logic, sounding like, “I know the Bible is true, because the Bible says it is true?”  But that is nothing more than the committing the circular reasoning fallacy.  So how do you we know that the Bible is God’s Word written to us?  How did the Bible come about to what we know it as today?

First and Foremost

The question of reliability is challenged in the halls of the academy today.  This and the lack of training in the church when things get difficult draw people to  inwardly challenge the Bible’s reliability. How can we be sure that it is a reliable collection of historical documents written by eyewitnesses that were written during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses, and record for us supernatural events that are direct fulfillment to specific prophecies and the writers claiming that the writings are divine rather than human in origin? (See 2 Peter 1:16-21 and Luke 1:1-4)

This is a good and valid question. I am happy to say that we don’t need to rely on the myth of ‘blind faith’ to answer that question.  We apply the same tests to the biblical documents as we would to any other ancient writing.

In 1952, a professor of military history, Chauncey Sanders, set down three tests which can be used for any historical writing. He named these tests the bibliographic test, the internal test, and the external test. Since the Bible is a collection of  historical documents, we can examine the Bible with these tests in the same way we would examine other ancient documents.

How Well Were the Original Documents Transmitted to Us Today? — The Bibliographic Test

Whenever a document is written, there is always only one original. This is the document from which copies are made. Sometimes, many copies will be made. Other times, only a few will be made. What we want to find out is, if we had to construct the original document from the copies, how accurate would it be? Clearly, 100% accuracy would be a perfect copy.

The Old Testament

There are very few copies of the original Old Testament writings. This is because copies were lost, ceremonially buried when worn out, or destroyed if imperfections were discovered. Before 1947, the earliest Hebrew manuscript available was the Masoretic text.

But in 1947, approximately 1100 scrolls known as the the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. The amazing thing about these scrolls is that they are dated between 200 BC, and 68 AD, and contained a complete copy of the Prophet Isaiah.[1]  There are very few variations between these two manuscripts. No variations affect the meaning of the documents in any way.

The New Testament

Archaeologists have found copies of quite a few ancient manuscripts, written by different authors. Here is a table that present good comparison.

Author	Date Written	Earliest Copy	Time Span	Number of copies	Accuracy
Homer	850 BC	—	—	643	95%
Herodotus	450 BC	about 900 AD	about 1350 years	8	there
Euripdes	440 BC	about 1100 AD	about 1500 years	9	are
Thucydides	420 BC	about 900 AD	about 1300 years	8	not
Plato	380 BC	about 900 AD	about 1300 years	7	enough
Aristotle	350 BC	about 1100 AD	about 1400 years	5	copies
Caesar	60 BC	about 900 AD	about 960 years	10	to
Catullus	50 BC	about 1500 AD	about 1600 years	3	reconstruct
Livy	10 BC	—	—	20	the
Tacitus	100 AD	about 1100 AD	about 1000 years	20	originals
New Testament	45 AD	about 130 AD	about 90 to 100 yeas	14000 +	99.5%

                                                                  taken from “I’m Glad You Asked, by Boa & Moody

Apart from the New Testament, the only other ancient writing which has any level of accuracy associated with it, is Homer. And yet the New Testament has a far higher degree of accuracy than Homer. Scholars universally accept the copies of Homer’s writings as being accurate. It is undeniable, then, that the New Testament is by far the most accurately reconstructed ancient document. It passes the bibliographic test with no problems whatsoever.

The Internal Test – Do The Writers of the Bible Claim Their Writings Are True?

In any document, we are justified in discovering what the writer of that document says about it.  Many of the writers of the New Testament were eyewitnesses of Jesus. They saw him, knew all about him, and in some cases, were his followers. And they said as much:

The eyewitness to these things has presented an accurate report. He saw it himself, and is telling the truth, so that you also will believe.

From the very first day, we were there, taking it all in – we heard it with our own ears, saw it with our own eyes, verified it with our own hands.

“We were there on the holy mountain with Jesus.” We heard the voice out of heaven with our very own ears. We couldn’t be more sure of what we heard – God’s glory, God’s voice.

Even when the writers were not eyewitnesses, they showed that their writings were not made up from thin air:

So many others have tried their hand at putting together a story of the wonderful harvest of Scripture and history that took place among us, using reports handed down by the original eyewitnesses who served this Word with their very lives. Since I have investigated all the reports in close detail, starting from the story’s beginning, I decided to write it all out.

And since the New Testament was written between AD 47 and AD 95, there was just not enough time for myths and falsehoods about Jesus to grow. There were enough eyewitnesses of Jesus to challenge any historical errors, or blatant lies. Yet no-one did. The Bible passes the internal test.

The External Test – What Does Outside Evidence Say About the Bible?

Because the Bible is a collection of documents written within history, it contains references to history which can be verified by archaeology. It is interesting that before the 20^th century, many critics of the Bible discredited it, due to lack of evidence for certain biblical claims. Yet, in the 20^th century, archaeology exploded, and all such claims have been reversed.

Archaeology has made astonishing finds which provide evidence for the claims of the Bible. Archaeology cannot prove the Bible, but every new find gives more weight to the historical accuracy of the Bible.

Here are just a few examples of the historical reliability of the Bible:

• Critics once claimed that the Law of Moses could not have been written by Moses, since writing was largely unknown at that time (about 1500 BC). Then, the Laws of Hammurabi (1700 BC) were found. This showed that writing was definitely known at that time, and left no reason why Moses could not have written the Law of Moses.

• For a long time, critics questioned the accuracy of Daniel 5, which mentions a Babylonian King named Belshazzar. Archaeological records show that Nabonidus was king at the time, and do not mention Belshazzar. Yet, in 1956, three stone slabs were found. These slabs showed that while Nabonidus went off to war to fight the Persians, he entrusted the kingdom to his son, Belshazzar.

• Many critics have tried to discredit Luke as an accurate historian. So far they have been unsuccessful. A notable example is where Luke says that Lysanius is the Tetrarch of Abilene. Recently, archaeologists found two Greek inscriptions, which show that Lysanius was the Tetrarch of Abilene between 14 and 29 AD.[2]

• In the past, people have doubted whether Jesus even existed. Was he a historical person, or a made-up character? In fact, early Greek, Roman and Jewish sources make mention of Jesus. These include Tacitus (Annals), Suetonius (Life of Claudius, Lives of the Caesars), Pliny the Younger (Epistles) and Lucian (On the Death of Peregrine). As well, there is a letter from a Syrian, Mara Bar-Serapion, to his son. In it, he compares the deaths of Socrates, Pythagoras and Jesus.

The Bible has no problem meeting the external tests.  In fact, when the bibliographic test, the internal test and the external test are applied to the Bible, the Bible emerges as a completely trustworthy book. This is even more amazing considering how many different writers contributed to the Bible. It points to a “common author”, God, and shows how God not only gives a message to us, but also takes care to ensure that we can trust that message.

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[1]In 1947, a young Bedouin goat herdsman found some strange clay jars in caves near the valley of the Dead Sea. Inside the jars were some leather scrolls. The discovery of these “Dead Sea Scrolls” at Qumran has been hailed as the outstanding archeological discovery of the twentieth century. The scrolls have revealed that a commune of monastic farmers flourished in the valley from 150 B.C. to 70 A.D. It is believed that when they saw the Romans invade the land they put their cherished leather scrolls in the jars and hid them in the caves on the cliffs northwest of the Dead Sea.

The Dead Sea Scrolls include a complete copy of the Book of Isaiah, a fragmented copy of Isaiah, containing much of Isaiah 38-66, and fragments of almost every book in the Old Testament. The majority of the fragments are from Isaiah and the Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). The books of Samuel, in a tattered copy, were also found and also two complete chapters of the book of Habakkuk. In addition, there were a number of non-biblical scrolls related to the commune found.

These materials are dated around 100 B.C. The significance of the find, and particularly the copy of Isaiah, was recognized by Merrill F. Unger when he said, “This complete document of Isaiah quite understandably created a sensation since it was the first major Biblical manuscript of great antiquity ever to be recovered. Interest in it was especially keen since it antedates by more than a thousand years the oldest Hebrew texts preserved in the Masoretic tradition.”

[2]Sir William Ramsey, St. Paul the Traveller and Roman Citizen (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House reprint; 1949 from 1894 lectures). Intent on discrediting Luke’s writings, in the last century this hostile scholar traveled across the Mediterranean to that end. But he was astonished to discover that his archaeological findings confirmed the full accuracy of the customs, locations, and the governing titles (e.g. “magistrates“ Acts 16:35; “proconsul” Acts 18:12) Luke had mentioned. These varied widely from region to region. Ramsey concluded, “Great historians are the rarest of writers…[I regard Luke] among the historians of the first rank” (pp. 3-4).