Tag Archive for: apologetics

Paul Christianity Founder

Was Paul the Founder of Christianity?

By Brian Chilton

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

Notes

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

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

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

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

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

[6] Blomberg, 449.

[7] Blomberg, 460.

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

/by
Paul Distance Witness

Did Long Distance Make Paul’s Witness List Unfalsifiable?

By Evan Minton

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

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

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

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

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

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

2: The Resurrection Occurred During Festival Time

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

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

3: Mail From Snails 

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

Conclusion 

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

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

/by
God Eutyphro Dilemma

God’s Love & the Euthyphro Dilemma

By Tim Stratton
Question

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

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

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

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

– Melissa

Tim’s Response

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

God’s Nature is LOVE

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

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

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

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

This raises another question…

What is love?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Objective Purpose of the Human Existence

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

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

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

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

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

For a more detailed argument click here.

What is “Good”?

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

The choice is up to you!

Stay reasonable (Philippians 4:5),

Tim Stratton

 

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

/by
Skeptic God Evil

Skeptics Can’t Have It Both Ways

By

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

/by
Morality Meaning Hope

Does Scripture Ground Morality, Hope, and Meaning?

By Luke Nix  

Introduction

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

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

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

The Problems and Implications

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

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

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

The Proper Grounding and the Proper Role

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

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

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

A Necessary Clarification

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

Conclusion

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

To Further Investigate This Grounding, I Recommend:

Can Man Live Without God?– by Ravi Zacharias

Christian Ethics: Options and Issues– by Norman Geisler

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

 

/by
Minimal Facts Divine

Does The Minimal Facts Approach Dishonor God’s Word?

By Evan Minton

The Minimal Facts Approach is an approach to establishing the truth of Jesus’ resurrection using two criteria; (1) they must be facts that have a lot of evidence in their favor, and (2) these facts must be universally or nearly universally agreed upon by scholars and historians who study the subject, even the skeptical ones. Then, once the facts are established as facts, we then examine which explanation best explains them, and it turns out that only the He-Is-Risen hypothesis best explains all of them. These facts are (1) Jesus’ death by crucifixion, (2) Jesus’ empty tomb, (3) Jesus’ post-mortem appearances to His disciples, (4) Jesus’ post-mortem appearance to Paul, and (5) Jesus’ post-mortem appearance to James.

We establish these 5 facts by looking at secular historical documents as well as applying the standard historical “criteria of authenticity” to The New Testament documents. In doing so, we can establish the truth of Jesus’ resurrection in an evidential and non-question-begging way. I make the case for the resurrection in “The Minimal Facts Case For Jesus’ Resurrection PART 1” and “The Minimal Facts Case For Jesus’ Resurrection PART 2”, but if you think those are too lengthy, I have an abridged version of that first article titled “A Quick Case For Jesus’ Resurrection”. So, check those out if you want to go into the arguments and evidence. I also argue for the resurrection in chapter 8 of my book “Inference To The One True God”. 

One objection to this method of establishing Christianity’s central doctrine that I have encountered a few times is this: it dishonors God’s holy inspired word. Some Christians don’t like the minimal facts approach because it treats The New Testament documents as if they were ordinary documents written by ordinary people rather than inspired scripture. We don’t argue that Jesus’ tomb was empty “because The Bible says so” but rather, for example, “The tomb was likely empty because all 4 gospels mention women as the chief witnesses. They wouldn’t have done this if they were making it up because it was commonly thought that women were untrustworthy witnesses, to such an extent that they weren’t even permitted to serve as witnesses in a Jewish court of law. If they were making up this narrative, they would have had males the first one on the scene. Therefore, by the principle of embarrassment, we can conclude the tomb was empty.” As you can see, these two approaches are very different. The former takes the words of the New Testament at face value and concludes they’re true because The New Testament was inspired by God, whereas the latter approach has to apply some historical method to determine whether or not it’s true. This makes some Christians uncomfortable because it seems to suggest that God’s Word cannot be trusted to give us truthful information. It seems to treat the holy scriptures as just common literature which may or may not be true, or which may be true in some places but false in others.

The conclusion reached is that we, therefore, shouldn’t try to prove the resurrection (fideism), or if we do try to prove it, to prove it some other way that doesn’t demean The Bible (presuppositionalism). How might evidentialist Christian Apologists respond to this objection? Do we really demean God’s holy word when we argue for Jesus’ resurrection this way?

The Minimal Facts Approach Meets The Unbelievers Where They Are 

 It is very important that we reach unbelievers in a way that will be most effective to them. The Minimal Facts Approach reaches unbelievers where they are epistemologically. The non-Christian does not accept The Bible as God’s holy and inspired word and because of this, he, therefore, does not consider it authoritative, infallible, or inerrant. Therefore, it’s useless to just quote a passage from it and expect him to say “Well if it’s in The Bible, it must be true!” He doesn’t accept The Bible as authoritative, so he isn’t going be persuaded by this.

To help you get in their shoes: imagine if a Muslim tried to convince you of Islam by citing from the Quran. You wouldn’t be persuaded, would you? Why? Obviously, because you don’t think the Quran is inspired! You think it’s a fabrication by Muhammad. Well, atheists, agnostics, Muslims, and other non-Christians see The Bible the same way. If a Muslim were to convince me of Islam, he would have to take an approach to proving his religion that didn’t presuppose the inspiration of his holy book.

The Minimal Facts Approach does this. When we argue for the 5 minimal facts undergirding the inference to the resurrection, we don’t quote from The New Testament as inspired scripture. We do use The New Testament, but not as scripture. We use it as we would any other ancient document that claims to tell of historical events. We proceed to use the “criteria of authenticity” that historians use on many non-biblical documents, and we’ll see what we can affirm as true by that method. Principles such as multiple attestation, the principle of embarrassment, the principle of early attestation, the principle of dissimilarity, and so on. These are principles that historians use on secular documents all the time, in order to discern whether or not what they record is true.

Many non-Christians have come to faith through this approach, such as Lee Strobel, J. Warner Wallace, and Frank Morrison, just to name a few. These men went on to share this evidence they discovered with unbelievers they witnessed to.

We believe all of The Bible is inspired, but we pretend the gospels and epistles aren’t for the sake of the argument. The Christian Apologist is basically saying “Even if I conceded these weren’t inspired, I can still establish that the resurrection of Jesus is true.” All we are doing is simply meeting the unbeliever where he is.

This approach of meeting unbelievers where they are epistemologically is biblical. I noticed that Paul dealt with the unbelieving Jews in Berea and the unbelieving Pagans in Athens quite differently in Acts 17. With the Jews, he used scripture to reason with them, using arguments from fulfilled prophecy to prove to them that Jesus really is the messiah. With the Pagans, he didn’t use The Old Testament prophecies as evidence at all. Instead, he used philosophical arguments, and he appealed to their own Greek poets and pagan authors to establish his points. Click here to read the passage. 

In 1 Cortinthians 9:20-23, Paul wrote: “To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.”

 The Apostle Paul saw the importance of changing his tactics depending on who he was witnessing to. We should too. When I’m witnessing to atheists, agnostics, or other people who don’t believe The Bible is inspired, I employ arguments that don’t hinge on that presupposition. However, if I’m witnessing to a heretic who does believe scripture is inspired but has interpreted some passages in such ways as to come up with heretical doctrines (e.g Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons), then I will appeal to scripture to make my points. In the case of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, I’ll even refute their doctrines using the New World Translation (a twisted translation, but the only one they accept). I change my approach based on who I’m talking to. The Message doesn’t change, but the method of conveying the message does.

Conclusion 

 The Bible is the sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:17). It brings no shame to a sword just because you swing it differently in different battles. Sometimes you need to slash vertically, sometimes you need to slash horizontally, other times you need to stab. You need to wield a sword in the most effective way you can to deal with the particular fighting style of your enemy. This holds true for literal swords, one would think it would hold true of “The Sword Of The Spirit” (i.e The Bible) as well. Depending on our audience, we will either use The Bible as inspired scripture or as a collection of ancient writings which we will apply the historical method to.

When we use The Minimal Facts Approach, we are not at all suggesting that we distrust God’s word. Rather we are acknowledging that our audience distrusts God’s word, and we respect that, and we witness to them with that fact in mind.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2r3yJTa

/by
Student Apologist Listener

How to Become a True Student and a Better Apologist

By Michael C. Sherrard

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

/by
Phobia LGBT Jihad

Phobiaphobic

By Tim Stratton

It seems commonplace today for entire groups of people to be painted with a broad brushstroke and labeled as being afraid or fearful. The word “phobia” or “phobic” is often attached to the end of another word which is supposed to represent a group who is scared of other people.

So, what does it mean to be “phobic”? Consider Merriam Webster’s definition of phobia:

an exaggerated usually inexplicable and illogical fear of a particular object, class of objects, or situation

Oxford Dictionaries defines phobia as:

An extreme or irrational fear of or aversion to something.
‘she suffered from a phobia about birds’

Most have heard of certain types of fears. Here is a list of common phobias:Arachnophobia — Fear of spiders

Claustrophobia — Fear of being enclosed in a small space

Acrophobia — Fear of heights

Given these definitions, one whose fears do not follow logically or is an irrationally fearful person is “phobic.” Thus, this label can be used to communicate a psychological disorder with the person who was shot with the “label gun.”

Homophobia

We hear this quite often when Christians are typically labeled as “homophobes.” The one wielding the “label gun” is attempting to communicate to others (reading their labels), that Christians have an irrational fear of gay people. To be clear: as a Christian I am definitely not fearful or scared of homosexuals or anyone in the LGBT community. In fact, I do not know any Christians who are literally scared of gay people just because they are gay.

Christians do not hold an irrational fear of homosexuals; rather, most simply point out that the homosexual lifestyle is not intended by God — it is not the intended purpose of creation. Thus, the gay lifestyle “misses the mark,” and this is what it means to be sinful. These claims are not based in fear or hatred; they are grounded in love. Read my articles on this particular topic here, here, and here.

Logically demonstrating and pointing out that a person is living a sinful lifestyle should not be conflated with an irrational fear of the person. In fact, if anything is irrational, it is committing the logical fallacy of conflating a belief that a person is in sin, with fear of the person living in sin. This is unreasonable.

Islamaphobia

It is also quite popular today for Christians to be labeled as “Islamaphobes.” Is it irrational to fear Muslims? In one sense, perhaps, but in another sense, definitely not! The first thing we must realize is that it is vital to distinguish between irrational fears and healthy fears.

To be clear, although our world has been wrought with terror attacks from practicing Muslims since 9-11, the vast majority of Muslims are not violent extremists who wage jihad like those in ISIS. Thus, it seems irrational — in this sense — to fear all of those who are Muslim. After all, just because some Christians are mean to non-believers, it does not follow that all Christians act in a similar fashion.

There is a huge and vital difference, however, between these propositions. We are discussing ideologies. Specifically, we are discussing the teachings and commands of Mohammad and of Jesus — they differ drastically!

So, if one believes that Christianity it true, and they are not living consistently with the teachings of Jesus Christ (what Christianity is based on), if they come to think they should start living consistently with what they believe, then they will start loving all people from their neighbors to their enemies. The obedient Christ follower will make a daily attempt to not be mean and to love and respect all people as Jesus commanded. So, unless one fears being treated with love and respect, it would be nonsensical to fear a person who believes that Jesus’ commands correspond to reality and that our actions ought to correspond to reality too.

However, if one believes that Islam is true, then even if they were not living consistently with the teachings of Mohammad — and were not violent terrorists trying to kill all the infidels (they are peaceful) — it is still quite rational to have a healthy fear of this Muslim. Why is this? Because if he or she believes Islam is true and then starts to understand all that Mohammad actually commanded, and then decides to start living consistently with what they believe, then it follows that there is a good chance that they will harm you, or anyone else who is not a Muslim.

The Conflation of Ideas & Race

I will get back to that topic shortly. Before I expand on this, however, it is important to point out that many today seem to imply that if one is fearful of what Islam teaches, then you must be a racist (another label)! Those who assert this are once again guilty of the logical fallacy of conflation. Namely, conflating the beliefs of an individual with their DNA. These are two completely different issues that should not be conflated.

Allow me to make my point: regarding Islam — I am “Islamaphobic” (in a sense)! This is because I have an educated understanding of what Mohammad actually taught and commanded. Thus, all “good” Muslims (the ones who strive to live according to Muhammad’s teachings) should be feared because they want to convert or kill everyone who is not a Muslim.

Now, this has nothing to do with race (and to conflate this with race as mentioned above is a logical fallacy)! After all, if a white guy became a Muslim who believed he should “kill the infidel” as Mohammad commanded, then I would be just as “Islamaphobic” of that white guy because he wants to kill me. It is healthy and rational to fear those who want to kill you! This is about ideas — not race!

Thank God most Muslims are “bad Muslims” and do not follow all the teachings of Mohammad. However, as David Wood has shown, it does not take much to get an inconsistent Muslim (one who is peaceful) to become a consistent and “good muslim” (one who wants to kill you)! That is what scares me — but that is a healthy fear based on what Mohammad actually commanded.

The Jihadi Triangle

Consider the “Three Stages of Jihad” from David Wood:

As stated above, most Muslims are peaceful (thank God), but this is because they lack one of three essential ingredients that a seemingly “good” Muslim ought to possess:

1- Belief
2- Knowledge
3- Obedience

The foundation of the Triangle of Jihad is a simple belief that Islam is true. This belief does not have to be justified as one can hold this belief merely because their father told them that “there is no God but Allah.” This foundation is not sufficient for Jihad and terror, but it is a necessary condition.

The second part of this triangle is knowledge. That is, the individual believes that Islam is true and now they study the Qu’ran and the Hadith to understand exactly what Mohammad taught and commanded. Basically, this is an educated Islamic believer.

The final part of the triangle of jihad is obedience. An educated Islamic believer who has reached the decision that he ought to be obedient to Allah’s prophet is one who everyone should fear! This individual believes that Islam is true, understands that Mohammad commanded Muslims to kill everyone who is not a Muslim, and they believe they should obey Mohammad’s teachings, and thus, they want to kill you!

Conclusion

It is vital to note that Jihad all starts with one simply believing that Islam is true. So, even though it seems safe to say that Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Cat Stevens, Dave Chappelle, or Lindsay Lohan (the latest convert?) probably will not attempt murder, they do possess the first necessary condition that logically leads to the other two lines of the jihad triangle. Let’s hope these Muslims never gain an understanding of what consistent Islam entails.

Bottom line: it is not a phobia if a fear of something or someone is justified and thus, a rational fear. In fact, it seems irrational to not possess a healthy fear of a person whose worldview entails your demise.

Stay reasonable (Isaiah 1:18),

Tim Stratton

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

/by
Hitler Christianity History

So What If Hitler Was A Christian? (Would Hitler’s Christianity Hurt Historic Christianity?)

By

The holocaust, masterminded by Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime, devoured 11 million lives, among them were 6 million Jews, and the other 5 million comprising of people with mental and physical disabilities, communists, resistance fighters, Slavic people, homosexuals, priests, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and anarchists etc.

The antagonists of Historic Christianity argue that Adolf Hitler was a Christian, thereby accusing Historic Christianity as the primary cause for the holocaust. The defenders of Historic Christianity counter-argue to deny Hitler’s Christianity; instead suggesting that he may have been an atheist and that his non-Christian worldview was the primary cause of the holocaust.

If Hitler was a Christian, would Hitler’s Christianity hurt Historic Christianity? In order to think through this theme, let us consider the case for Hitler’s Christianity, the case for Hitler’s non-Christianity, and the interpretation of Hitler’s apparent Christianity.

Hitler Was A Christian

Richard Dawkins argues that Hitler was not an atheist but a Catholic Christian. Dawkins quoted Hitler’s 1922 speech wherein he referred to Jesus as “my Lord and Savior.”1

Popular atheist author Michael A. Sherlock in his article, “The Atheist Atrocities Fallacy – Hitler, Stalin & Pol Pot” argues for Hitler’s Christianity, “…Hitler was a Christian.  This undeniable fact couldn’t be made any clearer than by his own confessions…

To begin, here are just a few of Hitler’s Christian confessions:

“My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter.  It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth!  was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter.  In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders.  How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison.  To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross.  As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice…For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.” [3]

“The greatness of Christianity did not arise from attempts to make compromises with those philosophical opinions of the ancient world which had some resemblance to its own doctrine, but in the unrelenting and fanatical proclamation and defense of its own teaching.” [4]

“His [the Jew’s] life is of this world only and his mentality is as foreign to the true spirit of Christianity as is character was foreign to the great Founder of this new creed two thousand years ago. And the Founder of Christianity made no secret indeed of His estimation of the Jewish people. When He found it necessary He drove those enemies of the human race out of the Temple of God; because then, as always, they used religion as a means of advancing their commercial interests. But at that time Christ was nailed to the Cross for his attitude towards the Jews…” [5]

Over and above these solid testimonies, there are other equally strong pieces of evidence that indicate that Hitler was a Christian, like the fact that his soldiers all wore the slogan, ‘Gott Mit Uns’ (God with us) on their belts, that his birthday was “celebrated from the pulpits until his death,” as Hitchens so eloquently put it, and that the Nazis published their own slightly revised Christian bible. [6]…”2

Hitler Was Not A Christian

As much as the atheist argues for Hitler’s Christianity, there is enough evidence to argue that Hitler was not a Christian.

Hitler and his Nazi regime were much influenced by the ideology of German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). Hitler was consumed by the idea of “Superman” (who has a great “will to power” and would reign over other humans) that was taken from Nietzsche’s work “Thus Spoke Zarathustra.”

Nietzsche’s sister, Elizabeth Förster-Nietzsche was married to Bernhard Förster, a prominent leader of the German anti-Semitic movement. Elizabeth was a friend of Hitler. Elizabeth influenced the Nazi regime to an extent that Hitler was influenced by the Nietzschean ideology.

Hitler was so fascinated by the Nietzschean ideology that he had copies of “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” given to all his soldiers between 1933 and 1945. Hitler often visited the Nietzsche museum in Weimar at the invite of Elizabeth and proudly posed for photographs of him staring at the bust of Nietzsche.

When Hitler began his career, Germany was mostly a Christian nation. So Hitler often referred to himself as a follower of Christ. However, Hitler either imprisoned or executed more than 6000 clergymen on the charge of treasonable activity.

Significantly, after establishing the “National Reich Church” that projected Hitler as superman / god, Hitler banned the Bible and the cross. Bibles were replaced with copies of Mein Kampf and the cross was replaced with swastika.

Hitler also printed his version of the Bible, wherein words such as Messiah and Hallelujah were altered. Ten Commandments were revised to 12 Commandments. Hitler demanded worship; the Lord’s Prayer was revised, “Adolf Hitler, you are our great Fuhrer. Thy name makes the enemy tremble. Thy Third Reich comes; thy will alone is law upon the earth. Let us hear daily thy voice, and order us by thy leadership, for we will obey to the end, even with our lives We praise thee; hail Hitler Fuhrer my Fuhrer, given me by God. Protect and preserve my life for long. You saved Germany in time of need; I thank you for my daily bread; be with me for a long time, do not leave me, Fuhrer my Fuhrer, my faith, my light – hail, my Fuhrer.”3 This was recited by the Hitler Youth.

Hitler systematically gained control over the Protestant churches in Germany to make them an instrument of the Nazi regime. In response, the “Confessing Church” movement gained momentum within the German Protestant Churches to resist Hitler’s attempt.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German theologian, pastor and a founding member of the “Confessing Church.” Bonhoeffer and other leaders of the Confessing Church opposed the Nazi regime and sought to establish the true identity of the Church. Ultimately, Bonhoeffer was executed by hanging.

Think about this; had Hitler been a genuine Christian what was the necessity for a Christian rebellion against Hitler? Christians subscribing to Historic Christianity fervently opposed Hitler to an extent that they risked their own lives. They were either imprisoned or executed for their anti-Hitler rebellion.

Would Hitler’s Christianity Hurt Historic Christianity?

When our atheist friend argues that Hitler was a self proclaimed Christian, should the defenders of Historic Christianity negate that argument to begin a street fight with the atheist? Debunking Hitler’s Christianity need not be the one and the only option for us.

The other option is to ask a question, “If Hitler was a Christian, was he a genuine Christian?” The atheist primarily posits Hitler’s self proclamation as evidence to his Christianity. Self proclamation is inadequate to one’s identity as a Christian. A genuine Christian not only proclaims himself to be a Christian, but also obeys Christ through his deeds.

Genuine Christians do not kill as Hitler did. The very extermination of the 11 million people screams against Hitler’s so-called Christianity. Hitler’s execution of the leadership of the confessing church that included Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who actually sought to establish the true identity of the church, is most surely not a genuine Christian’s deed.

Friedrich Nietzsche was not a Christian; he constantly attacked the Christian ideals. A genuine Christian would not follow the Nietzschean ideology.

Significantly, a genuine Christian would not elevate himself into a position of “Superman” demanding worship of any form whatsoever. On the other hand, Hitler, so fascinated by Friedrich Nietzsche, and so desperate to be a superman, demanded that people revere him.

Therefore, however which way we may want to think, Hitler, even though he may have been a self-proclaimed Christian, was not a genuine Christian. So Hitler’s Christianity does not harm Historic Christianity, and any claim to Hitler’s Christianity can and should be ignored completely.

Endnotes:

Websites cited were last accessed on September 8, 2016.

1https://whydoyoubelieve.org/2016/09/01/hitlers-religion-christian-apologetics-faces-the-hitler-question/

2https://michaelsherlockauthor.wordpress.com/2014/10/21/the-atheist-atrocities-fallacy-hitler-stalin-pol-pot-in-memory-of-christopher-hitchens/

3http://www.cbn.com/700club/features/churchhistory/godandhitler/

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2q8wBYJ

/by
Resurrection Jesus Easter

A Quick Case For Jesus’ Resurrection

By Evan Minton

I’ve always struggled with brevity some of my apologetic presentations. The trick is to keep it a decent length while simultaneously not skimming on important facts. A handful of my blog posts are kind of long due to my struggle, but fortunately, the vast majority of them are at a length you would want a blog post to be. Given that it’s Easter weekend, I thought I would rewrite one of my articles on the resurrection specifically for the person who wants to get his information quickly. That said, I’ll still leave the longer ones up for those interested in a more in-depth study.

In this blog post, I plan on giving an overview of the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. Contrary to popular opinion, belief in Jesus’ resurrection isn’t something one has to believe on blind faith alone, one can confirm the resurrection on the basis of powerful historical evidence. The resurrection is important because if Jesus has risen from the dead, then God has put His stamp of approval on everything Jesus said and did. God agrees with Jesus’ ministry. This means that we can put great stock into anything Jesus taught about, such as His claim to be God, the existence of angels and demons, the existence of Heaven and Hell, and that He Himself is the only way to get to Heaven. It gives good reason to believe The Bible is divinely inspired, for Jesus Himself quoted from the Old Testament and taught that it is the word of God, and He commissioned apostles who would go on to write The New Testament. After all, who would be in a better position to know whether or not the Old Testament is divinely inspired than God Himself, and since God chose Matthew, Paul, Peter, etc. it makes sense to think that God put His stamp of approval on their teachings as well. So, if Jesus rose from the dead, that gives good grounds for believing in the inspiration of The Bible and for accepting whatever The Bible teaches.

Historical Method, Not “Using The Bible To Prove The Bible”
I want to make it clear that while I’ll be appealing to The New Testament at certain points in this article, I won’t be “quoting from The Bible to prove The Bible”. No, instead I’ll be applying the historical method to the New Testament documents to determine certain aspects as fact just as I would any other ancient document. Historians apply what is known as “the criterion of authenticity” to secular documents all the time in order to determine whether something is historical or not. That’s what I and many other Christian Apologists do with The New Testament. We apply historical principles like multiple attestation, the principle of embarrassment, the principle of enemy attestation, etc. to the gospels to argue that X, Y, and Z are more likely to be historical than not. And by the way, even non-Christian historians, like Bart Ehrman and Gerd Ludemann, take this approach with The New Testament when trying to gather information about the historical Jesus, and have come to many of the same conclusions that Christian historians have via the same arguments. They are certainly not presupposing The Bible’s divine authority when they argue, for example, that Jesus’ tomb was most likely empty because it would have been embarrassing for the gospel authors to have women as witnesses to the empty tomb.

When I argue for Jesus’ empty tomb, or for the postmortem appearances, I do not quote the New Testament as scripture and declare that since it’s in The Bible, it must be true. Rather, I presuppose that The New Testament documents are purely human documents for the sake of the argument, I apply the same principles or criteria of authenticity to the text, and when one does that one comes up with certain pieces of data which I think can only make sense in light of the hypothesis: God raised Jesus from the dead.

Two Step Process To The Resurrection Inference 
In the case for the resurrection, there are two steps.

1: What Are The Facts To Be Explained?
2: What Is The Best Explanation Of The Facts?

Fact 1: Jesus Died By Crucifixion

*Jesus’ death by Roman crucifixion is multiply attested in 7 independent documents. 4 of those sources are secular, 3 of them are from The New Testament.
Secular Sources — Josephus, Tacitus, Mara-Bar Sarapian, Lucian Of Samosata.
NT Sources — The Synoptic Gospels, The Gospel Of John, Paul’s Epistles.

This makes it overwhelmingly more probable that Jesus’ crucifixion is an event of history. It is statistically impossible for 7 independent sources to all make up the same story. Denial of crucifixion’s historicity entails that 7 sources fabricated the same lie independent of each other.

*Jesus’ crucifixion is attested to by sources hostile to Christianity (i.e Tacitus and Lucian). 
These sources would have nothing to gain by saying Jesus’ crucifixion really happened if it didn’t.  In fact, they are ridiculing Christianity in the very same context of their passages referring to the crucifixion of Jesus.

*Historical Fit makes it plausible that Jesus died by crucifixion.
Secular History attests to the fact that Romans crucified people in the first century. That Jesus was crucified fits well with what we know of first century crucifixions.

Fact 2: The Empty Tomb

*The Jerusalem Factor
If Jesus’ body was not absent from the tomb, the enemies of Christianity could have easily stomped out the movement by removing Jesus’ body from the tomb and showing it to everyone. If they did that, Christianity would have died before it even began. It did not die back then. We can infer from this fact that they did not take Jesus’ body out of the tomb in order to parade it down the street to prove to everyone that the resurrection claims of the disciples were false. Why didn’t they do this? Most likely because Jesus’ body was not even in the tomb to be taken out.

*All four gospels feature women as witnesses to the empty tomb.
Women were considered second class citizens back then and their testimony was considered worthless. The empty tomb narrative is most likely historical because it would have been awkward for the early church to have women as the chief witnesses when their testimony wasn’t considered valid back then. They would have made males the first ones on the scene if they were just conjuring up this narrative. So, by the principle of embarrassment, we know that the tomb of Jesus was empty.

*The enemies of Christianity claimed that the disciples stole the body. This presupposes the empty tomb.
Even though our knowledge of this claim comes from Matthew 28, we can still count this as enemy attestation. Matthew said they were spreading the story “to this day”, which means if Matthew said the pharisees were saying this when they really weren’t, he would be easily found out by those alive “to this day”. Matthew wouldn’t open himself up to such easy falsification. Secondly, people don’t usually respond to accusations unless someone actually made that accusation of them. For example, you wouldn’t deny stealing your friend’s car unless he accused you of stealing it.

Fact 3: Jesus’ Post-Mortem Appearances To The Disciples 

*Paul’s List Of Appearances In 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 Gives Us Powerful Reason To Believe These Appearances Occurred. 
Paul’s citing an early creed that he himself received. We know this is a creed because he says “For what I received, I passed onto you as of first importance” This is ancient rabbinic language employed whenever oral tradition was being passed on. Plus, Paul’s word usage in verses 3-8 is foreign to Paul in the rest of his epistles. On top of that, Paralellism (long sentence followed by a short sentence followed by a long sentence again) implies that this is a creed since this structure was common to oral tradition to contribute to easy memorization.

Paul most likely got the creed from Peter and James during his fact-finding mission that he recounts in Galatians 1:18-19, which would mean this creed goes back to eyewitnesses of the resurrection. That this is when Paul received this creed is plausible from the fact that Peter and James are two individuals explicitly named, plus Paul’s use of “historieasi” which indicates they were talking about recent events.

Therefore, the creed goes back to within only a few years of Jesus’ crucifixion. This list of appearances is so early that anyone skeptical about them could question the witnesses to see if the creed were accurate. If these people did not see Jesus as the creed claims, then the cat would be out of the bag and Christianity would be discredited. Many scholars have noted that Paul’s mentioning of many of the witnesses still being alive is most likely a challenge from Paul to question these witnesses, as if Paul were essentially saying “Don’t believe me? Go talk to them yourselves! Go ask them yourselves!”

*The Appearance Narratives In The Gospels Provide Multiple, Independent Attestation Of The Appearances. 
The appearances to the disciples are mentioned in 3 independent sources.

1: 1 Corinthians 15
2: The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
3: The Gospel Of John.

It is highly unlikely that three independent sources would all fabricate the same lie. Given that we have at least three sources for the post-mortem appearances to the disciples, we have good grounds for confirming that the disciples believed they saw the risen Jesus.

Fact 4: The Post-Mortem Appearance To Paul

*Saul Of Tarsus was hired by the Jewish Sanhedrin to persecute Christians by beating them, throwing them into prison, stoning them to death, etc. 
The Principle of Embarrassment makes it highly likely that he was indeed a persecutor. People don’t make up horrible things about themselves, and usually, don’t admit them even if they’re true. Yet in 3 different epistles, Paul says that he was a harsh persecutor of Christians before his conversion (see 1 Corinthians 15:9, Galatians 1:13, 1 Timothy 1:13).

Multiple Attestation — Both Paul’s epistles and the book of Acts say that Paul was a persecutor of the church.

*Saul Converted To Christianity all of a sudden and became an active evangelist who suffered for his faith. 
Multiple Attestation — Paul attests to his own suffering for the sake of the gospel in his epistles. The book of Acts also records Paul’s suffering.

The early church fathers, Polycarp, Tertullian, Clement of Rome, and several others record the account of Paul’s martyrdom under the emperor Nero.

*Saul — who later became known as Paul — claimed that he went from being a Christian destroyer to being a Christian maker because the risen Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus. This is the most reasonable explanation for why he went from being someone who killed Christians to being a Christian himself virtually overnight. 

Fact 5: Jesus’ Post Mortem Appearance To James

*Jesus had a brother named James who did not believe He was God incarnate or the messiah during Jesus’ lifetime. 
Multiple Attestation — The Gospel Of John (chapter 7) and The Gospel Of Mark (chapter 3) both attest to Jame’s skepticism. Very unlikely that they both fabricated the same lie independent of each other.

The Principle Of Embarrassment — Casts Jesus in a bad light given the stigma back then of any Rabbi whose family opposed his teaching. Casts James in a bad light, particularly in John 7 because in John 7, James and Jesus’ other brothers are trying to goad Him into a death trap by showing himself publicly at a feast when they were well aware that the Jewish authorities were seeking to kill Him. Why would John paint James and Jesus’ other brothers in such a bad light if this is not what actually happened?

*A short time after Jesus’ death, James came to believe that Jesus had risen from the dead
Multiple Attestation — The book of Acts as well as Paul’s letter to the Galatians (Galatians 2:9) reveals that James had become a leader of the church in Jerusalem.

*James was Martyred for his Christian faith
Multiple Attestation — Josephus, Hegesippus, and Clement Of Alexandria all record that James were murdered by the Jewish Sanhedrin for his belief in Jesus as the risen Messiah.

*The Most Likely Explanation for why James went from being a skeptic to being a believer virtually overnight is because the risen Jesus appeared to him as 1 Corinthians 15:7 says. 

Conclusion
This is the historical evidence for the 5 facts undergirding the inference to the resurrection. The hypothesis “God raised Jesus from the dead” is the best explanation of these 5 facts. It meets all 6 of the standard criteria for confirming a historical theory.

1: It has great explanatory power.
2: It has great explanatory scope.
3: It is plausible.
4: Not ad-hoc.
5: It is in accord with accepted beliefs.
6: It outstrips rival theories in criteria 1-5. None of the naturalistic theories raised over the last 2,000 years to explain these 5 facts are tenable. They all fail.

For a more in-depth treatment, check out chapter 8 of my book “Inference To The One True God”, and the longer article this one is based on, “The Miminal Facts Case For Jesus’ Resurrection PART 1”. 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2q4d761

/by