Category Archives: Apologetics

Can we prove and defend Jesus’ resurrection?

Vacancy

(image courtesy ChristArt )

By Spencer D Gear

A person on a Christian forum asked: ‘Can we prove the Resurrection? Should we stop trying to prove Christianity?’[1] Here are a couple responses:

‘Prove it through your faith more so than in word or doctrines’.[2]
‘What is the significance of Paul not talking about the empty tomb?’[3]
‘Do you realize that the word resurrection literally (anastasis neckron) means “a standing up of the corpse”? Paul and every gospel writer uses this very specific term. There was no doubt that this was not the result of an evolution but the testimony held to since the beginning.’[4]
‘Actually, without testimony, evidence is meaningless. You either believe the witnesses or you don’t. Those who wrote about Jesus are credible’.[5]

Defending the resurrection as history

My response was as follows:[6]

Have you read the chapter, ‘The Resurrection of Jesus’ in William Lane Craig’s book on apologetics (Craig 1994:255-298)? After finishing his PhD in philosophy at the University of Birmingham, UK, Craig studied the resurrection of Christ under one of the leading defenders of the bodily resurrection of Christ in Europe, Wolfhart Pannenberg, in Germany. He completed a ThD under Pannenberg at the University of Munich, with the major topic being the resurrection of Jesus.

(Image courtesy Crossway Books)

He does not follow the traditional approach to the defense of the resurrection because of the advance of biblical criticism and the tide of subjectivism that is invading the culture and the church. The traditional approach is the historical apologetic for the resurrection. The outline is (from Craig 1994:256-265):

A. The Gospels Are Authentic

Internal evidence;
External evidence;

B. The Text of the Gospels Is Pure

C. The Gospels Are Reliable

1. Apostles neither deceivers nor deceived;

2. The origin of Christianity proves the resurrection

Three resurrection facts: A response with more impact

His view is that the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus seems to rest on ‘three great, independently established facts: the empty tomb, the resurrection appearances, and the origin of the Christian faith (1994:272). Here is the broad outline that he defends in this chapter (you will be doing yourself a favour if you read the entire chapter). See Craig (1994:272-298) for the following outline:

William Lane Craig, (photo courtesy Wikipedia)

A. The Fact of the Empty Tomb

The historical reliability of the story of Jesus’ burial supports the empty tomb;
Paul’s testimony implies the fact of the empty tomb;
The empty tomb story is part of Mark’s source material and is therefore very old;
The phrase “The First Day of the Week” is very ancient;
The story is simple and lacks legendary development;
The tomb was probably discovered empty by women;
The disciples could not have preached the resurrection in Jerusalem had the tomb not been empty;
The earliest Jewish propaganda against the Christians presupposes the empty tomb;

B. Explaining the Empty Tomb

Conspiracy theory;
Apparent death theory;
Wrong tomb theory;

C. The Fact of the Resurrection Appearances

Paul’s testimony proves the disciples saw appearances of Jesus;
The Gospel accounts of the resurrection appearances are historically reliable;
The resurrection appearances were physical, bodily appearances.

D. Explaining the Resurrection Appearances

‘If one denies that Jesus actually rose from the dead, then he must try to explain away the resurrection appearances psychologically. It has been asserted that the appearances were merely hallucinations on the part of the disciples. But the hallucination theory faces formidable difficulties’ (Craig 1994:287).

The theory cannot account for the physicality of the appearances;
The theory cannot plausibly account for the number and various circumstances of the appearances;
The theory cannot account for the disciples’ belief in Jesus’ resurrection;
The theory fails to explain the full scope of the evidence.

E. The Fact of the Origin of the Christian Faith
F. Explaining the Origin of the Disciples’ Belief in Jesus’ Resurrection

Not from Christian influences;
Not from pagan influences;
Not from Jewish influences;
Translation versus resurrection.

Craig uses the same historical criteria of other historians to establish his case for the bodily resurrection of Jesus:

Multiple attestation;
Dissimilarity;
Embarrassment;
Context and expectation;
Effect;
Principles of embellishment;
Coherence.

Bill Craig is here using C Behan McCullagh’s (1984) seven criteria for testing an historical hypothesis and applies them to the hypothesis that God raised Jesus from the dead.

The hypothesis, together with other true statements, must imply further statements describing present, observable data.
The hypothesis must have greater explanatory scope than rival hypotheses.
The hypothesis must have greater explanatory power than rival hypotheses.
The hypothesis must be more plausible than rival hypotheses.
The hypothesis must be less ad hoc than rival hypotheses.
The hypothesis must be disconfirmed by fewer accepted beliefs than rival hypotheses.
The hypothesis must so exceed its rivals in fulfilling conditions (2) – (6) that there is little chance of a rival hypothesis exceeding it in meeting these problems.

One of Craig’s concluding statements to the chapter is from his mentor Wolfhart Pannenberg:

(photo of Wolfhart Pannenberg, courtesy Wikipedia)

The resurrection of Jesus acquires such decisive meaning, not merely because someone or anyone has been raised from the dead, but because it is Jesus of Nazareth, whose execution was instigated by the Jews because he had blasphemed against God. If this man was raised from the dead, then that plainly means that the God whom he had supposedly blasphemed has committed himself to him…. The resurrection can only be understood as the divine vindication of the man whom the Jews had rejected as a blasphemer (in Craig 1994:298).

I know that this has been a somewhat heavy outline to defend the historical resurrection of Jesus, but I found William Lane Craig’s argument convincing for the bodily resurrection of Jesus.

If you want a simpler version of this material, there is a chapter on the resurrection of Jesus in William Lane Craig’s 2012 book for the laity, On Guard: Defending your faith with reason and precision. Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook.

I hope I haven’t given too much information about how a Christian can defend the historical, bodily resurrection of Jesus.

An online chapter dealing with Christ’s resurrection, by William Lane Craig, is available as, ‘Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?’ (in Wilkins & Moreland 1995:141-176).

References

Craig, W L 1994. Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics. Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books.

McCullagh, C B 1984. Justifying Historical Descriptions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Wilkins, M J & Moreland, J P (eds) 1995. Jesus Under Fire. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House.

Notes:

[1] Christian Forums.com, Christian Apologetics, ‘The resurrection of the Christ’, Denmark#1, 28 October 2012. Available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7697436/ (Accessed 28 October 2012).

[2] Ibid., Forge2#7.

[3] Ibid., Clare73#8.

[4] Ibid., pshun240#9.

[5] Ibid., jdbear#10.

[6] Ibid., OzSpen#19.

Secular people are as religious as the church folks

States with state religions

States without state religions

Ambiguous or without data

(Image courtesy Wikipedia)

By Spencer D Gear

Are secular people religious or not? On Christian Forums, I came across this statement, ‘When I say secular, I mean not religious. A historian or literary critic’ (sculleywr #39). This is not an uncommon view. People think that because a person does not claim any religious allegiance such as Hindu, Christian or Muslim, he or she is not religious – that these people don’t have a religious worldview. This definition of a ‘secular worldview’ states:

The Secular Worldview is a religious worldview in which “man is the measure” — mankind is the ultimate norm by which truth and values are to be determined. According to Secular Humanism, all reality and life center upon human beings. In fact, we act as God.

This article on ‘Atheism as a positive worldview’, states that atheism is a positive worldview because:

it gives a deeper appreciation for and sense of spirituality toward the cosmos;
it imbues our lives with the knowledge that our goals really matter;
it offers the freedom to make up your own mind and choose your own direction in life;
it offers freedom from the fear of arbitrary divine wrath;
it offers morality superior to that of ancient texts;
it offers hope for the future.

That’s as religious sounding as any Christian text I could read.

It was German theologian, Karl Barth, who first brought this to my attention. Karl Barth (1963:3-4) wrote of the many theologies in the world and stated that

there is no man who does not have his own god or gods as the object of his highest desire and trust, or as the basis of his deepest loyalty and commitment…. There is, moreover, no religion, no philosophy, no world view that is not dedicated to some such divinity’. This applies to philosophers who affirm ‘that divinity, in a positive sense, is the essence of truth and power of some kind of highest principle; but the same truth is valid even for thinkers denying such divinity, for such a denial in practice merely consist in transferring an identical dignity and function to another object. Such an alternative object might be “nature,” creativity, or an unconscious and amorphous will to life. It might also be “reason,” progress, or even a redeeming nothingness into which man would be destined to disappear. Even such apparently “godless” ideologies are theologies.

What is secularism?

The adjective, secular, is derived from the Latin, saecularis, and means ‘worldly, temporal (opposed to eternal)’. What is a secular person’s highest desire or truth? What is the person or thing to whom a secularist holds deepest loyalty and commitment? That is that person’s religion. Why? Dictionary.com gives this definition:

re·li·gion

noun

1. a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.

2. a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects: the Christian religion; the Buddhist religion.

3. the body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices: a world council of religions.

4. the life or state of a monk, nun, etc.: to enter religion.

5. the practice of religious beliefs; ritual observance of faith.

So any one group, including secularists, that has a set of beliefs and practices about ultimate concerns, can be called a religion.

What is the religion of secularists? Dictionary.com wants to define secularism as having no religion:

sec·u·lar·ism

noun

1. secular spirit or tendency, especially a system of political or social philosophy that rejects all forms of religious faith and worship.

2. the view that public education and other matters of civil policy should be conducted without the introduction of a religious element.

However, these secular people are as religious as any I have met. Yes, secular religionists. Why? Because religion has to do with ‘the cause, nature and purpose of the universe’. What do secularists believe about the cause, nature and purpose of our universe? Most lay the cause with evolution. They are opposed to any supernatural deity being involved. Therefore, secularists hold to the ultimate religion of naturalists. They are anti-supernaturalists. That’s as religious as any Christian or Hindu we could meet. What is the ultimate cause? Naturalism and its outworking through evolution.

I recommend a read of Howard P. Kainz, ‘The Culture War Is Between Religious Believers on Both Sides’. in Touchstone: A journal of mere Christianity. In this article, Kainz cites Ronald Rolhauser who stated (and I agree):

Ideologies of all kinds, from Marxism to secular feminism, substitute a normative theory of history for the Judeo-Christian story of salvation and propose this new story as the story of salvation; secular art turns creativity into a religion whose God is so jealous as to make the old demanding God of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam [sic] appear lax; secular moralists demand a doctrinal orthodoxy (political correctness) which religious fundamentalists can only envy; secular moral zealots continue to find no end of causes that call for religious martyrdom; positive thinking and pedagogues of excellence propose a new religious hope; the cults of physical health, replete with ever more demanding forms of asceticism, replace old spiritualities regarding the soul; ancient animism, the worship of nature, takes on new religious forms; myths and fairy tales replace the old Bible stories; new shrines (from Graceland to Lady Diana’s tomb) continue to appear; and secular forms of canonization, of books and people, do what religious canonization formerly did. Religion is never at the margins. Everyone has a spirituality, including today’s adult children of the Enlightenment.

Conclusion

This data points to the fact that every philosophy or worldview is a religion. Therefore, all people, whether secular, mosque-going or church-going, do theology. They all deal with the worldviews of ultimate reality. They are religious!

References

Barth, K 1963. Evangelical theology: An introduction. Tr by G Foley. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson.

cubed-pink

Are unthinking Christians normal for Christianity?

Think

ChristArt

By Spencer D Gear

I was reading Bill Muehlenberg’s excellent article on the need for more Christians to think. It was his call to have a renewed mind and respond to the challenges of our secular world in, ‘Let my people think’.

Then came Kurt Skelland’s ‘troll’ by way of response:

If Christians starting thinking there would be no Christians left!

“Most people would rather die than think. And most do.”
Bertrand Russell.

Thinking is inimical to the fanciful claims of religion.[1]

Secularists’ false claims

It is not uncommon to read these kinds of statements on websites of skeptics or atheists. Take a read of a leading skeptic, Paul Kurtz, ‘Why I am a skeptic about religious claims’.

How do we respond to Kurt Skelland’s skeptical claims?

1. ‘If Christians starting thinking there would be no Christians left!’

This is a clear example of someone who doesn’t know the content of the Christian Scriptures. If Kurt’s claim were true, there would be absolutely no use for these Christian statements:

Luke 10:27, Jesus said, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself’ (ESV).
Ephesians 4:22-24, ‘to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness’ (ESV).
Romans 12:2, ‘Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect’ (ESV)

It is obvious that the Bible teaches: (1) Loving God with our whole beings, and (2) After we become Christians, we are to put off the old way of thinking and be transformed by renewed thinking in the mind.

This is the problem which non-Christian people (unbelievers) face, ‘The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God’ (2 Cor. 4:4).

Kurt has another problem with the Christian faith.

2. Why choose a Bertrand Russell quote?

Bertrand Russell 1916. Courtesy Wikipedia

Kurt cited Bertrand Russell, “Most people would rather die than think. And most do”. What’s significant about that? Russell is a friend of skeptics, agnostics and atheists.

On the practical level, this quote may be true for a lot of people. But who was Bertrand Russell? Was Russell an agnostic or atheist? This is what Russell stated:

I never know whether I should say “Agnostic” or whether I should say “Atheist”. It is a very difficult question and I daresay that some of you have been troubled by it. As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one can prove that there is not a God.[2]

Even in this article, Russell admitted, ‘On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods’.[3]

I have quoted Bertrand Russell at times, but this is to refute his claim on a topic. He said, ‘I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive’[4], and I cited it in my article, ‘Will you be ready when your death comes?’ Bertrand Russell now knows the truth of what happens after death and he will have found that it is very different from what his agnosticism/atheism taught him. Bertrand Russell died on 2nd February 1970.

How do I know? Jesus died and rose from the dead. He has assured all people of what will happen at the Final Judgment (Matthew 25:31-46). I commend to you Dan T. Lioy’s article, ‘Life and death in biblical perspective’.

Kurt’s Bertrand Russell quote would have only passing significance if it were not for his other emphases in his troll statement. His other emphasis was:

3. ‘Thinking is inimical[5] to the fanciful claims of religion’

In other words, thinking and Christianity do not go together. Notice what Kurt does. He provides not one shred of evidence to support his claim. He is into sloganeering by giving us his opinion. Whenever somebody does this, we need to call them to account by asking things like these:

So you are giving us your opinion in one foul swoop of a slogan. That carries as much weight as a car driver, with no engineering experience, going over Brisbane’s Gateway Bridge and saying, ‘That’s not the proper way to build a bridge. Those fanciful engineers didn’t know what they were doing when they built that bridge that way’. You know such a statement had fanciful, irrational overtones. So has Kurt’s claim about thinking being hostile to religion come with evidence?
You would never win good grade in any exam with that kind of evidence. You gave zero evidence to prove your point. You’ve made a nonsense statement because it is your idiosyncratic opinion that comes with nothing to back up your claim.
Get real. I’m a thinking Christian and I don’t buy into your thoughtless comments.
Your statement really is antagonistic to what you are trying to prove. Your statement is inimical (hostile) to thoughtful people who might want to take you seriously.

However, Kurt’s kind of statement can be found all over the www in relation to religion. These are a few grabs that Google helped me find quickly.

Freud, ‘religion was our “collective neurosis”’ (HERE);
‘When it comes to magic, religion, politics, geography, on and on, you can write whatever you can dream up as long as you make it consistent within your world’ (HERE).
‘Religion is fantasy. Everything that you have been taught about religion is wrong’ (HERE).
‘The ties between fantasy and religion are quite strong’ (HERE).
‘Religions, like everything else, evolved from earlier myths’ (HERE).

Kurt is echoing the statements of other skeptics. The Los Angeles Times published an article, ‘Thinking can undermine religious faith, study finds’ (April 26, 2012). The article begins with this statement:

Scientists have revealed one of the reasons why some folks are less religious than others: They think more analytically, rather than going with their gut. And thinking analytically can cause religious belief to wane — for skeptics and true believers alike.

The study, published in Friday’s edition of the journal Science, indicates that belief may be a more malleable feature of the human psyche than those of strong faith may think.

Another report on this research stated,

In some ways this confirms what many people, both religious and nonreligious, have said about religious belief for a long time, that it’s more of a feeling than a thought,” says Nicholas Epley, a psychologist at the University of Chicago. But he predicts the findings won’t change anyone’s mind about whether God exists or whether religious belief is rational. “If you think that reasoning analytically is the way to go about understanding the world accurately, you might see this as evidence that being religious doesn’t make much sense,” he says. “If you’re a religious person, I think you take this evidence as showing that God has given you a system for belief that just reveals itself to you as common sense (The Huffington Post, 27 April 2012).

So religion is more of a feeling than a thought! That’s not what Jesus thought when he told us that we are to love God with our mind. Also, there is no point in the Christian renewing the mind if thinking is unimportant for the believer. I’m reminded of how the Bereans were commended for their Christian faith:

The brothers[6] immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so (Acts 17:10-11).

So these Bereans were thoughtful Jews who checked out the apostle Paul to see if what he stated agreed with their Scriptures. Jews/Christians who think have been part of Christianity from the beginning of the Christian era.

4. Conclusion

Kurt is an example of a fly-by-night sceptical, sloganeering person who is motivated to present slogans on a Christian website (Bill Muehlenberg’s Culture Watch). These kinds of people are stirrers who don’t want to present sustainable content with which we can dialogue.

In fact, they are self-refuting in their approach. Kurt wanted to condemn Christians for not being thinkers but his actual post demonstrated to us that he is the one who is not a thinker. If he were thinking about his post, he would be providing sustainable arguments to demonstrate that religion (Christianity especially) is fanciful. And these would be arguments with which we Christians could interact.

Kurt has demonstrated that he is not seeking truth and he did not present truthful statements about why he thinks that Christianity is fanciful.

What is truth?

See:

‘Preference or truth?’ (Greg Koukl)

‘What is truth?’ (Paul Copan & Mark Linville)

‘The nature of truth and exclusivity’ (Ravi Zacharias, YouTube)

‘Embodied truth’ (Ravi Zacharias)

‘Why truth matters’ (Os Guinness)

‘What is truth?’ (J P Moreland, YouTube)

Notes:

[1] Kurt Skelland, 14 September 2012, available at: http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2012/09/13/let-my-people-think-2/comment-page-1/#comment-269299 (Accessed 15 September 2012).

[2] Russell, Bertrand. “Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic? A Plea For Tolerance In The Face Of New Dogmas.” Positive Atheism Web Site, available at: http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/russell8.htm (Accessed 14 September 2012).

[3] Ibid.

[4] Cited in Richard Dawkins 2006. The God Delusion. London: Black Swan (Transworld Publishers), p. 397. This is from Bertrand Russell’s 1925 essay, “What I believe”. It is available for free download HERE.

[5] ‘Inimical’ means ‘unfriendly; hostile’, according to dictionary.com at: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/inimical?s=t (Accessed 14 September 2012).

[6] The footnote in the ESV at this point stated, ‘Or brothers and sisters’.

6pointMetal

Paul on eternal punishment

ChristArt

By Spencer D Gear

It is not uncommon to hear statements from uninformed or agenda—promoting ‘Christians’ that the apostle Paul did not preach on eternal punishment or hell? Here are a few examples:

‘It’s an overstatement to say that the christian church has been preaching the doctrine of hell for two millennia. Paul, for one, did not preach it’ (holo).[1]
‘Why not enjoy the true freedom of believing the Scriptures over traditional teaching? Why not follow Paul in a pure Grace Gospel that has no place for, nor need of a religious hell?’[2]
‘This is a very curious thing. Paul, the man specifically commissioned to carry the gospel to the Gentiles, who is universally credited as the most important figure ever to interpret and expound on the gospel, never says a thing about Ghenna or Hades’.[3]

My response to ‘holo’[4]

There is little need for Paul to write on hell as he has given us enough on the “wrath of God’”. The message on hell comes from others, including Jesus. However, what Paul did write on this topic agrees with the Gospels and the Book of Revelation. Pauline verses that demonstrate the wrath of God against unbelievers include:

Romans 1:18;

Ephesians 5:6;

Colossians 3:6.

James Rosscup wrote in ‘Paul’s Concept of Eternal Punishment’,

PAUL’S CONCEPT OF ETERNAL PUNISHMENT
James E. Rosscup
Professor of Bible Exposition

Paul did not deal in as much detail with eternal punishment as did Jesus in the gospels and John in Revelation, but what he did write matches with their fuller descriptions in many points. This is to be expected because of Paul’s strong commitment to Jesus Christ. In Rom 2:6-10 he wrote about God’s anger in punishing the lost and the anguish they will suffer as a result. In Rom 9:22-23 he spoke of vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, a destruction that consists of an ongoing grief brought on as a consequence of God’s wrath. Second Thess 1:8-9 is a third passage that reflects his teaching on eternal punishment. There eternal destruction represents a different Greek expression, one that depicts a ruin that lost people continue to suffer forever as they are denied opportunity to be with Christ. Paul’s failure to use a number of other words in expressions that could have expressed annihilation of the unsaved is further indication of his harmony with Jesus and John in teaching an unending punishment that the unsaved will consciously experience.

Holo has a presuppositional agenda and he doesn’t want the teaching on eternal punishment to be in the NT. It is there and that’s an embarrassment to him. So what does he do? He attempts to deny that Paul taught it. But he is wrong. Paul supports Jesus in the teaching on eternal punishment.

Holo has four major issues that come out in some of his posts, including these:

(1) He does not know his Bible very well, including the Pauline epistles;

(2) He has a low view of the Scripture when he uses his improper interpretation of the Pauline epistles to arrive at a false conclusion about Paul not teaching on hell.

(3) He engages in a hermeneutic of eisegesis. He imposes his will on the texts instead of letting the texts speak for themselves (exegesis).

(4) We gain a meaning of what happens at death for believers and unbelievers from the totality of Scripture, not only from the Pauline epistles. Even if Paul’s epistles said nothing about eternal punishment or destruction, we don’t need it as it is taught throughout OT and NT, although more specifically in the NT.

Paul on hell

For an excellent chapter on the biblical basis for hell from the Pauline epistles, see Douglas J. Moo, ‘Paul on Hell‘[5]. His conclusion is:

As we noted at the outset of this essay, Paul never uses the Greek words that are normally translated as “hell,” nor does he teach as explicitly about the concept of hell as do some other New Testament writers. To some extent, then, our purpose has been a negative one: to show that Paul teaches nothing to contradict the picture of hell that emerges more clearly from other portions of the New Testament. But the evidence we do have from Paul suggests that he agrees with that larger New Testament witness in portraying hell as an unending state of punishment and exclusion from the presence of the Lord. Such a fate is entirely “just,” Paul repeatedly stresses (e.g., Rom. 1:18-2:11; 2 Thess. 1:8-9), because human beings have spurned God and merited his wrath and condemnation.

Paul, therefore, presents the judgment that comes on the wicked as the necessary response of a holy and entirely just God. For Paul, the doctrine of hell is a necessary corollary of the divine nature. Negatively, Paul never in his letters explicitly uses hell as a means of stimulating unbelievers to repent. But he does—a sobering consideration!—use it as a warning to believers to stimulate us to respond to the grace of God manifested in our lives (e.g., Rom. 8:12-13).[6]

Notes:

[1] Christian Forums, Christian Philosophy & Ethics, ‘Why an eternal hell?’, holo #914, 23 August 2012. Available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7671002-92/ (Accessed 23 August 2012).

[2] Clyde L. Pilkington Jr 2004-2007, ‘Paul’s teaching on hell’. Available at: http://www.studyshelf.com/hellfactor/art_paulsteachingonhell.htm (Accessed 23 August 2012).

[3] ‘Paul, Hell & Universalism’, Running with the Lion, available at: http://mattritchie.wordpress.com/2007/02/06/paul-hell-and-universalism/ (Accessed 23 August 2012).

[4] OzSpen, #922, 23 August 2012. Available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7671002-93/ (Accessed 23 August 2012).

[5] This is an updated reference, accessed 15 December 2014. Originally, the reference was, Douglas J Moo, ‘Paul on hell’, in C W Morgan & R A Peterson, R A (eds) 2007. Hell under Fire. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, ch 4. Available at: http://www.djmoo.com/articles/paulonhell.pdf (Accessed 23 August 2012). Portions of this book are also available through Google Books.

[6] Moo 2007:109.

Does the Bible support slavery?

Photograph of a slave boy in Zanzibar. ‘An Arab master’s punishment for a slight offence. ‘ c. 1890 (photograph ourtesy Wikipedia)

By Spencer D Gear

Claims are made that the Bible supports slavery and that the people of contemporary culture should be able to choose their own values. Here are a few examples of such statements:

‘If you are truthful to the Bible, would you not agree with me that St Paul supports slavery while we today are dead opposed to it? That morality even in the Bible has changed?’ (Greneknight #64, Christian Forums, 22 August 2012)
‘Except for murder, slavery has got to be one of the most immoral things a person can do. Yet slavery is rampant throughout the Bible in both the Old and New Testaments. The Bible clearly approves of slavery in many passages, and it goes so far as to tell how to obtain slaves, how hard you can beat them, and when you can have sex with the female slaves. Many Jews and Christians will try to ignore the moral problems of slavery by saying that these slaves were actually servants or indentured servants. Many translations of the Bible use the word “servant”, “bondservant”, or “manservant” instead of “slave” to make the Bible seem less immoral than it really is. While many slaves may have worked as household servants, that doesn’t mean that they were not slaves who were bought, sold, and treated worse than livestock (‘Slavery in the Bible’, Evil Bible.com).
‘If the Bible is written by God, and these are the words of the Lord, then you can come to only one possible conclusion: God is an impressive advocate of slavery and is fully supportive of the concept.

If you are a Christian, I realize that what I am about to suggest is uncomfortable. However, it is crucial to the conversation that we are having in this book. What I wish to suggest to you is that these pro-slavery passages in the Bible provide all the evidence that we need to prove that God did not write the Bible. Simply put: there is no way that an all-loving God would also be a staunch supporter of slavery.

What does your common sense tell you about God? Doesn’t it seem that an all-loving, just God would think of slavery as an abomination just like any normal human being does? If any sort of all-knowing, all-loving God had written the Bible, shouldn’t the Bible say, “Slavery is wrong — you may have no slaves”? Shouldn’t one of the Commandments say, “thou shalt not enslave”?’ (Why does God love slavery?)

A glimpse into the Old Testament view

In the Old Testament, there were at least 6 ways in which a person could become a slave:

As a captive of war: Num 31:7-35 (ESV); Deut 20:10-18 (ESV); 1 Ki 20:39; 2 Chron 28:8-15);
They could be purchased. Foreigners could be purchased and sold and were considered property: Lev 25:44-46 (ESV); Ex 21:16; Deut 24:7. The OT gives examples of a father selling his daughter (Ex 21:7; Neh 5:5); children of a widow were sold to pay her husband’s debt (2 Kings 4:11); men and women sold themselves into slavery (Lev 25:39, 47; Deut 15:12-17).
Bankruptcy (Ex 21:2-4; Deut 15:12);
A gift of a slave could be given as Leah received Zilpah as her slave (Gen 29:24).
As an inheritance: Lev 25:46 (ESV). Those who were not Hebrews could be slaves from generation to generation.
Those slaves from birth (Ex 21:4; Lev 25:54) (This material is based on Rupprecht 1976:454-455.)

Slavery was widespread in the secular and Hebrew world of the Near East. For the Hebrews, there were regulations concerning the release of slaves (see Ex 21:1-11; Lev 25:39-55; Deut 15:12-18). Slaves were to be freed after serving for 6 years.

For the Hebrews, the slaves were members of the household and were included with the group of women and children (Ex 20:17).

In Gal 4:1, Paul states, ‘the heir, as long as he is a child is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything’. When we go to Gal 4:7 we discover, ‘So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God’.

There are some interesting and challenging dimensions to slavery when we compare the OT and NT material.

How should we respond to these allegations?

The following is how I responded to Greneknight, as OzSpen #65, 22 August 2012.

There are some excellent assessments and I do not plan to regurgitate what others have said. See:

Brian Tubbs article online, ‘Was the Apostle Paul Pro-Slavery? Yes – but Not in the Way You Might Think!’
Hard Sayings of the Bible, ‘Exodus 21:2-11, Does God Approve of Slavery?
Rich Deem, ‘Does God approve of slavery according to the Bible?’
Daniel B. Wallace, ‘Some initial reflections on slavery in the New Testament’;
CARM, ‘Why is slavery permitted in the Bible?’

Concerning ‘1 Corinthians 7:17, 20 Remain in Slavery?’ (Hard Sayings of the Bible 1996. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, pp. 591-593), this writer’s assessment was:

The difficulty with which 1 Corinthians 7:17 and 20 present us arises primarily from the surrounding verses in the paragraph (1 Cor 7:17-24). In 1 Corinthians 7:21 the situation chosen as an illustration is that of slavery. In 1 Corinthians 7:17 the various situations in which persons found themselves when they were called to faith in Christ are understood as assigned or apportioned by the Lord, and they are told to remain in those situations. That instruction is given further weight in the sentence “This is the rule I lay down in all the churches” (1 Cor 7:17).
In light of these statements, Paul has often been charged not only with failure to condemn the evil system of slavery, but indeed with abetting the status quo. These charges can be demonstrated to be invalid when the paragraph which contains this text is seen within the total context of 1 Corinthians 7 and in light of the historical situation as Paul perceived it.

In 1 Corinthians 7 Paul is dealing with questions about marriage, the appropriate place for sexual expression, the issue of divorce and remarriage, all in response to a pervasive view in the church which rejected or demeaned the physical dimension of male-female relationships. In the immediately preceding paragraph (1 Cor 7:12-16), Paul’s counsel to believers who are married to unbelievers is twofold: (1) If the unbelieving partner is willing to remain in the marriage, the believer should not divorce (and thus reject) the unbelieving partner; for that person’s willingness to live with the believer may open him or her to the sanctifying power of God’s grace through the believing partner (1 Cor 7:12-14). (2) If the unbeliever does not want to remain in the union, he or she should be released from the marriage. Though the partner may be sanctified through the life and witness of the believer, there is no certainty, especially when the unbeliever desires separation (1 Cor 7:15-16).

Having recognized the possibility, and perhaps desirability, of this exception to his general counsel against divorce, Paul reaffirms what he considers to be the norm (“the rule I lay down in all the churches”): that one should remain in the life situation the Lord has assigned and in which one has been called to faith (1 Cor 7:17). In light of exceptions to general norms throughout this chapter, it is probably unwise to take the phrase “the place in life that the Lord has assigned” too literally and legalistically, as if each person’s social or economic or marital status had been predetermined by God. Rather, Paul’s view seems to be similar to the one Jesus takes with regard to the situation of the blind man in John 9. His disciples inquire after causes: Is the man blind because he sinned or because his parents sinned (Jn 9:2)? Jesus’ response is essentially that the man’s blindness is, within the overall purposes of God, an occasion for the work of God to be displayed (Jn 9:3).

For Paul, the life situations in which persons are encountered by God’s grace and come to faith are situations which, in God’s providence, can be transformed and through which the gospel can influence others (such as unbelieving partners).

The principle “remain in the situation” is now given broader application to human realities and situations beyond marriage. The one addressed first is that of Jews and Gentiles (1 Cor 7:18-19). The outward circumstances, Paul argues, are of little or no significance (“Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing”). They neither add to nor detract from one’s calling into a relationship with God, and therefore one’s status as Jew or Gentile should not be altered. (It should be noted here that under the pressure of Hellenization, some Jews in the Greek world sought to undo their circumcision [1 Maccabees 1:15]. And we know from both Acts and Galatians that Jewish Christians called for the circumcision of Gentile Christians.)

Once again, it is clear that the general norm, “remain in the situation,” is not an absolute law. Thus we read in Acts 16:3 that Paul, in light of missionary needs and strategy, had Timothy circumcised even though Timothy was already a believer. Paul’s practice in this case would be a direct violation of the rule which he laid down for all the churches (1 Cor 7:17-18), but only if that rule had been intended as an absolute.

Paul now repeats the rule “Each one should remain in the situation which he was in when God called him” (1 Cor 7:20), and applies it to yet another situation, namely, that of the slave. Paul does not simply grab a hypothetical situation, for the early church drew a significant number of persons from the lower strata of society (see 1 Cor 1:26-27). So Paul addresses individuals in the congregation who were of the large class of slaves existing throughout the ancient world: “Were you a slave when you were called?” (that is, when you became a Christian). The next words, “Do not let it trouble you,” affirm that the authenticity of the person’s new life and new status as the Lord’s “freedman” (1 Cor 7:21-22) cannot be demeaned and devalued by external circumstances such as social status.

As in the previous applications of the norm (“remain in the situation”), Paul immediately allows for a breaking of the norm; indeed, he seems to encourage it: “although if you can gain your freedom, do so” (1 Cor 7:21; note the RSV rendering: “avail yourself of the opportunity”). As footnotes in some contemporary translations indicate (TEV, RSV), it is possible to translate the Greek of verse 21 as “make use of your present condition instead,” meaning that the slave should not take advantage of this opportunity, but rather live as a transformed person within the context of continuing slavery. Some scholars support this rendering, since it would clearly illustrate the norm laid down in the previous verse. However, we have already noted that Paul provides contingencies for much of his instruction in chapter 7, and there is no good reason to doubt that Paul supported the various means for emancipation of individual slaves that were available in the Greco-Roman world.

And yet, Paul’s emphasis in the entire chapter, as in the present passage, is his conviction that the most critical issue in human life and relations and institutions is the transformation of persons’ lives by God’s calling. External circumstances can neither take away from, nor add to, this reality. The instruction to remain in the situation in which one is called to faith (which Paul repeats several more times, in 1 Cor 7:24, 26, 40, and for which he also grants contingencies, in 1 Cor 7:28, 36, 38) can be understood as a missiological principle. To remain in the various situations addressed by Paul provides opportunity for unhindered devotion and service to the Lord (1 Cor 7:32-35), or transforming witness toward an unbelieving marriage partner (1 Cor 7:12-16), or a new way of being present in the context of slavery as one who is free in Christ (1 Cor 7:22-23).

The transforming possibilities of this latter situation are hinted at elsewhere in Paul’s writings. Masters who have become believers are called on to deal with their slaves in kindness and to remember that the Master who is over them both sees both as equals (Eph 6:9). The seeds of the liberating gospel are gently sown into the tough soil of slavery. They bore fruit in the lives of Onesimus, the runaway slave, and Philemon, his master. The slave returns to the master, no longer slave but “brother in the Lord” (Philem 15-16).

Note too that the three relational spheres which Paul addresses in 1 Corinthians 7–male-female, Jew-Gentile (Greek), slave-free–are brought together in that high-water mark of Paul’s understanding of the transforming reality of being in Christ: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28). As a rabbi, Paul had given thanks daily, as part of the eighteen benedictions to God, that he had not been born as a Gentile, a slave or a woman. It was his experience of Christ that led him to recognize that these distinctions of superior and inferior were abolished in the new order of things inaugurated in Christ. Surely in this vision the seeds were sown for the ultimate destruction of slavery and all other forms of bondage.

Finally, Paul’s understanding of the historical situation in which he and the church found themselves provides another key for his instruction that believers should remain where they are. He, together with most other Christians, was convinced that the eschaton, the climax of God’s redemptive intervention, was very near. Statements in 1 Cor 7:26 (“because of the present crisis”) and 1 Cor 7:29 (“the time is short”) underline that conviction. This belief created a tremendous missionary urgency. The good news had to get out so that as many as possible could yet be saved (see 1 Cor 10:33). This expectation of the imminent end was surely an important factor for the Pauline norm “remain where you are.”

The biblical view of slavery might be wrong in the estimation of some contemporary Christians, but God did not have such a view when he breathed out the Scriptures (2 Tim. 3:16-17).

Response to the allegations against the Bible and slavery

There is an eerie silence by Jesus, the apostles and Paul in regard to rejecting slavery in a society. I would have thought that Jesus, the sinless Son of God, should have been condemning slavery outright – racial slavery like that in the USA — but this was not so. Why?[1]

Please don’t assign a barbaric, violent, unjust view of slaves to the Romans. Paul’s word to slave masters was that they should treat slaves with kindness and consideration (Eph. 6:9; Col. 4:1).
Slavery had become a well-known way to become a Roman citizen throughout the Empire;
One study found that between 81-49 BC, “500,000 slaves were freed [by the Romans] during this period” and the city of Rome’s population was about 870,000.[2]
In the Roman Empire, a slave could expect freedom in about 7 years.
“When a master freed his slave, he frequently established his freedman in a business and the master became a shareholder in it.”[3]
“While an individual was a slave, he was in most respects equal to his freeborn counterpart in the Graeco-Roman world, and in some respects he had an advantage. By the first century A.D. the slave had most of the legal rights which were granted to a free man.”[4]
“Living conditions for most slaves were better than those of free men who often slept in the streets of the city or lived in very cheap rooms.”[5]
“The free laborer in NT times was seldom in better circumstances than his slave counterpart.”[6]
“In fact, in time of economic hardship it was the slave and not the free man who was guaranteed the necessities of life for himself and his family.”[7]

Islam and slavery

Do not confuse the Christian view of slavery in the Old and New Testaments with the contemporary view of ‘Islam & Slavery’ (Barnabas Fund). That article provides this conclusion:

Many Muslims agree that there is no place for slavery in the modern world, but there has as yet been no sustained critique of the practice. The difficulties and dangers of confronting the example of Muhammad and the teaching of the Qur’an and sharia (which most Muslims believe cannot be changed) have dampened any internal debate within Islam. Although slavery still exists in many Islamic countries, few Muslim leaders show remorse for the past, discuss reparations or show that repugnance for the scourge of slavery that eventually led to its abolition in the West. It is time for Muslims emphatically and publicly to condemn the practice of slavery in any form and to ensure that their legal codes An enslaved Pakistani Christian boy supporting it are changed.

Conclusion

I do not subscribe to the relativistic presuppositions of cultures determining their own values. I have too high of a respect for the Lord God Almighty and His Scriptures to secede to that view. This is what the Scriptures state:

Isaiah 5:20, ‘ Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!’ (ESV)
Psalm 111:7-8, ‘The works of his hands are faithful and just; all his precepts are trustworthy; they are established for ever and ever, to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness’ (ESV).
Proverbs 3:5, ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding’.
Ecclesiastes 12;13, ‘Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind’ (NIV).
John 17:17, ‘Sanctify them in the truth;your word is truth’ (ESV).
1 Peter 1:25, ‘The word of the Lord remains for ever’ (ESV)
James 2:12, ‘Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom’ (NIV)

Notes:

[1] The following is based on the article by A. Rupprecht, ‘Slave, Slavery’, in Merrill C. Tenney gen. ed. 1976, Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, vol. 5, Q-Z, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, pp. 453-460.

[2] Ibid., p. 458.

[3] Ibid., p. 459.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid., p. 460.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

ChristArt

Religious marriage with a different twist: My response to Spencer Howson

ChristArt

By Spencer D Gear

bmag is a Brisbane freebie newspaper-magazine style publication delivered to Brisbane households once a month. It can be accessed online HERE.

Spencer Howson is a breakfast presenter on radio, ABC 612 Brisbane. He used to write a regular column for bmag. Since my email letter of 11 July 2012 to Spencer Howson, a bmag contributor, was not published on 24 July 2012, p. 16, ‘Your say on marriage’, here I publish what I wrote to him on 11 July 2012 (his email was, [email protected]):

Your ‘Marriage shake-up‘ article (bmag, 10 July 2012) was your secular, religious, relativistic, politically correct (PC) promotion to accommodate the homosexual community. Yours is as religious a perspective as any in Australia. There is no philosophy, religion or worldview that is not devoted to some divinity – the object of its highest desire and deepest commitment. You may not call it ‘divinity’ but this pinnacle of desire and depth of commitment is the essence of the ‘divine’ (even though you define it differently).

Your use of projection triggers gives away your presuppositions (bold emphasis ahead). These projection triggers included,

(1) ‘I’ve never considered our marriage has anything to do with God’.

(2) Your marriage to Nikki was ‘a religion-free declaration of love and commitment’.

(3) ‘Nikki and I would have chosen a Civil Marriage’.

(4) ‘What do you think of my idea of having Church Marriage and Civil Marriage?’

Yours is a religion of autonomous reason – but it is as religious as any Christian’s view in Australia. [Here I add dot points that I did not include in the letter.] His presuppositions include:

Marriage has nothing to do with God.
A God-less marriage is religion-free.
Marriage is a declaration of love and commitment with no reference to God.
A Civil Marriage is preferred if you want it to be religion-free.

This is a pluralistic, relativistic religion that has considerable negative ramifications. How come? When the polyamory, polyandry, polygamy and marriage to children PC groups come along promoting their views, you have no rational basis to reject such religious perspectives. Yours is a slippery slope argument, Spencer, and you are standing at its pinnacle.

You are conning yourself by claiming yours is a non-religious perspective and your PC view should be considered or promoted. Having Church Marriage and Civil Marriage – your religious perspective – is a BIG compromise of the integrity of marriage.

By the way, your view of the church as ‘membership of a club – and that’s what church is’, is a country mile from the reality of the church being and functioning as the body of Christ (Romans 12:5; 1 Corinthians 12:27). If your knowledge of marriage is as far-off as your understanding of the church, our society is in deep trouble if it pursues your religious views.

Why is the church so adamant about marriage being between a man and a woman? In spite of your alternate religious values, from the beginning of time the Judeo-Christian Almighty God has declared that this is the foundation of marriage: ‘That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh’ (Genesis 2:24). The foundation of a stable and just society is marriage of a man and a woman. [The following was not in my email to Spencer Howson.]

Jesus Christ supported the Genesis 2:24 passage when he was teaching about divorce:

He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, ⁵and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? ⁶So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matt 19:4-6 ESV)

I add Karl Barth’s comment:

There is no man who does not have his own god or gods as the object of his highest desire and trust, or as the basis of his deepest loyalty and commitment. There is no one who is not to this extent also a theologian. There is, moreover, no religion, no philosophy, no world view that is not dedicated to some such divinity. Every world view … presupposes a divinity interpreted in one way or another and worshiped to some degree, whether wholeheartedly or superficially. There is no philosophy that is not to some extent also theology. Not only does this fact apply to philosophers who desire to affirm—or who, at least, are ready to admit—that divinity, in a positive sense, is the essence of truth and power of some kind of highest principle; but the same truth is valid even for thinkers denying such a divinity, for such a denial would in practice merely consist in transferring an identical dignity and function to another object. Such an alternative object might be “nature,” creativity, or an unconscious and amorphous will to life. It might be “reason,” progress, or even a redeeming nothingness into which man would be destined to disappear. Even such apparently “godless” ideologies are theologies (Barth 1963:3-4).

Reference:

Barth, K 1963. Evangelical Theology: An Introduction. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.

6pointMetal

What makes Christianity true?

ChristArt

By Spencer D Gear

Stated briefly, Christianity is true because ….

It matches reality like a hand in a glove.
It’s description of human beings is a perfect fit, including the good, the bad and the ugly (fallen human beings in sin – Genesis 3).
It’s explanation of how the universe began and the majesty of the universe are spot on (see Genesis 1-2; Psalm 19).
It gives the only permanent solution I know for changing human beings – from the inside out – in salvation through Christ alone.
It provides the absolutes for running nations (if nations would only obey them) – the 10 commandments (Exodus 20) and the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7). Francis Schaeffer described this as the thesis vs antithesis dilemma that God fulfills.
As for a world and life view, there is none to match it.
That’s why I know that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6) .

Recently I was reading a book by Ravi Zacharias, Jesus among Other Gods: The Absolute Claims of the Christian Message (Word Publishing 2000) in which he, a former Hindu was so disillusioned with life that he attempted suicide. In this book he writes,

I came to Him [Jesus] because I did not know which way to turn. I have remained with Him because there is no other way I wish to turn. I came to Him longing for something I did not have. I remain with Him because I have something I will not trade. I came to Him as a stranger. I remain with Him in the most intimate of friendships. I came to Him unsure about the future. I remain with Him certain about my destiny. I came amid the thunderous cries of a culture that has three hundred and thirty million deities. I remain with Him knowing that truth cannot be all inclusive. Truth by definition excludes (p. 6).

I highly recommend this as an excellent lay-level book to help people work through the challenges of multitudes of religions and gods.

However, there are many theological liberals (modernist or postmodernist) who don’t want this to be true. They don’t trust the God revealed in Scriptures and they want to denigrate biblical content wherever possible. Many of these do not believe in the reality of prophecy or the miraculous because their presuppositions exclude a God who would do that. They hack into the integrity of the Bible.

As I’ve examined their claims and the claims of world religions, I conclude where I began: The Christian worldview matches reality perfectly.

Is God responsible for all the evil in the world?

Hitler

(View of a cart laden with the bodies of prisoners who perished in the Gusen concentration camp. Photo courtesy liberatingtheholocaust)

By Spencer D Gear

How does a Christian respond to all of the evil that is happening in the world in relation to the sovereignty of God? Does God cause or allow the following kinds of evil? — The crash of planes that caused the death of many people, the rape of individuals, Hitler’s Holocaust, and multitudes of other horrible events of evil in our world?

I was blessed and encouraged by Bruce Little’s article, ‘Evil and God’s sovereignty’ (Little 2010). It was he who alerted me to John Piper’s statements about evil and the sovereignty of God (see below). Bruce Little spoke of the horror of a 9-year-old girl, Jessica, in Florida who was abducted, raped, and buried alive about 150 yards from her house in Homosassa, FL.[1]

What about the horrors committed by Charles Manson and his group?

How some Calvinists see it

Remember the US Airways flight 1549 that landed on the Hudson River, New York? Of this incident, John Piper, a strong Calvinist, wrote:

God can take down a plane any time he pleases—and if he does, he wrongs no one. Apart from Christ, none of us deserves anything from God but judgment. We have belittled him so consistently that he would be perfectly just to take any of us any time in any way he chooses (Piper 2009)

So God caused the disaster and brought down the plane on the river. That time, all people survived. What about the times when there is evil committed and multitudes of people lose their lives? Using John Piper’s logic, God is responsible for those as well.

This kind of perspective has made its way onto forums on the Internet. There are interesting and challenging perspectives around the www, one example being on Christian Forums, where Calvinistic people make comments like this:

God Is Not The Author Of Evil

When the orthodox Reformer says that God ordains something He means: either God directly causes something or that He permits something (evil) to happen. This isn’t God speaking with a forked tongue (whatever that means). Rather it is a truth taught in scripture. God doesn’t directly cause evil. For this would make Him the author of evil. Rather He permits it (for morally sufficient reasons) to bring about His overall plans and purposes. His permitting evil it is a kind of indirect causing. That is, His permission is a kind of secondary causing not a direct causing…. Nothing happens anyhow or without God’s most righteous decree, although God is not the author or sharer in any sin at all. [1a]

If God is ultimately sovereign, it does cause people to ask, “Doesn’t that make God responsible for all of the evil in the world?”

I (OzSpen) replied with the following:[2]

I’m not sure that John Piper sees it that way. Piper, a prominent, contemporary Calvinist (Baptist), has stated that ‘God has given him [Satan] astonishing latitude to work his sin and misery in the world. He is a great ruler over the world, but not the ultimate one. God holds the decisive sway’ (2008:44).

Elsewhere, John Piper wrote of the event that some have designated ‘Miracle on the Hudson’. This happened on 15 January 2009 when US Airways flight 1549 took off from New York City and encountered a flock of geese. Some of these birds shut down both plane engines when they were sucked into the engines. Captain Sullenberger was an experienced pilot and instead of landing the plane at the airport several miles away, he chose to land the plane on the Hudson River.

From the accounts I have read, it seems that the pilot’s training, experience and circumstances came together and there was a successful landing on the river and all of the passengers survived. The USA nation rightfully gave Captain Sullenberger hero status.

How did John Piper explain this event? Take a read of the article, ‘The President, the Passengers, and the Patience of God’ (Piper 2009), in which Piper explains the sovereignty of God. His theology is:

Two laser-guided missiles would not have been as amazingly effective as were those geese. It is incredible, statistically speaking. If God governs nature down to the fall (and the flight) of every bird, as Jesus says (Matthew 10:29), then the crash of flight 1549 was designed by God.

Then Piper states, ‘If God guides geese so precisely, he also guides the captain’s hands. God knew that when he took the plane down, he would also give a spectacular deliverance’.

So for John Piper, God in his sovereignty was not only responsible for the geese that flew into the jet’s engines, but he guided the hands of the pilot who landed the plane. That plane crash, according to John Piper, was designed by God in God’s sovereignty.

Now apply that view of catastrophe to the Titanic disaster. In one of the most deadly peacetime disasters in history, the RMS Titanic, a passenger liner, sank on its maiden voyage from Southampton, UK to New York City, US. It collided with an iceberg on 15 April 1912 (100 years ago) in the Atlantic Ocean and 1,514 people died.

The Titanic as it departed from Southhampton, UK, April 10, 1912. image courtesy uwants.com.

To be consistent, John Piper’s theology of ‘Miracle on the Hudson’ becomes ‘Disaster on the Atlantic Ocean’ for The Titanic and its passengers. The application has to be that God guided the Titanic’s captain to hit the iceberg. The iceberg was designed by God for the event and 1,514 people were killed by God’s design.

What about the disaster with the twin towers, etc., on 11 September 2001?

Or am I missing something?

ColetheCalvinist replied:

Right. God is ULTIMATELY responsible because He knows what the outcome will be and He could stop it if He wanted to. This is what Piper means by indirect or secondary cause. He’s not the direct cause.
The Reformed view teaches that God positively or actively intervenes in the lives of the elect to insure their salvation. The rest of mankind He leaves to themselves. He does not create unbelief in their hearts. He does not coerce them to sin. They sin by their own choices. The dreadful error of hyper-Calvinism is that it involves God in coercing sin. This does radical violence to the integrity of God’s character. – R.C. Sproul[3]

I have had a back and forth with this person in which I made these statements:

If you hold that view of the sovereignty of God, you must live with the logical consequences of such a position. It makes God into a monster who is responsible for my friend’s rape that happened over and over by an employee in a nursing home and the culprit has been charged with rape.

That view makes God morally and causally responsible for 9/11, the drunk who murdered his family and my friend’s repeated rapes.

I read recently of a man who stabbed his sister and decapitated his 5-year-old sister at a birthday party before the police shot him. If I accept your and Piper’s view of God, these acts are ordained by God, what kind of God is He? Can you justify that from biblical teaching?[4]

And,

You said that “God is ULTIMATELY responsible” for the evil people do. That means that your kind of God caused my friend to be raped multiple times by a medical staff person.

It was your kind of God who “is ULTIMATELY responsible” (your words) for the evil any person commits – including the decapitating of a 5-year-old and the twin-towers devastation of 9/11. That might be the nature of your God, but that’s not the God I serve. Your kind of God “is ULTIMATELY responsible” for the Titanic disaster. In your language, “He could stop it” but he doesn’t.

So that makes your God “ULTIMATELY responsible” for the Holocaust and the gas oven slaughters. What kind of a God is He? If that is what he is like by nature, he’s a monster.
So you erect a straw man logical fallacy with this kind of statement:

His sovereign will is His business alone. The secret things belong to the Lord. I am to trust in His infinite wisdom and holiness and go by His revealed will.

So your God’s secret, sovereign will includes the slaughter of people by Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Idi Amin – and my friend’s multiple rapes.
I think it is time that you reassessed the nature of your God and his relationship to evil in the universe.[5]

God as the creator or authoriser of evil – some Calvinists

John Piper goes so far as to state:

So when I say that everything that exists—including evil—is ordained by an infinitely holy and all-wise God to make the glory of Christ shine more brightly I mean that, one way or the other, God sees to it that all things serve to glorify his Son. Whether he causes or permits, he does so with purpose. For an infinitely wise and all-knowing God, both causing and permitting are purposeful. They are part of the big picture of what God plans to bring to pass (Piper 2008:56).

It is not only John Piper, the Calvinist, who thinks like this. Before the time of Piper, Gordon Clark, another Calvinist, was advocating something similar: ‘As God cannot sin, so in the next place, God is not responsible for sin, even though he decrees it…. I wish very frankly and pointedly to assert that if a man gets drunk and shoots his family, it was the will of God that he should do so…. In Ephesians 1:11 Paul tells us that God works all things, not some things only, after the counsel of his own will’ (Clark 2004:40, 27).

Bruce Little noted that ‘Gordon Clark presents one way of responding to the charge that the Calvinist position leaves God morally responsible for evil even though He ordained it. Clark seeks to smooth out the contradiction by crafting the notion of God’s secret will and His revealed will’ (Little 2010:293). Then Little quotes Clark:

One may speak of the secret will of God, and one may speak of the revealed will of God. Those who saw self-contradiction in the previous case would no doubt argue similarly on this point too. The Arminian would say that God’s will cannot contradict itself, and that therefore his secret will cannot contradict his revealed will. Now, the Calvinist would say the same thing; but he has a clearer notion of what contradiction is, and what the Scriptures say. It was God’s secret will that Abraham should not sacrifice his son Isaac; but it was his revealed (for a time), his command, that he should do so. Superficially this seems like a contradiction. But it is not. The statement, or command, “Abraham, sacrifice Isaac,” does not contradict the statement, at the moment known only to God, “I have decreed that Abraham shall not sacrifice his son.” If Arminians had a keener sense of logic they would not be Arminians (Clark 2004:28).

This sounds more like Clark, the Calvinist’s, illogical view! Little (2010:293) has noted that Clark’s appeal to God’s knowledge does not solve the problem. Why? Because Clark is maintaining that God has two contradictory and incoherent wills! Since God is sovereign, how is it possible for God to have two wills (secret and revealed) for the same event that are contradictory? While Clark admits there is an apparent contradiction in what the biblical text, but his supposed solution fails because it is illogical. Why? Because God’s secret and revealed wills must also apply to Jessica’s death, Hitler and the Holocaust, and the slaughters by Pol Pot (UNICEF estimated 3 million people were slaughtered) and Idi Amin (up to 500,000 people could have been killed under his regime).

Take a read of R C Sproul Jr’s view of God creating sin (this is not R C Sproul Sr) in, ‘Taking Calvinism Too Far: R.C. Sproul Jr.’s Evil-Creating Deity‘. In this article it states that R C Sproul Jr, the Calvinist, asks: ‘“Isn’t it impossible for God to do evil?” He acknowledges that God can’t sin. This isn’t much of a consolation, as Sproul Jr. goes on to say: “I am not accusing God of sinning; I am suggesting that he created sin” (p. 54)’.

John Frame, the Calvinist, wrote:

For us, the question arises as to whether God can be the efficient cause of sin, without being to blame for it. The older theologians denied that God was the efficient cause of sin . . . [in part] because they identified cause with authorship. But if . . . the connection between cause and blame in modern language is no stronger than the connection between ordination and blame, then it seems to me that it is not wrong to say that God causes evil and sin. Certainly we should employ such language cautiously, however, in view of the long history of its rejection in the tradition (Does God ’cause’ sin?)

Why don’t you take a read of the article about supralapsarian Calvinist, John Piper, ‘John Piper on Man’s Sin and God’s Sovereignty‘.

It makes God into a monster!

What is a better solution to the problem of evil?

There is a very simple solution that those who believe in God’s free will to human beings, have been advocating throughout human history. We find it throughout the Scriptures. The Bible shows clearly that people have the ability to choose between two contrary views such as life and death. See Deuteronomy 30:15-19; Joshua 24:15; Isaiah 56:4; Ezekiel 33:11. The New Testament promotes the same view: Luke 22:32; John 3:16-17; Acts 17:30; Romans 6:16; 2 Thessalonians 2:10-11; 1 Timothy 2:3-4; 4:10; 1 John 2:2; 4:14; 2 John 1:9 and Revelation 22:17.

Of course there are verses that affirm predestination in association with salvation, but that is not contradictory to God’s giving human beings responsibility through free will. Also see ‘Church Fathers on Foreknowledge and Free will’.

When it comes to the problem of evil, there is a simple solution. When God made human beings in the beginning, he gave Adam and Eve the choice to obey or disobey Him:

And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die” (Genesis 2:16-17).

Adam and Eve chose to disobey, beginning with Eve and the serpent’s tempting (Genesis 3). This tempter is generally accepted as the devil/Satan (see John 8:44; 2 Corinthians 11:3, 14; Revelation 12:9).

Since that time, all human beings inherit original sin, which means that all people have an hereditary fallen nature and moral corruption that have been passed on from Adam and Eve to all of their descendants. Romans 5:12 gives a summary of this view from God’s perspective:

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned.

Some choose to be selfish, angry, steal or get angry (from mild to severe). Other people choose to do horrific things in their sinful actions. Human beings are responsible for horrendous, sinful deeds. It is human beings who commit the Holocaust, rape and murder. Each human being is responsible and will appear before the judgment of God to be judged.

The Judgment of the Dead (Revelation 20:11-15 NIV)

¹¹Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. ¹²And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. ¹³The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. 14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. ¹⁵Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire (NIV).

The problem of evil, while inherited from birth, cannot be rebuffed with the claim that God gave it to me and caused me to sin. This is one that I’ve heard from some with a former church connection. The facts are that human beings choose to sin as Adam and Eve were their representatives. Adam was our federal head. If we had been there, we would have done exactly what Adam and Eve did. We see this emphasis in verses such as:

Romans 5:18, ‘Just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people’.
1 Corinthians 15:22, ‘For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive’.

Geisler & Brooks (1990:32) succinctly state the solution to the dilemma: ‘God is responsible for the fact of freedom, but men [human beings] are responsible for the acts of freedom’.

That is the hope available to all people

(image courtesy ChristArt)

‘For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive’. If you are interested in being made alive in Christ for abundant life NOW and eternal life that can begin NOW, I encourage you to read, ‘The content of the Gospel … and some discipleship’.

So, who is responsible for all of the evil in the world?

We are!

References

Clark, G H 2004. God and evil: The problem solved.[6] Unicoi, TN: The Trinity Foundation.

Geisler, N L & Brooks, R M 1990. When skeptics ask. Wheaton, Illinois: Victor Books.

Little, B A 2012. Evil and God’s sovereignty, in Allen D L & Lemke, S W (eds), Whosoever will: A biblical-theological critique of five-point Calvinism, 275-298. Nashville, Tennessee: B&H Academic.

Piper, J 2008. Spectacular Sins: And Their Global Purpose in the Glory of Christ. Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books.

Piper, J 2009. The president, the passengers, and the patience of God, Desiring God, 21 January. Available at: http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/taste-see-articles/the-president-the-passengers-and-the-patience-of-god (Accessed 7 May 2012).

Notes:

[1] The article,‘Drifter says he held girl three days’ (CNN, June 24, 2005), states that this atrocity occurred 100 yards from her home.

[1a] Christian Forums, Christian Apologetics, ‘God is not the author of evil’, ColetheCalvinist, #1, available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7654545/ (Accessed 6 May 2012).

[2] Ibid #23.

[3] Ibid #25.

[4] Ibid., #28.

[5] Ibid., #33.

[6] This was originally published as chapter 5 in Gordon Clark’s 1961 book, Religion, Reason and Revelation (The Trinity Foundation, 1986 [1961]).

What’s the place of logic in Christian apologetics?

(image courtesy Baker Books)

I began a thread on Christian Forums, ‘Logic in Christian apologetics’. The response was mostly favourable, but many in favour seemed to drop out of the discussion when there were negative comments like these:

You wouldn’t see me as an advocate of logic, it relies on the mind, and that is secondary to the Spirit.
Logic will never restore a maimed leg.
Logic would fall under the tree of knowledge of good and evil rather than the tree of life, hence why I don’t have a good opinion of it. It is there at times, but it is not part of conforming to the image of His Son.
The Bible is filled with ‘illogic’. Peter walking on the water, God dying on the Cross, etc.
The use of the Bible doesn’t necessitate logic. It requires faith and proper hermeneutical exegesis. Communicating your findings doesn’t depend on logic, and neither do the other areas you mentioned. It just requires systematic use of the information available, no logic. Logic states, “I think therefore I am”, God states, “I AM”.

What is the role of logic in the use of the Christian mind?

I need to say that I’ve been particularly helped in growing in my faith and use of Christian apologetics by Norman Geisler & Ronald Brooks (1990), Come, Let Us Reason.

Their definitions of logic are:

(1) “Logic really means putting your thoughts in order” (p. 11), or as a more formal definition,
(2) “Logic is the study of right reason or valid inferences and the attending fallacies, formal and informal” (Geisler & Brooks 1990:12).

If logic is the study of correct reason, what do you think is the place of logic in the Christian faith, and especially in apologetics? What’s the point of even raising logic as a necessary part of Christian apologetics?

I am reminded that the term, ‘theology’ is made up of two NT Greek words: theos = God and logos = word or logic. So we might say that theology is the logic of God, or theology is a rational discourse about God (Geisler & Brooks 1990:15).

Is it possible to have a reasonable discussion on an Internet forum, in a church Bible study, or in proclaiming the Gospel and defending the faith, without the use of correct logic?

How do you see logic, reason, the supernatural God and the use of the Christian mind?

Logical fallacies

One of the areas of logic that I’ve had to give more attention to in pursuing research studies and on Christian forums has been the use of logical fallacies. Some that I have seen in various readings have included:

Begging the question, where the conclusion is sneaked into the premises. I note this in my analysis of Jesus Seminar fellow, John Dominic Crossan’s writings. Crossan also uses
Special pleading – the evidence supporting only one view is cited and the other is excluded. Crossan does this with his statements like, in quoting ‘secondary literature, I spend no time citing other scholars to show how wrong they are’. Instead, he only quotes those who ‘represent my intellectual debts’ (Crossan 1991:xxxiv).
Straw man – drawing a false picture of the other person’s argument;
Red herring – evading a question by changing the subject.
Ad hominem – argument by character assassination or personal attack. I see this sometimes in the flaming on this forum, but fortunately the moderators are onto this very quickly.
Genetic fallacy – something should be rejected because it comes from a bad source. I often see this in evolution vs creationist debates where evolutionist states evidence from the Book of Genesis should be rejected because of those fighting fundies (or conservative evangelicals) who want to interpret it literally and they know nothing about science. Genesis is mythology, anyway!

Liberal theology as a hindrance

What I think causes some Christians to balk at the idea of using logic in communication is what is seen in liberal theology using the historical-critical method where people promote autonomous human reason to arrive at conclusions that are contrary with Scripture.

This shows how humanistic reasoning can be abused, but it does not negate the use of logic in our communication. Those who are opposing the use of logic, are engaging in a self-defeating exercise. This is because they are using logic in the sentences they write to oppose the use of logic.

Many things in Christian exegesis, theology, apologetics, Bible study, etc., can be abused. The abuse of something does not negate its legitimacy when used for the correct purposes. One or 10 faulty Fords (motor vehicles) doesn’t make every Ford junk – I drive a Toyota Camry.

Abuse does not exclude legitimate use.

A responder to one of my posts on Christian Forums gave an excellent perspective on this problem of abuse of logic:

See I have a bit of a different thought on the matter. Imagine a pretty girl who is always told she is ugly. Eventually she comes to believe that even though she is beautiful. Similarly, atheists claim the mantle of logic and reason, telling Christians their beliefs are unfounded and go against logic. So Christians come to hate logic and reason not realizing that they can fight fire with fire and that logic goes both ways. We are that girl and we are not ugly.

To all the Christians out there who are reading this, do not fear logic and reason. Logic and reason is not something to be afraid of, embrace it! Pray for a stronger faith and know that God is on our side.

If getting into the negations of our faith makes you weary, don’t! But for those of us who can and do, do not judge us for it. We are part of the Body Of Christ! Do not forget that.[1]

While the use of reason, including logic, can be abused, it does not denigrate the proper use of logic as defined above.

Does the NT endorse apologetics as a legitimate ministry?

Is there a legitimate Christian ministry of apologetics when the ministry gift of an apologist is not mentioned using the word, apologist, in the New Testament?

I observe that these words do not appear as exact words in the NT: Trinity, substitutionary atonement of Christ and inerrancy of the Bible.[2] However, all three of these doctrines are taught in the Bible. So while we use different English words to describe a doctrine, this does not mean that that doctrine does not appear in the Bible.

The same applies with the ministry of an apologist. In discussion on a Christian Forum, a fellow wrote to me,

And by the way, just so you are aware of it, there is no ministry from The Holy Spirit in the bible called “apologetics.” A lot of people make one up, but it is not a GOD given ministry unto the body of Christ for its edification. This is very apparent in the bible, and I’m quite surprised that you would even make mention of it to me, as if you were doing something for GOD this way.[3]

My reply to him included some of the following brief information.[4] We know that there are five ministry gifts of Christ to the church according to Ephesians 4:11-13,

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ (NIV).

Therefore, the gifts of ministry Christ gave to the church are apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. There is no mention of apologists here, so does that mean the ministry of Christian apologetics is not valid?

A check of Arndt & Gingrich’s Greek lexicon (1957:95) reveals the meanings of apologia, the Greek word for a defence or apologetic. This is what we find:

There is a ministry of apologia (apologetics) involved in giving testimony as Paul demonstrated in Acts 22:1. So presenting one’s testimony can involve an apologetic component.
Phil. 1:7, 16 demonstrate that the ministry of apologia is involved in defendng the Gospel. So apologetics is a sub-set of the gift of proclaiming the Gospel – evangelism.
This is also confirmed in 1 Peter 3:15, the verse that is commonly given as an example of apologetics. If a person is giving an apologia for the hope that he/she has in Christ, then a person is engaging in the ministry of evangelism.

Therefore, the ministry of apologetics is a sub-set of evangelism and could well be an aspect of the continuing gift of apostles. See my article, ‘Are there apostles in the 21^st century?’

Many of the church fathers in the early days of establishing the Christian church were described as engaging in the ministry as apologists in church planting and teaching. Earle Cairns in his book on church history (Cairns 1996),

During the second and third centuries the church expressed its emerging self-consciousness in a new literary output—the writings of the apologists and the polemicists. Justin Martyr was the greatest of the former group; Irenaeus was the outstanding man of the later group (Cairns 1996:105). [5]

Cairns lists these apologists of the early church:

1. Eastern apologists were Justin Martyr (ca. AD 100-165); Tatian (ca. AD 110-172); Athenagoras (one of his publications was about AD 177); Theophilus of Antioch (converted to Christ about AD 180) (Cairns 1996:106-107).

2. Western apologists included Tertullian (born ca. AD 160); and Minucius Felix (wrote about AD 200) [Cairns 1996:107-109].

Therefore, from a biblical and historical perspective, the ministry of apologetics can be agreed as part of the ministry of apostle or evangelist. In my own ministry as a teacher-preacher, I often use apologetics in explaining aspects of my expositions. Here you will read examples of my expository preaching on 1 Peter.

Recommended books

I highly recommend Harry Blamires, The Christian Mind: How Should a Christian Think? (Servant Books). Also Harry Blamires, The Post Christian Mind (Servant Books). Os Guinness’s little book has lots of meat, Fit Bodies Fat Minds: Why Evangelicals Don’t Think & What to Do About It (I have the British edition by Hodder & Stoughton).

Back in 1972, the late John Stott published a wonderful booklet of 64 pages, Your Mind Matters: The Place of the Mind in the Christian Life (IVP). One of his statements was:

I am not pleading for a dry, humorless, academic Christianity, but for a warm devotion, set on fire by truth. I long for this biblical balance and the avoidance of fanatical extremes. I shall urge that the remedy for an exaggerated view of the intellect is neither to disparage it, nor to neglect it, but to keep it in its God-appointed place, fulfilling its God-appointed role (Stott 1972:11).

Conclusion

We cannot read any document without use of logic. So God, the creator of logic, uses logic is providing us with the God-breathed Scriptures to read. All of God’s good things can be abused and this applies to logic.

It is not illogical to believe in the supernatural God of miracles who provides a book by putting His thoughts in order in Scripture.

The ministry of apologetics is a legitimate Christian ministry that may be subsumed under the gifts of apostle, evangelist and teacher.

Works consulted

Arndt, W F & Gingrich, F W 1957. A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature. [6] Chicago: The University of Chicago Press (limited edition licensed to Zondervan Publishing House).

Cairns, E E 1996. Christianity through the centuries. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House.

Crossan, J D 1991. The historical Jesus. New York, NY: HarperSanFrancisco.

Geisler, N L & Brooks, R M 1990. Come, let us reason. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House.

Notes:

[1] Christian Forums, Christian Apologetics, ‘Logic in Christian apologetics’, Secondtimearound #37, available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7651514-4/ (Accessed 25 April 2012).

[2] See also my article, ‘What is the nature of the Bible’s inspiration?’.

[3] Christian Forums, Christian Apologetics, ‘Logic in Christian apologetics’, ARBITER01 #30. available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7651514-3/ (Accessed 25 April 2012). In this thread I’m OzSpen.

[4] Ibid., #33.

[5] This and the following references are to the 1981 edition of Earle Cairns.

[6] This is ‘a translation and adaptation of Walter Bauer’s Griechisch-Deutsches Wörtbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments und der übrigen urchristlichen Literatur’, 4^th rev and aug ed, 1952 (Arndt & Gingrich 1957:iii).

Is Richard Dawkins an agnostic or an atheist?

Atom Of Atheism Wallpaper 10by16 by kg

(image courtesy Open Clipart Library)

By Spencer D Gear

Is Richard Dawkins an atheist[1] or an agnostic?[2] In a debate on evolution between eminent scientist and atheist, Richard Dawkins, and Rowan William, Archbishop of Canterbury, The Independent [UK] reported:

Could Dawkins disprove the existence of God? He could not, he confessed, describing himself not as an atheist but as an agnostic – to gasps from Twitter, where the unlikely #dawkinsarchbishop hashtag was trending. On his own atheism scale of one-to-seven, the Professor suggested, “the probability of any supernatural creator existing is very, very low, so let’s say I’m a 6.9″….

“I am baffled,” responded Dawkins, “by the way sophisticated theologians who know Adam and Eve never existed still keep talking about it.” God, he said, “cluttered up” his scientific worldview. “I don’t see clutter coming into it,” Williams replied. “I’m not thinking of God as an extra who has to be shoehorned into it” (Walker 2012).

Here is a clip from the debate on YouTube, where Dawkins admits he is an agnostic and not an atheist: See HERE.

The Daily Mail [UK] reported the debate this way:

Professor Richard Dawkins today dismissed his hard-earned reputation as a militant atheist – admitting that he is actually agnostic as he can’t prove God doesn’t exist.

The country’s foremost champion of the Darwinist evolution, who wrote The God Delusion, stunned audience members when he made the confession during a lively debate on the origins of the universe with the Archbishop of Canterbury….

But when Archbishop Dr Rowan Williams suggested that Professor Darwin is often described as the world’s most famous atheist, the geneticist responded: ‘Not by me’.

He said: ‘On a scale of seven, where one means I know he exists, and seven I know he doesn’t, I call myself a six.’

Professor Dawkins went on to say what he believed was a ‘6.9’, stating: ‘That doesn’t mean I’m absolutely confident, that I absolutely know, because I don’t’….

This latest admission by Professor Dawkins comes after he was left lost for words [to] name the full title of his scientific hero’s[3] most famous work during a radio discussion last week in which he accused Christians of being ignorant of the Bible.

In his frustration, he resorted to a helpless: ‘Oh God’ (Hills 2012).

However, this is not a new perspective from Dawkins. As we shall see, this is a similar view to what he has already promoted in The God delusion (2006).

A. The reaction of other atheists to Dawkins’ claim

How have Dawkins’ atheistic followers reacted to his acknowledgement that he is a 6.9 agnostic on a scale of 1-7 (1 being God exists and 7 being God does not exist)? Some of the comments made by posters following the Mail Online article show the defensiveness of atheists:

An atheist is someone who doesn’t believe in God. Dawkins doesn’t believe in God. Dawkins is an atheist. Dawkins, like practically every other atheist I’ve ever met, has the humility to admit he doesn’t know everything, and therefore allows for the possibility that he is wrong. Technically, that makes him agnostic; but by that standard every Christian who ever has a moment of doubt is also agnostic. This isn’t a change in what Dawkins believes. The only news here is that the author of this article doesn’t understand the subject she’s covering. And really, that’s not news. (James Huber, Oakland, USA, 26/2/2012) [Walker 2012][4]

Professor Dawkins has ALWAYS said he is an agnostic atheist, which is distinct from a simple agnostic. The Mail is engaging in sensationalism, yet again. (Joseph Martin, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA, 26/2/2012) [Walker 2012].

Another perspective in these comments was:

This is a U-turn in his rhetoric. Remember Dawkins wrote a chapter in The God Delusion called “The Poverty of Agnosticism”? Is he now impoverished?? (Juan, Slough, UK, 26/2/2012).

Another used it as a reason to attack the credibility of the Bible:

Comparing religion with science is misrepresenting science. Science is simply the logical application of thought to problems – processing what you currently know to explain things better. It isn’t an alternative belief system, it is a way of teasing out truth from ideas. One truth we have discovered is that lots of things are unprovable. I cannot prove my desk exists but we accept this as a proven ‘fact’. Arguing otherwise is just untenable. We have worked out that the earth is billions of years old. If Jesus is the son of God, the Bible wouldn’t describe the earth as a few thousand years old and there wouldn’t be so many other factual errors. Common sense tells you that, if the writers didn’t know any more than the smart guys of the day, there is no need to look for a supernatural explanation. We may not be able to prove God doesn’t exist, but we *have* proved the Bible to be wrong on many fundamental points (even theologians agree). Belief based on the Bible is untenable (Dave, Cambridge, UK, 26/2/2012) [Walker 2012].

In a Christian apologetics site, Theo-sophical Ruminations (online): Agnostic Front, there is an article, ‘Dawkins is an agnostic? Why certainty is irrelevant to defining atheism’. The author makes this assessment:

During his dialogue-debate with Rowen[5] Williams (the archbishop of Canterbury, head of the Anglican Church under the Queen of England), Richard Dawkins was asked by the moderator why, if he admits that He cannot disprove God’s existence, he doesn’t just call himself an agnostic. Dawkins response was, “I do.”

This is interesting, particularly in light of his past identification as an atheist, as well as his remarks that on a scale of 1 to 7, with one being “I know God exists” and seven being “I know God doesn’t exist,” he ranks himself a 6.9. He is only 0.1 away from being absolutely certain God does not exist, and yet he thinks that is good reason to adopt the agnostic label. I disagree.

The presumption here is that to be an atheist one must be 100% sure that God does not exist, and if one is not 100% sure then they are agnostic (Christians often make this same mistake in reasoning). But since when has atheism described the level of certainty one has regarding the non-existence of God? Atheism describes the position of those who think the proposition “God exists” is false, regardless of their level of confidence that this is so. Whether they are 99% or 51% sure the proposition is false, it is the mere fact that they think it is false that makes them an atheist….

If one must be 100% certain that God does not exist before it is appropriate to designate one’s position as “atheism,” then I think most philosophers would agree that no one could be an atheist.[6]

In spite of the atheistic promoters disappointment with Dawkins ‘agnostic’ position (even if only 0.1 out of 7.0), he did have a section in The God Delusion on ‘the poverty of agnosticism’ (Dawkins 2006:69-77), but he admitted

the view that I shall defend is very different: agnosticism about the existence of God belongs firmly in the temporary or TAP [Temporary Agnosticism in Practice] category. Either he exists or he doesn’t. It is a scientific question: one day we may know the answer, and meanwhile we can say something very strong about the probability….

God’s existence or non-existence is a scientific fact about the universe, discoverable in principle if not in practice. If he existed and chose to reveal it, God himself could clinch the argument, noisily and unequivocally, in his favour (Dawkins 2006:70, 73, emphasis added).

However, he did write that he was agnostic about the existence of God ‘only to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden’ (Dawkins 2006:74). So Dawkins, even in The God delusion (2006), was admitting his temporary agnostic position that, by definition, will lead to full-blown atheism one day when the scientific evidence is eventually found to deny the existence of God.

Dawkins’ examination of evidence is inhibited by his rejection of all kinds of evidence, as exemplified in strident statements such as,

(1) ‘It is impossible to overstress the difference between such a passionate commitment to biblical fundamentals and the true scientist’s equally passionate commitment to evidence’ (2006:19).

(2) ‘Dyed-in-the-wool faith-heads are immune to argument, their resistance built up over years of childhood indoctrination using methods that took centuries to mature (whether by evolution or design) [2006:28].

(3) ‘The whole point of religious faith, its strength and chief glory, is that it does not depend on rational justification. The rest of us are expected to defend our prejudices. But ask a religious person to justify their faith and you infringe “religious liberty”’ (2006:45, emphasis added).

(4) ‘Not surprisingly, since it is founded on local traditions of private revelation rather than evidence, the God Hypothesis comes in many versions’ (2000:52).

(5) ‘There is nothing wrong with being agnostic in cases where we lack evidence one way or the other. It is the reasonable position’ (2000:69).

(6) ‘If he existed and chose to reveal it, God himself could clinch the argument, noisily and unequivocally, in his favour’ (2006:73, emphasis added).

(7) ‘I shall not consider the Bible further as evidence of any kind of deity’ (2006:122-123).

(8) ‘It would be interesting to know whether there was any statistical tendency, however slight, for religious believers to loot and destroy than unbelievers. My uninformed prediction would have been opposite’ (2006:261).

(9) ‘Adherents of scriptural authority show distressingly little curiosity about the (normally highly dubious) historical origins of their holy books’ (2006:267).

(10) ‘Much of the Bible is not systematically evil but just plain weird, as you would expect of a chaotically cobbled-together anthology of disjointed documents, composed, revised, translated, distorted and “improved” by hundreds of anonymous authors, editors and copyists, unknown to us and mostly unknown to each other, spanning nine centuries’ (2006:268).

(11) ‘Let’s charitably put it down again to the ubiquitous weirdness of the Bible’ (2006:273).

(12) ‘The Bible may be an arresting and poetic work of fiction, but it is not the sort of book you should give your children to form their morals’ (2006:280)

(13) ‘when you have been taught that truth comes from scripture rather than from evidence’ (2006:379).

B. The scientific method: How to determine scientific facts

What is the scientific method? Experiment-Resources.com has provided this brief and helpful overview of the scientific method:

1. The scientific process[7]

A scientific process or scientific method requires observations of nature and formulating and testing the hypothesis. It consists of following four steps.

1. Observe something and ask questions about a natural phenomenon (scientific observation)

2. Make your hypothesis

3. Make predictions about logical consequences of the hypothesis

4. Test your predictions by controlled experiment, a natural experiment, an observational study or a field experiment

5. Create your conclusion on the basis of data or information gathered in your experiment.

Here it is summarised with this graphic:

Matt Slick, while acknowledging the differences of opinion regarding the exact definition of the scientific method, stated that the main elements of the method are:

Observation – a perception, viewing of phenomena.
Hypothesis – a proposed explanation is developed to account what has been observed.
Experimentation – tests are developed to validate or invalidate the hypothesis.
Prediction – after tests and validation of the hypothesis, predictions are made based upon the evidence gathered in experimentation.
Theory – a theory is based upon a hypothesis, verified by testing, and is generally accepted as being an accurate explanation of phenomena.

What should be emphasised more in this overview is that the scientific method deals with in the measurable, the observable and the repeatable. Therefore, it is used primarily with experiments in the present time that can be observed, have hypotheses created, data accumulated to confirm or disconfirm the predictions of the hypothesis, and further hypotheses proposed to be tested for verification or falsification.

I do not consider that ultimate questions can be decided through use of the scientific method in its strictest sense. In my view, the existence of God and their being reason and purpose in the universe, cannot be analysed according to the scientific method’s use of observing things in the present time and testing them.

Yet, Dawkins regards science as the primary evidence for investigating our world. Take statements like:

‘The implication that the scriptures provide a literal account of geological history would make any reputable theologian wince’ (Dawkins 2006:377);
A promotion of a young earth by a creationist in teaching science was designed ‘to subvert evidence-based science education and replace it with biblical scripture’ (Dawkins 2006:378);
‘… when you have been taught that truth comes from scripture rather than from evidence’ (Dawkins 2006:379);

Because of this exclusive priority given by Dawkins to the primacy of science, scientist and theologian, Alister McGrath, has stated of Dawkins’ view:

Science is the only reliable tool that we possess to understand out world. It has no limits. We may not know something now—but we will in the future. It is just a matter of time. This view, found throughout Dawkins’s body of writings, is given added emphasis in The God Delusion, which offers a vigorous defense of the universal scope and conceptual elegance of the natural sciences…. The point is simple: there are no “gaps” in which God can hide. Science will explain everything—including why some still believe in such a ridiculous idea as God. Yet it is an approach that simply cannot be sustained….

Dawkins does, I have to say with regret, tend to portray anyone raising questions about the scope of sciences as a science-hating idiot (McGrath & McGrath 2007:35-36).

Dawkins has confirmed his short-sightedness with his support for the exclusivity of natural explanations, and he is subject to severe critique as McGrath & McGrath (2007) have demonstrated. I highly recommend McGrath & McGrath’s analysis of Dawkins’ worldview. It is devastating as they conclude that

‘The God Delusion is a work of theatre rather than scholarship…. Many have been disturbed by Dawkins’s crude stereotypes, vastly oversimplified binary oppositions (science is good; religion is bad), straw men and hostility toward religion. Might The God Delusion actually backfire and end up persuading people that atheism is just as intolerant, doctrinaire and disagreeable as the worst that religion can offer?… Yet the fact that Dawkins relies so excessively on rhetoric rather than the evidence that would otherwise be his natural stock in trade clearly indicates that something is wrong with his case…. Might atheism be a delusion about God? (McGrath & McGrath 2007:96-97, emphasis in original).

C. God himself could clinch the argument

Let’s get back to Dawkins challenging statement about God: ‘If he existed and chose to reveal it, God himself could clinch the argument, noisily and unequivocally, in his favour’ (2006:73).

So Dawkins is the master of evidence on the existence of God and he challenges God to ‘clinch the argument’, not in just some robust fashion, but God could do it ‘noisily and unequivocally’ and this would be in God’s favour – if only God would take Dawkins’ advice and do it as Dawkins wants.

D. Wait a minute, Richard Dawkins!

God has already revealed Himself unequivocally and Dawkins does not accept the evidence. Why? His presuppositional bias to atheism, naturalism, and the scientific method, prevents him from accepting God’s unequivocal evidence that is available elsewhere and in ways that God states are available to all. This is some of how God has stated the evidence:

‘The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands’ (Psalm 19:1 NIV).
‘Since what may be known about God is plain to them [godless, wicked people], because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse’ (Romans 1:19-20 NIV, emphasis added).
They [Gentiles, non-Jews] show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them. (Romans 2:15 NIV).
Jesus said, ‘Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father’ (John 14:9 NIV).

The Scriptures have stated that God has revealed himself, noisily, unequivocally in his own favour and not one human being in the world can make excuses like: “God I’m a 6.9 points out of 7 agnostic and I didn’t know for sure you exist”. “I’m a 99.9% atheist and I don’t believe in your existence”. “I was in a country where I never heard your Gospel and there was no Bible, so how can you send me to the place where the ungodly go?”

The Bible verses above confirm that God has done all he is ever going to do in three ways:

He has revealed Himself through natural revelation – in the heavens, through what has been made in the natural world.
A person’s heart/conscience has the law of God on it.
If you’ve had knowledge of Jesus through the proclamation of the Gospel and through access to the Scriptures, you have seen God, the Father, in action. You know of God’s invisible attributes and you know some of what he does. To be a 99.9% atheist is not acceptable before the holy and just God who ‘does not show favoritism’ (Romans 2:11).

Therefore, Richard Dawkins and all of the ungodly people in the world, you are without excuse. Not one person who has ever existed will be able to stand before God on judgment day and say, ‘You did not reveal yourself to me, God, to clinch the argument, noisily and unequivocally, in your favour’.

E. What are Richard Dawkins and all unbelievers up to?

Former atheist, scientist and now historical theologian at Oxford University, Dr. Alister McGrath, admitted his disillusionment with Dawkins’ antagonism towards God. He wrote:

When I read The God Delusion I was both saddened and troubled. How, I wondered, could such a gifted popularizer of the natural sciences, who once had such a passionate concern for the objective analysis of evidence, turn into such an aggressive antireligious propagandist with an apparent disregard for evidence that is not favorable to his case? Why were the natural sciences being so abused in an attempt to advance atheist fundamentalism? I have no adequate explanation. Like so many of my atheist friends, I simply cannot understand the astonishing hostility that he displays toward religion. Religion to Dawkins is like a red flag to a bull—evoking not merely an aggressive response but one that throws normal scholarly conventions about scrupulous accuracy and fairness to the winds (McGrath & McGrath 2007:12)

Terry Eagleton is a cultural and literary critic. His blistering critique of The God Delusion (2006) begins with these words:

Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology. Card-carrying rationalists like Dawkins, who is the nearest thing to a professional atheist we have had since Bertrand Russell, are in one sense the least well-equipped to understand what they castigate, since they don’t believe there is anything there to be understood, or at least anything worth understanding. This is why they invariably come up with vulgar caricatures of religious faith that would make a first-year theology student wince. The more they detest religion, the more ill-informed their criticisms of it tend to be (Eagleton 2006).

Eagleton describes Dawkins as being ‘theologically illiterate’ and Dawkins has provided ‘vulgar caricatures of religious faith’ (Eagleton 2006).

Well said, Terry, and your entire review is a scintillating assessment of Richard Dawkins’ ineptitude when it comes to theology.

F. How reliable is the Bible?

When discussing the Christian Gospel and defending Christianity, I have often heard comments such as: ‘You can’t depend on the fairytales of the Bible. Go tell somebody else your nonsense’; ‘Try that on somebody else. I’m not that gullible. Your Bible is a bunch of trash’. Let’s see how Dawkins attempts to undermine the reliability of the Bible:

‘How many literalists have read enough of the Bible to know that the death penalty is prescribed for adultery, for gathering sticks on the sabbath and for cheeking your parents? If we reject Deuteronomy and Leviticus (as all enlightened moderns do), by what criteria do we then decide which of religion’s moral values to accept? Or should we pick and choose among all the world’s religions until we find one whose moral teaching suits us? If so, again we must ask, by what criterion do we choose? And if we have independent criteria for choosing among religious moralities, why not cut out the middle man and go straight for the moral choice without the religion?’ (Dawkins 2006:81, emphasis in original)
‘To be fair, much of the Bible is not systematically evil but just plain weird’ (2006:268).
‘Despite the good intentions of the sophisticated theologian, a frighteningly large number of people still do take their scriptures, including the story of Noah, literally. According to Gallup, they include approximately 50 per cent of the US electorate’ (2006:269).
‘Scientists may think it is nonsense to teach astrology and the literal truth of the Bible’ (2006:367).
‘Jesus was not content to derive his ethics from the scriptures of his upbringing. He explicitly departed from them, for example when he deflated the dire warnings about breaking the sabbath. “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath” has been generalized into a wise proverb’ (2006:284).
‘There are other teachings in the New Testament that no good person should support. I refer especially to the central doctrine of Christianity: that of “atonement” for “original sin”. This teaching, which lies at the heart of New Testament theology, is almost as morally obnoxious as the story of Abraham setting out to barbecue Isaac, which it resembles’ (2006:284).
‘What kind of ethical philosophy is it that condemns every child, even before it is born, to inherit the sin of a remote ancestor?’ (2006:285).
‘The Christian focus is overwhelmingly on sin sin sin sin sin sin sin. What a nasty little preoccupation to have dominating your life’ (2006:285).
‘I have described atonement, the central doctrine of Christianity, as vicious, sadomasochistic and repellent. We should also dismiss it as barking mad, but for its ubiquitous familiarity which has dulled our objectivity. If God wanted to forgive our sins, why not just forgive them, without having himself tortured and executed in payment?’ (2006:287).
‘Adam, the supposed perpetrator of the original sin, never existed in the first place: an awkward fact -excusably unknown to Paul but presumably known to an omniscient God (and Jesus, if you believe he was God?) – which fundamentally undermines the premise of the whole tortuously nasty theory [of the atonement] (Dawkins 2006:287).
‘The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. Those of us schooled from infancy in his ways can become desensitized to their horror’ (2006:51).
‘For a more sophisticated believer in some kind of supernatural intelligence, it is childishly easy to overcome the problem of evil. Simply postulate a nasty god – such as the one who stalks every page of the Old Testament’ (2006:135).
‘Begin in Genesis with the well-loved story of Noah, derived from the Babylonian myth of Uta-Napisthim and known from the older mythologies of several cultures. The legend of the animals going into the ark two by two is charming, but the moral of the story of Noah is appalling. God took a dim view of humans, so he (with the exception of one family) drowned the lot of them including children and also, for good measure, the rest of the (presumably blameless) animals as well’ (2006:269).
‘Why should a divine being, with creation and eternity on his mind, care a fig for petty human malefactions?’ (2006:270)
‘Look it up in Judges 19:29. Let’s charitably put it down to the ubiquitous weirdness of the Bible’ (2006:273).
‘Yet the legend [of Abraham] is one of the great foundational myths of all three monotheistic religions’ (2006:275).
‘Modern morality, wherever else it comes from, does not come from the Bible’ (2006:279).
‘And the Bible story of Joshua’s destruction of Jericho, and the invasion of the Promised Land in general, is morally indistinguishable from Hitler’s invasion of Poland, or Saddam Hussein’s massacres of the Kurds and the Marsh Arabs. The Bible may be an arresting and poetic work of fiction, but it is not the sort of book you should give your children to form their morals’ (2006:280).

Those assaults by Richard Dawkins should stir you to realise that there is a tirade of antagonism, not only from Dawkins, but also from others. That should give you enough ammunition to indicate that there are people in university land who have a deep hostility towards the Bible and the God of the Bible. In being an apologist for the Christian faith in the twenty-first century, you’ll need to defend the reliability of the Scriptures. I refer you to my four articles that deal with this matter in an introductory way.

Can you trust the Bible? Part 1

Can you trust the Bible? Part 2

Can you trust the Bible? Part 3

Can you trust the Bible? Part 4

For further reading on the reliability of the Bible, I recommend: Blomberg (2007); Bruce (1960); Kaiser Jr (2001); Kitchen (2003); Montgomery (1984); Montgomery (1986).

G. God has declared!

God has declared exactly what Richard Dawkins and all the ungodly are doing with their denial or rejection of the existence of God. All the evidence they will ever need is before them, but this is what they are doing:

‘God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness’ (Rom 1:18 NLT, emphasis added).

Suppression of the truth of God’s evidence in creation, conscience and through Jesus, is what is being done by Dawkins and everyone else who rejects the evidence for God’s existence.

However, God needs more than release from the suppression of the truth, to effect reconciliation with God Himself. This is God’s requirement: “Repent and believe the good news [the Gospel]” (Mark 1:15). Jesus said to his disciple, Thomas, ‘Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed”’ (John 20:29).

I pray that Richard Dawkins and all ungodly people will have their eyes opened to the evidence that is unequivocally before them and they will repent of their sins and believe in Christ for salvation (eternal life). As long as they have breath, they have the opportunity to respond in faith to Christ.

H. References:

Blomberg, C L 1987. The historical reliability of the gospels. Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press.

Bruce, F F 1960. The New Testament documents: Are they reliable? rev ed. Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press.

Dawkins, R 2006. The God delusion. London: Black Swan (a division of Transworld Publishers).

Eagleton, T 2006. Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching (a review of Richard Dawkins’ The God delusion) [online], 19 October. London Review of Books, vol 28, no 20. available at: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n20/terry-eagleton/lunging-flailing-mispunching (Accessed 23 March 2012).

Hills, S 2012. ‘I can’t be sure God DOES NOT exist’: World’s most notorious atheist Richard Dawkins admits he is in fact agnostic. Mail Online, February 24. Available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2105834/Career-atheist-Richard-Dawkins-admits-fact-agnostic.html (Accessed 20 March 2012).

Kaiser Jr., Walter C 2001. The Old Testament documents: Are they reliable & relevant? Downers Grove, Illinois / Leicester, England: InterVarsity Press.

Kitchen, K A 2003. On the reliability of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids, Michigan / Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

McGrath, A & McGrath, J C 2007. The Dawkins delusion. Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Books.

Montgomery, J W 1984. The testimony of the evangelists, examined by the rules of evidence administered in courts of justice. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House.

Montgomery, J W 1986. Human rights and human dignity. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House.

Walker, T 2012. Science vs God: Richard Dawkins takes on Archbishop of Canterbury. The Independent (online), February 24. Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/science-vs-god-richard-dawkins-takes-on-archbishop-of-canterbury-7440051.html (Accessed 20 March 2012).

I. Notes:

[1] An atheist is ‘a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings’ (dictionary.com), available at: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/atheist?s=t (Accessed 26 March 2012).

[2] An agnostic is ‘a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience’ (dictionary.com), available at: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/agnostic?s=t (Accessed 26 March 2012).

[3] This was Charles Darwin and the full title of On the Origin of the Species was, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.

[4] Ibid.

[5] The correct spelling is ‘Rowan’.

[6] The article was written on 2 March 2012. Available at: http://theosophical.wordpress.com/2012/03/02/dawkins-is-an-agnostic-why-certainty-is-irrelevant-to-defining-atheism/ (Accessed 20 March 2012).

[7] Scientific observation. Experiment-Resources.com, available at: http://www.experiment-resources.com/scientific-observation.html (Accessed 25 March 2012).

Defending the resurrection as history

Three resurrection facts: A response with more impact

References

Notes:

What is secularism?

Conclusion

References

Secularists’ false claims

1. ‘If Christians starting thinking there would be no Christians left!’

2. Why choose a Bertrand Russell quote?

3. ‘Thinking is inimical[5] to the fanciful claims of religion’

4. Conclusion

Notes:

My response to ‘holo’[4]

Paul on hell

Other articles

Notes:

A glimpse into the Old Testament view

How should we respond to these allegations?

Response to the allegations against the Bible and slavery

Islam and slavery

Conclusion

Notes:

Reference:

How some Calvinists see it

God Is Not The Author Of Evil

God as the creator or authoriser of evil – some Calvinists

What is a better solution to the problem of evil?

That is the hope available to all people

References

Notes:

Logical fallacies

Liberal theology as a hindrance

Does the NT endorse apologetics as a legitimate ministry?

Recommended books

Conclusion

Works consulted

Notes:

A. The reaction of other atheists to Dawkins’ claim

B. The scientific method: How to determine scientific facts

1. The scientific process[7]

C. God himself could clinch the argument

D. Wait a minute, Richard Dawkins!

E. What are Richard Dawkins and all unbelievers up to?

F. How reliable is the Bible?

G. God has declared!

H. References:

I. Notes: