33 Reasons Why We Need Apologetics

33 Reasons Why We Need Apologetics

By Jeremy Linn

I’ve written a bunch about what Apologetics is – a rational defense of the Christian faith – and what it all involves. But the “What” of Apologetics doesn’t matter if there are no reasons why we should use Apologetics or even have it on our minds. To show its importance on our daily lives as Christians, I created a list of 33 reasons explaining why we need Apologetics.

I placed the reasons into categories for easy reading and sorted the categories into alphabetical order.

CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY

  1. It prompts a deeper discussion between Christians. It’s simple – Apologetics topics drive deep discussion. This discussion starts to change the shallow habits of some Christian circles.
  2. It eases tension between Christians with different views. When you understand the array of views Christians can reasonably hold, you become more open to accepting a Christian who holds a different view on a specific topic.
  3. It unifies people from various Christian denominations. The defense of God’s existence and the evidence behind Jesus’ life crosses all Christian denominations – no Christian is excluded from the Apologetics enterprise.
  4. It provides opportunities to encourage other Christians. A community of Christians can come together and ask tough questions, talk through them, and encourage each other to use what they’ve learned in daily life. This kind of encouragement happens all the time in podcasts like Stand to Reason.

EVANGELISM

  1. We can use it to break down intellectual barriers to the gospel. Many people won’t instantly accept Jesus into their life after hearing the gospel. They may have questions or objections that hold them back from doing so. Apologetics starts the process of tearing down these intellectual barriers.
  2. We can use it to better connect with people that have passions different than ours. For example, by diving into Apologetics topics related to science, you can have a deep conversation with a scientist (say, about the origin of the Universe) even when science isn’t your top passion.
  3. It helps us to better understand another person’s perspective. When someone stars explaining a viewpoint we’ve already heard through Apologetics study, we can better understand how the person arrived to that viewpoint.
  4. It gives us greater empathy toward people with other views. When we wrestle through Apologetics topics and understand the difficulty of that process, it helps us identify emotionally with people who have wrestled through the same topics and came to different conclusions.
  5. When we use it, we carry on the work of Christian thinkers living throughout the centuries. There is a long list of Christians defending the truth of God through the ages – St. Augustine, Blaise Pascal, and C.S. Lewis instantly come to mind.
  6. We can use it to reach people who are naturally skeptical. Sometimes, Apologetics-based discussion is the only kind of spiritual discussion a skeptic will be open to.
  7. It prepares us for questions about faith people may ask. Many Christians shy away from evangelism because they’re afraid of the questions that might be asked. Apologetics eases this anxiety by increasing our confidence in answering the questions others have.

FAITH

  1. It gives us a well-rounded understanding of our faith. Apologetics doesn’t just hyper-focus on specific issues like the Trinity, divine providence, or the applicability of Old Testament laws. Through Apologetics, we can explore and understand a wide range of elements of our faith.
  2. It helps us wrestle through intellectual doubts. Doubts aren’t a bad thing to go through, but unanswered intellectual doubts can debilitate our faith over time. Apologetics provides the resources needed to wrestle through our intellectual doubts.
  3. It grounds the faith of young people and new believers. This grounding is hugely important as young people enter a skeptical academic environment and new believers encounter new challenges.
  4. It provides a foundation of truth to hold onto during difficult times in life. When difficult circumstances carry the potential to turn us away from God, we can instead turn to Apologetics and cling to the truth about God.
  5. It keeps our guard up. When we consistently immerse ourselves into Apologetics content, we prepare ourselves for sudden and unexpected intellectual challenges that come our way – challenges which could easily put us into a “crisis of faith.”

PRACTICAL

  1. It exercises our mind. Reading books exercises our mind and thinking ability the most, and book reading is plentiful in Apologetics study.
  2. It connects some of the main areas of thinking together. Philosophy, science, history, and theology become an interwoven venture rather than separated subjects.
  3. It prompts us to be life-long learners. There is always more Apologetics content to learn, which leads us to yearn for a life of gaining knowledge and wisdom.
  4. It informs our voting decisions. Studying ethical issues helps us decide where to stand on key election topics.
  5. Sharing it builds up various skills. Sharing through blogs develops writing skill, sharing verbally shapes public speaking skill, and sharing through video builds production skill. My own graphic design skills have increased greatly from sharing Apologetics content on Instagram.
  6. It causes us to check our biases. People tend to listen only to data which affirms their own beliefs – this is a well-known phenomenon called confirmation bias. Apologetics prompts us to reflect on our biases and push against confirmation bias when we dig into views which oppose our beliefs.
  7. It helps us to recognize the false ideas in our culture. Recognizing these false ideas is key to ensure we don’t start to follow those ideas and suffer from their damaging consequences.
  8. It teaches us basic logic and formation of arguments. We can understand and assess arguments more effectively and identify logical fallacies in other people’s thinking.

SCRIPTURE

  1. Scripture commands us to use it. Paul says in 1 Peter 3:15 – “Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.” Apologetics gets us prepared to make this defense.
  2. It allows us to follow the example of Jesus. Jesus used Apologetics methods (such as asking questions) in conversations described in Mark 12:18-27 and Matthew 22:15-22.
  3. It allows us to follow the example of the earliest Christians. They used Apologetics to affirm God’s existence by pointing to the events of Jesus resurrection – see especially Acts 2:29-33.
  4. It shows us the importance of the events of Jesus’ life. What did Jesus’ sacrifice accomplish? Why does it matter that he rose from the dead? Apologetics provides answers to these key questions.
  5. It coincides with reading scripture correctly. Apologetics helps us to read Bible passages in proper context, through an understanding of the historical background behind the passage and through the idea that we can’t just read one Bible verse (we need to read the verses around it to gather the flow of thought).

SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT

  1. It can deepen our relationship with God. When you’re in a relationship with someone, knowing more about that person can take that relationship deeper. The same goes with our relationship with God as we learn things about him through Apologetics!
  2. It gives us a greater sense of awe towards God. When we can acknowledge true things about God and see his power more through Apologetics content (on topics like miracles), our sense of awe towards him increases.
  3. It puts us in a position where we need to trust God. We don’t know the results of using Apologetics in conversations with others. We also don’t know what path our investigation of truth will lead us down. We need to trust in God through these unknowns.
  4. It brings us to a place of humility. The more we study Apologetics, the more we realize there is much we don’t know. At some point, humility is needed to accept we won’t have all the answers, which opens up an opportunity for faith.

This list is not exhaustive – I’m probably missing some reasons in it. But the list is sufficient to show that Christians truly need Apologetics in their daily lives.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2Fk4orK

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Secular Leftists Demand Christian Student Senator Resign For Disagreeing With Them

Secular Leftists Demand Christian Student Senator Resign For Disagreeing With Them

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By Wintery Knight

I had to blog about this story about a tough girl at UC Berkeley who is taking a lot of heat for her Christian beliefs. It would have been easier for her to keep them private. But they forced her to vote, and she had to respect her conscience. Campus Reform posted an article about the facts of the case.

It says:

Isabella Chow is an elected student senator who represents the Associated Students of the University of California party Student Action. But after choosing to abstain from voting on a resolution to oppose the recent Title IX changes proposed by President Donald Trump, Chow’s own party disavowed her.

The proposed Title IX changes lack a legal definition of gender, effectively limiting “gender identity” to one’s physical sex, according to the Wall Street Journal.  The resolution before the Berkeley student government was a statement of opposition to these proposed changes, intended to display solidarity with members of the LGBT community, specifically “transgender, intersex, nonbinary and gender nonconforming students,” as reported by the independent student newspaper the Daily Californian.

That article was from November 9th, but The College Fix had some news in their article posted Monday:

Chow has faced intense backlash over her position, with numerous individuals slamming her on social media (one commenter on Facebook called Chow a “mental imbecile”) as well as in person. The response has been so hostile that Chow has made changes to how she gets around campus. “I don’t feel safe walking alone to class and take precautions not to walk alone at night,” Chow said.

Chow provided The Fix with multiple Internet postings openly accusing her of bigotry and hatred. One, from student senator Teddy Lake, said that Chow’s Christian beliefs “were not beliefs at all— they were hateful prejudices that deserve nothing less than the strongest condemnation.”

Several posts on the website Reddit were filled with angry comments. One commenter accused Chow of “sanctimonious holier-than-thou bullsh*t,” and another said: “She’s a horrible person.”

The editors of The Daily Californian published an editorial calling for Chow’s resignation, accusing her of “publicly dismissing the identities of individuals on campus” and “eras[ing] and dehuman[izing]” numerous Berkeley students.

“Chow used her powerful public platform to negate entire experiences and identities. UC Berkeley students cannot allow and accept leaders like Chow to make decisions on their behalf,” the editors wrote.

The campus’s Queer Alliance Resource Center, meanwhile, produced a statement in opposition to Chow.

“Her ‘love’ is no protection against the current oppression faced by trans, intersex, and non-binary individuals. Instead, her ‘love’ pads her condescending disapproval towards us and reminds us of our history of surviving so-called ‘love.’ Senator Chow’s ‘love’ is not of warmth and compassion but of judgement and disapproval. We cannot sit idly by while Chow sits on moral high ground casting moral judgements,” the statement reads.

The Center also produced a petition calling on Chow to resign.

[…]At a student senate meeting last week, numerous members of the Berkeley community publicly expressed their opinions, almost all of them explicitly critical of Chow.

“I condemn Isabella Chow’s words, not because they’re different from mine, but because they are dangerous, and inherently prejudiced. I encourage Senator Chow to reach a dialogue with queer-affirming Christian communities that LGBT existence is compatible with the love of God,” one student said.

Another attendee said to Chow: “Your Christian morals should not be in our student government or for any government; and if you cannot separate your religion from your job as a senator, please resign.”

Another accused Chow of “speaking words of hate, mashed under the name of love.”

Chow eventually approached The Daily Californian asking if the publication would run either a statement or an op-ed by her. The Daily refused to publish either.

She has sunk a ton of money into her education, and now she is at the mercy of far-left professors and TAs. For her sake, I hope that she is working toward a STEM degree. It will help her to find work going forward. This is definitely going to affect her whole life going forward – a lot of big companies aren’t going to hire someone like her who refuses to go along with the LGBT agenda. I hope she’s prepared for that.

Isabella Chow, a Christian woman, encircled by secular leftist fascists.

Resiliency

I was watching this video from Prager University on resiliency, and it was talking about several ways that a person can make themselves defensible against unexpected setbacks.

Watch:

I think it’s important for Christians to think carefully about what they will study and where they work. Having a good education and money makes it easier to deal with threats like the ones arrayed against Isabella. It allows you to find work more easily, to move if you have to, etc. It’s important to train your character by studying hard things, doing hard things and finishing what you start. Having a platform to tell your story is important. Having a network of accomplished friends helps, too.

If you marry, then marry someone with courage and strength, who will stand by you, and help you to persist. It’s a serious mistake to marry someone who doesn’t understand Christianity as a service, and who doesn’t have any strength to deploy in case of a crisis. If you’re being attacked, you want a stable partner who has strength in practical areas and informed convictions. Not someone who is drowning in sin, narcissism, student loan debt, peer pressure, drug addiction, reckless thrill-seeking, etc.

Some jobs and cities have a lot of anti-Christian progressives. It’s easier to avoid those if you have a good education, practical skills, and a good resume. Often, the influence you have is going to be determined by the decisions you make to make yourself resilient. My ambition has always been to have an influence without allowing the secular left to easily silence me. If they know where I work, and where I live, then they can put pressure on me to recant my views. Conversely, if I am careful about education, career, and finance, then I can put pressure on them to back off if they challenge me.

As we saw when fascists broke down the door at Tucker Carlson’s home, we are living in a time of secular leftist facism. And this fascism is defended even by the elites in the mainstream media.

Here’s a concept every Christian should know that people in information security speak about… being a “hard target”:

A hard-target is a person who, due to their actions and/or appropriate protective measures, is able to minimize existing risks and thus most likely represents an unattractive target. Originally, these two terms come from the military and relate to protected and unprotected targets.

The Christian life is a lot more strategic than churches teach us. We’re obsessed with compassion, feelings, and not being judged. Instead, we should be focused on having an influence and making ourselves into hard targets for the secular culture. We have a sanitized view of how sin corrupts non-Christians, allowing them to do unspeakable evils to Christians who merely disagree with them. We think that secular leftists will behave like moral people as if denying God’s existence makes no difference to a person’s ability to be moral. We think that nihilists will respect our basic human rights – human rights that they can’t even rationally ground in their worldview. And we think that God’s job is to protect us and make us feel good no matter how unprepared and reckless we are.

If you want to have an influence, then you need to make every decision wisely, in order to prepare for the day when your cover is blown behind enemy lines. Remember, with respect to God’s purposes in the world; your happiness is expendable.

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2z7Zc4I

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Thriving in Your Career as an Ambassador of Jesus

Thriving in Your Career as an Ambassador of Jesus

By Mikel Del Rosario

Faith in the Spotlight

Can you thrive in your career while staying true to your beliefs?

As Christians, we are vocational ambassadors representing Jesus in all that we do. But can you really thrive in your career while staying true to your Christian beliefs? In this episode of the Table Podcast, I sat down with Megan Alexander of Inside Edition to talk about this very question. Megan is an actress, author, and a reporter for Inside Edition.

We discussed her book, Faith in the Spotlight: Thriving in Your Career While Staying True to Your Beliefs, along with her experiences working in the media. But regardless of your vocation, it is possible to thrive in your career as an ambassador of Jesus. It is so important for us to have a seat at the table in a variety of public spaces. If Christians aren’t there, we won’t be represented.

Megan also mentioned how important reading C.S. Lewis was in terms of helping her learn about apologetics. She is a great storyteller and I especially loved hearing about how she got to explain Bible stories to her colleagues in the newsroom!

Watch:

 

Mikel Del Rosario helps Christians explain their faith with courage and compassion. He is a doctoral student in the New Testament department at Dallas Theological Seminary. Mikel teaches Christian Apologetics and World Religion at William Jessup University. He is the author of Accessible Apologetics and has published over 20 journal articles on apologetics and cultural engagement with his mentor, Dr. Darrell Bock. Mikel holds an M.A. in Christian Apologetics with highest honors from Biola University and a Master of Theology (Th.M) from Dallas Theological Seminary where he serves as Cultural Engagement Manager at the Hendricks Center and a host of the Table Podcast. Visit his Web site at ApologeticsGuy.com.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2B5r1fp

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The Darwin Tales

The Darwin Tales

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By Terrell Clemmons

It’s Time to Remit Darwinian Storytelling to the Annals of History.

Stephen Meyer was a young geophysicist working in the oil industry in Dallas, Texas, in 1985 when he saw that an interesting science conference was coming to town and he decided to drop in. During a panel discussion on the origin of the first living things, Charles Thaxton, a highly credentialed chemist, noted that the information stored in DNA could not be explained by chemical evolutionary processes. This was generally known already and uncontroversial. But Thaxton ventured a step further by suggesting that the information could point to an intelligent cause. This was a reasonable inference, Thaxton said because, in our regular human experience, we know that information is typically attributable to intelligent causes.

This struck Meyer as both intuitive and plausible. But what really piqued his interest was the heated reaction of some of the other scientists at this suggestion. They got really personal. Some criticized Thaxton’s intellect; others, his motives, as if he’d broken some unwritten convention. What was with all this emotion? Meyer wondered. He’d always thought scientists were objective professionals who coolly looked at data and followed the evidence. This was an interesting problem.

The encounter led to some follow-up discussions with Thaxton and a burning new question, which Meyer would take with him to Cambridge University a year later: Could this idea of intelligence—or intelligent design—be made into a rigorous scientific argument?

But during his first year there, an after-lecture social gathering brought home a sobering reality. Everyone at Cambridge was openly atheistic. In fact, atheism was so preemptively the assumed worldview that theism was not even on the table. Meyer not only believed in God; he was a Christian. Clearly, this could be a lonely work environment, and the widespread atheism around him could present obstacles to collaborations on this question. But he took heart in remembering the great scientists of history whose science had been specifically driven by their Christian worldview.

The Closed Darwinian Circle

Science writer Tom Bethell, who had arrived at sister university Oxford about twenty-five years prior, experienced a similarly disappointing revelation. He’d arrived at Oxford “naively imagining that philosophy taught us the meaning of life.” It didn’t.

But Bethell later came to see its usefulness. Many problems in philosophy had flourished, he discovered, because the words used to formulate theories weren’t clearly defined. Sometimes, he further realized, the vagaries seemed to be intentional. Bethell would go on to a long career as a philosophically astute journalist, brilliantly clarifying and parsing some of the most crucial enigmas of public life and history.

Case in point: Charles Darwin’s central postulate said that the diversity of biological life on earth could be explained by natural selection operating on random variations. Herbert Spencer, a contemporary of Darwin, summarized this notion as “survival of the fittest.” The phrase stuck, and today, Darwin’s postulate reigns as the grand unifying theory of established science.

But was there an inherent problem with it, philosophically, from the very start? “Doubts about evolution first arose in my mind when I looked at the title page of The Origin of Species,” Bethell wrote.

I read, and then reread that page:

On the Origin of Species

by Means of Natural Selection

or the

preservation of favoured races

in the struggle for life

by Charles Darwin, M.A.

1859

The words ‘preservation’ and ‘favoured’ stood out. Was there any way of knowing what ‘races’ (meaning species, or individual variants) were favored other than by looking to see which ones were in fact preserved?

This was no pedantic quibble. For if there truly is no way of determining what is “fit” other than by seeing what survives, then Darwin was arguing in a self-confirming circle: the survival of the survivors. In rhetorical terms, this is what’s called a tautology—a statement that is true by definition, due to the construction of the language by which it is expressed. In effect, Darwin’s proposed mechanism—natural selection—rested on the observation that, “Survivors survive.” To which any clear-thinking middle-school student might say, “Well, duh.”

Curating History

Beginning with this observation, Bethell’s latest book examines the dialogue that has taken place among scientists since the publication of The Origin. But rather than giving us a chronological point-counterpoint synopsis of it, Bethell presents a kind of “tour” of the topics over which the debate has been hashed out—the “rooms,” if you will, of the 150-plus-year-old house of Darwin: common descent, natural selection, the fossil record, information theory, evolutionary psychology, artificial intelligence, the growing intelligent design movement, and more.

The upshot of it all is captured in his title: Darwin’s House of Cards: A Journalist’s Odyssey Through the Darwin Debates. Darwinism is an idea past its prime, he concludes, one whose collapse is inevitable and is in fact already demonstrably underway.

Examining a Theory and Its Theorist

He states that forthrightly, but also backs it up with characteristically sound logic—examining, like a museum curator, Darwin’s various claims in light of both mounting new evidence against them and the ongoing lack of evidence supporting them. Room by room, he shows how evolutionary theory today is being propped up by logical fallacies, bogus claims, and outdated empirical evidence that has all but disintegrated under the weight of new discoveries.

In addition to covering the high points of the scientific discussion, Bethell also delves into the man Darwin as he revealed himself through his personal writings. While Darwin was in his own right a legitimate scientist, his theorizing was influenced, inordinately as it turns out, by three ideas of his day: Malthusian economics, Progress, and philosophical materialism.

  • Malthusian Math: Political economist Thomas Malthus had speculated that when population growth outstrips food supply, then death by starvation would result in some sectors of society but not others. Darwin had read Malthus, and he simply transferred the calculus of overpopulation to the plant and animal kingdom. “It at once struck me that under these circumstances favorable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavorable ones to be destroyed. The result would be the formation of new species.” Darwin had no evidence of the formation of any new species, though. That was pure extrapolation.
  • Progress: Capitalized to denote the philosophy as it existed in his day, “Progress” was the reigning metanarrative in post-Enlightenment England, the all-encompassing, assumed a trajectory of reality. It was “as difficult for him to escape as the air he breathed,” wrote Bethell, and Darwin was a confirmed believer. The word “evolution” doesn’t actually appear in The Origin. He referred rather to improvement, progress, and perfection, in the end, writing that “all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress toward perfection.”
  • Materialism: Darwin himself was a full-blown materialist, but he avoided outwardly confessing the extent of his belief. He’d worked out his theory by 1837, but didn’t go public with it for more than twenty years, partly because the 1830s climate of opinion was highly unfavorable to materialism. Even at publication in 1859, he still didn’t deploy it consistently in The Origin, but rather strategically and progressively invoked it over the course of six editions.

Darwin’s metaphysical outlook was not a deduction from his science, though, but was influenced by his theology. He raised theological issues in several of his writings, and Bethell devotes an entire chapter to his evolving religious views. Two points are worth mentioning here. In his autobiography, Darwin mentioned being “heartily laughed at” for quoting the Bible while on the H.M.S. Beagle. We can only speculate about the psychological effect of this incident, but it obviously affected him enough to write about it forty years later. Afterward, he reconsidered the Bible’s place in his view of the world and concluded it was “no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos, or the beliefs of any barbarian.”

In addition, like many in insulated societies, he took issue with God over the problem of evil and suffering, ultimately deciding that the concept of an all-loving and all-powerful God could not be reconciled with the reality of misery in the world. “Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete.”

More a product of their theorist and the zeitgeist, then, than of science, Darwin’s postulates found easy acceptance among an elite intelligentsia predisposed to believe in materialism and Progress. Sadly, liberal clergy went along without objection or concern.

Straightening Out Bad Philosophy

Molecular biologist Jonathan Wells concurs with Bethell that Darwinian evolution is one long argument bolstering an a priori metaphysics. In Zombie Science: More Icons of Evolution, he gives three common definitions of science: (1) empirical science is the enterprise of seeking truth by formulating hypotheses and testing them against evidence; (2) technological science comprises the advances that have enriched modern life; and (3) establishment science consists of professionals conducting research. These can all be legitimate uses of the word.

In addition, though, he notes, some people have come to define science as (4) the enterprise of providing natural explanations for everything. But this would more accurately be called methodological naturalism. And while it is true that the methods of empirical science limit the causal explanations, it can confirm or disconfirm to the material realm, to go further and assume that only material causes exist is to assume an unstated claim about metaphysical reality. Furthermore, to do so and call it science constitutes fraud.

Metaphysical Storytelling & the Judgment of History

Fraud aside, it also compromises science. When priority is given to proposing and defending materialistic explanations over following the evidence, materialistic philosophy is running the show. Where this happens (and it does), Wells calls it zombie science. “Evolution is a materialistic story,” he writes, “and since the materialistic story trumps the evidence, it is zombie science.”

Listen to biologist-turned-filmmaker Randy Olsen’s explanation for why he knowingly passed off falsehood in his 2007 film Flock of Dodos: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus: “Scientists must realize that science is a narrative process, that narrative is story; therefore science needs story.” This is stunning! What Olson is saying here is that metaphysical storytelling should override accuracy in science reporting.

Returning to Meyer at Cambridge, during his first year, he was granted a second telling revelation when his supervisor offered some unsolicited advice. “Everyone here is bluffing,” the kindly old school don said. “And if you’re to succeed, you must learn to bluff too.”

Fortunately, Meyer opted for personal integrity and legitimate science over bluffing and storytelling and then left it to others to sort things out. Imagine the exhibit in some future Museum of Science and History: Everyone believed the Darwinists, boys, and girls until a few brave scientists concerned with data and following evidence came along and called their bluff.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is a science story worth telling.

 

Terrell Clemmons is a freelance writer and blogger on apologetics and matters of faith.

This article was originally published at salvomag.com: http://bit.ly/2z72XqW

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The BGV Theorem An Unexpected Asset for Christian Theism

The BGV Theorem: An Unexpected Asset for Christian Theism

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By Brian Chilton

Turn on the Discovery Channel or the Science Channel, and you may find interesting theories pertaining to how the universe came to be. Some propose that an eternal multiverse gave rise to our modern universe. Others will hold that eternal wiggling dimensions or planes collide to form universes. In 2003, three theoretical physicists discovered a theorem that dispelled the idea of an infinite regress of physical past eternal universes—infinite regress describes an eternal chain of events from the past. Arvind Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin developed the theorem based on the well-established fact that anything traveling on a geodesic (shortest point between two points on a curvature) through space-time becomes what is known as redshifted (when light or electromagnetic radiation from an object is increased in wavelength, shifting to the red end of the spectrum, or moving away from the observer).[1] The physicists argue,

“Our argument shows that null and timelike geodesics are, in general, past-incomplete in inflationary models, whether or not energy conditions hold, provided only that the averaged expansion condition > 0 holds along these past-directed geodesics. This is a stronger conclusion than the one arrived at in previous work in that we have shown under reasonable assumptions that almost all causal geodesics, when extended to the past of an arbitrary point, reach the boundary of the inflating region of spacetime in a finite proper time (finite affine length, in the null case).”[2]

While the language is quite technical, the theorem provides three unintentional helps for the Christian theist.

  1. The BGV Theorem pinpoints the need for the beginning of our physical universe. First, the theorem agrees that our universe had a beginning. Ideas of an eternal, self-existing universe is growing quickly out of favor in the scientific community at least at this stage. Our universe, the laws of physics found in our universe, and time itself had a beginning at what scientists call the
  2. The BGV Theorem pinpoints the need for a beginning of all physical universe. The BGV theorem is especially helpful in noting that not only does our universe require a beginning point, but all physical universes require a singularity. Any physical universe including the theoretical multiverse must have an initial starting point. Thus, while it could be that a multiverse exists, a multiverse does not get around the need for a starting point which leads to the third point that needs to be considered.
  3. The BGV Theorem assists cosmological argumentation for God’s existence. The BGV theorem does not prove God’s existence. But, it does indicate the necessity for something beyond the scope of the physical world to account for the existence of any physical thing. Experimental particle physicist Michael Strauss argued,

“As an experimental physicist, I tend to draw conclusions based on what is known observationally and experimentally rather than on conjecture or speculation. So what are the facts about the origin of our universe? The equations of general relativity suggest that the universe had an actual beginning of space, time, matter, and energy and the BGV theorem along with the expansion of the universe would require that this universe had an actual beginning of the expansion.  Other ideas about the origin of the universe like those proposed by Lawrence Krauss or Sean Carroll do not have real scientific evidence to back them up. They are conjecture.”[3]

Oddly, while Christian theists are accused of holding no evidence for their beliefs, Strauss seems to indicate that the exact opposite holds true. Cosmological arguments like the Kalam are strengthened by the BGV theorem. With the BGV theorem and other mounting evidence supporting the claim, one holds good reasons for believing in a transcendent God who brought forth everything that exists into existence.

Notes

[1] Bruce L. Gordon and William A. Dembski, The Nature of Nature: Examining the Role of Naturalism in Science (Intercollegiate Studies Institute 2011), pg. 498.

[2] A. Borde, A. Guth, and A. Vilenkin, Inflationary space-times are not past-complete, PhysicsReview 90 151301 (2003): 3.

[3] Michael Strauss, “The Significance of the BGV Theorem,” MichaelGStrauss.com (January 28, 2017) http://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2017/01/the-significance-of-bgv-theorem.html, retrieved October 15, 2018.

 

Brian G. Chilton is the founder of BellatorChristi.com and is the host of The Bellator Christi Podcast. He received his Master of Divinity in Theology from Liberty University (with high distinction); his Bachelor of Science in Religious Studies and Philosophy from Gardner-Webb University (with honors); and received certification in Christian Apologetics from Biola University. Brian is currently enrolled in the Ph.D. program in Theology and Apologetics at Liberty University and is a member of the Evangelical Theological Society. Brian has been in the ministry for over 15 years and serves as the Senior Pastor of Westfield Baptist Church in northwestern North Carolina.

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

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If God Created The Universe, Who Created God

If God Created The Universe, Who Created God?

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By Evan Minton 

This is a question that many, many atheists have asked Christians whenever Christians try to argue for God as Creator and Designer of the universe (by using, for example, The Kalam Cosmological Argument, or The Fine Tuning Argument). Once the argument for creation is over, the atheist will retort “Oh yeah? Well, if God made the universe, then who made God?” Children ask this question as well, though out of sincerity rather than as a rhetorical ploy to stump the theist. I know this because this was probably the very first theological question I think I ever asked. First, what does The Bible have to say about this, second, is it really rational to think that God even needs to have a maker, to begin with?

What Does The Bible Say In Response To This Question?

Scripture actually provides the answer to this question in several verses throughout scripture. What The Bible teaches is that God is uncreated and is eternal in His being. That is to say; He always existed and always will exist.

There are numerous references throughout scripture about God’s eternal nature.

Psalm 90:2 says “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.”

Isaiah 57:15 says “For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity…”

1 Timothy 1:17 says “To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.”

Habakkuk 1:12 says “O LORD, are you not from everlasting? My God, my Holy One, we will not die. O LORD, you have appointed them to execute judgment; O Rock, you have ordained them to punish.”

God says in Revelations 1:8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End: says the Lord, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

So, according to The Bible, who created God? The Bible answers; Nobody. Nobody created God. He has always existed and always will exist. He has existed “from everlasting.”

It’s More Logical To Believe In An Uncreated Creator Than A Created One

But wholly apart from what The Bible teaches about God’s eternal existence. It’s more logical to believe in an uncreated Creator than a created one. Why? Because If God had a creator who brought Him into existence, then we could ask “who created that God?” Does the God who created God have a Creator too? Did someone make Him? If so, then who created the one who created God? And who created the one who created the one who created God? And who created the one who created the one who created the one who created God? And who created the one who created the one who created the one who created the one who created God? And who created the one who created the one who created the one who created the one who created God?

It seems that if you reject the possibility of an uncreated Creator than you get thrown into an infinite regress of Creators creating Creators. But then…how could the universe ever come into being? For because before the Creator who brought our universe into existence (i.e. Yahweh) could come into being, the one who brought Him into being had to be created, and before He could come into being, the one who created him had to come into being, and before that creator could come into being, the one before him had to come into being and so on back to infinity. No creator could ever come into being because there would have to be an infinite number of creators creating creators before any one of them could come into being. No creator could ever come into being because there would always be a creator to precede him.

At some point in the regress of creators, it seems that we must get back to an eternal, uncreated Creator; a Creator who has always existed. Otherwise, we wouldn’t exist (and neither would any of the creators begetting creators). But why have a regress of Creators at all? Why have even a finite regression of creators? It seems that if one uncreated creator is all that’s needed to explain the creation of our universe, then we should just assume that the One who brought our universe into being is the uncreated one. Ockam’s Razor (the scientific principle that suggests you shouldn’t multiply causes to explain something beyond what’s necessary) would suggest that we not have a regression of creators at all. The one who brought our universe into being is the uncreated one.

Moreover, Atheists Historically Have Not Denied The Possibility of Something Being Eternally Existent.

I also want to stress that this isn’t special pleading for God. This is what the atheist has typically said about the universe; that the universe is uncreated and eternal in its existence. No atheist was asking “Who created the universe”? They thought the universe was “Just there,” that it was a brute fact. Although that conclusion is now invalidated by powerful scientific evidence and philosophical arguments. As Frank Turek put it “Something must be eternal. Either the universe or something outside the universe”. Since science has proven that the universe isn’t eternal, whatever brought it into being must be eternal.

 

Evan Minton is a Christian Apologist and blogger at Cerebral Faith (www.cerebralfaith.blogspot.com). He is the author of “Inference To The One True God” and “A Hellacious Doctrine.” He has engaged in several debates which can be viewed on Cerebral Faith’s “My Debates” section. Mr. Minton lives in South Carolina, USA.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2D6wS5m

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If Kids Don’t Understand Why Miracles Don’t Discredit the Bible, Their Faith Will Be Easily Crushed

If Kids Don’t Understand Why Miracles Don’t Discredit the Bible, Their Faith Will Be Easily Crushed

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By Natasha Crain

“The light of common sense, thrown on the stories of making snakes out of rods, of the Red Sea dividing itself, of Christ’s making wine from water, curing blind men by rubbing spit in their eyes, walking on water, the story of the flood, God’s making the world in six days, of making a woman from Adam’s rib and all the mythical, miraculous stories of the Bible would cause any sensible man to question the veracity of the whole book, including all the stories of the gods, spirits, angels, devils, and the things that common sense tells us are not true.”

This quote, from a website devoted to atheism, is similar to so many I have received from skeptics over the years. The basic claim is this: Christianity defies common sense.

In other words, the very existence of miracle claims in the Bible immediately discredits it.

While there certainly are many Christians and skeptics engaging in deeper, more scientific or philosophical battles online, simplistic appeals to common sense are the down-and-dirty weapons often hurled through social media. You don’t need to know one thing about logic, theology, history, biblical scholarship, philosophy, or science to cobble together an emotionally impactful statement that can make someone feel utterly stupid for what they believe. That’s why appeals to common sense can be so powerful: They’re easy and effective. The general message is that what Christians believe is so ridiculous, anyone with just a little common sense can see it’s not true.

Common sense is presented as a one-size-fits-all bulldozer against faith.

And if your kids haven’t been trained to think critically about the nature of miracles, their faith will be easily crushed by that bulldozer.

Here’s a 10-step framework to help your kids think well about this subject. Each point builds on the last. You can easily use these brief explanations to discuss a point each day on the way to school or at the dinner table.

  1. Just because something sounds crazy, that doesn’t mean it’s false.

This is a basic starting point for discussion. A practical example is that we live on a big rock that jets around the sun at an average speed of 66,600 mph and we don’t feel a thing. If our test for truth is what happens to make sense to us, we’ll indiscriminately reject almost any idea that strikes us as weird. Instead, we need to look at what evidence there is for the truth of any claim.

  1. People use the word miracle in a lot of different ways, so it’s important to define it as it relates to biblical claims.

Philosophers can argue all day about the most appropriate definition of a miracle, but for all intents and purposes, a good working definition is, “An extraordinary event with a supernatural cause.” This is very different than the colloquial ways in which people sometimes use the word. For example, we might say that it’s a “miracle” our kids cleaned their room. But when we’re talking about the kinds of miracle accounts found in the Bible, we need to be very clear that we are specifically talking about claims that God (a supernatural cause) intervened in the world in an extraordinary way.

  1. If God doesn’t exist, miracles are NOT possible.

Given the definition of a miracle, if nothing exists beyond nature—nothing supernatural exists—then miracles aren’t possible. This is where Christians can find common ground with skeptics. When skeptics say miracles aren’t possible, it’s typically because they are assuming God doesn’t exist. We can simply reply, “If nothing (such as God) exists beyond nature, and a miracle is something with a cause from beyond nature, then I agree with you! Miracles by definition wouldn’t be possible. But you’re assuming nothing supernatural exists.”

  1. If God does exist, miracles ARE possible.

The flip side of the logic we just saw in point 3 is that if a supernatural being such as God does exist, then miracles are—once again, by definition—possible. God can choose to intervene in His creation in any way He sees fit.

Note that in points 3 and 4, we’re only talking about logic. We haven’t even made any claims about whether or not God actually exists. This logical framework is extremely important for kids to understand. I began teaching this thinking to my kids when they were in kindergarten: If God exists, miracles are possible. If God doesn’t exist, miracles are not possible.

  1. The possibility of miracles is, therefore, tied to the evidence for God’s existence.

We can now see from the last two points that the question of whether or not miracles are possible is ultimately a question of the evidence for God’s existence. If there’s good reason to believe God exists, there’s good reason to believe miracles are possible.

Explaining the pieces of evidence for God’s existence is beyond the scope of this post, which is meant to give a broader framework for thinking through the question of miracles. For an explanation of key pieces of evidence for God’s existence and conversation guides to use with your kids, see my book Talking with Your Kids about God.

  1. Believing that miracles are possible doesn’t mean Christians believe every miracle claim that is made.

Skeptics sometimes think that Christians are willing to believe anything is a miracle if we believe miracles are even possible, so this point bears mentioning. When we acknowledge that if God exists, miracles are possible, we’re not saying we believe every miracle claim people make. If we did, we would be gullible. We have to look at the evidence to determine if there’s good reason to believe a miracle actually happened in any given case.

  1. The truth of Christianity depends on the truth of ONE miracle.

If we need to test miracle claims, as we just discussed, then we need to be really clear on which miracle claims ultimately have bearing on the truth of Christianity. People often get caught up in discussing modern day miracles (or lack thereof), but there is only one miracle claim that is the ultimate test for the truth of Christianity: the resurrection. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:14, “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is in vain.”

  1. There is strong historical evidence for the resurrection.

Now that we’ve established the miracle claim we need to test, we need to consider the evidence for it. There are several historical facts surrounding the resurrection that nearly all scholars agree on (both Christians and skeptics)—for example, that Jesus died by crucifixion, that the disciples at least believed Jesus rose and appeared to them, that the church persecutor Paul was suddenly changed, and that Jesus’s own skeptical brother James was suddenly changed as well. The pertinent question is, What is the best explanation for these facts?

I discuss the competing theories and why a supernatural resurrection best fits the facts in chapters 21–23 of Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side. For a deeper book-length treatment of the topic, see The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Gary Habermas and Michael Licona.

  1. There is strong evidence for the reliability of the New Testament.

The Gospels describe many miracle accounts. If we have good evidence that the Gospel writers were credible eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus, we have good evidence of such miracles—and that’s exactly what we find. Again, I give an introduction to this subject in chapters 25–28 of Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side, but for a deeper book-length treatment, see Cold-Case Christianity by J. Warner Wallace (there is also a kid’s version available for 8 – 12-year-olds!).

For those who have already read Cold-Case Christianity, an excellent book that looks at New Testament reliability from another angle is Hidden in Plain View: Undesigned Coincidences in the Gospels and Acts by Lydia McGrew.

  1. Jesus validated the truth of the Old Testament.

Finally, you may be wondering about the many Old Testament miracle accounts—what about talking animals, burning bushes, and walls falling around Jericho, for example?

If we’ve established points 8 and 9, we can also establish the veracity of the Old Testament as a whole because Jesus Himself validated it. Jesus:

  • appealed to the Old Testament as a source of authority (Matthew 4:4,7,10);
  • acknowledged the need to correctly understand Scripture (Matthew 22:29);
  • referenced the existence of Old Testament persons such as Adam and Eve (Matthew 19:4–6), Noah (Matthew 24:37–38), and Jonah (Matthew 12:40);
  • said He did not come to abolish the “Law or Prophets” (a term for the Scriptures at the time; Matthew 5:7); and
  • taught how the Old Testament bears witness to Himself (Luke 24:27).

The bottom line is that miracle accounts simply don’t automatically discredit the Bible. Anyone who thinks they do hasn’t thought critically about the subject. Please help your kids understand this, so they’re prepared the next time someone tries to make them feel like a fool by making simplistic appeals to “common sense.”

 

Natasha Crain is a blogger, author, and national speaker who is passionate about equipping Christian parents to raise their kids with an understanding of how to make a case for and defend their faith in an increasingly secular world. She is the author of two apologetics books for parents: Talking with Your Kids about God (2017) and Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side (2016). Natasha has an MBA in marketing and statistics from UCLA and a certificate in Christian apologetics from Biola University. A former marketing executive and adjunct professor, she lives in Southern California with her husband and three children.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2F81A0E

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Apologetics is Not For The Heart

Apologetics is Not For The Heart

By Richard Eng

Growing up, my Dad taught me apologetics. He was really excited about it, and good at it too. As someone who studied under Norman Geisler at Southern Evangelical Seminary, my Dad got some of the best training out there. As a result, He taught me a lot of what I now know. I found myself eating it up! I am a person who defined himself as a “dumb kid” for most of my life, so finally grasping something and understanding it well fueled me. The more I dove into apologetics, the more I found myself loving Jesus. It was actually apologetics and worldview training that motivated me to open up my Bible for myself, and not just because my parents or youth pastor told me to.

But something happened.

The Bible that I consumed became stale, like old bread. The apologetics arguments I had learned became familiar and rehearsed. There was not life in it anymore.

What I discovered through prayer and being mentored is that I was using what I knew about apologetics and the Bible to feel worthy before Him.

Finally! I wasn’t the dumb kid anymore. My heartfelt fixed for a moment! I could contribute, and contribute well. But my heart wanted more than just knowledge; it wanted acceptance. It wanted love.

Here is my point, apologetics is not the “missing piece” to your church if it does not continuously point back to Jesus. I’ve seen enough people walk away from the faith AFTER they were trained in apologetics to learn… we still have a heart problem. It is our inability to embrace ourselves in our brokenness that is the issue. If we reject ourselves, how can we receive love from God? That is what I had done for so many years, and still do. I falsely concluded that I must make myself “acceptable” before God before He can accept me. When all the while Jesus is there alongside you, ready to embrace you when you can see yourself through His eyes.

If you use apologetics as your spiritual kick, I promise you that there is no life in that. The goal of apologetics is to convince unbelievers and strengthen the reasonable faith of believers. But we still have a heart problem. Apologetics can never replace confession; it can never replace being known fully, it can never replace living out the true self of being a beloved child of God. Apologetics helps people think clearly, and the goal of thinking clearly is to be led to the person of Jesus.

Apologetics is a key part of discipleship, but discipleship is more than just apologetics. This is why I believe in a wholistic approach to apologetics. Some people will want to know why the B-Theory of time is not an adequate objection to the Kalam Cosmological Argument. Some people don’t know (or care) what that last sentence meant! And that’s ok. Every believer in Jesus is given a gift for supporting the body of Christ, and not everyone is going to lead an apologetics ministry. But, every believer can benefit from apologetics (knowing what you believe and why you believe it).

I believe every person should be taught at least the simple apologetics. Arguments such as how we know Jesus was a real person, and why we have good reason to believe that He rose from the dead. There it is, apologetics. But apologetics, knowledge, arguments, all of what that offers can never replace allowing the Holy Spirit to work in your heart. The knowledge is good! But the Christian life is allowing the knowledge you have to transform your life by the means obedience to the Spirit. It is in this space where you find real freedom. 

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2Ouw4JD

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How the Most Important Attribute of God Relates to Christian Apologetics

How the Most Important Attribute of God Relates to Christian Apologetics

By J. Brian Huffling

Many issues that surround Christian apologetics are philosophical in nature. Thus, if we are going to be good apologists we need to be good philosophers. Evangelical apologists and philosophers typically follow the analytic tradition in philosophy, which seeks to answer individual questions or problems, but it lacks a systematic approach to philosophy. For example, instead of starting with a complete philosophical system from which to make sense of things, analytic philosophers tend to take issues individually without trying to connect them with other issues. A systematic approach tries to tie everything together. There are several weaknesses to taking such an aggregate approach to philosophy. One is that positions on certain issues have a tendency to become ad hoc (sort of made up as they go). A systematic approach is more complete and consistent.

Generally, systematic approaches start with metaphysics (one’s view of reality, what it means to be real, etc.). Without going into all of the underlying metaphysics, which would be another article (book!) in itself, I am going to argue that divine simplicity, which is born out of an Aristotelian metaphysics that was adapted for Christian theology by such thinkers as Thomas Aquinas, is a foundational starting point for our view of God but also offers invaluable help to the practice of Christian apologetics. (I have written an article explaining what divine simplicity is, so if you don’t know, you may want to read the article before proceeding.)

Divine Simplicity Strengthens Christian Apologetics in these Areas:

God’s Existence

When arguing for God’s existence, we are making philosophical claims and arguments. Natural science cannot lead us to God without using philosophical categories and moves. (See my article that argues philosophical arguments for God are better than “scientific” ones.) Those who hold to Aristotelian/Thomistic metaphysics argue that any God arrived at via theistic proofs that do not demonstrate a simple God does not arrive at God period. The reason is that the ultimate cause for all finite being cannot itself be caused, or it wouldn’t be the ultimate cause. There also can’t be an infinite regress of causes in this regard as that is tantamount to having no cause at all. Only a simple God is really God because only a simple God is not composed of parts that need to be put together.

Of course, the notion of divine simplicity doesn’t prove his existence, as that would be circular. My point is that a God that is composed is no God at all. Simplicity then is a conclusion arrived at via metaphysical demonstration regarding God’s existence. (See Thomas Aquinas’ First Way to see how this simple being that is pure existence, or Pure Act, is demonstrated.)

God-talk

If God is thus a simple being, he is very unique. In fact, there is nothing like him. Created being is not like uncreated being. The former is limited, changing, temporal, etc. (except for angels which are in a different category). God is unlimited, unchanging, and eternal. This means that the way we talk about God is not like how we talk about the things in the world. We can know the things in the world directly (for the most part). We know God indirectly through creation. As Paul says in Romans 1, we know about his invisible qualities via the visible creation. Thus, our knowledge of God is not direct, and we must understand that our language does not track him like it tracks the created world. So terms that are applied to creatures don’t mean the same thing when applied to God. In fact, in some ways, they don’t even mean the same thing when applied to other sensible things. For example, when I say something like “my cheeseburger is good,” “my shoes are good,” “my car is good,” or “John is good,” I don’t mean exactly the same thing by “good” in each statement. To be a good cheeseburger is different than to be a good pair of shoes, or car, or person. This is because the concept of “good” is contracted to the referent in question. In other words, the objects have different natures and when I say “x is good” I’m saying that x is a good example of what it means to be a part of that category of things. But the only way we can say something is good is by being able to know the nature of the thing in question. We know cheeseburgers, shoes, cars, and people. However, we don’t have such knowledge of the infinite, uncreated being of God. What does it mean to be a good God? Well, whatever it means, it doesn’t mean that God is good by doing something. He does not measure up to some standard in the way that humans do. To be a good human means that we act the way a human should act. But there is no such scenario with God if he is simple. Humans actualize a potential to be good or virtuous. But God exists necessarily if simplicity is true. He can’t actualize anything since that would make him composed and thus not simple. This way of talking and “knowing” God has profound effects on many issues, including how we understand his attributes, how he relates to us, and the problem of evil.

God’s Attributes

Divine simplicity is foundational for the rest of his attributes. If he is not simple, then he can change, be in time, be affected, etc. In other words, process theology would be true since God would be in a process. This is a flat denial, explicitly or implicitly, of classical/orthodox Christianity. If God is simple, then he is metaphysically perfect, eternal, unchanging, and impassible. Other areas, such as divine omnipotence and omniscience are influenced by simplicity. Whatever divine knowledge would be, if God is simple, then his knowledge could not be passive since that would mean that his knowledge is changing, which requires a composition of what he actually is as opposed to what he could be (e.g., learning new truths). Christian apologetics seeks to defend the traditional God of Christianity. A God of process theology is no such God.

Such a view of God also defends classical theism from views that are held by evangelicals and otherwise mainline Christians. For example, it is in vogue to argue that if God knows changing things like what is going on in the world, then his knowledge is changing and he is thus temporal, changeable, and possible. However, if God is simple, then such cannot be the case. But this view of knowledge supposes that God knows in roughly the same way that humans know. Humans have to “look outside” of themselves and passively receive sense impressions. However, if God is pure act, then he cannot receive anything or be changed in any way. It is this notion of God being a pure act that argues against the notion that God is a bystander just watching the world or creating it and letting it exist on its own apart from him. Such a view is deism. God does not stop being the cause of things after the come into existence. He is the sustaining cause and keeps them in existence. Thus, he doesn’t have to look outside himself in any way. He knows all of creation by knowing himself as the cause of all else that exists. Thus, to know something that is temporal does not make it such that his knowledge must be passive and temporal. Rather, his knowledge is active and even causative. Such distinctions change the contours of philosophical theology, which has an application in apologetics.

Problem of Evil

How can a good God allow evil? This is one of the hardest questions to answer, and it is also probably the most frequently asked question too. Much of the time the question of evil and suffering is brought up against God’s existence since it doesn’t seem like a good God could allow so much evil. One major aspect to this issue is what is known as theodicy, or the justification of God regarding evil. Most evangelicals seem to want to justify God in the face of evil and thereby offer some kind of theodicy. However, if God is simple and a completely different kind of being than humans, we should ask if God is, in fact, a being that can even be good in the moral sense. If he is not a moral being, then offering a theodicy to justify God is a waste of time and also wrongheaded. If simplicity is true, then God is metaphysically perfect in that he is a complete unlimited existence that lacks nothing; but he is not subject to moral standards. He transcends those types of categories. This does not solve every aspect of the problem of evil, but it should show that the argument that a good God wouldn’t allow evil is on the wrong track since God is not subject to moral categories. (See this article on why God is not a moral being and this article on how God is good.)

Conclusion

I hope I have demonstrated that divine simplicity is important not only to a correct philosophical theology but also to apologetics. There are many objections to divine simplicity. I have explained and responded to some of those objections here, so I won’t re-write that material. There are only two views of God: classical theism that maintains divine simplicity, and process theology that denies it.

 

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

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Does The Bible Promote Slavery

Does The Bible Promote Slavery?

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By Ryan Leasure

“Consult the Bible, and you will discover that the creator of the universe clearly expects us to keep slaves.” 1 This provocative statement by atheist Sam Harris is meant to cast shade on the God of the Bible. After all, if civilized humanity overwhelmingly condemns slavery, why should we worship a God who thinks it’s acceptable?

The question of slavery and the Bible is a bit more complicated than Sam Harris makes it out to be. Unfortunately, Harris and others aren’t interested in providing context or nuance in their books. Instead, they “quote mine” verses and then spin them in such a way to make the slavery laws look as ridiculous and backwoodsy as possible. Furthermore, they assume that biblical slavery and pre-Civil War slavery are essentially the same institutions.

In the remaining space, I’ll attempt to provide some context and nuance for slavery in the Bible. I can’t address everything — which would require much more than a blog post — but I hope to provide some clarity on the issue by looking at eight key points.

1. Slavery Was Pervasive Throughout The Entire Ancient World

It’s estimated that of all the people in the first century Roman Empire, 85 to 90 percent were slaves.2 We also know from the Code of Hammurabi (1700 BC) and another ancient Near Eastern law codes that slavery was pervasive in earlier times.

Not only was slavery the norm, but it was also corrupt and extremely harsh. We see this in how the Egyptians treated the Israelite slaves — forced hard labor, whippings, and killing young children. As you’ll see below, Israel’s slavery laws were a vast improvement on this horrendous institution.

2. God Outlawed The Slave Trade

Exodus 21:16 states, “He who kidnaps a man, whether he sells him or he is found in his possession, shall surely be put to death.” Unlike other ancient cultures and the antebellum South, God forbade Israel from kidnapping individuals and forcing them into slavery. God was so serious about this offense that this act was punishable by death. Already, we can see that Biblical slavery was significantly different from the slavery we think of today.

3. Slavery Was More Like Indentured Servitude

In colonial America times, many foreigners couldn’t afford the fare to cross the Atlantic. So they’d contract themselves — agree to work for a set period of time — until they paid back their debt to the one who paid for their passage.

In the same way, ancient Israelites often times found themselves in financial trouble. In order to get themselves out of debt, they’d agree to become someone’s servant — or slave — until they could get themselves back on their feet.

Leviticus 25:39 describes this when it says, “If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave: he shall be with you as a hired worker and as a sojourner.” Furthermore, verse 47 even reports that Israelites became slaves of foreigners living in the land. It states, “If a stranger or sojourner with you becomes rich, and your brother beside him becomes poor and sells himself to the stranger or sojourner…”

Unlike antebellum slavery where the owner had complete ownership over the slave, biblical slavery was more equivalent to an employer/employee relationship. This setup provided financial security for people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to survive on their own. By agreeing to become someone’s slave, they received regular food, shelter, and clothing.

And to give you an idea of how different this institution was from slavery in the South, Israelites often times sold themselves back into slavery after they had gained their freedom because it provided a better life for them.3

4. Masters Couldn’t Harm Their Slaves

Horror stories of slave abuse and mistreatment abound from the antebellum South. God, however, established laws that forbade owners from physically harming their slaves. In Exodus 21:26-27, we read that if a master injured his slave, that slave was to go free. Additionally, if the owner killed his slave, he received the death penalty (Ex 21:20).

Israel’s anti-harm law was a vast improvement on slavery throughout the rest of the world. Jewish scholar Nahum Sarna reports, “This law — the protection of slaves from maltreatment by their masters — is found nowhere else in the entire existing corpus of ancient Near Eastern legislation.”4 The Hammurabi Code, by contrast, permitted masters to cut off their disobedient slave’s ears.5

5. Slavery Was Only For Seven Years

“If any of your people — Hebrew men or women — sell themselves to you and serve you six years, in the seventh you must let them go free (Deut. 15:12). That is to say, Israelite slavery was never intended to be a life-long ordeal. At most, God allowed for them to sign a seven-year contract to work for their master while they paid off their debts, but that was to be the maximum.

Again, this doesn’t sound anything like slavery in the South where it was “once a slave always a slave.” As I mentioned earlier, many times slaves would voluntarily go back into slavery after they gained their freedom because it provided a better lifestyle for them. The key, however, was that it was voluntary.

6. Runaway Slaves Received Safe Haven

Unlike slavery in the South which legally required runaway slaves to be returned to their masters, God ordered the Israelites to give runaways safe haven. Deuteronomy 23:15-16 orders, “If a slave has taken refuge with you, do not hand them over to their master. Let them live among you wherever they like and in whatever town they choose. Do not oppress them.”

Not only is this different from the South, it’s a huge improvement upon other the Hammurabi Code which demanded the death penalty for those helping runaway slaves.6

7. Slavery Is Not God’s Ideal

Contrary to what Sam Harris thinks, God doesn’t want us to have slaves. Just because the Bible describes slavery and regulates the already existing institution doesn’t mean God thinks it’s ideal. Consider Jesus’ words in Matthew 19:8 with respect to divorce. He says, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard.” In other words, God allowed for divorce under certain circumstances and even gave laws related to its practice, but that doesn’t mean God was happy with it. After all, Jesus previously said, “Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate” (Mt 19:6).

In the same way, just because God established laws regulating the already existing institution of slavery doesn’t mean he approved of it. Rather, it seems that God gave laws that sought to mitigate slavery and undermine it altogether.

For example, because poverty was the main cause of slavery, God made laws that benefited the poor. He decreed that landowners leave the crops on the edges of their fields for the needy (Lev 19:9-20), ordered the wealthy to never charge interest on loans to the poor (Ex 22:25), and permitted the poor to sacrifice less expensive animals (Lev 5:7). Additionally, God ordered that lenders cancel all debts every seven years (Deut 15:1-3).

8. The Full Personhood Of Slaves

Israelites were to treat slaves as people, not property. Job refers to this when he declares, “If I have denied justice to any of my servants, whether male or female… what will I do when God confronts me?… Did not he who made me in the womb make them? Did not the same one form us both within our mothers?” (Job 31:13-15)

Job understood full well that his slaves were God’s image bearers as he was (Gen 1:26-27). Furthermore, slaves received a day of rest on the Sabbath (Deut 5:14) and were participants in Israel’s religious life (Deut 12:12). Paul even writes in the New Testament that both slave and free are one in Christ Jesus (Gal 3:28). “We have in the Bible,” Muhammad Dandamayev observes, “the first appeals in world literature to treat slaves as human beings for their own sake and not just in the interests of their masters.”7

Slavery And The Bible

I hope it’s clear by now that God isn’t pro-slavery. The slavery in the Bible — though not ideal — is a far cry from the slavery that comes to our mind when we think of the word. Those who have used the Bible to justify slavery in the past have, therefore, distorted Scripture’s teachings.

It’s interesting to note that modern abolitionists and civil rights leaders like William Wilberforce and Martin Luther King Jr. have led the charge against slavery and racial injustice by appealing to Scripture’s teaching that every person bears God’s image. Rather than promoting slavery, it seems the Bible was the foundation for abolishing it.

 

Ryan Leasure holds an M.A. from Furman University and an M.Div. from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He currently serves as a pastor at Grace Bible Church in Moore, SC.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2Jzf9oc

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