Tag Archive for: Apologética

Resurrection Frank

El cristianismo es verdadero, aunque algo de la Biblia no lo sea

By Frank Turek

Is Christianity true just because the infallible Bible says it is? No. Christianity would still be true even if the Bible had never been written.

Let me explain.

It is a common belief prevailing among some Christians today that what we know about Christianity is dependent on an infallible Bible. This is true, but we know that there are several non-Christian writers from the ancient world who make brief references to first-century events and the beliefs of early Christians, corroborating what we read in the New Testament. We also know that there are a growing number of archaeological finds that support characters and events in Christian history.

But some of us mistakenly think that Christian beliefs cannot be sustained unless the Bible is without error. That would mean that the Christian faith is a house of cards ready to collapse if a verse or reference in the New Testament is found to be false.

While I think these are good reasons to believe in an inerrant Bible , inerrancy is an unnecessarily high standard by which the central event in Christianity is set: the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Christianity is dependent on that historical event. If Christ rose from the dead, then the game is over—Christianity is true. On the other hand, if He did not rise from the dead, then, as a first-century eyewitness by the name of Paul admitted, Christianity is false.

But you don’t need infallible sources to establish that the Resurrection really happened, or any other historical event of that significance. For example, if I find an error in the stat line of a football game, should I assume that every game, story, and stat line in the newspaper was a complete fabrication? So why do some people do that with the New Testament? Why do they assume that unless every word is true, then most of it is false?

They assume this because they are confusing the fact of the Resurrection with reports of the Resurrection. Conflicting reports of a historical event are evidence that the event actually occurred, not the other way around. In other words, to return to our sports analogy, the only reason there is an error in the stat line is because the game was played and someone attempted to report on that game. Neither the stat line nor the error would exist unless the game was actually played. After all, who reports on a game that did not actually take place?

The same is true of the documents that comprise the New Testament and the Resurrection. Even if one were to find an error or disagreement among the multiple accounts of the Resurrection story, the fact that there are multiple eyewitness testimonies shows that something dramatic really did happen in history, especially since the people who wrote it had everything to lose by proclaiming that Jesus rose from the dead.

That is, all of the New Testament reporters (except Luke) were observant Jews who would pay dearly for proclaiming the Resurrection. Why would Jewish believers in Yahweh, the people who thought they were “God’s chosen people” for two thousand years, make up a Resurrection story that would get them excommunicated from the “chosen people” club, and then beaten, tortured, and murdered?

Answer: They wouldn’t. They saw something dramatic that they didn’t expect. They then proclaimed it, changed their lives because of it, and later wrote about it, despite the fact that doing any of that would kill them.

So Christianity is not true just because the Bible says it is true. Christianity is true because an event occurred. It is true that we would not know much about Christianity if the reports of the Resurrection had never been written, but the Resurrection preceded the reports of the Resurrection.

When my friend Andy Stanley asks, “Do you realize there were thousands of Christians before a line of the New Testament was ever written?” Paul was a Christian before he wrote a word of the New Testament. So was Matthew, John, James, Peter, etc. Why? Because they had witnessed the resurrected Jesus.

Contrary to what some skeptics may think, the New Testament writers did not create the Resurrection—the Resurrection created the New Testament writers. In other words, the New Testament documents did not give us the Resurrection. The Resurrection gave us the New Testament documents! There would be no New Testament unless the Resurrection had occurred. The Jewish witnesses would never have made that up.

This is why the core beliefs of Christianity—what C.S. Lewis called Mere Christianity— are true, even if the reports were flawed. Getting details wrong in reporting the Resurrection doesn’t change the larger point that the Resurrection actually happened. In fact, if all the records agreed on every detail, we would rightly assume that they colluded. Actual eyewitnesses never describe the same historical event in the same way.

For example, survivors of the Titanic disagreed on how the ship sank. Some say it broke in two, then sank. Others say the ship sank as a whole. Does that disagreement mean we shouldn’t believe the Titanic sank? Of course not. They all agree on that! They were just looking at the same historical event from different points of view.

Likewise, all the writers agree that the Resurrection occurred, but they differ on minor details (Who arrived at the tomb first? Did you see one or two angels? etc.). And these differences are not necessarily contradictions, but the natural result of viewing the same historical event from different points of view.

The historical documents we have collected, and put into a collection we call the New Testament, are simply what their name implies: they are testimonies or reports of what honorable people have witnessed, and they had no reason to make things up. In fact, given who they were and how they suffered, they had every reason to say it wasn’t true. And there are a number of other excellent reasons that show that it takes more faith to be an atheist than a Christian.

So, inerrant Bible or not, the Resurrection we celebrate on Sunday actually happened about 1,985 years ago. That means you can trust that one day you will be resurrected like Jesus if you trust in Him.

 

Dr. Frank Turek (D.Min.) is an award-winning author and frequent college speaker who hosts a weekly television show on DirectTV and a radio program that airs on 186 stations nationwide. His books include I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist and Stealing from God: Why atheists need God to make their case.

Original Blog: http://bit.ly/2PAirNv

Translated by Malachi Toro Vielma

Edited by Maria Andreina Cerrada

 

 

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Los argumentos a partir del Ajuste Fino del universo

Los argumentos a partir del Ajuste Fino del universo

PRELIMINARY REMARKS

Writing an article on the fine-tuning of the universe that is too short and simple runs the risk of being the target of doubts and objections, and a lengthy and technical exposition runs the risk of being difficult for the reader to understand or even boring due to the complexity of the content. That is why I am grateful to Professor Robin Collins for not only allowing me to translate much of his work, but also for providing me with the slides that he uses in his lectures on the fine-tuning of the universe, which is the visual material that I will use in this article.

WHAT IS FINE TUNING?

Before we make an argument about fine-tuning, the first thing to do is to know what fine-tuning is and whether there is such a thing for the universe. Well, by fine-tuning we mean the fact that the universe is extremely fine-tuned for the existence of what Professor Collins calls “embodied conscious agents,” which require stable and reproducible complexity. An analogy for the universe would be a biosphere. The biosphere has to be perfectly structured and fine-tuned to be self-sustaining (the right environment, energy consumption, etc.) so that human beings can exist in it. The universe is like that, that is how it must be structured in an extraordinary way.

Three kinds of Fine Tuning for life

The evidence for fine-tuning of the universe is of three kinds:

  1. The fine-tuning of the laws of nature.
  2. Fine-tuning of physical constants.
  3. The fine-tuning of the initial mass-energy distribution of the universe at the time of the Big Bang.

The Fine Tuning of the Laws of Nature

When we talk about the fine-tuning of the laws of nature we mean that the universe must have precisely the right set of laws in order for highly complex life to exist.

Examples:

  • Existence of Gravity.
  • Existence of the Electromagnetic Force.
  • Existence of the Strong Nuclear Force.
  • Existence of the Quantification Principle.
  • Existence of the Pauli Exclusion Principle.

Let’s take the existence of gravity, without it you have no stars, you have no planets, and therefore you have no life! Or without the Electromagnetic Force you would have no atoms, so you would not get life either, then you have no chemical bond, and of course, you have no life either.

We can mention other examples, but this is enough to understand that the appropriate laws are necessary for life of great complexity to exist. If any of these laws were missing, such a type of life would be impossible.

Fine-tuning of physical constants

By physical constants, we mean the fundamental numbers that occur in the laws of physics, many of which must be fine-tuned to an extraordinary degree for life to occur.

For example, take the Gravitational Constant—designated by G—which determines the strength of gravity through Newton’s Law of Gravity:

fine tuning jairo 2

Where F is the force between two masses, m 1 and m 2 , that are a distance r apart. If you increase or decrease G then the force of gravity will correspondingly increase or decrease. (The actual value of G is 6.67 x 10 -11 Nm 2 / kg 2 .)

Now, to get an idea of ​​how finely tuned the force of gravity indicated by G is we must first look at the range of fundamental forces in nature:

fine tuning jairo 1

Note that the Strong Nuclear Force is 10,000 sextillion [1] times the Force of Gravity. Too complicated? Well, let’s make this more digestible. Imagine you have a ruler big enough to stretch across the entire universe, now we’ll place the points where the Force of Gravity and the Strong Nuclear Force would be located. We’d get something like this:

fine tuning jairo 3

Now, Professor Collins calculates that if you increase the Force of Gravity by one part in 1034 of the range of the fundamental forces (i.e. a billion-fold increase in strength), then even single-celled organisms would be crushed, and only planets smaller than about 31 metres in diameter could support life with our brain size. Such planets, of course, would not be able to support an ecosystem to sustain life for our level of intelligence.

We could continue giving examples of what would happen if you kept playing with the value of the Gravity Force, but I think this one is more than enough to understand what we are talking about.

So we can see that for life to occur, the Force of Gravity must fall within a very, very narrow range of values ​​compared to the total range of the fundamental forces.

Let’s look at one more analogy. Imagine a radio dial large enough to span the entire universe. The station WKLF (K-Life) allows life. So:

fine tuning jairo 5

Only by tuning into the right frequency (the first thousandth of an inch) of all those on the radio dial (more than 15 billion light years away) can you get a universe with life.

fine tuning jairo 4And so the same thing would happen if you were to play around with the values ​​of the other constants, if they had slightly different values ​​then complex material systems would not arise, so if you want life to exist then the constants of physics must fall within a very narrow range of values. This is widely acknowledged, the famous cosmologist, Stephen Hawking, says:

The remarkable fact is that the values ​​of these numbers [i.e. the constants of physics] seem to have been very finely tuned to make the development of life possible. [2]

Former director of Cambridge University Observatories, Dr Dennis Sciama, also states:

If you change the laws of nature a little bit, or you change the constants of nature a little bit… it is very likely that intelligent life would not have been able to develop. [3]

Fine-tuning the Initial Mass-Energy Distribution

fine tuning jairo 6

What does the fine-tuning of the initial mass-energy distribution mean? Well, according to standard cosmology, the universe started with the Big Bang, about 13.7 billion years ago. All the matter was condensed into a region smaller than the size of a golf ball, then it exploded and expanded. And in order for that matter to get galaxies, and to get life, it had to have a very precise arrangement. Professor Collins gives us an analogy of this: If you look at a zygote with a powerful microscope, you would see that it is intricately structured. It wouldn’t look that way from the outside, you would just see it as a blob of protoplasm, but under the microscope, you would have an intricate structure of DNA and all the other kinds of organelles in cells to make up a human being. So, in the same way, the universe has to be in an extremely precise state, and those are the initial conditions, the fine-tuning of mass-energy to get galaxies, stars, and ultimately to get like us.

Now comes the important question, how precise must the initial mass-energy distribution be for life to exist? Well, Roger Penrose, one of the UK’s leading theoretical physicists and cosmologists answers this question in his book The Emperor’s New Mind :

fine tuning jairo 7

(Phase space is a space of possibilities, with a standard probability measure that tells us how likely it is to be in that part of that possibility space.)

A figure so incredibly large that Penrose says:

We couldn’t even write the whole number in ordinary decimal notation: it would be a “1” followed by 10 123 “0”s. Even if we wrote a “0” for every proton and every neutron in the entire Universe—and added all the other particles as well—we would still be way short [4] .

Here is an analogy for the formidable precision of the Big Bang explosion according to Penrose’s calculations, which must be much greater than that needed to blow up a pile of rubble into a fully formed building filled with desks, tables, chairs and computers!

fine tuning jairo 8

So we can conclude that the initial mass-energy distribution must fall within an excessively narrow range for complex life to occur.

Summary

We have seen that for complex life to exist in the universe, it has to be well structured as a biosphere, and that we have not just one piece of evidence for this, but many pieces of evidence that point to such fine-tuning, and these are the cases of the fine-tuning of the laws of physics, of the physical constants and of the initial distribution of mass and energy.

FORMULATING THE UNIVERSE FINE-TUNING ARGUMENT FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

There are different ways to formulate an argument from fine-tuning, in this post I will focus only on the versions of William Lane Craig, Robin Collins, and Peter S. Williams.

William Lane Craig’s Fine-Tuning Argument

What is the reason for this fine-tuning? Well, there are three options that have been offered as the best explanation and with which we can formulate our first premise of the argument:

  1. The fine-tuning of the universe is due either to physical necessity, chance, or design.

Physical need

Let’s first consider the physical necessity alternative. This alternative tells us that the universe must be one that permits life – in other words, that the values ​​and constants cannot be any other way. In this alternative, the existence of a universe that prohibits life is impossible . Of course, that is a mistake, since such a universe is not only possible , but much more probable than a universe that permits life! And the reason for this is because the constants and quantities are not determined by the laws of nature – they cannot be predicted on the basis of current physical theory. There is no reason or evidence to suggest that fine-tuning is necessary.

One could appeal to string theory, but this does not settle the matter at all. Stephen Hawking says:

Even if we understand the ultimate theory, it is not going to tell us much about how the universe began. It cannot predict the dimensions of spacetime, the symmetry group or Gauge group, or other parameters of the effective low-energy theory… It is not going to determine how this energy is partitioned between conventional matter, and a cosmological constant, or quintessence… So to return to the question… Does string theory predict the state of the universe? The answer is that it does not. It allows for a vast landscape of possible universes, in which we occupy an anthropically allowed location [5] .

And that vast landscape of possible universes that string theory allows for is about 100,500 different  universes, all of them governed by the present laws of nature, so it does nothing to deliver the observed values ​​of the constants and physical quantities in a necessary way.

Chance/brute fact hypothesis

Now let’s move on to our second alternative: Chance or brute fact.

fine tuning jairo 10

One Universe Theory

fine tuning jairo 9

This hypothesis comes in two forms, the first is with respect to the one universe theory, i.e. our universe is the only one in existence. Those who hold this alternative tell us that the fact that a life-supporting universe exists is just a chance occurrence that has and requires no explanation. In simpler words, our existence is just an “extraordinarily lucky accident.” Of course, this hypothesis is not accepted among most people because of its improbability. As Robin Collins exemplifies, it would be as improbable as believing that a painting of Abraham Lincoln’s face is the result of an extraordinarily lucky ink spill, because it is not only extraordinarily improbable, but it is highly significant, these two characteristics go together.

Professor Peter S. Williams puts it this way, we do not infer intelligent design just from high improbability, but from the combination of a “highly improbable” event with a “very special” pattern. He says:

A long string of random letters is complex (unlikely) but unspecified (does not fit any independently determined pattern). A short string of letters might be specified – such as the word “so” – but it would not be sufficiently complex to overcome chance’s ability to explain the event. Neither complexity without specificity nor specificity without complexity requires us to infer design. However, if you saw a Shakespeare play written on a Scrabble board, you would infer design. A play is both specific and sufficiently complex to merit an inference of design on the grounds that “in all cases where we know the causal origin of… specific complexity, experience has shown that intelligent design plays a causal role” [6] . So too with cosmic fine-tuning [7] .

Professor Williams gives us another analogy: Imagine you see someone enter a sequence of numbers into an ATM and then get their money back. What would you infer from this situation? Was the subject lucky or did they get their money by design? It is when a complex, contingent event matches a specific, independent pattern that we infer design.

Multiverse Theory

But maybe if you spilled ink enough times you would get Lincoln’s face, or if you put too many monkeys with too many typewriters, one of them might write a paragraph of Shakespeare’s play. This is what is known as the so-called “multiverse hypothesis,” according to which there are a huge number of universes with not only different initial conditions, but also with different values ​​of the constants of physics, and even laws of nature. Therefore, simply by chance, some universe will have the “winning combination” for life and thus have an explanation for why a universe exists that allows life. The most common analogy proposed by the proponents of this hypothesis is that of the lottery, in the same way that you can draw many tickets with different combinations of numbers, only one of them has the “winning combination” and the person who gets that ticket will simply be the winner by luck, a mere matter of probability. This hypothesis is widely accepted and has quite prominent proponents, such as Professor Max Tegmark, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cosmologist, Sir Martin Rees, Astronomer to the Royal Family of Great Britain, Stephen Hawking, among many others.

Purely Metaphysical Version

The multiverse theory has two versions, the first of which is the Purely Metaphysical version , which tells us that all possible universes exist, all possible realities exist, so there is one reality where the Marvel universe really exists, another reality where the Lord of the Rings books are true, all those universes exist as a brute fact without any further explanation. This version, for obvious reasons, is not widely defended today.

Universe Generator Version

This hypothesis tells us that universes are generated by some physical process that Professor Collins calls a “Universe Generator.” Unlike the metaphysical version, the Universe Generator version is defended by many leaders in cosmology such as Andrei Linde of Stanford University and Britain’s Sir Martin Rees.

fine tuning jairo 11

So you pick the ocean of your choice, then pour a lot of soap on it, so thousands of bubbles are formed, and these are the universes, of course, the ocean keeps expanding at a great rate so the bubbles never collide with each other.

We now turn to the answer that Robin Collins focuses on to rule out the Universe Generator hypothesis, which is this: The Universe Generator itself would have to be “well designed” to produce a single universe that would support life.

fine tuning jairo 12

Professor Collins gives us the following analogy of the Universe Generator:

fine tuning jairo 13

Much like the bread machine, it seems that the Universe Generator must have the right laws and have the right ingredients (initial conditions) to produce universes that support life.

Professor Collins tells us that if we examine the super-string inflationary multiverse carefully, it requires at least five special mechanisms/laws in order to produce at least one life-supporting universe. So he simply sends the design issue up one level. Collins concludes that at best, the Universe Generator hypothesis eliminates the quantitative case for design based on fine-tuning of constants, but it still requires precise laws and the right initial conditions in order to work. So after all, we can still ask the valid question: “Who or what ‘designed’ the Universe Generator?”

Design Hypothesis

Since we have ruled out physical necessity and chance from our basket of alternatives, we can now state the second premise of our argument:

  1. The fine-tuning of the universe is due neither to physical necessity nor to chance.

But if that is the case, then it inevitably follows that

  1. Therefore, the fine-tuning of the universe is due to design.

One would think that the “design” alternative is just an option offered by theists on a whim or because they simply “need to fill the gap” left by science, so it must necessarily be included in the list of explanations and not as a common sense interpretation. But that is not so, that fine-tuning is due to design is not only a claim made by theistic cosmologists, but by non-theists as well! Theoretical physicist and popular science writer Paul Davies states: “The impression of design is overwhelming” [8] and astrophysicist Sir Fred Hoyle, who was an atheist, once stated: “A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super-intellect has tinkered with physics… and that there are no blind forces of nature . ”

Robin Collins’ Fine-Tuning Argument

The main feature of this argument is that it does not say that the evidence for fine-tuning proves that the universe was designed, or even that the universe is likely to have been designed. Rather, the argument simply concludes that fine-tuning strongly supports theism over the atheistic one-universe hypothesis.

Our first premise of the argument can be stated as follows:

  1. The existence of fine-tuning is not improbable under theism.

As we have seen throughout the article, justifying this premise is easy and not at all controversial: since God is a good being and it is good that intelligent and conscious beings exist, it is neither surprising nor unlikely that God would create a world that can sustain intelligent life.

The following premise may be as follows:

  1. The existence of fine-tuning is highly unlikely under the atheistic single-universe hypothesis.

This premise encompasses the options presented in an atheistic worldview: chance/brute fact and physical necessity. The objections are the same as those we used above for Craig’s argument.

And the conclusion of the argument would be:

  1. From premises (1) and (2) and by inference from the overriding confirmation principle, it follows that the fine-tuning data provide strong evidence in favor of the design hypothesis over the atheistic single-universe hypothesis.

This is the way Collins presents his argument. The evidence for fine-tuning is a lot like fingerprints found on a gun: although they may provide strong evidence that the defendant committed the murder, one cannot, from the evidence, conclude that the defendant is guilty; one would also have to look at the counter-evidence offered. For example, ten reliable witnesses claimed to have seen the defendant in the park at the time of the shooting. In this case, the fingerprints would still count as significant evidence of guilt, but this evidence would be counterbalanced by the testimony of the witnesses. Similarly, the evidence for fine-tuning strongly supports theism over the atheistic one-universe hypothesis, although it does not by itself show that everything that is considered theism is the most plausible explanation of the world. Nevertheless, as we have seen so far, the evidence for fine-tuning provides a much stronger and more objective argument for theism than the strongest atheistic argument against theism.

Peter Williams’ Fine-Tuning Argument

The first premise of Williams’ argument [9] is as follows: 

  1. If something exhibits specified complexity, then it is probably the product of design.

This premise appeals to our common sense of inferring design when we see a “highly improbable” event with a “very special” pattern. This is not a religious claim or a bias coming from the theist; as we have seen above, the design inference for cosmic fine-tuning arises naturally even among atheist physicists.

Our second premise is as follows:

  1. The fine-tuning of the universe exhibits specified complexity.

It is obvious that nothing more needs to be said to justify this premise than what has been presented for the previous arguments. It can therefore be concluded that:

  1. Therefore, the fine-tuning of the universe is probably the product of design.

GENERAL CONCLUSION

So at the end of the day we have a very strong case for the fine-tuning of the universe, and in turn at least three ways to make an argument for the existence of God.

I would like to end this article with a few words from King David:

The heavens declare the glory of God. The skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day by day he tells the world, night by night he makes it known. (Psalm 19:2)

Grades

[1] Translating the huge quantities from English to Spanish is complicated because it is also necessary to convert from the English system of measurement to the international one. For the conversion of the measurements my friend Chris A. Du-Pond helped me with this.

[2] Hawking, 1988, A Brief History of Time , p. 125.

[3] From the BBC special, “The Anthropic Principle.”

[4] Roger Penrose, The Emperor’s New Mind , p. 310

[5] SW Hawking, “Cosmology from the Top Down” a paper presented at the Cosmic Inflation Conference at Davis, University of California, Davis, May 29, 2003.

[6] Stephen C. Meyer, ‘Teleological Evolution: The Difference it Doesn’t Make’,  www.arn.org/docs/meyer/sm_teleologicalevolution.htm

[7] Peter S. Williams, “Five Arguments For Theism,” http://www.peterswilliams.com/2016/02/09/five-arguments-for-theism/#_edn8

[8] Paul Davies, The Cosmic Code, 1988, p. 203

[9] http://www.peterswilliams.com/2016/02/09/five-arguments-for-theism/ (Last visited October 17, 2018).

 

Jairo Izquierdo Hernandez is the founder of Christian Philosopher . He currently works as Social Media Director and author for the Christian organization Cross Examined . He is a member of the Christian Apologetics Alliance and a worship minister at the Christian Baptist Church Christ is the Answer in Puebla, Mexico.

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Apologists, Please Don't Forget The Gospel

Apologistas, por favor no se olviden del evangelio

By Michael Sherrard

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. — ROMANS 1:16

As an apologist, let me encourage you to trust in the power of the gospel. Do not be ashamed to speak freely about the goodness of God’s mercy and kindness. I have said before that most people reject God because of emotional and volitional problems. The intellect simply hides these problems. Even as we talk about evidence, logic, and arguments, apologists must remember that the reason many people will not give themselves to God is because of their hearts. But the love and kindness of God’s grace can soften a hard heart and will draw many to Him.

All people recognize two things: there is a God, and they have broken a standard of morality by which they should be judged (Rom. 1:18–2:16). All people struggle with guilt, and guilt is a powerful force that causes many people to run from God instead of to Him. Guilt often manifests itself in pride and the attempt to rationalize or atone for sin. Sometimes guilt results in depression, feelings of inadequacy, and the belief that no one should love them. Whatever you look at it, guilt is a hindrance to repentance.

But God is greater than our sin. His love is more powerful than our guilt. And His kindness will draw many to repentance. Don’t put your hope in logic, history, science, and argument. Trust in the beauty of the gospel and the mercy of God. Don’t be ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God that works for salvation (Rom 1:16). Share it as much as you can.

The thing most overlooked in apologetics is the Gospel. Apologists tend to never go that far in conversations with unbelievers. Sometimes we think other people won’t believe the nonsense of the Cross. So we resort to talking only about what seems reasonable. But don’t shy away from preaching what in this world is considered nonsense. Remember that apologetics is a servant of the Gospel, and sometimes the servant has to get out of the way of the master.

Apologists, share the gospel with others and tell them how God’s mercy has transformed you. You can offer the hope of a changed life. Tell your story. Explain what it feels like to be forgiven. Speak of your hope for heaven. And speak with joy of the peace of God that now fills your life.

Invite skeptics to know God and enjoy all that comes from life in Christ. Feel free to tell them that you know Him, that you have experienced Him, and that they can too. There is value in your experience and in your personal knowledge of God. Talk to them about that. Some people say you can’t argue with a changed life, but you can; I argue with good, changed Mormons all the time. But there is value in your conversion, in the reality in which God can be known and experienced. So tell them your story and invite them to enter into one for themselves.

 

Michael C. Sherrard is a pastor, author of Relational Apologetics, and director of Ratio Christi College Prep. RCCP is an organization that seeks to equip the church for effective evangelism by teaching high school students apologetics, fundamental Christian doctrine, and biblical evangelism.

Original Blog: http://bit.ly/2AdotuY

Translated by Italo Espinoza Gomez

Edited by Maria Andreina Cerrada

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Is the Bible from God

¿Proviene la Biblia de Dios?

By Mikel Del Rosario

Does the Bible really come from God? I recently conducted a workshop on this topic for fifth and sixth graders at Bayside Church in Granite Bay, CA. I wanted to help the Christian kids talk about this topic with their friends. But I knew it had to be something simple to understand and easy to remember. We ended up having a lot of fun with games, activities, stories, and illustrations that helped them stick with these ideas.

After each session, parents told me how much they appreciated the lesson. Another reminder that adults value “simple” things, too.

In this post, I’ll show you a quick way to answer the question, “Is the Bible really from God?” and give you a little reminder so you can remember 3 reasons skeptics should pay attention to the Bible. But first, you should know that when it comes to the Bible, there are only two ways to look at it.

Only 2 options

The Bible says it is God’s message to us (2 Tim 3:16-17). That’s either true or false. So is there any reason to think the Bible is more than a book written by men? What kind of book is the Bible? We have only two answers:

  1. It’s just a bunch of stories and ideas about God written by people.
  2. It is truly the Word of God given to the people.

Here’s how I started the kids segment:

  • Mikel: “How many of you have read a book that you really enjoyed this summer? Tell me the name of an author you like.”
  • Students: (Different answers, including Agatha Christie, JK Rowling, CS Lewis, etc…)
  • Mikel: Now, do you think that all these authors would have the same opinion about the things that adults say we shouldn’t talk about at parties: politics and religion? Do you think they would agree?
  • Students:
  • Mikel: Of course not. No big surprise, right? No, the big surprise is when you consider the Bible…

3 Reasons Skeptics Should Pay Attention to the Bible

Imagine a UPS truck delivering Bibles, because the letters U, P, and S can help you remember 3 reasons why skeptics should pay attention to the Bible. These are 3 simple discussion points you can share with a friend or even your own children.

Think of it in terms of cause and effect. The Bible is an effect. What is the cause? If the Bible were just a book written by men, it would be pretty hard to explain the following:

  1. Your unit

The “U” can help you remember the word for  unity . The Bible is surprisingly united. When you hold a Bible in your hands, you are holding a collection of 66 ancient documents. They were originally written in 3 languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. We’re talking about 40 different authors, writing over a period of over 1,500 years! Imagine these guys writing in different times, places, languages, and cultures.

And yet the authors agree with each other on highly controversial ethical and religious issues. And most importantly, they all arrived at a single message about God.

  1. His prophecy

The “P” can help you remember the word prophecy. The Bible records exact predictions about the future that came true. A couple of examples are specific prophecies about Jesus and Israel.

Predictions about Jesus

The Old Testament prophets said that the Messiah would be from the tribe of Judah (Gen. 49:10), from the lineage of King David (2 Sam. 7:12-13), and that he would be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2). 700 years before Jesus was born, the Jewish prophet Isaiah foretold very specific things about the Messiah (ch. 53). For example:

  • That would be whipped
  • That I would die with evil people
  • That he would be buried as a rich person

More than 1,000 years before Jesus was born, King David predicted that the Messiah’s hands and feet would be pierced, but not one of his bones would be broken (Psalm 22). All of these things about Jesus, the Messiah, came to pass.

Predictions about Israel

Isaiah also predicted that the Jewish people would return to their lands for a second time (11:11-16). The first time they returned was in the 6th century with Ezra and Nehemiah. But Israel was expelled in 70 AD when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem. Their second return was when Israel became a nation in 1948. I told the children:

This is something that really happened and maybe some of your grandparents saw it! And if not, your parents must have seen it on the news.

  1. Follow here!

The “S” can help you remember that the Bible is still here !  And why is this so important? Because people have tried to wipe the Bible off the face of the earth and they won’t succeed. Not only that, it’s still the number one best-seller.

This is just the beginning. If you really take the time to look more closely, you will see that we have good reason to believe that the Bible is not just people’s ideas about God written down. The Bible is God’s Word given to people.

Lesson 4

Fact or fiction:

Can I Trust My Bible? This workshop was based on lesson 4  of my Accessible Apologetics curriculumfor youth and adults. It includes games, illustrations, PowerPoint, and more. Download a free lesson from the series. 

 

Mikel Del Rosario helps Christians explain their faith with courage and compassion. He is a PhD student in the New Testament department at Dallas Theological Seminary. Mikel is a professor of 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 MA in Christian apologetics with highest honors from Biola University and an MA in divinity from Dallas Theological Seminary, where he serves as Cultural Engagement Manager at the Hendricks Center and host on “the Table Podcast.” Visit his website at ApologeticsGuy.com.

Original Blog: http://bit.ly/2CkdMZi

Translated by Natalia Armando

Edited by Maria Andreina Cerrada

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Five Reasons We Know God Wants Christian Women to Do Apologetics

Cinco razones por las que Dios desea que las mujeres cristianas hagan apologética

Como cristianas, Dios nos ha mandado no solo a compartir que creemos en Jesucristo, sino también a explicar el porqué. Aquí presentamos algunas evidencias en las Escrituras de que Dios nos ha llamado a nosotras las mujeres a conocer y a presentar las razones probatorias por las que creemos en el cristianismo, lo que conlleva el ministerio de la apologética. Piensa en estas cinco razones:

  1. Como mujeres, fuimos creadas como seres racionales llamadas a amar al Señor nuestro Dios no solo con nuestros corazones, sino también con nuestras almas y nuestras mentes (Mateo 22:37). Nuestra confianza en Cristo no está cimentada en una emoción ciega, sino en una evaluación intelectual de la evidencia de que nos ha convencido de la verdad del cristianismo y eso ha dado lugar a una fe razonable. Lucas 10:38-42 registra la visita de Cristo a la casa de dos mujeres llamadas Marta y María. Cuando Marta se quejó de que María era una holgazana por no ayudarla a preparar la comida, Jesús alabó a María por escuchar Sus enseñanzas. Aunque Él probablemente apreció los esfuerzos de Marta en la cocina, podemos inferir razonablemente que Él afirmó la curiosidad intelectual y el compromiso de María de ir en pos de la verdad.
  2. Como mujeres, somos seres relacionales que estamos llamadas a amar a nuestro prójimo como a nosotras mismas (Mateo 22:39). Nuestro prójimo incluye a la gente que está en nuestra esfera de influencia, comenzando por nuestros familiares inmediatos. Por ejemplo, Dios nos insta a amar y a respetar a nuestros esposos (ver Efesios 5). ¿Cómo puede la apologética reforzar nuestro matrimonio? Si nuestro esposo es creyente, podemos afirmar las verdades para edificar su fe al igual que la nuestra, y ayudarle cuando lucha con la duda. Pero, ¿qué hacemos si estamos casadas con un esposo incrédulo? Cuando conocemos las evidencias de nuestra fe, podemos amarlo sin ser sacudidas en nuestra fe, aun cuando nuestro esposo sea hostil a las afirmaciones cristianas. No utilizamos el conocimiento como un arma contra él. En cambio, se nos da la libertad de ponernos a la defensiva para practicar 1 Pedro 3:1-4, procurando vivir conforme a una vida transformada por Cristo delante de nuestro esposo, de modo que “sea ganado sin palabra por la conducta de [su] esposa”. Lee Strobel, un antiguo ateo y autor de “El caso de Cristo”, dijo que su esposa se había convertido en creyente, y el cambio en su manera de tratarlo a él y a sus hijos fue tan atractivo que él se embarcó en su propia búsqueda y finalmente, confió en Cristo.

Otra relación en la que la apologética puede ser útil es con nuestros hijos. Tito 2:5 describe a las mujeres como “cuidadoras” en su hogar que les enseñan a sus hijos. “Cuidar” implica vigilar o resguardar. El conocimiento de la apologética nos equipa para vigilar y ser de influencia en la cosmovisión de nuestros hijos. Antes de resguardar la cosmovisión de nuestros hijos, debemos saber qué es una cosmovisión, la evidencia que afirma la verdad de la cosmovisión cristiana, las aseveraciones de otras cosmovisiones y cómo responder a tales aseveraciones con el fin de demostrar que el cristianismo tiene el mayor sentido. Eso es la apologética. Entonces, cuando nuestra hija llega a casa de la escuela diciendo que su amiga es hindú, por ejemplo, podremos responderle cuando pregunte por qué los hindúes tienen santuarios en sus casas y los cristianos no.

Nuestra relación con otras mujeres también pueden ser redentoras y edificantes, mientras procuramos presentarles a Cristo a nuestras amigas incrédulas y guiar a las mujeres más jóvenes en la fe para que maduren en su relación con Cristo. Tito 3:2-5 nos manda a nosotras como mujeres maduras a ser “maestras del bien” (RV 1960) para las que vienen tras nosotras. Este llamado no es una opción para nosotras. Las mujeres más jóvenes nos necesitan desesperadamente para que las guardemos bajo nuestras alas y las animemos a que vivan para Cristo en una cultura que cada vez se vuelve más hostil al cristianismo. Finalmente, las mujeres están singularmente equipadas para entablar conversaciones sobre la fe con las mujeres incrédulas. Para algunos grupos de mujeres, nuestra disposición a acercarnos a ellas es la única esperanza que tienen de conocer sobre Cristo de una manera comprensible. Por ejemplo, solo las cristianas pueden alcanzar a las musulmanas que no se sienten cómodas hablando con los hombres.

  1. Como mujeres, somos responsables de testificar lo que hemos visto y oído con respecto a la identidad y resurrección de Cristo, y la cantidad de evidencias del cristianismo que Dios ha inculcado dentro del orden creado. Según Marcos 16:1-11, las mujeres fueron las primeras en ser testigos de la tumba vacía y a ellas se les indicó que fueran a decirles a los demás. Si Jesús les confió a las mujeres la responsabilidad de hablar la verdad del único acontecimiento más trascendental de la historia de la humanidad, entonces, nosotras también podemos testificar. Y no solo podemos compartir nuestra experiencia personal con Jesucristo como lo hicieron las mujeres de la tumba, sino también las evidencias históricas, científicas y filosóficas que nos ha provisto nuestro amoroso Dios. Al hacerlo, como mujeres cumpliremos con el mandamiento de hacer discípulos en todas las naciones (Mateo 28:19-20).
  2. Como mujeres, estamos llamadas a estar preparadas para dar razones convincentes de nuestras creencias, aun si debemos sufrir al hacerlo. 1 Pedro 3:15-17, un versículo lema para la apologética, nos dice que debemos estar “siempre preparados para presentar defensa ante todo el que os demande razón de la esperanza que hay en vosotros, pero hacedlo con mansedumbre y reverencia; teniendo buena conciencia, para que en aquello en que sois calumniados, sean avergonzados los que difaman vuestra buena conducta en Cristo. Pues es mejor padecer por hacer el bien, si así es la voluntad de Dios, que por hacer el mal”. (LBLA). Resulta interesante que los primeros siete versículos de 1 Pedro 3 él se dirige primero a los esposos y después a las esposas. Luego, en el versículo ocho, que finaliza con el mandamiento de los versículos del 15 al 17, Pedro dice, “Finalmente, todos ustedes, hombres y mujeres” en su llamamiento posterior. Así que, tanto hombres como mujeres estamos llamados y tenemos el honor de participar en los padecimientos de Cristo en la defensa de la fe.
  3. 5. Finalmente, como mujeres cristianas debemos ser renovadas en el espíritu de nuestra mente (Efesios 4:11-24). No debemos permanecer siendo bebés en Cristo, sin entender los elementos básicos de nuestra fe, y siendo fácilmente movidas de un lado a otro. Una vez, una amiga me dijo luego de leer “El código DaVinci” que hubiera deseado no haber leído ese libro jamás, pues provocó dudas en ella. Cuando fallamos en renovar el espíritu de nuestra mente con la verdad, somos sacudidas con cada doctrina nueva que llega a la escena. El conocimiento de la apologética cimenta nuestras creencias en la fuerte evidencia y hace que nuestra fe en Cristo sea la respuesta más razonable a un Dios que ha saturado el universo de testigos de Su presencia y de Su carácter.

Así que, cuando alguien nos pregunte por qué creemos que Dios desea que las mujeres cristianas hagamos apologética, podremos compartirle las cinco razones. Podremos explicarles que Dios nos hizo seres racionales y relacionales, nos hizo testigos responsables de la verdad, y nos proveyó el conocimiento con el cual podemos prepararnos y ser renovadas en nuestra mente para compartir las evidencias abrumadoras de que el cristianismo es verdadero.

 

Blog Original: http://bit.ly/2C9M7Ke

Traducido por Natalia Armando

Editado por María Andreina Cerrada

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Did Jesus Exist

¿Existió Jesús?

By Evan Minton

I don’t know why, but 99% of the atheists I talk to on the Internet hold the ridiculous position that Jesus never existed. But then, they’re atheists. I don’t expect them to believe in the divinity of Jesus. How could they? If they did, they wouldn’t be atheists. They would be Christians. No. I’m not talking about believing in the divinity of Jesus here, but about believing in Jesus as a historical figure. That’s what I find so ridiculous. Those who deny the Christ myth are clinging to a historical hypothesis that would make them the laughing stock of every university in the world. Almost every scholar of ancient history holds this view, and those who are in a minority, a minority, a minority are rightly seen as charlatans. By the way, those who believe that Jesus was a flesh-and-blood historical figure are not Christians. Atheist and agnostic scholars also believe that Jesus was a historical figure. Bart Ehrman, an agnostic and one of the most outspoken critics of Christianity, believes that Jesus was a real, flesh-and-blood historical person. He writes: “I think the evidence that Jesus existed is so overwhelming that it is foolish to claim otherwise. I don’t know anyone who is a responsible historian, who is trained in the historical method, or anyone who is a biblical scholar and who works that way, who gives any credence to any of that.” 

Why is this the case? Why do almost all scholars of ancient history believe that Jesus was a flesh-and-blood figure in history? Is the evidence for Jesus’ historicity as overwhelming as agnostic scholar Bart Ehrman claims? Let’s see.

*The existence of Jesus is more than amply attested in secular sources, non-Christian extra-biblical sources, and in the New Testament documents.

Jesus is mentioned in so many sources in the first century and early second century that it is absurd to claim that He never existed. What are those sources? Well, we have the gospels and the epistles of the New Testament. But everyone already knows them, so I am not going to cite them. Instead, I am going to cite merely the non-Christian, extra-biblical sources.

1: Flavius ​​Josephus

Josephus mentions Jesus (and other New Testament figures) in his writings. In Flavius ​​Josephus’s Antiquities of the Jews (written in 90 AD), Josephus writes:

“About that time there was a certain Jesus, a wise man, if he may be called a man, for he was a wonder-worker, a teacher of men who welcomed the truth. Many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles were attracted to him. They called him the Christ, and when Pilate, acting on the suggestion of the chief men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those who had loved him from the beginning did not forsake him; he appeared to them resurrected on the third day, just as the divine prophets had foretold, and they said ten thousand other astonishing things about him. The existence of Christians, the name they took from him from that time on, continues to this day.”

“Antiquities of the Jews”, 18.3.3

Second, in Book 20 there is what might be called a brief reference to Jesus in a paragraph describing the murder of Jesus’ brother James at the hands of the high priest Ananus.

“But as we said, the young man Ananus who received the high priesthood was of a courageous temper and exceptionally bold; he was a partisan of the Sadducees, who were severe in passing judgment on all the Jews, as we have already shown. Since Ananus was of such a temper, he thought he had now a great opportunity since Festus was dead and Albinus was still on the way; so he formed a council of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, the one called Christ, whose name was James, together with others; and having accused them of being offenders, he handed them over to be stoned.”

Here we have an early secular source that mentions Jesus and a handful of followers who clearly believed He was the promised Messiah (or Christ) of their Jewish religion. It also mentions Pontius Pilate and says that Jesus was crucified by Pontius Pilate at the suggestion of the Jewish Sanhedrin. This is pretty good non-Christian and non-Biblical evidence that affirms the existence of Jesus, the existence of Pontius Pilate, that Jesus had a handful of followers who considered Him to be the Christ, and that the Sanhedrin brought Jesus before Pontius Pilate and that he condemned Him to die on a cross. Josephus also claims that Jesus had a brother named James who was murdered by the Sanhedrin.

“BUT!” The one who believes that Christ is a myth may protest . This passage has obviously been interpolated by a Christian. Josephus was a Jew, not a Christian. And yet he says things like “He was the Christ”  and “He appeared to them resurrected on the third day .”  Therefore, we cannot include this passage from Josephus because it was not a genuine passage that he wrote. It was more likely written by a Christian scribe who included this passage in order to subliminally evangelize people. But are the skeptics right? Is this passage really not historical evidence for the existence of Jesus? There are a few things to consider.

First, very few scholars believe that the entire passage was invented by a Christian. Certainly, it is indisputable that there have been interpolations in this passage, but that does not mean that the whole thing was invented. Most scholars believe that there was an original passage about Jesus included in the Flavian testimony, but that it was subtly modified by a Christian scribe.

There are very good reasons why scholars have adopted the theory of “partial authenticity.”

1: A good portion of the text is written in Josephus’s dramatic style and vocabulary. That is, the fragments believed to be original to Josephus reflect his typical writing style.

Christopher Price wrote: “Perhaps the most important factor leading most scholars to accept the partial authenticity position is that a substantial part of the TF reflects the language and style of Josephus . Moreover, when the obvious Christian references—which are rich in New Testament vocabulary and non-core language—are removed or restored to the original, the remainder of the core passage is coherent and flows appropriately. We can be confident that there was minimal reference to Jesus… for once the clearly Christian sections are removed, the remainder makes good grammatical and historical sense. The peculiarly Christian words are connected parenthetically to the narrative; therefore, they are grammatically free and could easily have been inserted by a Christian. These sections, moreover, are broken up, and when they are removed, the flow of thought is improved and more harmonious.”

Graham Stanton claims that “once the obvious Christian additions are removed , the remaining comments are consistent with the vocabulary and style of Josephus”  (Stanton, The Gospels and Jesus, p. 143). The most recent and comprehensive study of the Flavian testimony was undertaken by John P. Meier in A Marginal Jew, Volume 1. According to Meier,  “many key words and phrases in the testimony are either absent from the NT or are used in it in entirely different ways; instead, nearly all of the core words of the testimony are found elsewhere in Josephus’ work—indeed, much of the vocabulary turns out to be characteristic of Josephus”  (Meier, op. cit., p. 63).

  1. The reference to James, the brother of Jesus, suggests an earlier reference to Jesus.

The validity of Josephus’ reference to the martyrdom of James increases the likelihood that the TF is also valid. In Josephus’ reference to James, he names Jesus as “the so-called Christ” without further explanation . That’s all he says. When he refers to James, he says he is the brother of “ Jesus, the so-called Christ.” Josephus gives no further explanation of who Jesus was , what he did, no reference to his death or resurrection from the dead, no mention of any miracles, or anything like that. All he says is that James is the brother of Jesus. The way the passage about James reads makes it seem as if Josephus was assuming that his readers already knew who he was talking about. This would make sense if the Flavian Testimony were a legitimate passage. Because in that passage, Josephus has already briefly explained who this Jesus was and what he did, so that by the time his readers got to the passage about James, no further explanation would be necessary. However, Josephus’ lack of elaboration as to who Jesus was in the passage about James would make no sense if there were no earlier explanation of who he was, such as in the Flavian Testimony. Incidentally, no one doubts that Josephus’ reference to James is authentic.

For these two reasons and several more, most scholars believe that Josephus’ Flavian testimony is a genuine passage, even though it is obvious that some Christian scribe changed a few lines here and there. For more information on why Josephus’ passage was partially interpolated rather than completely invented, please click on the URL below.

“Did Josephus Refer To Jesus?” by Christopher Price —  http://bede.org.uk/Josephus.htm

The Mona Lisa

This topic arose from a talk given by Dr. Timothy McGrew. The talk was about extra-biblical evidence indicating the historical reliability of the New Testament. By the way, you can listen to this talk on YouTube. Anyway, Tim McGrew posted a picture of the Mona Lisa. The Mona Lisa had a mustache, and he compared it to Josephus’ interpolations of the passage about Jesus with the Mona Lisa having a mustache. He said:

“This is not a Leonardo da Vinci painting, and if the lights weren’t so bright, you can see why. It looks a little bit like the Mona Lisa… but… it has a moustache and a bit of a beard. Should we conclude, then, that there was no original painting? Or should we conclude that there was and that there is something that has been added… by someone else’s hand? What should we make of a moustache on the Mona Lisa? Well, fortunately in 1971, Shlomo Pines published some work he had been doing on an Arabic manuscript that contained this passage.”

And it is in this Arabic text that we find the passage without the confusing fragments that seem to be Christian interpolations.

“whose conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. Many people from among the Jews and from other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to crucifixion and death, and those who were his disciples did not abandon their loyalty to him.  THEY  REPORTED that he appeared to them 3 days after his crucifixion. Consequently , they believed that he was the Messiah just as the prophets had said ”  (emphasis mine)

Tim McGrew then asked the audience, “Do you see the difference? My guess is (and this is the opinion of most scholars) is that the passage was originally written by Josephus as we have it in this Arabic text… and then some Christian scribe couldn’t resist the urge to put a mustache on the Mona Lisa. He didn’t realize that what he was doing would raise doubts as to the authenticity of the report of this genuine passage and that of Josephus himself. As with the Mona Lisa, our inference is that there was indeed an original and it was not invented by the person who added the mustache and beard. Our best guess regarding the testimony is that Josephus actually wrote it and that it was interpolated. And fortunately, we have discovered a text that shows us why most scholars think more or less that is how it happened.”

2: Tacitus

Another secular document is the Annals of Cornelius Tacitus. In Annals 15.44, Tacitus recounts the burning of Rome to its foundations and says that everyone blamed Nero for burning the city. Nero tried to shift the blame to the Christians, and so he began to persecute them. Tacitus’ Annals date from 115 AD.

“But all the help that could come from man, all the rewards that the prince could grant, all the expiations that could be presented to the gods, were of no avail to free Nero from the infamy of supposing that he had ordered the conflagration, the burning of Rome. Therefore, to silence the rumours, he falsely accused and then punished the Christians, who were abhorred for their enormities. Christ, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius: but the pernicious superstition which had been for a time suppressed, broke out again, not only throughout Judea where the mischief originated, but also throughout the city of Rome, where everything disgusting and disgraceful that springs from all parts of the world finds its centre and becomes popular. Therefore, first of all those who were found guilty were arrested; Then, after his declaration, an immense crowd was accused, not so much of the crime of burning the city, but of their hatred of humanity.”

Again, Jesus and Pontius Pilate are mentioned in secular documents. Tacitus claims that Jesus existed and was crucified by Pontius Pilate. He then states that the movement that arose after Jesus died out for a time, then flared up again originating in Judea, and then spread to Rome. The New Testament claims the same thing; Jesus existed, was crucified by Pilate, his followers kept quiet for the next 50 days, and then at Pentecost, began to spread the gospel throughout the ancient world. And unlike the Josephus passage , no one debates this Tacitus passage. Everyone acknowledges that this passage from Tacitus’ Annals is authentic.

3: Pliny the Younger

Pliny the Younger (62?-c.113 AD) was the governor of Bithynia. His correspondence with the Emperor Trajan in 106 AD included a report on proceedings against Christians. In an extensive note to his supervisor, Pliny explained that he forced Christians to “curse Christ, which a true Christian cannot be induced to do.” He also described their actions and practices:

“They affirmed, however, that their whole fault, or their whole error, was that they were in the habit of meeting together on a certain appointed day before daybreak, when they would sing in alternate verses a hymn to Christ as if to a god, and bind themselves by a solemn oath never to do any infamous action, except never to commit fraud, theft, adultery, never to falsify their word, never to deny the faith if called upon to testify.”

Kyle Butt, author of many articles at Apologetics Press, had this to say regarding the Pliny passage I just quoted. Here is what Kyle Butt of Apologetics Press wrote.

“Pliny used the word ‘Christian’ or ‘Christians’ seven times in his letter, thereby corroborating it as a generally accepted word that was recognized by both the Roman Empire and its emperor. Pliny, moreover, used the name “Christ” three times to refer to the initiator of the “sect.” This is the undeniable case that Christians, with Christ as their founder, had multiplied to such an extent that it attracted the attention of the emperor and his magistrates in the days when Pliny wrote the letter to Trajan. In light of this evidence, it is impossible to deny the fact that Jesus Christ existed and was recognized by the highest officials within the Roman government as a real, historical person.”  – Kyle Butt, Apologetics Press, from the article titled: “The Historical Christ–Fact or Fiction? ”

4: Celsus

Celsus, a pagan philosopher of the second century, produced a vehement attack on Christianity entitled “The True Discourse” (in AD 178). Celsus argued that Christ owed his existence to the result of fornication between Mary and a Roman soldier named Panthera. When this Jesus grew up, he began running around Palestine making extravagant claims of divinity. Celsus tells us that because of Jesus’ wild claims about himself, he displeased the Jewish authorities so intensely that they killed him. Although Celsus harshly ridiculed the Christian faith, he never went so far as to suggest that Jesus did not exist.

5: Mara bar-Serapion

Mara bar-Serapion was a Syrian who wrote about Jesus Christ sometime in AD 73. He left a manuscript as an inheritance to his son Serapion.

“What did the Athenians gain by killing Socrates? Famine and plagues came upon them as a judgment for their crime. What did the men of Samos gain by burning Pythagoras? In a moment, their land was covered by sand. What did the Jews gain by executing their wise king? It was after that that their kingdom was abolished. God justly avenged these three men: the Athenians died of hunger; the Samians were overwhelmed by the sea; the Jews, ruined and expelled from their land, live in utter dispersion. But Socrates did not die for doing good; he lived on in the teachings of Plato. Pythagoras did not die for doing good; he lived on in the statue of the goddess Hera. Nor did the wise king die for doing good; he lived on in the teachings he had imparted.”

This reference reveals several key points:

1) Jesus was considered a wise king.

2) Jesus was killed.

3) Jesus’ teachings endured.

Several of those who maintain that “Christ is a myth” have tried to argue that the “wise king” to whom Mara is referring is Jesus, but this is really a pathetic argument. For the sake of brevity, I will not address in depth the objections to the Mara bar-Serapion passage, but James Patrick Holding addresses these arguments at the following URL.

http://tektonics.org/jesusexist/serapion.php

In conclusion

For the sake of brevity, I could not go into all the secular sources that mention Jesus. But here is a list of all the historical sources that mention him.

Secular sources: Josephus , Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Lucian, Phlegon, Celsus, Mara Bar Serapion, Suetonius and Thallus

New Testament sources:    Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, the author of Hebrews, James, Peter, and Jude.

Non-biblical Christian sources: Clement of Rome, Clement 2, Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp, The Martyrdom of Polycarp, Didache, Barnabas, The Shepherd of Hermas, Fragments of Papias, Justin Martyr, Aristides, Athenagoras, Theophilus of Antioch, Quadratus, Ariston of Pella, Melito of Sardis, Diognetus, The Gospel of Peter, The Apocalypse of Peter and Epistula Apostolorum.

Heretical writings: The Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Truth, The Apocryphal Book of John and The Treatise on the Resurrection.

We have an abundance of historical evidence to prove the existence of Jesus of Nazareth. In fact, the amount of historical evidence is staggering considering how unclear his person was. He had, at most, a three-year public ministry. Yet, He is mentioned in more sources than the Roman Emperor! If you count all the non-Christian sources that mention Jesus, He is mentioned in one more source than the Roman Emperor Caesar Tiberius! If you count the Christian sources (including the New Testament documents), Jesus beats Caesar 42 to 10! If you consider Jesus a mythological person in light of this historical evidence, you might believe the same about Caesar Tiberius, since we have more evidence confirming the existence of Jesus than Caesar Tiberius. To claim that Jesus is a myth and that Caesar Tiberius was a real person is to be inconsistent.

Now, why is this important? Because when historians examine history, they use certain tests for authenticity. If a passage in a history book passes one of these “tests,” then the historian concludes that the recorded event is more likely to be true than false. There are many such tests, but the one I am using in this post is known as “The Principle of Multiple Witnesses.” The Principle of Multiple Witnesses says that if an event is mentioned in more than one source, and if the sources do not support each other, then it is much more likely that that event actually happened. The more often a recorded event is mentioned, the more certain there is that the event recorded in that document is true. Why? Because the more independent the sources that something is found in, the much less likely it is that ALL of those people involved made up that exact same story.

Here I am applying the principle of multiple witnesses to the existence of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus is mentioned in so many early independent sources that it is irrational to claim that ALL of these people made up this same fictional character… and then go on to talk about it as if he were real.

On top of that, several of these sources are hostile sources , as they are not only neutral to the claims of the Christian faith, but they even ridicule Jesus, in fact. These would be sources such as Tacitus and Pliny the Younger. These sources make their accounts historically true due to the principle of enemy testimony.

Objection: But these are not contemporary sources. These are late secondary sources! Show me contemporary sources or else I will not believe that Jesus existed!

Ah yes. The tired old argument of “There are no contemporary accounts of Jesus.” Actually, we do have contemporary accounts of Jesus – they are known as the Gospels. As I have mentioned in other posts, we have good reason to believe that the vast majority of New Testament documents were written before 60 AD. But even if it were true that there were no contemporary accounts of Jesus, what would that prove? Would that be proof that Jesus never existed? Hardly. We don’t really have any contemporary historical evidence for many of the characters in history, but we know they existed because historical scholarship can compensate with techniques such as “declarations of interest” and independent corroboration. We have 9 secular sources for Jesus’ existence (the works of Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny, etc.) that while not contemporary accounts, are still reliable since they are not that far removed from the events they reported on – and yet we do have 9 secular sources for Jesus’ existence (the works of Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny, etc.) that, while not contemporary accounts, are still reliable since they are not that far removed from the events they reported on – and we do have 9 secular sources for Jesus’ existence (the works of Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny, etc.) that were not contemporary accounts, but are still reliable since they are not that far removed from the events they reported on. And as for the gospels, which are contemporary accounts, they are rejected a priori because they were written by people who believed in Jesus and are allegedly partisan (although almost everyone who writes about history has some kind of partisanship). Furthermore, the kind of partisanship that the New Testament writers had was to say nothing about Jesus and all the things he did because that would get them thrown out of their synagogues, tortured, and killed.

For some reason, just because it is a non-contemporary account does not mean that it is not a reliable source. Secondary accounts, even if they are not highly regarded by a historian as first-hand or eyewitness accounts, are not considered worthless. Regarding some events and people in history, all we have are secondary accounts. So are we to conclude that they never happened? Of course not. Yet that is what those who hold that Christ is a myth do when it comes to the life and death of Jesus. They reject all secondary accounts (Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny) and they also reject the contemporary accounts that we do have (i.e., the gospels). Are they not aware of the fact that historians do not need contemporary accounts for recognized history? (If you think that is so, then you will have to rewrite most of what happened in history.) They accept both first-hand history and secondary accounts, among other factors.

Also, the thing about Josephus and Tacitus is that, although they were not alive when Jesus was on this earth, they were alive when there were still those who knew him and could tell them about him (Jesus, according to virtually all scholars, was crucified sometime between 30 AD or 33 AD and Josephus was born in 37 AD). I used an analogy of me talking about Richard Feynman, an American physicist well known for his work in quantum mechanics and who helped develop the atomic bomb. Although I was born after he died (Feynman died in 1988 and I was born in 1992), I am close enough to the events for them to be relevant. After all, I am growing up in an age when adults who did know Richard Feynman are still alive, and they can tell me about him (just pretend for a moment that I don’t have video recordings; Josephus didn’t have any either to go on). Are you saying that my testimony about Feynman should be invalidated because I was not a contemporary of his, even though I have parents, grandparents, and friends of my parents who were contemporaries of Feynman and from whom I was able to get all my information? Absurd. My point is that they are close enough to the events to be relevant sources, and almost all scholars in the field accept their testimony as valid evidence as to the historicity of Jesus, including non-Christian scholars (so we can be sure that they have no theological foundation to shred).

Objection: Why aren’t there more sources?

Some skeptics complain that there are not more historical sources that mention Jesus. They argue that if Jesus had been as influential an individual as the gospels claim, there would have to be many more historical documents that mention him. Of the secular sources, we only have 9 that mention Jesus. From there, they argue that He either did not exist or was not as influential as the Bible claims.

For some reason, very few documents of ancient history have survived to this day. As Ryan Turner, who works as a writer for CARM (Christian Research and Apologetics Ministry), put it in an article on Carm.org:  “There are a number of ancient writings that have been lost, including 50% of the work of the Roman historian Tacitus, all of the writings of Thallus and Asclepiades of Mendes. In fact, Herod the Great’s secretary Nicholas of Damascus wrote a universal history of Roman history, which consisted of nearly 144 books of which, none have survived. Based on the textual evidence, there is no reason to doubt the existence of Jesus of Nazareth.”

The point is that there may have been more secular documents that talked about Jesus than we know about. But they have most likely deteriorated, been destroyed, or have not yet been discovered by archaeologists. If the documents were not copied over and over and over again at a fast enough pace, they probably would not have survived for 2,000 years. Furthermore, the evidence we have for Jesus is still pretty strong. His existence has been very, very, very, very, very amply demonstrated in 9 secular sources, 9 biblical sources, 20 non-biblical Christian sources, and 4 heretical sources.

Now, historians consider themselves extraordinarily lucky when they find 2 independent sources that mention something, but when it comes to Jesus’ existence, we have 42!  Some of these are contemporary sources; others are secondary. We have to ask ourselves: is it really rational to believe that such an individual is a fictional character when so many historians wrote about him? Jesus’ existence and crucifixion are mentioned in numerous independent and early sources. It is possible that there are more than we already know about, but they are eroded by the fact that this happens with documents that last thousands of years.

Objection: Jesus is a copy of pagan myths

Another argument that those who argue that “Christ is a myth” make is that Jesus was merely a copy of pagan gods. They cite the “similarities” between the two and claim that Christianity is simply a religion plagiarized from early pagan myths. Theoretically, let’s assume that we believe that Jesus was merely a myth and not a real, historical, flesh-and-blood individual. I’ve already written two separate articles pointing out the absurdity of this argument, so I won’t go into it here. Instead, I suggest you read these blog posts, and you can check them out when you have the time to do so.

1:  Is Jesus A Copy Of Pagan Myths ?

2:  Cartoons and Comics That Plagiarized Christianity (Satire)

Bottom line:  “Christ is a myth” is absurd. Jesus obviously existed, as did other New Testament characters. You can believe that Jesus was just an ordinary man if you want, but to claim that He never even existed is just ridiculous. The debate among ancient history scholars is not, “Did Jesus exist?” No. The debate is,  “Was Jesus more than a man? Did he say what the gospels say he said? Did he rise from the dead?”  These questions are topics of debate among scholars. But Jesus’ historical existence is taken for granted. And why shouldn’t it be? You’ve already seen the evidence.

If you wish to study this topic in more detail than I have presented here, see James Patrick Holding’s book, Shattering The Christ Myth, as well as Bart Ehrman’s book, Did Jesus Exist?

 

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 participated in several debates which can be viewed in the “My Debates” section of Cerebral Faith. Mr. Minton lives in South Carolina, USA.

Translated by Natalia Armando.

Edited by Maria Andreina Cerrada.

Original Blog: http://bit.ly/2DD2a5N

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El debate como un deber cristiano

El debate como un deber cristiano

By Douglas Wilson

For many Christians, it seems a reasonable question to ask whether it is at all profitable for us to participate in public debates. Who has ever changed their mind because of some public debate? Why argue about anything? Logomachies only cause headaches.

In contrast to this, I want to argue that such a quietist position is not only incompatible with the teaching of Scripture, but runs directly counter to it. We are called to speak to unbelievers in the public square, and we must do so in a way that includes responding to their objections. We are called to prevail in debates of this kind (in a particular way). When we do this well, what happens is public debate, the kind of debate that can be very helpful.

But before we make the case for this, it must first be said that those who want to avoid “shows unseemly for Jesus” have a point in their favor. There are some debates that serve no purpose, and the Bible expressly tells us to avoid them. But when Scripture tells us not to lose our battles in a particular way, we must not infer from this an imaginary duty not to fight those battles at all.

That said, I would like to begin by pointing out a few places where Christians are told not to engage in verbal bickering. While we are not to avoid all debates, we do need to avoid some debates.

“Speak evil of no one, not quarrelsome, but gentle, showing all gentleness to all men. For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another.” (Titus 3:2-3)

We must not be “troublemakers.”

“But put away foolish and senseless controversies, knowing that they breed strife. For the Lord’s servant must not be contentious but kind to all, apt to teach, patient, in gentleness correcting those who oppose themselves, in the hope that God may grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth and that they may escape from the snare of the devil, by whom they are held captive at his will.” (2 Timothy 2:23-26)

We are told to stay out of stupid, fruitless debates, where the issue being discussed is guaranteed to spiral downward into meaningless shouting. The servant of the Lord is not to be contentious. But even in this case, note that the servant of the Lord is to “instruct those who oppose.” In other words, Paul’s rule here is “not this kind of debate,” and not, “do not debate.”

We must assess the situation, and read the crowd. There are times when we must not stoop to their level (Prov. 26:4). But, since wisdom is not optional, there are times when we must step into their world in order to execute the reductio (Prov. 26:5).

So with these caveats in mind, why should we debate? Well, to start where every Christian should always start, let’s look at the life of Jesus. Asking whether it is legitimate to debate is like asking whether it is permissible to speak in parables. Jesus spoke in parables constantly, and he also engaged in constant public pointing and objecting.

Jesus deftly answered a question about his authority with a question about John the Baptist (Matt. 21:27). Jesus silenced the Sadducees in a debate about the resurrection (Matt. 22:29). Jesus debated the highly charged issue of taxes (Mark 12:17). Jesus debated the devil (Luke 4:4). Jesus debated the issue of Sabbath healing (Luke 5:22). And Jesus takes on his opponents on the issue of his own identity (John 8:14). There are many other examples. In fact, there are so many examples of polemical exchanges in the gospels that questions about the appropriateness of polemical exchanges can only arise if people are ignorant of the gospels, or if they come to the gospels with a strong, preconceived idea about Jesus that they learned elsewhere.

This is strange, but not surprising, because there is a strong non-biblical tradition that labels Jesus as the original hippie, teaching us all to make peace. This goes directly against all the teachings the Lord made about hellfire, and he won the numerous debates with established theologians, and, as Sayers or Chesterton once said, we must not forget the time he threw the furniture down the temple steps. A gentle, meek, humble Jesus, no.

That said, it is not surprising that we find instructions that reveal how public shock is actually a pastoral duty.

“Hold fast the faithful word as taught, that ye may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince those that contradict. For there are many unruly, empty talkers, and deceivers, especially they of the circumcision; whose mouths must be stopped.” ( Titus 1:9-11 ).

This not only requires pastors to debate false teachers, it requires them to win those debates.

“And when he was minded to pass into Achaia, the brethren encouraged him, and wrote to the disciples to receive him. And when he came there, he greatly helped those who through grace had believed, for he vehemently refuted the Jews publicly, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.” (Acts 18:27-28)

Putting this all together, we see the biblical reasons for debate. We see them both in the example of Jesus, and in the instructions given to pastors in the first century. The point of debating is to silence the stubborn, talkative, and overthinking. When this happens, it is sometimes not obvious to the false teacher that he has been silenced – even though it is obvious to everyone else. This is the valuable service that Apollos offered – he was a help to believers in the way he refuted the Jews’ question of whether Jesus was the Messiah. Translated into a modern setting, if a believer effectively refuted someone arguing for gay marriage, or an atheist denying God, the debate on stage might not be resolved at all. However, there are many believers in the audience who have heard those same arguments in numerous classrooms, and we now know that these arguments can be effectively countered. Apollos was a great help to believers.

In godly debate, you are trying to win men and not arguments, and you have to remember that many of those who are trying to win are in the audience. In the great public issues of the day, there are a great many people on the fence. Debates can have an enormous impact on “the swing segment.” I would like to say that when we observe how ineffective our debates are, we would do much better to heed the scriptures and lament how ineffective our debaters are. This is an activity that should be encouraged, honored, and praised, and we should provide the necessary training for those who are called to it. And training programs should reject those bellicose types who only want to join a “who you gonna call?” Cultbusters .

In conclusion, I would like to say a few things about one of the great arenas for demonstrating excellent debating skills, and that would be the classrooms of secular universities. To what extent should Christians just keep their heads down? And if they do speak up, how should they speak up?

I would suggest three things to students in that position. The first is that if you want to challenge a teacher, you should do so with an established ethic. By this, I mean don’t be a struggling student who only does half the reading, then walks up to the teacher with the safety on, and then when you’re shut down, runs away crying. Earn your right to speak, and do so by being at the top of the class – or at the top of the class before you decide to open your mouth. If your grades slip after that, that’s up to the teacher.

Second, let most of your opportunities come to you. If you challenge everything you could possibly challenge (depending on the class) you’re going to do it every ten minutes. If you’re in a target-rich environment, then you’re likely to attack one every 25. You’ll sufficiently and effectively prove your point, and in this scenario – trust me – a little goes a long way.

And finally, as a student, you are not a professor. That means you should not preach, or try to hijack the lecture. There is a place for gospel declaration, but this is not it. That being said, it is not out of place for a student to ask questions. That is not inappropriate – that is a student’s calling and vocation. And if you ask the right questions for which the professor does not have answers, then you do not have to jump to conclusions. You can do that in conversations with other students after class. Keep discussions (in this context) in the interrogative.

If you learn to do this well, it may be an indication that you are called to an apologetic ministry after graduation. If this happens, you will have more tools available than as a humble student.

 

Original Blog: http://bit.ly/2Pdmj3b

Translated by Jairo Izquierdo Hernandez

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La omnibenevolencia y el odio de Dios

La omnibenevolencia y el odio de Dios

Some time ago Tim Stratton wrote a blog that dealt with the Omnibenevolence of God . Tim said regarding Allah, that He is not an all-loving God, “and whatever Allah does is simply called ‘good’ even if it is abhorrent.” Of course, the reactions from the atheist camp were not long in coming and in response he received the following objection:

This sounds like the Christian view, too. If God is the standard of “good” then everything God does is by definition good. By that argument, hatred would be, by definition, “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 God happens to be a hateful being then one has to call it “hate” 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 that God has these traits because he’s good, and his goodness is distinguished from his possession of them—they would be good independently of God’s existence.

Tim Stratton called this objection a version of the Euthyphro Dilemma and offered an answer that evades the dilemma; however, it seems to me that while his answer clears up a lot of doubts, it does not fully resolve the problem; so I decided to address the objection directly with my friend Anton Schauble and see if we could refute the argument at its root.

Jairo: Anton, what do you think about this objection to the attribute of Omnibenevolence?

Anton: That argument is complete nonsense. What we are saying is that God (or the Good) is the standard for good and evil, not only because He is a criterion by which we measure good and evil, but because He is the ultimate source and paradigm of good, which is the same as unity and being.

Benevolence is good because it is positively real; whatever is positively real is both like and derived from God. In the same way, God cannot be anything else, He is the paradigm of good; benevolence is good, and malevolence is evil; for benevolence is a likeness to Good and malevolence a deviation from it. There is no way that Good could be anything else, so that it would be more like malevolence than like benevolence.

Take being, for example. God is the paradigm of being as it is of good. He is the best, and also the most real. Light is positive and darkness is negative, because light is as it is to be (it is something) and darkness is different from being (it is not something), but to imagine being being different, so that it is more like darkness than light? That is just nonsense. Being is what it is, necessarily. It cannot change, nor can it even be imagined to be different. This objector is thinking of God as a substance susceptible of different attributes—benevolence or malevolence—such that it could have one or the other.

Jairus: He also seems to point out that there is some contradiction in God’s attributes of being all-loving and of hating when he says, “If God is the standard of ‘good’ then everything God does is by definition good. By that argument, hatred would be by definition ‘good’.” He is completely lost, because the Scriptures teach that God does indeed hate, but He hates sin! And that is certainly a good thing. God being a Holy, Omnibenevolent Being, it follows that He cannot love sin, for to do so would be contradictory to His being. Hatred in God arises as a reaction to evil, to sin; it does not arise in God indiscriminately or for no reason or for petty reasons as in human beings, where such hatred that arises in us is certainly evil and is condemned by God. So hating sin, contrary to what the objector thinks, is perfectly consistent with God’s Omnibenevolence.

Anton: Correct. The objection would make sense if God were a substance rather than an essence. For example, it is like taking “love” univocally, but “love” does not mean the same thing in the statements “God loves” and “John loves” because John is a substance modified by the accident of love, whereas God is an essence identical to essential Love. Therefore, Scripture says not only that “God loves,” but that “God is love.”

Let us put it this way: if we abstract love from John, what remains is the substance, the man John, who exists but does not love. But if we abstract love from God, what remains is nothing; there is no God who does not love; in fact, the idea of ​​a God without love is an absolute absurdity.

Jairo: Yes, that is right. In my opinion, God’s love is an essential property of Him, so there is no possible world where God is not love.

In conclusion, we can say that the objection is a total failure for the following reasons:

  1. God cannot be anything other than what He is, it is absurd that benevolence can be malevolence.
  2. The hatred that arises in God is not a hatred towards anything; rather, His hatred is directed towards sin because He is Holy, a God who would tolerate sin in His being would not be worthy of worship.

 

Jairo Izquierdo Hernández is the founder of Christian Philosopher . He currently works as a Community Manager for the Christian organization Cross Examined . He is a member of the Christian Apologetics Alliance and a worship minister at the Christian Baptist Church Christ is the Answer in Puebla, Mexico.

Anton Schauble is a philosophy major at DeSales University, currently living in Congers, NY, United States.

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La paradoja de la omnipresencia

La paradoja de la omnipresencia

One of the objections to the existence of God is to try to prove that his concept is incoherent, and one way to do this is through the paradoxes of his attributes. In this blog we are going to discuss the paradoxes about Omnipresence.

There are many ways to pose this paradox, but I will use three that I found on Ad Baculum ‘s blog, into which all the others could be reduced:

  1. Taking as a premise that God exists, we can make a set with all those things and beings that exist and that have the characteristic of being omnipresent. This set would only contain God. On the other hand, we can make a set of all the things that are not omnipresent, in which would be me, my computer and so on until we have gathered everything that exists except God. However, omnipresence implies being everywhere, including in non-omnipresent things. In this way, God would be in the set of omnipresent things and in the set of non-omnipresent things, which is a paradox that implies the impossibility of being omnipresent.
  2. If it is true that “when we say that God is everywhere, it is not that one part of God is in one place and another in another: God is all of Himself everywhere,” it implies that God is everything, therefore He is both good and evil. Let me explain. If God is all of Himself everywhere, that means that God is contained in an electron. If all of God is occupying all of the matter in the electron, this would imply that God is the electron. I do not think that theists would disagree. If we continue, the same would occur with each subatomic particle. Therefore, if all of the smallest parts into which matter can be divided, if each of those parts is God, I suppose that the sum of any number of those parts would equal God, then I would be God, you would be God and Hitler would be God. The paradox is that God would be the whole and each of the parts. And it turns out that many of those parts generate suffering and injustice, therefore God could not be omnibenevolent. Or if He is omnibenevolent, He could not be omnipresent.
  3. If God is omnipresent, he cannot be absent from a place, therefore there is already something that he cannot do and he would not be omnipotent. [1]

So how does the theist refute this objection? Well, it all depends on how you think God exists in space. William Lane Craig says (and I agree with him):

I think God exists in time, but I don’t think he exists in space. So God is not in any particular place in the universe like in a church or a temple. Likewise, God is not “spread out” in space like some kind of invisible gas.

Therefore if God does not exist in space, then He is related to the world in a similar way as the soul is to the human body, connected in some way that can produce immediate effects.

My inclination is that God does not exist in space in a literal way, but is omnipresent in the sense that He is causally active and knowing at every point in space. So His omnipresence is a function of His causal activity, and with His omniscience He knows what is happening at every place in space; God transcends space, He is not in space.

This is not difficult to conceive, imagine a two-dimensional plane, and think that you do not exist in this two-dimensional plane, you transcend these two dimensions! Now extrapolate that to God, he does not exist in this three-dimensional plane, he transcends these three dimensions – not implying that he can exist in a four-dimensional plane, but that God does not exist within this three-dimensional plane and yet he exists. That it cannot be imagined does not mean that it is not conceivable; a million-sided figure is unimaginable, I cannot sketch a mental picture of such a figure, but of course it is conceivable that such a polygon exists. Similarly even though one cannot imagine God existing outside of space, I see no difficulty in that being conceivable. [2]

Now let’s analyze the paradox (1). First—granting that God is in space—the detractor seems to speak of sets and their function as something ontological; when he says phrases like “This set would only contain God” and “until we gather together everything that exists except God,” he seems to believe that he can actually place God in one or another set in a real way instead of just using sets as a heuristic device. When we speak of “there is/exists” a set, we are not using ontologically loaded language; that is, we do not mean that such sets exist concretely, much less physically as if we were saying “there is/exists” a monitor in front of me. Second, assuming that the detractor is a Platonist and believes that sets really do exist in reality, and if WLC’s position is correct (and I believe it is, or at least perfectly coherent), then God is not in any set because God does not exist in space.

Regarding (2), God is not found in evil (if by evil you mean evil entities such as demons or criminals) nor are subatomic particles found in it, since we saw that God transcends space.

As for (3), it’s not so much a paradox of omniscience as a paradox of omnipotence; it objects that if God is not in space, then there is something God cannot do. Two simple answers to this. First, let’s say that it is impossible for God to be in space; this does not present any problems for God nor does it degrade him in any way because clearly there are things he cannot do given his nature (he cannot be fooled, he cannot make mistakes, he cannot lie, etc.). Second, just because God is not spatially in the universe does not mean that he cannot physically manifest himself in it in some way; in fact, God did exactly that in the Old Testament accounts.

Finally, one might be tempted to say that such a definition of God’s omnipresence has no biblical support. I’m not so sure, notice how in Psalm 139 the author begins by praising God’s omniscience, and then goes on to praise God’s omnipresence. I dare say that the author acknowledges that because God knows everything, He can know every corner of the universe:

O LORD, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you understand my thoughts from afar. You have examined my going and my lying down, and all my ways are known to you. Even though there is no word on my tongue, behold, you, O LORD, know it altogether. You have compassed me behind and before, and laid your hand upon me. Knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is too high for me to comprehend. Where can I go from your Spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the farthest parts of the sea, even there your hand will lead me, and your right hand will hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness will cover me,” even the night will shine around me. Even the darkness does not hide me from you, and the night shines like the day. the darkness and the light are the same to you.

Grades

[1] http://adbaculum.blogspot.mx/2007/04/tres-paradojas-sobre-la-omnipresencia.html (last visited in November 2009.

[2] http://www.reasonablefaith.org/questions-on-the-singularity-omnipresence-and-morality

 

Jairo Izquierdo Hernandez is the founder of Christian Philosopher . He currently works as Social Media Director and author for the Christian organization Cross Examined . He is a member of the Christian Apologetics Alliance and a worship minister at the Christian Baptist Church Christ is the Answer in Puebla, Mexico.

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El Dragón del Garaje vs Dios

El Dragón del Garaje vs Dios

In the recent debate between Frank Turek and Michael Shermer, the latter tried to invalidate Frank’s God hypothesis as an explanation for some facts about reality by using the famous “dragon in the garage” analogy, first used by Carl Sagan in his book The Demon-Haunted World .

This is the original analogy:

“There is a fire-breathing dragon living in my garage.” Suppose I were to make a statement like that to you. Perhaps you would like to test it out, see for yourself. There have been countless stories of dragons over the centuries, but no real evidence. What an opportunity!

—Show me —you say.

I take you to my garage. You look in and see a ladder, empty paint cans, and an old tricycle, but the dragon is gone.

—Where is the dragon? —he asks me.

“Oh, it’s here,” I reply, waving my hand vaguely. “I forgot to mention that it’s an invisible dragon.”

He suggests that I cover the garage floor with flour so that the dragon’s footprints remain.

“Good idea,” I reply, “but this dragon is floating in the air.”

He then proposes using an infrared sensor to detect invisible fire.

—Good idea, but invisible fire doesn’t give off heat either.

Suggests spray painting the dragon to make it visible.

—Good idea, except it’s a disembodied dragon and the paint wouldn’t stick to it.

And so on. I counter any physical proof you propose to me with a special explanation of why it won’t work. Now, what is the difference between an invisible, disembodied, floating dragon that breathes fire that doesn’t burn and a nonexistent dragon? If there is no way to disprove my claim, if there is no conceivable valid experiment against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all equivalent to proving it true. Claims that cannot be proven, assertions that are immune to refutation, are truly worthless, no matter how much value they may have in inspiring us or exciting our sense of wonder. What I have asked you to do is to end up accepting, in the absence of proof, what I say.

Shermer’s version has a few variations to ridicule Frank’s position of the existence of God as an explanation for the origin of the universe, objective moral values ​​and duties, and the fine-tuning of the universe. Shermer’s main aim is to show that the existence of God is impossible to disprove in the same way that you cannot disprove the existence of the dragon in the garage. But is this a good argument? Not really. Let me explain why.

The first thing Shermer would have us believe by using Sagan’s analogy is that the attributes of God that theists attribute to him are mere gratuitous assertions without any evidence. Here Shermer has in mind revealed theology, those attributes that we know God possesses through his revealed word to us, the Bible. But in the debate with Frank—and in non-presuppositional apologetics in general—one does not assert God’s attributes as in the case of the garage dragon. And although it is not necessary, let me compare the garage dragon and God with respect to their respective attributes.

Garage Dragon

Invisibility. This attribute is granted without any evidence.

Levitation. It is also not inferred based on any evidence.

Cold Fire. Like the previous ones, there is no argument to attribute this property to the dragon, moreover, the property is self-contradictory.

Immateriality. Zero arguments, and like cold fire, this is a contradictory property with a dragon. In order for a dragon to be a dragon, it must have a body with certain essential characteristics of a dragon, it cannot be incorporeal.

God

Creator, metaphysically necessary, self-existent. These attributes are inferred by means of the argument from contingent beings and by the ontological argument.

Transcendent cause, personal, beginningless, uncaused, timeless, spatially boundless, immaterial, personal, supremely powerful. These attributes are required by the nature of a cause transcending the universe and are inferred by the kalam cosmological argument.

Designer and highly intelligent. These attributes are inferred by the fine-tuning argument of the universe.

Perfectly good, whose nature is the standard of goodness and whose commands constitute our moral duties. And this last attribute is concluded by means of the moral argument.

As we can see, the garage dragon is completely deficient compared to God.

Shermer also calls the God hypothesis a special pleading fallacy, but we have seen from this comparison that this is not the case. No serious apologist in a debate sets out to counter objections to arguments for existence by claiming that the atheist does not have the capacity to understand the properties of God as the best explanation for some facts of reality.

Another important point is that Shermer also uses the garage dragon as a parody of God as an explanation for the following facts about reality: the absolute origin of the universe, fine-tuning, and the foundation for objective moral values ​​and duties. But his parody fails miserably for two reasons: the first is, as we have already seen, that some of the attributes that the garage dragon possesses are self-contradictory, which is more than enough reason to determine that such a dragon is impossible to exist. Then, for the sake of argument, I am going to be very kind in modifying the dragon by removing all of its contradictory properties and adding the property of omnipotence. Can the dragon be the transcendent cause of the origin of the universe when it has enough power to bring the universe into existence? No way! An essential property of the dragon is that it has to be material, corporeal, without that property it would cease to be a dragon. But if our version of the omnipotent dragon is corporeal, if it is a physical being, then it cannot be the cause of the origin of the universe, because one of the characteristics that a transcendent cause must have is to be immaterial; it cannot be material because matter comes into existence with the origin of the universe. The same goes for being the foundation of objective moral values ​​and duties; our dragon cannot be eternal; it had to come into existence together with the universe, therefore, it is contingent, and no contingent being can be the foundation for objective morality.

Conclusion

We have seen that the garage dragon analogy as presented by Michael Shermer as an argument against the God hypothesis is flawed for four reasons:

  1. Due to the contradictory attributes that the garage dragon possesses, we can affirm that its existence is impossible.
  2. God’s attributes are inferred by deductive arguments, which is not the case with the dragon in the garage.
  3. Defending the attributes of the garage dragon is indeed committing the fallacy of special pleading, but not in the case of God.
  4. The garage dragon as a parody of God to be the transcendent cause of the universe and the foundation for objective morality fails miserably because it is a contingent being (and that grants it a possible existence if we remove its contradictory properties).

 

Jairo Izquierdo Hernandez is the founder of Christian Philosopher . He currently works as Social Media Director and author for the Christian organization Cross Examined . He is a member of the Christian Apologetics Alliance, studies philosophy, and is a worship minister at the Christian Baptist church Christ is the Answer in Puebla, Mexico.

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