Is Jesus Simply a Retelling of the Horus Mythology?

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What if I told you there was once an ancient religion whose God was conceived by a virgin named Meri and had a stepfather named Seb (Joseph)? What if I told you this God was born in a cave and his birth was announced by an angel, heralded by a star and attended by shepherds? He attended a special rite of passage at the age of twelve (although the ancient texts describing this God are silent about His life from the age of 12 to 30). At 30 years of age, this God was baptized in a river (His baptizer was later beheaded). He had 12 disciples, performed miracles, exorcized demons, raised someone from the dead, and even walked on water. They called Him “Iusa”, the “ever-becoming son” and the “Holy Child”. He delivered a “Sermon on the Mount”, and his followers recounted his sayings. He was transfigured on a mount and eventually crucified between two thieves. He was buried for three days in a tomb and rose from the dead. His followers called Him “Way”, “the Truth the Light”, “Messiah”, “God’s Anointed Son”, “Son of Man”, “Good Shepherd”, “Lamb of God”, “Word made flesh”, “Word of Truth”, “the KRST” or “Anointed One”. He was also known as “the Fisher” and was associated with the Fish, Lamb and Lion. According to this ancient religion, this God came to fulfill the Law and was supposed to reign one thousand years. Sounds a lot like Jesus doesn’t it? According to those who deny the existence of Jesus, however, this description is of a mythological precursor to Christianity, the Egyptian God named Horus. Skeptics sometimes use ancient deities like Horus, Mithras or Osiris as examples of dying and rising precursors to Jesus. They claim the mythology of Jesus was simply borrowed from pre-existing examples such as these.

Was Horus really like Jesus in all the ways skeptics often describe him? These similarities are startling. For many Christians (especially young believers who encounter this objection while in college) similarities such as these cast doubt on the historicity of Jesus. It’s important, therefore, to examine the truth of these claims to see what the real mythologies tell us about characters such as Horus. While it’s true there are a number of pre-Christian mythologies with dying saviors, they aren’t much like Jesus once you start to examine them closely. They often merely reflect the expectations and yearnings of ancient people for the God who truly did come to earth. A significant portion of what we just described about Horus is simply false and lacks any Egyptian historical or archeological support whatsoever. Much of what I described about Horus is simply a reflection of the effort of atheists to make Horus look as much like Jesus as possible.

Horus was worshiped principally in two Egyptian cultural centers (Bekhdet in the north and Idfu in the south). Little remains at the northern location, but there is still a large and well preserved Ptolemaic temple at Idfu; most of our information about Horus comes from this southern temple. Horus was usually represented as a falcon. He was the great sky God and the Son of Isis and Osiris. Let’s take a look at the claims we’ve already described and separate truth from fiction (for a more in depth examination of Horus and many other alleged Christian precursors, please visit David Anderson’s excellent website. I’m condensing much of his work in this brief blog post). We’ll also look at some of the reasonable expectations and motivations causing these mythologies to resemble Jesus:

Claim: Horus was conceived by a virgin mother named Meri, and had a stepfather named Seb (Joseph)
Truth: Horus was NOT conceived of a virgin. In fact, mural and textual evidence from Egypt indicates Isis (there is no evidence that “Meri” was ever part of her name) hovered over the erect penis (she created) of Osiris to conceive Horus. While she may have been a virgin before the conception, she utilized Osiris’ penis to conceive. She later had another son with Osiris as well. There is no evidence of three wise men as part of the Horus story at all. Seb was actually the “earth god”; He was not Horus’ earthly father. Seb is not the equivalent of Joseph and, in most cases, Seb is described as Osiris’ father.

Claim: Horus was born in a cave, his birth announced by an angel, heralded by a star and attended by shepherds.
Truth: There is no reference to a cave or manger in the Egyptian birth story of Horus. In fact, none of these details are present in the ancient Egyptian stories of Horus. Horus was born in a swamp. His birth was not heralded by an angel. There was no star.

Claim: Horus attended a special rite of passage at the age of twelve and there is no data on the child from the age of 12 to 30.
Truth: There is no continuous effort in the Horus mythology to account for all these years, so there are no real gaps in the chronology. Horus never taught in any temple at twelve (as did Jesus).

(Read More)

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Religion Tested Truth

Can Religion Be Tested for Truth?

By Luke Nix

Most of the time, I’m not too fond of using the term “religion”. I normally prefer to use “worldview” because it is more clear about what all a belief-system entails. However, for this post, I will use the term common for the question posed in the title: Can religion be tested for truth?

Many years ago, I would not have even thought to ask if religion can be tested for truth. I never thought much about it, because the obvious answer to me seemed to be “Yes”. Apparently, though, many people are questioning whether religion can be tested for truth today. Some even say that religion can’t be tested, thus such a term as “true religion” is an oxymoron. A common slogan that I hear is, “You can’t put God in a test tube”. I thought that I might take a few minutes to break this down and form some kind of defense for the idea that religion can be tested.

Just to get us started, I want to give a basic definition of “religion”. I want to go with “a series of beliefs and practices”. If we further define “beliefs”, we find that beliefs are a series of propositions about reality that one trusts accurately reflect reality. If someone were to say, “I believe A”, they are saying that they trust that A accurately reflects reality.

Some people have stated to me that a person can have a religion that has nothing to do with reality. I beg to differ. If a necessary part of religion is a trust that a proposition accurately reflects reality (belief), then religion must have something to do with reality. What’s really great about most religions of the world is that they tend to not just make claims about how we should live (practice), but they make claims about reality- propositions that are claimed to accurately reflect our world. This makes it quite easy to test the religions of the world for truth.

It seems to me, though, that people have forgotten that “religion” includes beliefs. They tend to think that “religion” is merely a series of practices or routines. In this context, the claim that religion cannot be tested for truth makes a little bit more sense…but not much. No, practices don’t have a direct “truth value”, but they do have a “moral value”, and “moral value” is determined by propositions about reality being true. The “truth value” of practices are indirect, but that is not to minimize their “truth value”. The “direct” vs. “indirect” distinction comes into play when we are trying to figure out the “truth value”. For beliefs, the “truth value” can be found directly by testing it against reality. To find the “truth value” of a practice, we must test the “truth value” of the beliefs that necessarily lead to the practice.

A while back, I wrote an article about right beliefs being required before right action (practices) can be performed (here). However, I think that I would have to adjust and nuance that position a bit. If one does not have the true beliefs, they can still perform right actions. However, I would say that right action is useless without right intention (which is derived also indirectly, from beliefs). Notice that I did not say that it is “wrong”, just “useless”. Of course, “useless” implies a purpose. So, if a religion posited no purpose, then practices could be neither useless nor useful- they would just “be”. Whether or not actions possess a “use value” depends upon purpose existing (a proposition that contains truth value), and that can be derived by testing the truth values of propositions of a religion that claims purpose does, in fact, exist.

That purpose exists, is not enough, though. We would need to determine what the purpose actually is before we could determine right intention, which would lead to useful action. Not only must an action be right, but it must also be useful to possess a positive truth value. It is possible to have a right action that is useless to the purpose.

In order for us to know that our actions are the true actions that we should be performing, we need to know if the basis of those actions accurately reflect reality. We can know if the bases are true by testing them against reality. If our bases (beliefs) do not accurately reflect reality, then we must adjust them to accurately reflect reality. When we have accurate beliefs that inform accurate practices, then we have an indication of the true or correct religion.

Any religion that makes claims about reality is subject to being tested. Whatever is responsible for this universe has (un?)wittingly handed itself to humanity in a test tube. If what is responsible for the universe is an intelligent Being, then It has given us the tools to discover It. We can even test the identity of the intelligent Being if different religions claim different things about the creation (reality) created by its intelligent Being. If there is no intelligent Being responsible for the universe, that is testable also. We just need to gather the claims about reality from the different religions and put them to the test.

Check out this post from Bill Pratt: Can Science Test for the Supernatural?*

This post from J.W. Wartick: Can We Evaluate Worldview? How to Navigate the Sea of Ideas

And this post from Wintery Knight: Ground Zero: Why truth matters for preventing another 9/11-style attack

Other Related Posts

Can We Be Good Without God?

Can You Trust Your Senses and Reasoning?

Nature vs. Scripture

Great Websites For Testing Christianity Against Reality

Reasons to Believe

Reasonable Faith

Risen Jesus

Stand to Reason

Apologetics 315

Notes

*Thanks to Greg West at The Poached Egg for finding this article.

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2iCZxmL

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Evidence Belief Shaky Grounds

Is An Evidence Based Belief On Shaky Grounds?

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By Evan Minton

“If you were talked into your belief, you can be talked out of it”. This is what I read from one theologian in a book a while back. I cannot remember who said it, but that was a direct quote from the book. I think it came from one of the volumes of A.W Tozer’s The Attributes Of God, but I’m not entirely sure. I only remember what was said, not who said it. Anyway, the point this preacher was making is that if one rests on arguments and evidence to justify their belief in Christianity, then their faith stands on shaky grounds, for “If you were talked into your belief, you can be talked out of it”. If you were argued into believing the truth of Christianity by an apologist, then some atheistic philosopher or Muslim theologian or cultist could come along, give some arguments for their worldview, and you may find those arguments persuasive and abandon the faith. The preacher wrote that we should instead rely on the word of God (The Bible) and the inner witness of The Holy Spirit. We should spurn an evidential approach to knowing that Christianity is true and instead rely on faith and religious experiences.

I think that this argument is deeply flawed for a variety of reasons.

I Don’t Hang My Hat On One Argument

I cannot speak for everyone, but I personally don’t hang my hat on a single argument for Christianity’s truth. There is a wide range of arguments for God’s existence, The Bible’s historical reliability, and for Jesus’ resurrection. There’s The Kalam Cosmological Argument, The Cosmic Fine-Tuning Argument, The Local Fine-Tuning Argument, The Moral Argument, The Ontological Argument, The Contingency Argument, The Argument From Desire, The Argument From Science’s Doability, The Transcendental Argument, and there’s plenty of historical evidence indicating that Jesus of Nazareth died on the cross and rose from the dead (see here, here, and here). I defend all of these in great detail in my book  Inference To The One True God. 

What would happen if one of these arguments were ever shown to be unsound? Would my belief in God collapse? Let’s say that The Big Bang was overturned some day, the second law of thermodynamics was somehow shown to not imply a universe of finite age, and the arguments against actual infinities were also refuted, so that we could not evidentially demonstrate The Kalam Cosmological Argument’s second premise (i.e “The Universe Began To Exist”), thus rendering the argument unsound? Well, we’ve still got The Ontological Argument, which argues that if God’s existence is even possible, then it follows that God exists. I would still believe in God in this hypothetical scenario because although the Kalam was shown to be garbage, no one undermined any of the premises of The Ontological Argument. Moreover, The Contingency Argument doesn’t even need the universe to have had a beginning in order for it to be sound. All the Contingency Argument needs with respect to the universe is that it needs the universe to not exist by a necessity of its own nature, which, as you’ll know if you read the article I linked to on that argument, can be demonstrated apart from arguing that the universe had a beginning to its existence. I could still say “The best explanation for the existence of the universe is God” on the basis of The Argument From Contingency despite there being no way to argue that the universe hasn’t existed forever.

Or what if the Kalam always stands strong, but it’s The Local Fine-Tuning Argument that suffers a fatal blow. Well, I’d still have The Kalam, the cosmic Fine-Tuning Argument, The Moral Argument, and all of the others I mentioned above. Even if it could be argued that, maybe on the basis of the universe’s size or whatever, that the 400+ characteristics could come together by chance, that wouldn’t do anything to the Kalam or Cosmic Fine-Tuning Arguments. And it, again, wouldn’t do anything to The Ontological Argument.

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RyhTm8GO-cI/Wcr48Nbu-mI/AAAAAAAAFbk/vvvp9C8rGWo82LJtljVniukeR6OOTCkogCLcBGAs/s1600/

A meme I saw on the Facebook Page “Philosophy Memes and Theology Dreams”

You see, if one basis their belief on a variety of arguments that all point to the same conclusion, then even if one or two of them were shown to be fallacious, it wouldn’t remove the epistemological justification for belief. The meme on the left-hand side gets this point across magnificently. In this meme, a person is about to be thrown into skepticism about the existence of the external world. Clearly, if the external world isn’t real, then The Cosmological Arguments (both The Kalam and The Contingency) will fail. You can’t say the best explanation for the origin of the world is a transcendent Creator if there is no world of which to have an origin. You can’t say God is the best explanation for the existence of the universe is there is no universe. However, the Ontological Argument doesn’t hinge on the universe at all, beginningless or eternal, existent or non-existent. The Ontological Argument, as even its detractors will tell you, all hinges on whether that first premise is true (i.e “It is possible that a Maximally Great Being Exists”). So, despite jettisoning the Cosmological Arguments on the basis of external-world skepticism, he still has a fallback argument to run to.

If The Sword Cuts At All, It Cuts Both Ways 

“If you were argued into Christianity, you can be argued out of it.” — If we were to take this statement’s logic and apply it consistently, it would undercut even belief in God on an experiential or emotional basis. For example, one could say “If you came to know God through an experience of Him, you could come to know a false god through an equally powerful experience.” Suppose a person feels God’s presence in a mighty and inexplicable way during a church service as the pastor was preaching. As a result of this powerful experience, he comes to believe that Jesus is the one true God, that The Bible is true, that he is a sinner whom Jesus died for, and that God wants Him to follow Him. But 10 years down the road, he enters a mosque and hears the Quran being read. He now has the same type of experience he had before, only this time, he believes it’s Allah who is trying to get his attention. He abandons Christianity and converts to Islam.

“That could never happen” you might say. Why not? “Because Allah isn’t the one true God. You can’t have an experience of a god who isn’t there.” Well, isn’t it possible that demonic forces could cause an effect in a person like the above in an attempt to deceive him and lead him to apostatize? Remember, I’m arguing against a preacher here who believes The Bible in its entirety. He has to admit that the devil might play with someone’s mind to get them to commit idolatry. After all, he’s “the father of lies” (John 8:44), who “seeks to kill and destroy” (John 10:10) and “prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8), and can even make himself come off as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14). This preacher has to keep open the possibility that demons could give people false religious experiences to get them to worship a false god. Why can’t we say “If you were experienced into the faith, you can be experienced out of it?”

If The Evidence Truly Did Point Away From Christianity, We Should Follow It

Thirdly, if the evidence truly did point to some other worldview, then we ought to hold to that worldview. It would literally be irrational to hold to a belief in light of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. If it could be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that God does not exist, I would become an atheist. If it could be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the book of Mormon is divinely inspired, I would become a Mormon. Or if it could be shown that the Quran is inspired, I would become a Muslim. Of course, the evidence would have to actually be beyond a reasonable doubt. After all, this isn’t like deciding what kind of job to get. Eternity is on the line here! Being wrong can have devastating consequences. I’d have to be pretty darn sure that Christianity was false before I’d be willing to abandon it.

For any atheist reading this, you would have to (1) demolish all of the arguments for God’s existence and you would have to discredit The Minimal Facts Case for Christ’s resurrection, and then (2) you would have to provide a positive argument in favor of atheism. If you just do 1, I’ll just be left with agnosticism. For the Muslim, you would have to likewise discredit the historical case for Jesus’ resurrection, and you would have to either refute The Moral and Ontological Arguments or show that Allah is compatible with those arguments conclusion. As in chapters 4 and 5 of my book Inference To The One True God: Why I Believe In Jesus Instead Of Other Gods, I don’t think Allah is the one true God because He cannot be perfectly loving and He cannot be perfectly loving, because He isn’t a Trinity. God has to be a Trinity in order to be a God of perfect love because He wouldn’t be able to express love prior to the creation of any creatures to love. Love requires 3 things; (1) A lover, (2) A Beloved, and (3) a relationship between them. A Unitarian God doesn’t have all the requirements for love to exist until He creates other persons, which means He was lacking in the love department prior to making people. Since God must be morally perfect to be the standard of morality (The Moral Argument), and since a Maximally Great Being must have all great-making properties and have them to the greatest extent possible (The Ontological Argument), since love is a virtue and a great-making property then the God of The Moral and Ontological Arguments must have perfect love. Allah, a non-trinitarian god, doesn’t fit the bill. No polytheistic god fits the bill. No God consists of more than one person than Christianity’s God. Therefore, it is my inference that The Moral and Ontological arguments point to the God of orthodox Christianity. Pick up my book for other explanations for why Allah is not God. 

What If A Christian Isn’t Relying SOLEY On Evidence?

For me, the reason my belief that Christianity is true is so strong is that I have both a plethora of arguments evidence as well as The Holy Spirit’s witness to my heart. I think my faith would be a lot shakier if I relied solely on arguments or solely on the inner witness. I believe in God because I’ve experienced Him….multiple times. I also believe in God because He is the best explanation for the origin of the universe, the fine-tuning of the universe, the fine-tuning of our local habitable region, the moral law, the possibility of doing science, the reliability of our reasoning faculties, and no explanation has been given over the past 2,000 years to explain the 5 minimal facts than “He is risen”.

Christianity is the inference to the best explanation, and moreover, God has been a living reality in my life. It seems to me that my belief has less of a chance of being destroyed if I lean on both of these epistemological pillars. If I relied on only one, either one, I think it would be a lot more fragile than it is.

Once Saved, Always Saved 

Not everyone will agree with me here, but I do affirm that someone who truly got saved will always be saved. He will never lose His salvation. First, we have Jesus’ statement in John 10:27-29. In this passage, Jesus says “My sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they shall never perish. No one can pluck them from my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.” In this passage, Jesus says that no one is able to pluck us out of His hand. This seems to suggest that once you’re saved, that’s it. Nothing can cause you to be removed from Jesus’ hand. Now, people who believe salvation can be lost have responded to this passage by saying that this passage only means that no outside forces will cause us to lose our salvation against our will (e.g demons, the temptations of the world), but it doesn’t follow that we can’t freely choose to jump out of Christ’s hand. Point taken, but there’s more to take away from the passage than merely the “no one can pluck them from my hand” part. Notice that in the earlier part of the passage, Jesus says “I give them eternal life and they shall never perish.” Jesus’ words here are a blunt, de facto statement. He doesn’t say “they shall never perish as long as they don’t hop out of my hand.”. He just says “they shall never perish” period. If we freely chose to jump out of Christ’s hand, what would happen to us? We would perish, in contradiction to Christ’s words. There’s no conditional statement in this passage. Jesus just says point blank “I give them eternal life and they shall never perish”.

Moreover, 1 John 2:19 says “They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.” This sounds almost exactly like what eternal security advocates say. “They were never saved. If they were, they wouldn’t have become unsaved.” The apostle John says “They went out from us, but they weren’t of us. If they were of us, they wouldn’t have left.” When eternal security advocates say to a former Christian “you were never saved. If you were, you wouldn’t have lost it”, they are merely echoing the apostle’s words in 1 John 2:19.

Now, I hold to a more nuanced version of eternal security than most Christians do, but I won’t get into that here. Just check out my 3 part series on what I’ve dubbed “The Can/Won’t Model Of Eternal Security”, here, here, and here.

Given this, if a person truly has been born again (John 3:3) and become a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17), then regardless of how he came to believe that Christianity is true, he won’t stop believing it. He will be a Bible-believing Christ-Follower until the day he dies. So, the fact that some were “argued into the faith” doesn’t mean that they can be argued out of it, at least if they were truly born again.

Conclusion

This attempt by Tozer (or whoever it was) to undermine the legitimacy of an evidential faith fails. For one, most evidentialists don’t put all of their eggs in one basket. Secondly, this logic could be applied to believing in God on the basis of religious experience (what the preacher was arguing in favor of). Thirdly, it’s a false dichotomy to say that one’s belief is based on either evidence or religious experience (why not both?). And finally, given the doctrine of Eternal Security, even if a Christian did lean solely on evidence, if he were truly born again, he would never fall away. God would find a way to keep him from doing so.

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2yEK2Wc

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Crain

Talking with Your Kids about God w/ Natasha Crain

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Christian parenting is hard work–and it’s getting harder. Parents have a deep desire to pass on their faith but fear that today’s increasingly skeptical and hostile world will eventually lead their kids to reject the truth of Christianity. That leaves many parents feeling overwhelmed–uncertain of what they can do to help their children, given the difficulty and extent of the faith challenges they will face. Frank interviews author Natasha Crain about her new book a practical and timely resource that gives parents the confidence of knowing what to discuss with their children and how to discuss it in order to facilitate impactful conversations that will form the basis of a lifelong faith.

Natasha’s Website: http://christianmomthoughts.com/

Natasha’s New Book: http://christianmomthoughts.com/talkingwithyourkidsaboutgod/

Crain

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Know Bible

Why We Should Get To Know the Bible

By Al Serrato

Is there a way to use the Bible to get someone interested in knowing more about the Bible? I’ve thought about this question for many years. As I learned more about the Word, and spoke more with people who called themselves Christian but knew little or nothing about what the Bible teaches, I wondered about the best approach to take. Here, in a nutshell, is one possible approach to make the case for studying the Bible from the Bible.

Most people who call themselves Christian will acknowledge that the Bible is the inspired word of God. What this means to them varies. Usually, they will insist that the Bible is not literal, leaving them free to add meaning as they choose, and to ignore passages that are difficult. But why do such people seem to have no interest in ever learning Scripture? After all, even if the Bible is not literal, it must mean something. Why think of it as “inspired” if its wisdom is largely ignored? There are many possible answers to this question, but the most likely seems to be that they don’t see the need to do the hard work of learning not just what the Bible says, but also its history and context.

So, I sometimes begin by asking such a person whom Jesus might have been referring to in Matthew 7:21-22, where He warned about false prophets and added that not all who “prophesied,” “cast out demons” and “performed miracles” in His name will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Instead, it is “he who does the will of My Father.” In John 8:12, Jesus calls himself the light of the world; “he who follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the Light of life.” And then in verses 31-32: “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” Finally in 1 John 2:3-6: “By this, we know that we have come to know Him if we keep His commandments. The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.”

It seems pretty obvious that the Bible teaches – including the words of Jesus Himself – that there are those who know of Him, who may even invoke His name, who He will not recognize because they have not in truth followed Him. But if invoking His name, or calling oneself a believer, is not enough, what then must one do to follow Him? Scripture provides the answer: we must love God not just with our heart and soul and strength, but also with our mind. (Mark 12:30) We must study and know the Word of God. How else can we be “salt and light” to a fallen world (Matt. 5:13) or represent Christ as His ambassadors (2 Corinth. 5:17)?

The Bible tells us that we should “not be conformed to this world” but instead be “transformed” by the renewal of our minds, that by testing we can discern what is the will of God, “what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom. 12:2). We must “abhor what is evil and hold fast to what is good” (Rom. 12:9). God intends the Scripture to be this source of the knowledge of good, as it is “inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.” (2 Tim. 3:16-17).

In studying the Word, we are to “be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15). Writing to the Thessalonians, the Apostle Paul thanked God that when they received the word of God which they heard from him, they “accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe.” (1 Thess. 2:13). And to Timothy, Paul urges him “retain the standard of sound words which you have heard from me” and to “guard, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you.” (2 Tim 5:13-14).

In short, as the Apostle Peter wrote, we are to always be ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, doing so with gentleness and reverence. (1 Peter 3:15) It takes knowledge, and thoughtfulness, to do this. Studying and knowing the Bible is, necessarily, the first step.

Changing someone’s view of the importance of Scripture is easier said than done. This approach may be a start, but there are no doubt many other, and better, ones. If you’ve had some success in this endeavor, please take a moment to write to me at Al@pleaseconvinceme.com with the approach you took.

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2zy0tUw

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Thinking Atheist

Are You Thinking Like an Atheist?

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By Adam Tucker

As anyone who attends the Southern Evangelical Seminary National Conference on Christian Apologetics knows, SES does its best to offer well-rounded apologetics training that meets the needs of the novice while also challenging those who are more advanced. Our goal is to challenge the status quo of popular Christian thinking about apologetics and theological issues while at the same time being true to what makes SES unique in the evangelical world.

One of those unique aspects was on display at this year’s NCCA in the Friday night debate between Dr. Richard Howe, SES Emeritus Professor of Philosophy and Apologetics, and Dan Barker, Co-President of the Freedom from Religion Foundation. SES unashamedly builds its apologetics and theology proper (i.e., the nature of God) largely on the philosophical underpinnings laid forth by 13th century theologian Thomas Aquinas (who basically used portions of Aristotle’s thinking to provide a systematic approach to Christian apologetics and theology). This “classical” way of thinking about God’s existence has, until the last 200-300 years, been the standard way to do apologetics and to think about God. Sadly, for various reasons, it was largely abandoned, though it was never actually shown to be false. SES is convinced that this abandonment has led to confused thinking about how to actually do apologetics, which leads to shallow (if not false) thinking about who God is. This can lead to dangerous consequences for evangelism. These are all very important issues about which SES is quite passionate. In fact, it was none other than SES co-founder Dr. Norman Geisler who concluded his NCCA session by stating that evangelicals need an inoculation of Thomism (the thinking of Aquinas).

This is exactly the approach Dr. Howe took in the debate. There are plenty of resources from which one can pull in order to learn about popular arguments for God’s existence. Those are numerous and readily available. Instead, Dr. Howe offered a classical argument for God (a la Aquinas) upon which all the traditional attributes of God necessarily follow (an argument included in the SES ebook most conference attendees should have received via email).

We understand that at least a portion of the debate attendees were rather upset with the debate’s outcome. Honestly, we share your frustration. The debate was designed to be about the existence of God, a topic Dr. Howe admirably argued for but one essentially ignored by Mr. Barker. Instead of engaging with the topic at hand, Mr. Barker attempted to derail the discussion with worn out fallacious appeals about how “nasty” God is (a topic we directly addressed in a Saturday breakout session). Dr. Howe didn’t take the bait because that was not the topic of discussion, and with limited time one can only discuss so many things. Rather, he took the approach of showing Mr. Barker’s ignorance of such classical thinking. In other words, Mr. Barker is writing books promoting his atheism and doing “anti-apologetics” while completely ignoring the classical thinking that formed the intellectual foundation of Christianity. It should have been apparent in the debate that Dr. Howe was extremely successful in showing Mr. Barker’s lack of understanding in the subject, and Mr. Barker failed to address in any substantial way Dr. Howe’s arguments. Therefore, it should have been clear that Dr. Howe easily won the debate. He’s the only one who addressed the debate’s topic.

Mr. Barker’s basic response to Dr. Howe was to claim he shouldn’t have to take a class in order to understand the arguments for God’s existence. In Barker’s estimation, if God exists it wouldn’t be that difficult to know. This is simply a species of the argument from divine hiddenness (i.e., if God exists, then His existence should be obvious to everyone). Ironically, we’ve received the same response from some Christians who seem to agree with Barker in this respect. I believe such a response is very problematic. Allow me to illustrate.

My seven-year-old is a pretty smart guy. He makes good grades, is a math wiz and can recite numerous sports statistics. He even understands that when his allergies are acting up he needs some allergy medicine, or if he has a fever, he knows he needs some Tylenol. But exactly how much medicine should he take? How will those medicines interact with other medicines he may be taking or medical conditions he may have? How did that Tylenol come about in just the right combination of chemicals so as to help rather than harm him? He doesn’t know the answer to any of these questions.

I know more than my son and can answer some of those questions. My wife, on the other hand, is a clinical pharmacist. She knows the detailed answers to all of those questions and more. I recall helping her study for her pharmacy boards many years ago. The chemistry she had to study, the names she had to pronounce and recall, and the drug interactions she had to memorize were mind-boggling. We appreciate, and utilize often, the expertise of pharmacists like my wife. In fact, I’ve never heard anyone say, “I reject the study of pharmacology because God wouldn’t make chemistry and the human body so difficult to understand that someone must take a class to be trained. Those pharmacists should just stay in their ivory towers and quit confusing us with their terminology and study.”

Similarly, my seven-year-old can know that nothing comes from nothing, and right now he’s content with knowing that God is the cause of everything. But can he answer challenges from atheists like Dan Barker, Richard Dawkins, Bertrand Russell, or J.L. Mackie? Can he rightly refute the claims of the cults and their misunderstanding of God? Can he adequately respond to popular aberrant doctrines taught by some influential evangelicals? Many questions about God raised by both atheists and Christians require a good deal of background knowledge and, dare I say, philosophy in order to appropriately answer. The fact the someone is a Christian or has read one (or several) popular apologetics books does not necessarily make them an expert on the deeper issues that often need to be addressed when such questions are asked or challenges are raised. And it is simply a fact of reality that many of these deeper issues are difficult to understand (due in part to the abandonment of the classical Christian thinking mentioned above). As Edward Feser observes,

“Due to intellectual error and the complexity of the philosophical issues, [as mere humans we] sometimes fail properly to understand the main arguments for God’s existence, or mix all sorts of errors into whatever knowledge of God we do have. Due to the weaknesses of our wills, we also fall into moral error.  And when moral and intellectual errors multiply throughout a culture, the resulting general social environment may make it difficult for a given individual living within it to avoid more numerous and more serious moral and intellectual errors than he otherwise would have been prone to.”[1]

If we understand the need for intense and difficult study in order to comprehend the inner workings of the human body, why would we expect less intense study when learning about the infinite Creator of the human body? To paraphrase Dr. Feser, it’s actually not terribly difficult to demonstrate the existence of God, but it is often very difficult to clear away from someone’s thinking the mounds of bad philosophy that more than likely they simply have absorbed from the culture in order for them to be able to understand the arguments. This was on full display in the debate as Mr. Barker demonstrated his ignorance of the relevant subject matter.

Yes, God’s existence is obvious enough that my seven year old can understand the basics, but we’re not all seven years old. In order to understand the details, we need to put aside childish thinking (1 Cor. 13:11) and devote time to thinking deeply about reality and the conclusions that follow. We should also appreciate those who have devoted their lives to studying these things in order to help equip the rest of us and not be surprised if we don’t instantly understand every detail they communicate. As a seminary hosting a conference, our goal is to challenge our audience to go deeper. I don’t immediately understand half the things my wife talks about from her day at work, but I sure am grateful that she knows what she’s talking about and that she is willing to teach me if I’m interested in learning.

I want to challenge my brothers and sisters in Christ to not think like an atheist. Do not be content with what is often incomplete and unreflective thought. Our faith (and our knowledge of God’s existence) must be built upon deeper foundations that are not so easily disturbed by the tired old fallacious comments made by someone like Mr. Barker. We can’t believe something about God simply because it makes us feel good or it’s easier to think about that reality. The fact is, as was mentioned above, answering Mr. Barker with simple or pithy slogans from pop-Christianity or pop-apologetics will not get to the heart of the matter. In fact, it may even make the situation worse by not first properly defining and understanding terms and concepts relevant to the discussion. Such a failure in thinking can often lead to misunderstanding, a false sense of security, or even outright heresy. We must be careful to build our understanding of God upon reality rather than with our emotions and oft-times misdirected thinking.

Some of us are closer to my seven years old than we should be regarding our knowledge of apologetics, while others are closer to my pharmacist wife. But all of us are capable of learning from each other and going just a bit deeper each year. That doesn’t mean we will or even have to, understand the deeper philosophical arguments and the like (I certainly don’t plan on studying pharmacology any time soon!). But it should at least mean we recognize their existence and appreciate that we can learn from those who do understand them (and point unbelievers to them when needed). We are all on this journey together, and we’re at varying places along that journey. That’s great as long as we all remain teachable and willing to learn. As Mortimer Adler notes,

“Not only must we honestly announce that pain and work are the irremovable and irreducible accompaniments of genuine learning, not only must we leave entertainment to the entertainers and make education a task and not a game, but we must have no fears about what is “over the public’s head.” Whoever passes by what is over his head condemns his head to its present low altitude; for nothing can elevate a mind except what is over its head; and that elevation is not accomplished by capillary attraction, but only by the hard work of climbing up the ropes, with sore hands and aching muscles. The school system which caters to the median child, or worse, to the lower half of the class; the lecturer before adults-and they are legion-who talks down to his audience; the radio or television program which tries to hit the lowest common denominator of popular receptivity-all these defeat the prime purpose of education by taking people as they are and leaving them just there.”[2]

SES will never diminish or ignore our responsibility to become better communicators and seek constantly ways to clearly and effectively break down and explain complex topics. And there will be times when we don’t do that as well as we’d like. In the process, however, may we all show grace to one another and work together to help raise up the church as a whole in loving God with all their minds. In a desperately lost and confused world, the truth and clarity of the Gospel must be communicated and defended now more than ever. We are honored to partner with each of you in that endeavor.

Interested In Going Deeper?

For more on a brief introduction to the importance of Thomism, read Dr. Doug Potter’s article.

For more on classical apologetics, read Dr. Richard Howe’s article.

Be sure to watch my NCCA debrief with Dr. Howe HERE.

Consider the SES Lay Institute Apologetics and Biblical Studies courses.

SES also offers several certificates (for credit) or the ability to audit classes (not for credit).

Notes

[1] Edward Feser, “Modern Biology and Original Sin, Part II,” accessed October 27, 2017, http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/09/modern-biology-and-original-sin-part-ii.html. (Since all truth is God’s truth, it should be irrelevant to the reader that Dr. Feser is a Catholic. We can agree philosophically even if we disagree on other theological matters.)

[2] Mortimer Adler, “Invitation to the Pain of Learning,” accessed October 27, 2017, https://www.monticellocollege.org/sites/default/files/liberal-arts/invitation_to_the_pain_of_learning.pdf

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2h3YqMr

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