Gospel Luke Authorship

Who Wrote the Gospel of Luke and Acts?

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By Brian Chilton

We have been engaged in a series of articles discussing the authorship of the books of the New Testament. In this article, we consider the Third Gospel, the Gospel of Luke. Who wrote the Gospel? What clues do we have from the internal and external evidence, the date, and the location and audience?

Proposed Author by Tradition:       Traditionally, Luke is proposed as the author of the Third Gospel. Luke was a physician and an associate of Paul the apostle (Col. 4:14; Philemon 24).

Internal Evidence:    Internally, a few distinctive markers are found. First and most noticeably, the author of the Third Gospel writes to one “Theophilus” (Acts 1:3)[1] and seeks to provide an “orderly sequence” (Acts 1:3) of the life of Jesus, after having had “carefully investigated everything from the very first” (1:3) according to what the “original eyewitnesses and servants of the word handed down” (Acts 1:2). From this information, one can gather that the author was not an eyewitness of the events of Jesus’s life. But, the author had access to those who had.

Second, the author of the Third Gospel also authored the book of Acts. The level of detail and precision, writing style, the similar address to Theophilus, as well as the connective clause in the first of Acts connects the two works to the same author.[2]

Third, the level of Greek used in both the Third Gospel and the book of Acts is highly advanced. Having taken biblical Greek courses, I have found that a person learns first from the Gospel of Mark and John before tackling the Gospel of Luke. Due to the high degree of Greek employed in the Third Gospel and the book of Acts, one can deduce that the author is quite advanced in his education.

Fourth, the author focuses on Jesus’s ministry to the Gentiles and to the outcasts of society. The Sermon on the Plain is preserved in the Third Gospel. There the author notes that people came to hear Jesus from all around. The author notes that many of the people who heard Jesus were Gentiles from the region of Tyre and Sidon (Luke 6:17).

Fifth, the author describes medical matters far more and to a greater degree than the other Gospels. In Luke 4:38, Luke is sure to note that Simon Peter’s mother-in-law suffered from a high fever. In Luke 14:2, the author describes a man’s body that had “swollen with fluid.” Such details indicate a man who has an eye for medical matters.

Sixth, because of the author’s involvement with the book of Acts, one can deduct from the “we passages” that the author was a close associate of the apostle Paul. For instance, the author of Acts writes that “When it was decided that we were to sail to Italy, they handed over Paul and some other prisoners to a centurion named Julius, of the Imperial Regiment” (Acts 27:1).

Finally, the author had access to a great wealth of Jesus’s teachings that are not found in the other Gospels. For instance, it is only in the Gospel of Luke that one reads the Parable of the Good Samaritan and the Parable of the Lost Son. The author would have needed to have access to multiple eyewitnesses to be able to possess such knowledge and to be able to construct the orderly account that he did.

All in all, the internal evidence strongly points to someone of the caliber of Luke, the physician. Luke would hold the educational background, the eyewitness access, the resources, and the training needed to construct both the Third Gospel and the book of Acts. So far as I am concerned, I do not believe there are any other contenders. Why choose a non-eyewitness who was a Gentile[3] for the author if it had not been so?

External Evidence:   Externally, the early church is unanimous that Dr. Luke wrote the Third Gospel and the book of Acts. Irenaeus (c. 130-202) writes, “Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him.”[4] Often, Irenaeus will add “Luke also, the follower and disciple of the apostles”[5] before quoting Luke’s Gospel. Justin Martyr (c. 100-165), before quoting from the Gospel of Luke and the other Gospels, notes that “the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them.”[6] Since the Gospel of Luke was written by a Gentile, Marcion, the ancient heretic, only allowed an abbreviated form of Luke’s Gospel in his canon. Irenaus notes that “Marcion, mutilating that according to Luke, is proved to be a blasphemer of the only existing God, from those [passages] which he still retains.”[7] From the evidence by the early church, Dr. Luke is the only valid candidate for authorship of the Third Gospel.

Date:               Seeing that Acts ends with the imprisonment of Paul (c. 64 AD), the Gospel of Luke must have been written at some time in the early 60s AD.

Location and Audience:       Luke-Acts comprises about 60% of the New Testament’s content. Luke writes to the influential Theophilus, a man of great standing and prominent status. Theophilus may have supplied the resources for Luke and Acts to have been written. The cost to produce a book the size of Luke would have been around $6,000 according to modern U.S. currency. Acts would have cost nearly the same. The entire product of Luke-Acts would have cost somewhere in the ballpark of $12,000. Thus, a man with the means of Theophilus was used by God to fund the ancient two-volume work we find in the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles which was written and compiled by a man with Dr. Luke’s resources and educational background.

Luke had a Gentile audience in mind. But the location of Luke’s composition is a bit of a mystery. The best and most probable locations of Luke’s composition include Caesarea, Achaia, Decapolis, Asia Minor, and Rome. My guess is that Luke was finalized in Rome.

Conclusion:    From the internal evidence, one discovers that the author of the Third Gospel must have been quite educated and knowledgeable concerning medicinal matters. The style of writing was quite exquisite, noting that a man of profound knowledge compiled the Gospel. The association that the Third Gospel holds with the book of Acts illustrates the association that the author had with the apostle Paul due to the “we passages” in Acts.

The external evidence unanimously holds Dr. Luke as the author of Luke-Acts. No other contenders exist. Luke’s involvement with the Gospel of Luke-Acts is documented by Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Papias, and others.

The date of the Gospel must be in the early 60s due to the necessity of Acts being completed by AD 64. Thus, Luke-Acts is certainly early enough to have contained eyewitness testimony.

Luke-Acts is written for an influential man named Theophilus from whom Luke may have received funding for this writing endeavor. Theophilus may have been a new convert and was financially able to affront the funds and materials necessary to Luke. Luke, himself, would have been a man of great means, as well.

Compiling all the information we have before us, Dr. Luke—the physician and co-worker with the apostle Paul—is the only viable candidate for the authorship of the two-volume work known as Luke-Acts.

Notes

[1] Unless otherwise noted, all quoted Scripture comes from the Christian Standard Bible (Nashville: Holman, 2017).

[2] Acts begins with the words, “I wrote the first narrative, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach” (Acts 1:1).

[3] Luke is named among those who were uncircumcised in Colossians 4:11. Only Aristarchus, Mark, and Justus were the circumcised co-workers of Paul. Dr. Luke is listed in verse 14.

[4] Irenaeus of Lyons, “Irenæus against Heresies” 3.1.1., in The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. 1, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 414.

[5] Irenaeus of Lyons, “Irenæus against Heresies,” 3.10.1., 423.

[6] Justin Martyr, “The First Apology of Justin” 66, in The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. 1, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 185.

[7] Irenaeus of Lyons, “Irenæus against Heresies,” 3.11.7, 428.

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

 

 

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Ethics Relativism Morality

Should We Be Moral Relativists?

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By

INTRODUCTION

This is a short introductory essay to defend objective moral values. In philosophy, the term ‘objective,’ is defined as the existence of an object independent of human mind (mind-independency); “the object would “be there,” as it is, even if no subject perceived it.”1 In contrast, the term ‘relative’ refers to the perception of an object by the subject (mind-dependency).

‘Relativism’ espouses true or false moral judgments relative to language, culture or biological makeup.2 For instance, relativism need not consider polygamy as crime, for cultures or people can justify polygamy relative to their thought paradigm. Relativism denies objectivity and appeals to man’s mind.

Alternatively, ‘Objectivism’ espouses truth and falsity as independent of mind, so to claim and appeal to the reality of objective moral facts. Therefore, objectivism will rule polygamy to be a crime by appealing to the existence of objective moral laws (which is discovered and not invented by humans). This is similar to objectivism affirming the objective reality that sun is more massive than the earth.

THESIS

I – A Case for Objective Moral Values:

‘Objectivism’ or ‘we should not be moral relativists’ could be reasonably defended by positing the presence of ‘objective moral values.’ Moral relativism opposes ‘objectivism’ by negating the presence of objective realities.3 But if objective moral values can be postulated to exist, then moral relativism could be reasonably debunked.

 (1) Objective Reality is Factual

There are objective realities. The fact that sun is more massive than earth is an objective reality. This fact does not depend on anyone affirming or negating it.

(2) Objective Moral Values are a Reality

It’s morally wrong to not assist a person in need when we are able to. Similarly genocide is morally wrong; it is morally wrong to deliberately and systematically eliminate a group of people. These are universally affirmed objective moral values and do not depend on people’s mind (whether anyone believes or accepts, it is morally wrong to not assist a person and to commit genocide). Thus there are universally affirmed objective moral values.

(3) An Objective Basis is Necessary for Objective Moral Values to Exist

The “objectivism” proposed by Ayn Rand (1905-1982) posits man’s selfishness or man’s survival as the objective foundation to objective moral values.4 But human selfishness cannot be sustained as an objective foundation against an argument that a certain human subjectivity ought to be involved in deciding opposing values of human selfishness.

Would it be objectively true if the Nazi’s argued that it was morally right for them to eliminate the entire Jewish population because the Jews were an economic burden to Germany? The human selfishness of the Nazis was predicated upon the economic crisis in Germany, but in stark contrast, the human selfishness of the Jews was predicated on protecting their own life. So the Randian objectivism would crumble when two opposing cases of human selfishness collide with each other. Thus one ought to subjectively decide between the opposing objective moral values espoused by the two groups.

But ‘God’ can be reasonably posited as the sole objective source for moral values. God, as the greatest conceivable being, transcends humanity and the space-time coordinates. Hence God is an objective reality and the sole objective basis for objective moral laws.

However, proof of God’s existence ought to be reasonably provided, if not, God cannot be posited as the basis of mind-independent objective moral laws. Many arguments for God’s existence have been reasonably and plausibly posited, such as the Teleological Argument,5 Cosmological Argument,6 Moral Argument7 etc.

Since objectivity, objective moral values, and an objective moral value giver (God) can be posited, a reasonable conclusion is that there are objective moral values. Hence, we should not be moral relativists.

II – A Case for an Immoral World:

Moral relativism would stimulate an immoral world without any restraint whatsoever. When moral values are predicated on human mind, morality would be a slave of the dogma that controls that human mind. If one’s dogma is cannibalism, he would appeal to moral relativism to justify his devouring of his neighbor. Since moral relativism promotes an immoral world, we should not be moral relativists.

CONCLUSION

Two mutually contradicting statements cannot be true within the same context, at the same time and for all people. So objective and relative moral values cannot both be true for they contradict each other. The presence of objective moral values and the case for an immoral world portrays that moral relativism exists by ignoring or suppressing the truth of objective moral values. Therefore, we should not be moral relativists.

END NOTES:

1http://www.iep.utm.edu/objectiv/#SH2a

2http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/relativism/

3http://www.iep.utm.edu/moral-re/#H3

4http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ayn-rand/

5 J.P Moreland, Scaling the Secular City – A Defense of Christianity, (Michigan: Baker Academic, 1987), p43-76.

6 Ibid, p15-42.

7http://www.reasonablefaith.org/moral-argument#ixzz2mPz3C86b

This article was posted at http://rajkumarrichard.blogspot.in/2013/12/should-we-be-moral-relativists_28.html

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2th89GR

 

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Free Will Rejection

The Price of Denying Free Will

By Timothy Fox

Every time I turn around I find someone else denying that humans have free will. From scientists to philosophers to theologians, it’s the cool new trend. We aren’t actually making free choices. We have been programmed either by God or our DNA to act in a certain way and have no choice but to follow it.

To be perfectly clear, we deny all types of determinism, whether it’s physical or divine. Free will is what puts the free in Freethinking Ministries and our cornerstone is the Freethinking Argument. Yet many people still don’t understand the consequences of denying free will.

But first, what is determinism? Basically, it means there is no free will. All of our beliefs, thoughts, actions, etc. are “decided” for us, either by internal or external forces: our DNA, the laws of physics, or a deity. You’re a train on a fixed track with no control whatsoever. Even if you think that you really deliberated about what color socks you were going to wear this morning, you wore what you wore and you were completely unable to do otherwise.

So before you join all the cool kids, you need to know the price of admission. This is what it will cost you to deny free will:

No free will = no moral responsibility

If every one of our actions have been predetermined for us, how can we be held accountable for them? Or how can a divine puppet master condemn you for performing evil actions if he’s the one pulling your strings? The murderer has no choice but to murder. The rapist has no choice but to rape. Whether you are loving and kind or an intolerant, sexist, racist, bigot, you have no control over it. You were born that way, just like everyone else. Nothing you do is your fault.

But do we honestly believe that? Of course not. We hold criminals accountable for their crimes. We praise altruism and self-sacrifice. Only free will makes those things possible.

No free will = no meaning, purpose, or love

The most basic aspects of humanity hinge on the existence of free will: meaning, purpose, and love. True love cannot be coerced; it requires people freely and genuinely committing to each other’s well-being. One’s meaning in life is based on deep thought, reflection, and ultimately a desire to pursue it. But apart from free will, meaning, purpose, and love are void and empty words.

No free will = no rationality

As Tim Stratton argues in his Freethinking Argument, in a deterministic world, there is no true thought or rationality. These things are based on the ability to analyze data, weigh evidence, and select the best conclusion.

After all, if you think free will is a lie, how did you come to that conclusion? Did you survey the evidence and freely choose to accept determinism? I hope you see how absurd that is. If there is no free will, you did not rationally come to believe that. You were determined to accept it, just like everything else you think and believe. You never came to freely believe in anything; you were merely determined to do so.

This ties into the next…

No free will = absolute uncertainty about everything

If all of your thoughts and beliefs have been predetermined for you, how do you know if any of them are actually true? You can’t freely test them or reflect on them. You’re stuck in complete uncertainty. If any of your beliefs actually match reality – which is the definition of truth – it’s a grand cosmic accident, and you would never know the difference. So if you reject free will, you must also reject justified true belief, meaning knowledge.

Yes, if you deny free will, you also reject all knowledge.

Other Nonsense

Think about how ridiculous it is to write a book, article, blog, or whatever against free will. Did the author freely write it? Did he actually think, reflect, and carefully choose his words to make the best argument possible? And does he expect you to freely read it and be persuaded to believe that free will does not exist?

You may also hear a free will denier say something like “There is no free will but we have to live as if there were.” That’s ridiculous. It assumes you have the ability to choose to live a certain way. The moment the determinist attempts to convince you to deny free will, he contradicts himself.

Conclusion

This is the price of denying free will. If you reject it, you must also discard moral responsibility, purpose, meaning, love, rationality, and knowledge. Are you really willing to give those things up by espousing determinism? Or look at it the other way. If you believe that you are a true freethinker, that humans have real moral obligations, and that we are free to find meaning in life, you must also affirm free will.

And then you need a worldview that accommodates free will. Naturalism won’t cut it. Neither will a religion where God exhaustively determines all things in the universe, including the actions of human beings. We think the best choice is a worldview with a God who is fully sovereign, yet has granted humans free will, including the ability to freely accept his offer of forgiveness or to reject him.

The choice is yours.

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

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Religion Avoiding Truth

Is Religion the Practice of Avoiding Truth?

By Luke Nix

Introduction

A month or so ago, I came across an interesting challenge to Christianity. A skeptic told me that religion was an exercise in avoiding truth- a willful delusion. He observed that many Christians (and religious people, in general) tend to believe the claims of their “holy” books over what has been discovered about nature, history, or the very nature of reality. He noticed that many religious people have a precommitment to a particular understanding of the world and no amount of evidence provided will persuade them otherwise. He, as an intellectual, does not want to make this same mistake. In this post, I want to explore the possibility that he is making the same mistake based upon the philosophical foundations of the claim he makes for rejecting religion, and Christianity specifically.

Missing Philosophical Foundations

While several things did strike me as dissonant about his claim, one of the first things that I noticed about the language the skeptic chose was that his naturalistic worldview could not provide any such grounding for the claim. I am specifically referring to his references to the will and ability to reason.

The Missing Will and Intentionality

First, if naturalism is true then any specific event is the cumulative result of the events prior to it, governed by laws of nature. Not only does this apply to any specific event, it applies to all events in the history of the universe all the way back to the big bang. On this view, ultimately, the laws of physics and the initial conditions of the universe fatalistically determined every event that would take place. This includes every “willful” “decision” that humans would make. Ultimately, there are no true decisions being made, no person is “willfully” denying anything; they are merely reacting to the events prior to their “decisions.” The claim that anyone is doing anything “willfully” does not make sense in a naturalistic world. So, the naturalist cannot actually claim an intentional anything and be speaking accurately about reality.

The Missing Ability to Reason Reliably

Second, an assumption of the claim is that it is possible for people to reason reliably and accurately (but have just chosen not to). If naturalism is true, then the brains responsible for reasoning and the senses responsible for sensing the environment are not focused on true inferences or true observations but on survival. Alvin Plantinga spends an entire book on this very topic that I have recently read and reviewed. However, I’d like to reinforce Plantinga’s conclusion, that if naturalism is true then we cannot trust our brains to reason towards truth, with some evidence from the real world. If naturalism is true, there is no such thing as free agency (see paragraph above). This means that everything that we believe about the intentionality of others is false. We intend to get up in the morning, to eat, to walk, to drive, to work, to organize, to engineer, to account, to create, to relate, to think, and numerous other things. If evolution has produced brains that believe that we actually do these things intentionally, then our brains survived for their ability to produce a majority of beliefs that are false yet highly practical in the environment.

The Over-Abundance of “Useful Fictions”

What makes this so powerful is that intentionality is merely one all-encompassing belief about reality that, if false, demonstrates that our brains are unreliable when it comes to inferring truth about reality, yet we have evidence that our brains have survived and that we do believe these false notions. With every additional false notion that is brought to the table of evidence (the concept of design, the concept of purpose, the concept of value, the concept of progress [all four require true intentionality, even value grounded in purpose], objective morality, moral and creative responsibility, reward and punishment, and even the existence of God- just to name a few more), the conclusion that Plantinga argued philosophically becomes even more certain evidentially.

But some naturalists attempt to escape this conclusion by saying that these are merely “useful fictions.” I find this to be an astounding concession. When we are discussing the ability to discover truth, “useful fictions” is actually an oxymoron. This becomes painfully apparent when one considers how deeply grounded in and encompassing of our beliefs about reality these fictions truly are. And yet, we still believe them because the fictions are useful. Useful for survival, but obviously not for their truth-value, for if it were for their truth-value, we would not believe them. Any naturalist who grants that “useful fictions” are believed fall prey to this devastating argument. And what is even more devastating than all our beliefs being based in fiction? The fact that we have near-certainty that no belief will ever be believed for its truth-value. For the naturalist, this brings annihilation to the only source they thought they had for truth: science. Science depends upon the reliability of our senses and our brains to infer true things about reality, and if they can never be reasonably expected to produce such, then science has no place to begin or go regarding the search for what is true. Science is merely another “useful fiction” that we falsely believe for its survival value.

Conclusion

The skeptic who raises such a challenge fundamentally contradicts their worldview when they claim that someone is “willfully avoiding truth.” And the evidence closely approaches 100% that they should be speaking that claim to a mirror: it is all-but-certain that they are the ones with the willful delusion, possessing faith despite the evidence–a blind faith. Based upon the weight of the evidence and the logical contradiction within the worldview, any skeptic, who raises this challenge out of concern for the pursuit of truth, should abandon their naturalism and the idea that our brains are the result of unguided processes otherwise they fall victim to the very evil they wish to escape.

For more information on this argument against naturalism I highly recommend:

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2sc7V3P

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Paul Christianity Founder

Was Paul the Founder of Christianity?

By Brian Chilton

Skeptics, such as Gerd Ludemann, charged Paul for being the actual founder of Christianity. Such ideas come from either a belief that Jesus never addressed difficult topics, or a belief that Paul was too radical in his teachings for it to have come from Jesus. Both views are inherently wrong. A closer examination of the New Testament reveals that Jesus and Paul are found to be in close alignment in their theological moorings. Evidence suggests that Paul often quoted Jesus in his epistles. Craig Blomberg, in his book The Historical Reliability of the New Testament, reveals six areas where Jesus and Paul’s theology are closely aligned. So was Paul the founder of Christianity? Let’s examine the evidence.

Jesus and Paul express the same views on justification. The kingdom of God is central to the Synoptic Gospels appearing more than 100 times.[1] In contrast, the term only appears a mere 14 times in the letters of Paul. The central theme of Paul’s letters is on justification by faith. However, noting the misunderstanding that the Greco-Roman world would have with the kingdom of God and the close-alignment that Paul’s justification by faith has with the teachings of Jesus, then one begins to see a marvelous parallel. Jesus says four times that a person’s faith has saved, or healed them. For instance, at a dinner one evening, Jesus was approached by a woman who anointed him with expensive oil from an alabaster jar. The Pharisees were critical of Jesus’s allowance of this sinful woman to touch him. After angering the Pharisees by telling the woman that her sins were forgiven, Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace” (Luke 7:50).[2] The Jesus tradition predates the writing of Paul’s epistles, therefore, one can postulate that Paul learned his theology on justification from Jesus.

Jesus and Paul express the same views on the law. For full treatment on this issue, I would direct the reader to Blomberg’s work. Nevertheless, one should note that neither Jesus nor Paul called for the overthrow of the law (e.g., Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:17-20). Thus, neither advocated antinomianism.[3] Jesus noted that the greatest commandments were to love God with all one’s being and to love one’s neighbor as oneself (Matt. 22:36-40). Paul reiterated the second in Galatians 5:14.[4]

Jesus and Paul express the same views on concern for Gentiles. Paul emphasized the church’s ministry to Gentiles. It was Paul who wanted the church to rid its requirement of Gentile converts to perform circumcision. In Galatians 1-4, Paul charges the Judaizers with not promoting a true gospel. While Jesus’s ministry was largely to Jews, it must be remembered that his emphasis was due to his location and not his final focus. Like Paul, Jesus envisioned his church expanding past Israel. Jesus commended the Roman centurion for his amazing faith (Matt. 8:10-12) and took time to heal a Syrophoenician woman’s daughter, even with a tongue-in-cheek life lesson. Jesus’s feeding of the 4,000 was among a largely Gentile crowd. Also, Jesus’s Great Commission to the church commanded the church to take the message to all nations (Matt. 28:19). Thus, Paul is not inventing a new concept for the church to be pro-Gentile, but rather expounds upon the idea set forth by Jesus himself.

Jesus and Paul express the same views about women. Paul gives an extraordinary view of women in his letter to the Galatians. Paul writes, “There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female; since you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). Paul also allowed women to pray and prophesy in public (1 Cor. 11:2-16).[5] Jesus shared the same elevated status for women. Jesus commended Mary for receiving theological training as the men (Lk. 10:38-42). Blomberg notes that “Jesus affirmed the woman at the well to such a degree that she became an evangelist o her own people (John 4:4-42).”[6] Therefore, Paul did not invent a new doctrine in his acceptance of women. He continued what he had learned from Jesus and the early Jesus traditions.

Jesus and Paul express the same views on Christology. Some skeptics believe that Paul elevated the status of Jesus to a new level—the level of the divine. Shows such as PBS’s special From Jesus to Christ hold that Paul elevated the status of Jesus to a new level and one that Jesus himself did not accept. Is this true? Not at all! Again, Paul learned his Christology from Jesus and the early church. Two of the loftiest claims of Jesus’s divinity in Paul’s letters are found in Philippians 2:6-11 and Colossians 1:15-20. However, further investigation shows that the two passages are not original to Paul. They are in fact pre-New Testament hymns that most likely date to within 3-5 years of Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection. Thus, Paul is relaying information that is original to the early church. Even still, one must note the examples of divine status that Jesus gave himself. The “I am” statements in John’s Gospel relate to the divine name of God (Yahweh means “I am what I am”). Jesus’s favorite title for himself is “Son of Man.” The Son of Man title holds a direct correlation to Daniel’s Son of Man who approaches the Ancient of Day. Thus, the name Son of Man relates Jesus to the divine. Paul is not inventing Jesus’s divine nature. Rather, he is continuing the teaching found in the earliest church—that which was found from Jesus himself.

Jesus and Paul express the same views on discipleship. Jesus often noted that discipleship was costly. Jesus taught that discipleship required one to die to oneself in order to find salvation in Christ (Matt. 10:39 and Lk. 17:33). Jesus taught that if one were to follow him, that person must take up their cross and follow him (Matt. 16:24). Paul, in like manner, teaches that the disciple is baptized into Christ’s death (Rom. 6:3-6), that sharing the cup of blessing was also to share the blood of Christ (1 Cor. 10:16-21), and that we die to the self as we live in Christ (Eph. 1-2). Again, Paul is not formulating a new doctrine, but promoting one that originated with Christ.

Conclusion

Was Paul the founder of Christianity? In a short answer, no. Paul was heavily influential with the development of the church. However, Paul did not create a movement. Neither did Paul change the church. Rather, Paul drew from the ideas of Jesus who was the true founder of Christianity. Craig Blomberg, the man who inspired this article, wrote quite succinctly, “Paul may have been the ‘second founder’ of Christianity but only by building on and in submission to the true founder—Jesus of Nazareth.”[7] A closer examination of the New Testament reveals that Paul certainly built upon the ideas of Jesus, but he did not invent them. Paul was a disciple of the true founder of Christianity—Jesus of Nazareth.

Notes

[1] Craig Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the New Testament: Countering the Challenges to Evangelical Christian Beliefs (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2016), 440.

[2] Unless otherwise noted, all quoted Scripture comes from the Christian Standard Bible (Nashville: Holman, 2017).

[3] That is, the abolition of the law and moral principles.

[4] “For the whole law is fulfilled in one statement: Love your neighbor as yourself” (Galatians 5:14, CSB).

[5] The issue of head coverings was probably a cultural one. Thus, we do not have the space to cover the topic here.

[6] Blomberg, 449.

[7] Blomberg, 460.

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

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Paul Distance Witness

Did Long Distance Make Paul’s Witness List Unfalsifiable?

By Evan Minton

In chapter 8 of my book Inference To The One True God, in my blog post “The Minimal Facts Case For Jesus’ Resurrection PART 1” and in my blog post “A Quick Case For Jesus’ Resurrection”, I make the case that we know many people had experiences of the risen Jesus appearing to them because the creed cited in 1 Corinthians 15 dates back so early, well within the lifetimes of the eyewitnesses (i.e it dates to 5 years after Jesus’ death), that anyone curious about whether or not Paul was telling the truth could have traveled over to Jerusalem and interviewed the people mentioned in the creed to see if they really did believe Jesus appeared to them. If Paul were lying about these people and they really hadn’t seen Jesus, the cat would have been out of the bag and the resurrection would have been exposed as a falsehood. Given how fragile a faux resurrection would be in this case, the best explanation is that the twelve disciples, James, and 500 people actually did have postmortem Jesus experiences.

On two different occasions, people have read my argument for the historicity of the postmortem appearances and have responded with the following rebuttal: “Paul is writing his letters to churches far removed in distance from where the events are said to have occurred. It would be highly unlikely anyone from his church in Corinth would travel to Israel and seek out these apparent witnesses.” The argument is that Jerusalem and Corinth were so far that it would have been very difficult for Paul’s readers to trek all the way over to Jerusalem in order to interview the people Paul was talking about. It was too inconvenient for them, so most probably never did it and never would have done it. So the they-could-have-checked-it-out argument fails. Is this true? Was Paul’s resurrection eyewitness list really protected from falsification due to large travel distance?

I don’t think this is a successful argument. There are 3 reasons why the resurrection claims could have been checked out.

1: The Corinthians Had An Invested Interest In Knowing If It Was True

 The reason why Paul was even mentioning the list of resurrection appearances in 1 Corinthians 15 is because  we see in the context of the passage that there were people denying that Christ had risen from the dead, implicitly at least, because they were denying the bodily resurrection in general. They were denying that anyone would rise from the dead. Paul said if the dead are not raised then Christ isn’t raised either if Christ isn’t raised, our faith is useless and our sins remain unatoned for (1 Corinthians 15:12-14), but fortunately, Christ has been raised (verse 20). Paul argued for this by listing the various postmortem appearances of Christ in verses 3-8 via the creed he had received earlier. Now, given that the Corinthians were skeptical of the resurrection, wouldn’t they have an invested interest in knowing whether Paul was telling the truth? Of course! And given that they had an invested interest if they didn’t take Paul at his word, wouldn’t they have traveled to Jerusalem to talk to the people mentioned in the creed even if it was a rather long journey? While it might have indeed taken them a while to get there, it wasn’t impossible for them to arrive in Jerusalem. It’s not like they were traveling to New York or anything. It was certainly feasible for them to go to Jerusalem to interview the witnesses in the creed even if it wasn’t a hop, skip, and a jump from their church.

And given that this was a topic of immense interest to them, it would be difficult to argue that they wouldn’t have. Besides, we know that Paul traveled to Jerusalem to Corinth. Why wouldn’t the Corinthians travel from Corinth to Jerusalem?

2: The Resurrection Occurred During Festival Time

Moreover, the resurrection was during a festival time. The witnesses would have been from all over the place, seen the appearances, and gone back home. It’s very likely some of the 500 that Jesus appeared to were from the city of Corinth. It very well could have been the case that there were some Jewish eyewitnesses to the resurrection of Christ living in the very midst of Paul’s readers. In that case, the Corinthian resurrection doubters wouldn’t have had to travel very far at all. There were likely witnesses in their own backyard.

It was certainly the case that those reading Corinthians included Jews who may have traveled to Jerusalem for Passover. This would provide an opportunity to verify Paul’s assertion.

3: Mail From Snails 

 It is also the case that even if no one physically visited the twelve disciples and James, that they could have gotten verification via correspondence, i.e snail mail. The Corinthian resurrection doubters could have written letters to the disciples asking them “Hey yo, Pete mah BOIII! It’s ya boi Zechariah from Corinth. My homie Paul sent me a letter saying Jesus appeared to you after He died. This true, bro?” (first-century folks totally talked like this). And Peter, John, or whichever of the eyewitnesses received the letter, could have sent a reply saying either “He is risen! He is risen indeed!” or “What? Who told you this? I haven’t seen Jesus sent they crucified him.”

Conclusion 

 Given these 3 reasons, I think it is still the case that having the 1 Corinthians 15 creed dating within the lives of all the eyewitnesses provides good grounds for concluding that these postmortem sightings occurred. If they didn’t, the eyewitnesses could have talked to these people themselves, by either journeying over to Jerusalem despite it being a long journey, because they had a highly invested interest in knowing whether they occurred. Or they could have had postmortem witnesses in their own midst that they could have talked to, or they could have at least gotten verification or falsification via correspondence. Any of these scenarios would have either falsified the resurrection if it didn’t occur or vindicate it if it did occur.

 Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2s3304I

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God Eutyphro Dilemma

God’s Love & the Euthyphro Dilemma

By Tim Stratton
Question

Dear Tim,In your article The Omnibenevolence of God you pointed out that on the Islamic view, Allah is quite similar to some Calvinistic views of God. Regarding this view, you said: “God is not all-loving, and whatever Allah does is simply called “good,” even if it is really hateful.”

I agree with you, but an atheist recently objected to your statement with the following:

This sounds like the Christian view point too. If God is the standard of ‘good’ then whatever God does is by definition good. By that argument then hatefulness would by definition be ‘good’. What makes benevolence inherently ‘good’ if you’re getting the standard of ‘good’ from God? By that argument, if God is benevolent then benevolence is good, but if it turns out God is hateful then one has to call ‘hatefulness’ good rather than benevolence. Unless you’re saying that benevolence is inherently good, apart from God, and therefore benevolence is a necessary trait of an ‘all-good’ God. But that would mean God has these traits because he is good, and their goodness stands apart from his possession of them – they’d be good irrespective even of God’s existence.

He went on to claim that the ‘zombie argument’ dismissing the Euthryphro dilemma (I think referring to the article written by Timothy Fox) fails and thus the Euthyphro dilemma “isn’t actually so dead after all.” How would you respond to this atheist’s argument?

– Melissa

Tim’s Response

This is a good question and one that I have been considering for a while. Thank you for sending it my way, Melissa. I believe the atheist’s objection might be a problem for Calvinists to deal with (Check out Sakr’s “Calvinism and Euthyphro’s Horns”); however, the article I wrote was based on a Molinist perspective. The atheist failed to grasp this distinction and seems to conflate Christianity with Calvinism — a move I adamantly oppose! His response, unfortunately, missed the main point of the entire article, and thus, goes on to attack a straw man. This can be seen when we first understand what God is like.

God’s Nature is LOVE

The main thing to consider is that God’s nature is perfectly loving, just as He is perfectly powerful and perfectly knowledgeable. One is free to assert that these properties are not “good” (call these whatever you would like); however, if God does possess love for all people, then my argument stands.

Not only does the Bible specifically say that “God is love” (1 John 4:8), but the fact that God loves all persons is implied in verses such as John 3:16, 1 Timothy 2:4, and 2 Peter 3:9. Moreover, if Jesus’ commands reflect the nature of God, then it is rational to infer that God loves all people (even those who consider God to be an enemy). It would be quite odd for God to command humans to love all people (from our neighbors to our enemies) if God Himself did not possess this love for all people. In fact, this perfect love is specifically referred to in Matthew 5:48:

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Jesus even provides the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) to demonstrate the love we ought to have for those who despise us. Jesus makes it clear that we ought to go out of our way — even if it inconveniences us — to make it possible for even our enemies to thrive and flourish. Scripture is replete with data affirming the perfect love of God. In fact, I have argued that we can infer God’s universal love and desire for all to be saved from the first book of the Bible. With this in mind, the main thing to grasp is that God is omni-loving! That is to say, God genuinely loves ALL people!

This raises another question…

What is love?

Besides the title of a catchy 90s pop song the Bible is clear what love is in 1 Corinthians 13:

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends. . .

The Bible goes on to clarify what maximal love is willing to do in John 15:

13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

The Bible reveals that God loves all people and that all people are called to love all people too. In fact, we can surmise that this is the objective purpose of human existence given Christ’s greatest two commands! Consider Matthew 5:44; 22:37-39:

1- Love God first!
2- Everybody love everybody (from your neighbors to your enemies)!

Moreover, the Bible seems to describe genuine love as desiring the best for another person even if it comes at a cost to the one who loves the other person. Not only is this biblical — it is self-evident and intuitively obvious! With this in mind, we can summarize love as a genuine desire for the best of another person and a willingness to self-sacrifice (even one’s own life if need-be) to ensure this other person can flourish by achieving the best possible life.

It is important to note that my “omnibenevolent article” referenced in the objection was written primarily with certain Calvinistic theologians in mind, like Arthur Pink and Matt Slick, who deny that God loves and desires the best for all people. The objection above, however, is written from an atheistic perspective hoping that the Moral Argument for the existence of God will fall prey to one of the horns of the Euthyphro dilemma. Be that as it may, my point is immune to this objection as it stands strong by merely pointing out that God is essentially loving and is ALL-loving. One is free to argue that loving people is not a “good” thing or not. However, even if it is not good to love (as crazy as that sounds), the point remains: God loves all people — His nature is love!

Now that we have an understanding of God’s loving nature, and we know what love is, now we can contemplate the meaning of life.

The Objective Purpose of the Human Existence

Your life has objective meaning! You might not know this yet, or perhaps you subjectively disagree, but this changes nothing. The fact of the matter remains that God created humanity on purpose and for the specific purpose to know, love, and enjoy a relationship with Him and all people for eternity. This is why you exist. This is the objective purpose for which we were all created.

God created a world filled with creatures who can enjoy a true love relationship with Him (which is the ultimate eternal flourishing). This is the objective purpose of human life — to love and be loved by God and all people for eternity. It is vital to grasp this truth: God created each and every one of us on purpose and for the specific purpose to be in a full-flourishing/true-love relationship with Him for eternity.

If God desires to create a world in which true love can be attained, He must provide His creatures with genuine freedom (libertarian free will) so that it is possible for humanity to experience genuine love relationships with God and others. With this freedom in mind, humans are free to approximate to the objective purpose of life — LOVE — or not.

To help understand why God’s goal in creating humanity grounds objective purpose, consider the following argument:

1. If a truth corresponds to reality, it is objectively true [apart from human opinion].
2. If God created humanity for a purpose, then this purpose is a truth that corresponds to reality.
3. Therefore, if God created humanity for a purpose, then this purpose is objectively true.
4. God created humanity (on purpose and) for a purpose.
5. Therefore, God’s purpose for creating humanity is objectively true (apart from human opinion).

For a more detailed argument click here.

What is “Good”?

Once we grasp the objective purpose of human existence we can understand what it means for humans to be “good.” When we approximate to our objective purpose (which is true apart from human opinion) it is objectively “good.” To a degree that a thing approximates to its objective purpose, to that same degree it is “good.” To a degree that something misses the mark (the goal) of its objective purpose to that same degree it is sinful (“bad”). That is to say, something is objectively good when it helps to achieve or corresponds to the objective purpose of its existence.

Since God by His nature is love (even if love is not a “good”), He created a world where genuine love is possibly attained. God created humanity on purpose and for the specific purpose to love Him and to be loved by Him (and all people) perfectly into the eternal future. This also leads to ultimate and eternal human flourishing. One is free to call eternal human flourishing “good,” “shmigood,” or whatever they would like.

To do anything other than love all persons (from each person of the Trinity to all humans) is to miss the mark (sin). Since free will is required for love, and if free will is really free (and not some word game), it follows that one can freely choose to approximate to the objective purpose of his or her existence (what we call “good”) — or not.

Conclusion

God is all-loving by nature. It is irrelevant if one wants to argue if love is “good” or “bad.” I am not making a case that loving all people is “good” or “bad” so my case simply avoids Euthyphro’s horns. I am simply pointing out the way things are (the definition of reality). God is love!

God is “good” in the sense that He always freely acts consistently with His perfectly loving plan for humanity. God also sets the standard that we humans strive for as “the goal.” Humans are “good” when we freely choose to approximate to the objective purpose in which we were created. We are “bad” or morally sinful when we freely choose to “miss the mark” or fail to miss the goal we were created to attain.

The choice is up to you!

Stay reasonable (Philippians 4:5),

Tim Stratton

 

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

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Skeptic God Evil

Skeptics Can’t Have It Both Ways

By

Former L.A. County District Attorney and agnostic Vince Bugliosi believes that the problem of evil is fatal to believing in Christianity.

“I’m an agnostic only on the issue of whether there is a God, a supernatural being who created the universe. I’m not an agnostic on the Christian God… while God can be all-powerful or all-good, he cannot be both, since these are irreconcilable virtues in a world overflowing with the bloody crops of evil. Even eliminating all the other supposed attributes of God, if he is all-powerful, and hence capable of preventing evil, for him to cause, or do nothing to stop, the unbelievable suffering and horror in this world immediately tells one that God cannot be all-good, as Christianity believes its God to be.” ¹

But then, in a later chapter in his book he mentions numerous parts of the Bible where God actually does something to put a stop to evil, and he is furiously outraged at Him for doing so. Ok, technically, he doesn’t say it that way. But he argues, as skeptics increasingly have in recent years,

“So Christians and Jews call God all-good and all-perfect, but when they get around to printing their bibles that describe his conduct, they describe someone who would make history’s greatest villains look like very pale imitations by comparison. Would even Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, Osama bin Laden, or Tomas de Torquemada do the things the God of Jewish and Christian scriptures did?” ²

Of course, he is referring here to events like The Flood and the destruction of Jericho, among others.

But let’s think about this a moment. What if God hadn’t sent the flood? No doubt, Bugliosi and other skeptics would cry out something like this –

“God created humans, and within a short time, the earth was filled with violence. Violence, violence everywhere! And where was God in all this? Why didn’t he do something about it?”

And if God hadn’t wiped out Jericho and other cities and kingdoms around Israel, we’d no doubt here the complaint that –

“The Caananites were sacrificing children to their gods generation after generation. It had gone on for 400 years at one point, but God just let it continue! How can God be considered all-loving and all-powerful at the same time?”

One might object that God has no right to take the life of innocent children who haven’t done anything wrong, as scripture records God doing in these cases. But what about the possibility that the children of the flood and of Jericho could easily have gone on to be as savage as their parents? I wonder what Bugliosi would say if Adolf Hitler had died in a house fire in Austria in 1890, when he was 1 years old. Probably something like this –

“An innocent baby named Adolf Hitler, who had done nothing wrong, nothing at all, was allowed by this supposedly merciful God to die in a fire. Why didn’t God stop it? Couldn’t He have easily stopped it with an impromptu rain shower?”

We have no way of knowing if a particular baby would have grown up to be a mass murderer or worse. But perhaps if Bugliosi was God, he would have let the child grow old enough until it had actually done something wrong, was no longer innocent, and then taken its life. But then, he’s just allowed evil to take place, and some skeptic would blast him because he could have stopped it. Oops!

But perhaps Bugliosi has a better idea on what to do with evil people. Instead of taking the life of those who will commit evil, perhaps he would keep them permanently suspended in a perpetual force field that keeps them from moving. But how long before this becomes sheer torture of boredom, if nothing else? How would Bugliosi respond to the skeptics who would no doubt complain that this is cruel and unusual punishment?

When all is said and done, God is merciful and has decided to withhold His wrath in many cases precisely because He isn’t the cruel, uncompassionate monster skeptics thinks He is. Yet, His goodness means that He won’t withhold it forever, and He does choose to intervene – even if skeptics call him a monster for doing so.

¹ Bugliosi, Vincent. Divinity of Doubt, pp. 25-26

² Bugliosi, Vincent. Divinity of Doubt, pp. 156

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2qt3G3u

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Morality Meaning Hope

Does Scripture Ground Morality, Hope, and Meaning?

By Luke Nix  

Introduction

I saw this meme on social media the other day. It states “Scripture abandoned in the culture leads to relative morality, hopelessness, and meaninglessness.” It caught my attention because of how its author attempts to ground morality, hope, and meaning. Even though skeptics of Christianity do not have the correct worldview, they still have the ability to identify contradictions, unsound arguments, and false claims made by adherents of other worldviews (in virtue of their being created in the Image of God). If a defender of the Christian worldview attempts to ground morality, hope, and meaning in an invalid source and defend that incorrect grounding, a knowledgeable skeptic will be able to identify the faulty claim and use that as a reason to remain skeptical of the claims of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, this meme offers the incorrect grounding for morality, hope, and meaning. It is important that we understand how the grounding is incorrect, the implications of its being incorrect, and what the proper grounding is, so that we can be prepared to give a reason for the hope that we have when a skeptic challenges the claims of this meme.

Grounding Morality, Hope, and Meaning in Scripture Morality, hope, and meaning are important components of any religious worldview. They provide a worldview’s adherents an explanation for their existence and a framework by which to fulfill their purpose, according to that worldview. For any worldview adherent, these components come with deep, emotional connections that are difficult to overcome.

Almost every religious worldview has some kind of “holy writings” commonly called “scripture.” Christianity has the Bible; Islam has the Qu’ran, and Hinduism has the Vedas, just to name a few. All these “holy” books speak about morality, meaning, and hope (to some extent). But they all make conflicting claims about each of these, and adherents to each may make the claim that meaning, morality, and hope are all grounded in their “holy” book(s). So, adherents to each of these worldviews logically also make the claim that a culture that abandons their scripture (for another scripture, or nothing at all) is doomed to live with relative morality, hopelessness, and meaninglessness.

The Problems and Implications

For the defender of a worldview, appealing to an abandonment if their scripture is not believed and followed seems logical because they know that others seek these things as they do. But, if all the worldviews are making the same claim (that their scripture grounds morality, hope, and meaning), what is to keep a skeptic from going to one of the other worldviews to find the same type of claims that have content that seems more palatable (such as a different ethic or different way to heaven or nirvana)? What is the reason that a person should believe and follow any one particular scripture?

If the Christian is to claim that morality, hope, and meaning are grounded in the Bible, then our claims are on even ground (ontologically speaking) with all the other worldviews from the perspective of the skeptic. This appeal does provide a reason to not abandon the Bible, but it provides the same to not abandon the Qu’ran, Vedas, etc. From the perspective of the skeptic, since all these “holy” books make claims about morality, hope, and meaning, and none of them are grounding them outside their cultural/relative “holy” books, it appears as though these actually are relative. And, logically, if the appeal is dependent upon a warning to avoid what is real, then that is more reason for the skeptic to run the other direction (and they know it and often do).

Further, all writings must be interpreted by the reader; in order to find the correct interpretation of the writing, the reader must attempt to discover what the original author meant. If morality, hope, and meaning are grounded in the writing, then the grounding is also tied to the interpretation (whether right or wrong). So if we have a Christian who interprets the Bible incorrectly and they ground morality, hope, and meaning in the Bible, then they will naturally confuse their interpretation for providing the grounding for their (likely wrong views of) morality, hope, and meaning. This would make all three not just relative (changeable/different based upon the cultural “holy” book) but subjective (changeable/different based upon the individual who is interpreting that “holy” book). A conflation of the reader’s interpretation with the author’s intent leads to this extra level of potential problems with the meme.

The Proper Grounding and the Proper Role

Let’s look at the claim again. “Scripture abandoned in the culture leads to relative morality, hopelessness, and meaninglessness.” The reason the problems that I just described exist with this claim is because the claim simply is not true. Morality, hope, and meaning do not find their grounding in the Bible (or any other “holy” book, for that matter). That is not the claim of Christianity. The Christian claim is that these find their grounding in God. God is independent of cultures and interpretations, thus there is no way that morality, hope, and meaning are relative or subjective if Christianity is true.

Now, this affects the defense of the Christian worldview from two different directions. First, the defense of objective morality, hope, and meaning grounded in God (the biblical view) can take place by providing the evidence for the existence of the Christian God to relativists. This is presented by taking the claims of the various “holy” books of the world and putting them to the test against reality. Scientific evidences for God’s existence, and for the idenfication of the Creator as the Christian God, by necessary implication are then arguments for objective morality, hope, and meaning.

Second, for an atheist who holds to objective morality, hope, and meaning, they must find the grounding for those in something that is independent of cultures or individuals. The claim that these are grounded in the Bible does not satisfy that ontological requirement; however, the claim that these are grounded in God does. Then the fact that the atheist already recognizes the objective morality, hope, and meaning, by necessary implication becomes a logical reason for them to believe that God exists. And combined with the other arguments for God’s existence and the specific identification of that God as the Christian God, provides a powerful case for the truth of the Christian worldview.

A Necessary Clarification

The implication of my critique is that it is not the abandonment of the Bible that leads to relative morality, hopelessness, or meaninglessness. Rather it is the abandonment of the Christian God that leads to those things. But I must be clear that the abandonment of the Bible will put us at a great disadvantage to discover what is true about objective morality, hope, and meaning. While scientific and philosphical arguments may be presented to demonstrate that God does exist, that would only establish that these three also exist (and may point us in the general direction of the correct content); it would not necessarily say anything about what is right or wrong (morality), why we are here (meaning), or our hope (what is wrong with us and the solution). We do need the Bible to learn the content. But we do not need the Bible to ground the content. This is the difference between the philosphical categories of ontology (what is real) and epistemology (how do we know what is real). Misunderstanding this distinction is likely the reason for the claim of the meme. It is important that we recognize this distinction and not conflate the two categories; otherwise, we run the risk of making the same mistake as the author of the meme.

Conclusion

The claim in the meme that the Bible is the ground for morality, hope, and meaning cannot stand when placed side-by-side against the same claim of competing worldviews. Because of that, it actually works against the very intended purpose of the meme. By recognizing that morality, hope, and meaning are not grounded in the Bible but in the God of the Bible, all the negative implications can be avoided and a reason for the hope that we have can be provided and demonstrated.

To Further Investigate This Grounding, I Recommend:

Can Man Live Without God?– by Ravi Zacharias

Christian Ethics: Options and Issues– by Norman Geisler

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2r5rSpE

 

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Student Apologist Listener

How to Become a True Student and a Better Apologist

By Michael C. Sherrard

This is a bit exaggerated, but I’m not sure that anybody is actually interested in learning anything anymore. We live in a political and religious playground filled with thumbs in ears and shouts of “nah nah nah nah, I can’t hear you.” Most people are guilty of this. You are likely guilty of this. Of course the extreme examples are the “safe spaces” on college campuses and the slanderous biased media reporting. But there is also the simple thing that you do everyday: you don’t listen. Nobody listens. If you heard me, you know this is true.

Rather than listen, what do you (and everyone else) do when someone else is talking? You’re thinking about what to say next. This is true of conversations of agreement and disagreement. As a pastor and a teacher, I’m routinely amazed and frustrated by the inability of one to actually hear what I’m saying, be it a friend or a foe. Stop doing this. Listen. You don’t really know as much as you think you do, and you don’t actually know the position one holds until you hear it from them. Develop the discipline to hear, really hear what someone is saying. It is respectful, and it is prudent for only in actually understanding a position can you engage it.

Understand that when you stop listening you do so because you have assumed something, and living in a land of assumptions is dangerous. You have either assumed that you perfectly understand the position being talked about or that you perfectly understand the way someone holds the position. Both are likely not to be true. And this is quite arrogant. This kind of arrogance is the luxury of the expert, not the student. And I suppose that is the problem. Everyone today thinks they are an expert. But the true expert only became such because of their ability to be a true student.

True students understand the value of listening. Arrogant, simple minded folk think they are always to be the teacher. You know, that guy you sat next to in college. The one who thought he should be teaching the class and took every chance to do so. You know, Frank, who now works at Chili’s. That’s who I’m talking about. But I digress.

“When everyone thinks they are the teacher, no-one ever learns. And if that does not describe our world today, I don’t know what does.

What is needed in this highly charged political atmosphere is a bit of humility, humility expressed in the form of listening with the goal of understanding. Persuasion is still needed, but let persuasion come after understanding. If all commit to this, we will have truly safe spaces. They won’t be safe because of the absence of opposing viewpoints, but safe because of the presence of humility and respect and true learners. A world that freely discusses important issues and listens is a world where progress is possible and freedom reigns.

Those of you who seek defend the truth of the gospel will become a much better apologist if you learn how to listen. You will continue to grow in knowledge as you will learn how and why people hold their beliefs, not just what their beliefs are. People do not hold beliefs as nice and neat as your textbook. So embrace the mindset of a student and listen as much as you speak, and you will become more effective making the case for our reasonable faith.

Read “4 Ways to Become a Better Listener and a Better Apologist.“

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2r3YZx5

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