Tag Archive for: apologetics

There are two kinds of skeptics. Jesus demonstrated how to deal with both types

We can gain knowledge about the subject of Christian apologetics until our eyes bug out of our heads. But knowing how to apply that information in our everyday lives is another animal. And a big part of learning effective communication is knowing our audience.

I’m old enough to remember those cheezy WWJD bracelets from the ’90s. I’m sure they decorated the wrist of many a Newsboys concert-goer. They do raise a good question that we’ll apply here. What did Jesus do when faced with doubters? Let’s look at a couple of examples:

The open-minded doubter – John the Baptist

Yes, even a spiritual stalwart like John the Baptist went through a period of doubt in his life. Despite being a prophet who emphatically preached that Jesus was the coming Messiah, John went through a crisis of faith near the end of his life.

We read in Matthew 3 that John confidently believed he was God’s messenger in fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy. (Isaiah 40:3) He said that he wasn’t worthy to even carry Jesus’ sandals and that Jesus would be Israel’s divine judge. He saw the Spirit of God descend on Jesus and heard the voice that Jesus was God’s divine Son. (Matthew 3:12-16)

But then things went south after he confronted Herod for marrying his brother’s wife. Herod imprisoned John, and John sent a few of his disciples out to Jesus with the question, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”

Apparently, being locked up in a dungeon for speaking truth to power shook him up. Maybe he was expecting Jesus to set up the Kingdom of God a little more quickly and spring him from the pokey. John started to question his calling, and if what he was giving his life for was real.

Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.” (Matthew 11:2-6)

Jesus pointed to the miracles as evidence of him being the Messiah. He was also referring to Isaiah 35:4-6 and Isaiah 61:1, showing that he was fulfilling the Messianic prophecy to tighten the case. Jesus started preaching after John was imprisoned (Mark 1:14) so he might not have been fully aware of Jesus’ miracles.

Furthermore, as John’s disciples were leaving but still within an earshot, Jesus went on to say that John was a great prophet and the messenger of the covenant that Malachi prophesied about. (Matthew 11:7-12, Malachi 3:1) This was just the kind of shot in the arm that John needed. Notice that Jesus didn’t slam John for having a question or tell him to have blind faith; instead, he gave evidence. Jesus then talked about how great John was to the crowd, many of whom were probably baptized by John.

Jesus exemplified the command of Jude “have mercy on those who doubt” (Jude 23). As Christians, it’s vital we recognize who around us is going through doubt but are still open and humble enough to receive from us. John wanted to believe but was struggling. We need to see the ‘why’ behind some doubter’s questions and give them the ammo they need to persevere.

The Hostile Crowd – Jesus and the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Says he wants evidence, but…

The religious experts were entrenched in their belief that Jesus was a false teacher. In the very next chapter in Matthew, they demanded that he would demonstrate a miraculous sign as evidence. Jesus didn’t mince words with them. Let’s take a look at Matthew 12:38-42:

“He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now something greater than Jonah is here. The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, and now something greater than Solomon is here.”

It’s interesting to note that Jonah didn’t perform any miracles. The Ninevites didn’t have the evidence that Jesus was providing. The Pharisees and Sadducees were well aware already that Jesus was healing the sick. They could interview eyewitnesses. They even saw him cast out demons and said he did it by the power of Beelzebub! (Matthew 12:24)

But in the case of Ninevah, they did respond to evidence. They instinctively knew that they were breaking God’s moral law and needed to repent, that’s why they listened to Jonah. So the men of Ninevah would rise up and condemn them because they responded to the ‘lesser’ evidence – the moral facts written on their heart and their own conscience convicting them.
(Romans 2:14-15)

Jesus next gives the example of the Queen of the South as someone who would rise up and judge them for their disbelief. Think about it for a second. You have this queen, deep in Africa, hearing about a wise king in Israel who knew God. For days she traveled thousands of miles (no cars or planes back then) just to seek out his wisdom. She said, “The report I heard in my own country about your achievements and your wisdom is true. But I did not believe these things until I came and saw with my own eyes. Indeed, not even half was told me.” (1 Kings 10:6)

So she didn’t believe it at first, but because she valued truth and wisdom enough, she went to great lengths to at least check it out. By contrast, these Pharisees who stood in the presence of the miracle-working Jesus and said, like the famous skeptic Bertrand Russell, “not enough evidence, God!”. Jesus refused to give them more evidence and pointed to the fact that there are those who had less evidence responded correctly because of their hearts.

What do we learn from Jesus about responding to doubters?

We need to not only be ready to give a reason for why we believe what we believe, but we need to be able to read our audience. For those who saw the importance and were open to believing, Jesus took a merciful approach and gave them more info.

For the crowd that demanded that eyewitness testimony wasn’t enough, Jesus wasn’t having it. He told them that others have responded with lesser-but-sufficient evidence and that they didn’t have any excuse. The Ninevites just had Jonah’s preaching and their own consciences. The Queen of Sheba just had someone’s word for it and decided it was well worth looking into, even at great expense.

Jesus saw through their fake inquisitiveness and looked at the heart behind the question. The takeaway here is this, and don’t miss this: Don’t waste your time with the rude and bombastic skeptic! Don’t feed the trolls! It doesn’t mean you can’t respond to them for the sake of those who might be listening, but it’s also OK to call them out on the attitude of their heart.

I like to ask these types of skeptics what kind of evidence would convince them. Often the response I’ve received is that “Jesus would have to personally appear to me” or “God would have to write my name in the sky.” Well, OK, then. That’s not a person I’m going to be able to help much. That’s a double standard that they don’t apply to anything else. They get onto airplanes, buy computers, cars, and homes with far less evidence.

In a podcast, Christian apologist William Lane Craig addresses this sort of hypocrisy:

“I’ve noticed this with people in the free thought community. They have a sort of skeptical dial that they can ratchet way up when it comes to Christian beliefs so that almost nothing could provide sufficient evidence for these, but when it comes to their own worldview and commitments they dial it way down so that they don’t need to provide virtually any justification for their own beliefs in order for these to be rational. That, of course, is just hypocrisy. That is self-serving. If they are going to extol the virtues of doubt with respect to religious beliefs, they need to also extol those same virtues with regard to their own atheistic beliefs.”

So again: Have mercy on the Christian having doubts. Help the skeptic who is beginning to doubt their doubts. But for the convinced and rudely aggressive skeptic, don’t cast your pearls before swine. (Matthew 7:6) They’re hypocrites, and we know that Jesus called out hypocrites. Love them, pray for them, but if they’re going to be unreasonable, be kind but firm. And then move on to people who aren’t so prejudiced.

Conversations with Jehovah’s Witnesses

Theology and Christian Apologetics

By J. Brian Huffling

“There are some Jehovah’s Witnesses in the neighborhood if you want to talk them,” my wife said. I was excited. I have had numerous and long-standing discussions with Mormons, but never anything meaningful with Jehovah’s Witnesses. After a while, they finally came to my door. While I couldn’t talk to them at the time, we scheduled a meeting for them to come back. I have been meeting with them for about a month now. It has been great! I have studied their teachings for a while, but I have never had the chance to get it from the horse’s mouth and really ask questions to help me better understand their belief system. It really has been a lot of fun, and I would like to share my experiences with you, including their beliefs and the questions I have asked them.

The Name of Jehovah

The first teaching they shared with me was the importance of the name “Jehovah.” In Hebrew (the original language of the Old Testament) God’s personal name is Yahweh. The original Hebrew did not contain vowels, and so this name was spelled YHWH. It was thought to be sacred, and so the Hebrew scribes did not want to pronounce the divine name. Instead, they added the letters of Adonai, which means “Master” or “Lord.” Thus, we get the English spelling “Yahoveh.” Rumor has it that “Jehovah” came about because the Germans had a hard time pronouncing the “Y” and instead made a “J” sound, hence, Jehovah.

However, this name Jehovah came about; Jehovah’s’ Witnesses are adamant that we should call him by his divine name. They teach that English translations have lost this teaching, and it is important to get it right. This is one reason they have their own version of the Bible, which is called the “New World Translation.” Translating words like YHWH as Jehovah is just one difference, and relatively minor in comparison to other teachings that drastically change the text.

Jesus Is “a” God, Not God Almighty

I was surprised that they threw this one at me right out of the gate, but on the second meeting, they brought an elder who admitted that in their view, Jesus is not God. I had known this teaching for years but was not sure exactly how open they would be about it. Happily, for me, they were very open about it. After some general teaching through a pamphlet that they gave me, the elder and I agreed to focus on the topic of Jesus’ deity on our next meeting. I did some preparation, so I could try to prove to them that Jesus did, in fact claim to be God.

He ended up coming by himself on this particular visit, and we went over two passages of Scripture from which he wanted to demonstrate that Jesus was a created being and thus not God. One passage was Proverbs 8:22-23, which says: “The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old. 23 Ages ago, I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth” (ESV). His point was that “Wisdom” refers to Jesus. I do not remember getting a very clear answer as to why he thought this, but I pointed out that as wisdom literature, “Wisdom” is personified often, and even as a woman. In fact, verse twelve says, “I, wisdom, dwell with prudence, and I find knowledge and discretion.” I asked, “If Wisdom is Jesus, then who is Prudence?” There was no real answer.

His second, and more well-known passage cited by them on this topic, was Colossians 1:15, which says, “He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” Since Jesus is “the firstborn of all creation,” Jehovah’s Witnesses argue that he is the first created being. However, the Greek word for ‘firstborn’ actually means “preeminent”, not the first in a series of things. In fact, the Greek translation of Psalm 89:27 uses the exact word for David: “And I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.” However, David was not only not the firstborn, he was the last born. So I argued these two passages are not teaching that Jesus was created. The first was simply a personification of wisdom, which happens all the time in Hebrew wisdom literature. And the second simply doesn’t mean what they say it means. The elder was not convinced, and even said that we can’t go by what the dictionary says. I could not knock him off his script on this point. He simply refused to concede what the word means.

I offered several lines of argument that Jesus claimed to be God. For example, Isaiah 44:6 says, “I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god.” However, in Revelation 1:17-18 Jesus claimed, “I am the first and the last, 18 and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.” This is Jesus talking and not Jehovah (Jehovah never died according to Jehovah’s Witnesses). That Jesus was the one speaking was agreed upon by the elder. My point was that if Jehovah was claiming to be the first and the last and so was Jesus, then Jesus was claiming to be Jehovah. The reply was that Jesus merely was thinking like Jehovah, not claiming to be Jehovah. However, as I pointed out, this is not what the text says. (See this post for more material on Jesus’ claims to deity.)

After making several connections like the one above, I asked the elder what would make him believe Jesus was God if such clear identity claims did not serve as evidence. His answer was that God would not allow himself to be put to death by men. (To be clear, Christians don’t believe God was put to death; rather, the human nature of Jesus was put to death. His deity can not be touched by death.) We never agreed on the deity of Jesus.

Jesus Was Raised from the Dead Spiritually, Not Physically

The elder brought another Jehovah’s Witnesses for this meeting where we further discussed Jesus’ deity and the resurrection. They believe that Jesus pre-existed his human life as the archangel Michael. His life was transferred to the virgin Mary, and he became a human. The elder said that after Jesus’ death he was raised, but spiritually, not physically. He argued that flesh and blood cannot enter the kingdom of God, and since Jesus is in Heaven, he must be spiritual. He also pointed to Scriptures where those who talked to him on the road to Emmaus did not recognize Jesus after his resurrection. Thus, he was not in his former body. For example, Luke 24:13-16 reads, “That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, 14 and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. 15 While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. 16 But their eyes were kept from recognizing him.” As I pointed out, the text does not say he looked different, but “their eyes were kept from recognizing him.” Further, Scripture teaches that Jesus was raised in his same physical body he had.

Luke 24:39-43 states: “See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” 40 And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. 41 And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 and he took it and ate before them.” Clearly, Jesus was claiming to be a physical being. This was not contested by the elder. However, his response was simply that Jesus materialized in the way angels could in the Old Testament.

I pointed out that John 2:19-21 says, “Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ 20 The Jews then said, ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?’ 21 But he was speaking about the temple of his body.” So, the same body that was killed would be raised up after death. It is also important to note that in Acts 2:24 Peter says that God raised up Jesus: “God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death because it was not possible for him to be held by it.” This is another claim to Jesus’ deity since he said, “I will raise” my body, and here Peter says, “God raised up Jesus.”

In the end, I asked them what evidence would count for the physical resurrection, even in principle, since Jesus saying that the same body that was killed was the same one raised, and he demonstrated his body to be physical in many ways and on many occasions. But if showing his physical body after his resurrection doesn’t count as evidence (in conjunction with the claim that the same body would be raised), then it seems like nothing in principle could ever be used as evidence for a physical resurrection. The younger Jehovah’s Witness tried to change the subject, but I politely asked for an answer. There really wasn’t one.

The New World Translation, The Trinity, and Jesus

We will be discussing the Trinity next time, although it came up in our last meeting. Jehovah’s Witnesses deny the Trinity. They teach it is a pagan lie and that Christianity stole the idea from other religions that also had trinities; however, such is false. Other religions had a triad of beings but nothing like the Christian view of the Trinity. But Jehovah’s Witnesses cannot hold to the Trinity since they deny Jesus is God. They further teach that the Holy Spirit is not a person but rather God’s active force. In their own translation of the Bible, the New World Translation, “Holy Spirit” is actually translated “active force.” In the NWT, Genesis 1:2 actually says, “…and God’s active force was moving about over the surface of the waters.” This is a gross mistranslation that betrays the NWT‘s bias. The Hebrew is accurately translated in the ESV: “And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” There is simply no justification for translating “spirit” as “active force.”

Another, perhaps the most famous, example of bias in the NWT is John 1:1. The ESV reads, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The NWT adds the word “a” to make the text read: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god.” The reason they give is that in Greek the word “God” does not have the word “the” (the definite article) in front of it, which would make it definite. (Greek sometimes has the definite article before nouns even though English doesn’t always translate it. Greek can read “the God” which is merely translated “God.”) They claim that without the definite article, “God” should be translated indefinitely as “a god.” However, as one scholar has pointed out, the NWT only follows this principle 6% of the time. In fact, in John 1:6 the word “God” appears in Greek without the article and the NWT still translates it “God” as referring to Jehovah. This is clear bias. Without going into Greek grammar suffice it to say that a word can be definite even without the article in front of it. In Greek the article has a very rich and broad way of functioning. In Daniel Wallace’s Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, over 100 pages are dedicated to how the article functions (and by the way he argues against the NWT‘s translation here—which incidentally is where my earlier 6% came from). In short, Greek scholars are not impressed with the NWT, to put it nicely.

Conclusion

I hope that this brief article has helped make you more aware of the teachings of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. For direct info regarding their beliefs see their website. An excellent resource to explain and counter their views is Ron Rhodes’ Reasoning from the Scriptures with the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Robert Bowman, Jr also has excellent material, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses.

What is “Social Justice”? with J. Warner Wallace

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J. Warner Wallace guest hosts the show this week and answers a listener email about the nature of “social justice”. What is the definition of this term and how do people typically interpret it? Is social justice commanded in the Jewish and Christian scriptures? Is there a difference between “social justice” and “biblical justice”? If so, how do these two terms differ and how are we, as Christians supposed to respond in this area? J. Warner delineates the differences using an investigative template.

If you want to send us a question for the show, please email us at Hello@CrossExamined.org.

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October 4, 2019/by Guest

Tacitus — Ancient Roman Historian — Reports on Jesus

Jesus Christ, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Ryan Leasure

Most of what happened in the ancient world went unrecorded. Think about it. People from bygone eras didn’t have technology like YouTube, TV, or the internet — much less the printing press. It’s sad, really. We’ll never know about 99.99% of what happened back then. The less than 1% we do know is because a few literate historians covered the highlights.

We know about famous military commanders and epic battles. Emperors and politicians of powerful kingdoms also make the cut. But most events and people have vanished off the historical landscape.

With Jesus of Nazareth, though, we have four biographies on his life all dating within the lifetime of eye-witnesses. We also have a slew of letters by some of his other followers, making him one of the best-attested individuals in the history of the ancient world. It’s quite remarkable considering he came from a backwoods section of Galilee far removed from prominent Roman locations.

Historians normally gush over this amount of material. The amount and quality of sources towers just about everyone else. Yet some skeptics cry foul. They don’t accept the Gospels or New Testament letters for the reason that they’re Christian documents.

Well, as it turns out, we have other, non-Christian sources also testifying to Jesus. One such source comes from the pen of an early Roman historian named Tacitus. As you’ll see, Tacitus corroborates significant events from the New Testament.

Tacitus, the Greatest Roman Historian

Cornelius Tacitus (AD 55-120) is often called the “greatest historian” of ancient Rome. He authored two large works — the Annals and the Histories.

Much of what he wrote is now lost to us. Fortunately, there’s one remaining portion which is of interest to this discussion. The portion describes Nero blaming the Christians for the great fire of Rome (AD 64). It reports:

Therefore, to stop the rumor, Nero substituted as culprits and punished in the utmost refinements of cruelty, a class of men, loathed for their vices, whom the crowd styled Christians. Christus, the founder of the name, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilatus, and the pernicious superstition was checked for a moment, only to break out once more, not merely in Judea, the home of the disease, but in the capital itself, where all things horrible or shameful in the world collect and find a vogue.1

What do we learn from Tacitus’ work?

Christians are named after their founder, Christus.
Christus died by the death penalty during Emperor Tiberius’ reign (AD 14-37).
Pontius Pilatus, procurator (AD 26-36), sentenced Christus to death.
Christus’ death ended the “pernicious superstition” for only a short time.
The “pernicious superstition” broke out once more in Judea, the “home of the disease.”
The “disease” spread all the way to Rome and had a large enough following to receive blame for the great fire.

Doubting Tacitus?

As is abundantly obvious, Tacitus’ quote provides a significant amount of corroboration for the New Testament. Jesus died by crucifixion during the reign of Tiberius while Pilatus was procurator of Judea. Moreover, the movement was only “checked for a moment, only to break out once more.”

The implications for this last quote are massive, to say the least. As J.N.D. Anderson remarks:

It is scarcely fanciful to suggest that when he adds that “a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out” he is bearing indirect and unconscious testimony to the conviction of the early church that the Christ who had been crucified had risen from the grave.2

On the face of it, Tacitus makes massive claims in support of the New Testament, which is why skeptics try to dismiss it. And they usually give four reasons for doing so.

“It’s a Christian Interpolation”

Skeptics argue that Christians inserted this portion of the text at a later date, but there is no compelling reason for believing this. First and foremost, it’s difficult to imagine a Christian describing his movement as a “pernicious superstition” and a “disease.” As a general rule, people don’t usually label themselves this way.

Furthermore, if Christians really inserted this text into Tacitus’ work, they certainly could have been more clear about Jesus’ resurrection. While the claim that the “superstition broke out again in Judea” implies a resurrection, it’s not entirely clear.

It seems that if Christians had the opportunity to insert a paragraph here, they would have said something more explicit.

“It’s Anachronistic”

A second argument skeptics make against this quote is that it refers to Pilatus as “procurator” — the title during Tacitus’ day — instead of “prefect” — the title during Jesus’ day. That is, it’s anachronistic, and therefore, unreliable.

Again, as a reminder, Tacitus’ reputation as an accurate historian is without question.3 Be that as it may, what should we make of the skeptics’ claim?

First, we should note that Tacitus may have intentionally used the term his readers would have been familiar with for clarity sake. For example, I might write about a “bishop” from the second century, but call him a “pastor” for a contemporary audience because that’s a term readers are familiar with. There’s no reason why Tacitus couldn’t have employed this tactic.

Second, we should also note that other Jewish historians of the first century — Philo and Josephus — both refer to Pilate as a “procurator.” While the term “prefect” was legitimate, it appears that both “procurator” and “prefect” are used interchangeably.

“It’s Hearsay”

Third, skeptics reject this as an original source and claim that Tacitus was simply repeating hearsay from Christians. One line of evidence they suggest is that Tacitus uses Jesus’ title “Christus” rather than his legal name “Jesus.”

This argument doesn’t hold water either. In response, we need to remember that Tacitus was writing about Christians and the origin of their name, so his use of “Christus” instead of “Jesus” seems logical.

Second, it’s difficult to imagine that a great historian like Tacitus, who elsewhere carefully investigated sources, would simply jot down hearsay from a group of Christians. Moreover, I wonder why Tacitus would blindly trust this group he refers to as a “pernicious superstition” and a “disease” and include their fables about Jesus in his history if he didn’t have any other source to substantiate his claim.

While making a substantial claim about a Roman official condemning someone to death, Tacitus would have been especially motivated to get his facts straight.

“It’s Unofficial”

Finally, skeptics argue that Tacitus wouldn’t have had access to any official records that would record Jesus’ death. But I find this terribly unpersuasive.

For starters, Tacitus himself held high government positions (proconsul of Asia). Additionally, he had close connections with others in power, such as Pliny the Younger and his wife, who happened to be the daughter of Julius Agricola, the governor of Britain. It seems silly to suggest he wouldn’t have had access to government records.

Furthermore, we know he had access to the Acta Senatus (archives of the Roman Senate’s activities) as he cites it multiple times in his works. Jesus’ crucifixion may very well have appeared in these archives or in others similar to it.

Knowing the kind of historian Tacitus was, if he didn’t have iron-clad proof that Pontius Pilate sanctioned Jesus’ crucifixion, he would have couched his statement with “Christians report that…” rather than making an unequivocal claim.

Good Corroborating Evidence

In the end, the Tacitus text stands up to scrutiny and provides solid corroborating evidence for the New Testament. While he views Christians in a negative light, he proves to be a reliable non-Christian source for major events in Jesus’ life.

Apologetics as Conversation

Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Mikel Del Rosario

Hey, Can We Talk?

Seeing apologetics as a conversational ministry

There’s an Indian proverb that says, “You don’t cut off a man’s nose and give him a rose to smell.” I first heard this from Ramesh Richards, who applies this idea to apologetics. He says that sometimes, in the midst of talking about God, Jesus, or the Bible with skeptics, some Christians seem to “destroy them in the process of contest and debate.” That stuck with me.

While apologists often cite 1 Peter 3:15, focusing on the command to be “prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you,” some tend to neglect the rest of the command, “yet do it with gentleness and respect.” Think about apologetics training in a church or school context. Each lesson usually focuses on philosophical, theological, or historical issues, and the instructor often gives less attention to the personal aspects of practical engagement in everyday conversations. The content isn’t bad, but we need practical training for having conversations, too.

So how can we approach difficult spiritual conversations? At the Hendricks Center, we’ve dedicated a number of episodes on the Table Podcast dedicated to exploring the concept of dialogical apologetics—a practical approach which sees apologetic engagement not merely as a debate but as genuine dialogue.

In this post, I’ll share three ideas we need to incorporate into the way we think about engaging in apologetics: First, we need to see apologetics as a ministry. Second, we need to adapt our approach to a shifting culture. Third, we need to earn the right to be heard–especially in difficult spiritual conversations.

See Apologetics As Ministry

While some Christians seem reluctant to discuss the faith with their skeptical friends, others seem almost too eager to tear down objections and refute people’s challenges to Christian truth claims. What kind of attitude should we have as we prepare for difficult spiritual conversations? How can we alleviate some of the tension, so we don’t automatically get defensive? On an episode of the Table Podcast called, “How to Engage in Spiritual Conversations,” Mary Jo Sharp talked about seeing apologetics as a ministry. She said:

The first thing I want to demonstrate to a person is that I care about them. So, what we’re about to discuss is all wrapped up in, “Do I really want to serve this person?” I’ve had atheists tell me they felt like Christians made them a project. Like they just wanted to throw their [talking] points at them, and if they weren’t ready to accept those points, they just walk away. That makes them feel like a project rather than a person. I want to avoid that…

Many Christians don’t talk to other people about their faith because they don’t know their faith. They are not trained in essential Christian doctrine. They’re not comfortable in their Christian skin… We have to know what we believe and why we believe it. Early on in Christianity, I felt intimidated to share my faith with others, because I didn’t know why I believed it. And that’s just vital to having an effective conversation where you don’t get defensive—knowing your own beliefs.

So, knowing what you believe and why you believe it can give you the confidence you need to engage in spiritual conversations. But even before we start to engage, let’s look at apologetics as a ministry. Who says apologists have to be stern or super serious all the time? Sometimes we get a bad rap as the kinds of people who walk into conversations looking for a fight. But ministry means service. I believe there is apologetic value to remaining calm in difficult spiritual conversations and genuinely serving the other person.

When you have confidence in the truth of the Christian worldview, it should allow you to minister to the person by listening to their views and the stories behind them. Approaching these encounters with a desire to minister to the person can reduce the tension you feel. And it can help you avoid getting defensive or becoming argumentative.

Adapt to a Shifting Culture

While the truth hasn’t changed, challenges to the Christian worldview have evolved. And we need for a new generation of apologists who are sensitive to current conversations around transgenderism, religious freedom, and the intersection of faith and vocation. What kinds of issues are people already talking about as they try to sort out the tensions of life? These kinds of hot-button issues especially need to be approached from the standpoint of dialogue, not debate.

On an episode of the Table called, “Truth, Love, and Defending the Faith,” I sat down with Sean McDowell to talk about how the next generation of apologists can engage the culture in rapidly-shifting times. He said:

Truth remains the same, but culture changes. A new kind of apologist is [a Christian who says], “Let’s take stock, because a lot of things have changed around us today. Let’s make sure that we’re communicating the gospel and defending the faith in a way that’s God-honoring and effective in our culture today.”

Back in the second century, there was a group of Greek Apologists like Justin Martyr who defended the faith in a pagan, Greco-Roman context. They had to learn to “read and react” to what was going on in the public square. In the same way, we need a new generation of apologists who are able to address a variety of cultural issues as they make the case for Christianity in the public square today.

Earn the Right to be Heard

So a new kind of apologist sees apologetics as a ministry and adapts to a shifting culture. But he or she also knows how to earn the right to be heard in a society that often pushes back against Christianity. On the same episode, I asked my mentor Darrell Bock about this. Here’s what he said:

There are three important elements: One is earning the respect and credibility of someone by the way you relate to the person next to you, the way you engage them, their seeing your sincerity. Christianity has an inherent critique of the way people live. That’s not an easy thing to deal with. They won’t care about your critique unless they know you care. That’s step one.

The second requires a significant adjustment…We’re used to saying, “The Bible says [a proposition is true] and so it’s true.” That’s how we think about it. “It’s true because it’s in the Bible.” I like to reverse that and get people to think about maybe it’s in the Bible because it’s true…So what makes this true? What makes this authentic about a way to live that we need to probe in order to understand why God would put it in his inspired word?

Because what God is communicating to us are the realities of life and if we appreciate why those realities are the way that they are, why the truth is true…you don’t have to appeal to the Bible for it. You can also appeal for what this means for quality of life, or for human flourishing, the common good, [what] makes it valuable, and you can lead people into reflecting on the nature of what it is you’re arguing for in and of itself without appealing to the Bible for the warrant. For someone [for whom] the Bible is not a warrant—to say “The Bible says it” doesn’t do them much good.

Third, there’s a way to have a conversation across a table with someone that emphasizes that aspect of the equation…[to see] apologetics as a conversation rather than thinking about it as a debate…that is the right tonal way into the conversation.

So there are three things here. One is how you relate, the second is knowing how to make the argument, and this third one is understanding you’re not in a debate, you’re in a conversation and it’s important to draw a person into the topic that you’re talking about.

Conclusion

The Indian proverb gets it right. There’s no point in giving someone a rose to smell if you’ve cut off their nose. But the flip side is also true. A gift of a rose and its smell is especially sweet when it comes from someone who actually cares about you. Let’s see apologetics as a ministry, adapt our approach to a shifting culture, and earn the right to be heard–especially in difficult spiritual conversations.

Theistic Evolution? with Dr. Stephen Meyer

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Some Christians are trying to get the church to accept evolution by putting the word “theistic” in front of it. Is that wise? Is evolution true? Join Frank and his guest Dr. Stephen Meyer (one of the best people on the planet to discuss this), as they investigate several important questions such as:

Theistic evolution: What is it?
If it’s true, where does God intervene?
Is it a halfway house between naturalism and ID?
Does it contradict the Bible?
What about the “god of the gaps” fallacy? (Might evolutionists be committing the “natural law of the gaps” fallacy?
How do Christians explain the simple to complex progression of life in the fossil record?
What dating methods are used to date fossils?

Dr. Meyer contributed significantly to the massive recent book, Theistic Evolution: A Scientific, Philosophical and Theological Critique. You should also go to the CrossExamined app and listen to the January 2017 and September 2014 shows with Dr. Meyer. Those shows are evergreen and lay out the evidence against macroevolution and for intelligent design.

If you want to send us a question for the show, please email us at Hello@CrossExamined.org.

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Transcript

September 28, 2019/by Guest

Do Humans Have Intrinsic Value?

Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Luke Nix

Introduction

Whether humans possess intrinsic value or instrumental value is a debate that often runs parallel to discussions about the true worldview. This debate also often fuels the passion behind worldview discussions because it has implications for ethics and morality, which are directly tied to how people ought to live and how people ought to hold each other responsible to those expectations. Such accountability can take a range of forms from personal and private conversations to legal and very public repercussions. And because one’s politics are an extension of their ethics, the passion associated with politics is also added to the mix.

Because all the emotions that accompany ethical and political discussions can easily cloud the issue, it is important that it is approached more objectively and philosophically, if we are to have a calm and reasonable discussion. Today, I want to take a few minutes to examine the philosophical implications and examine some scientific evidence for one side to assist with bringing calm to this important debate.

Intrinsic Value

If humans are intrinsically valuable, then there are a set of objective (and even absolute) duties that cannot be violated. This view holds that humans possess objective value regardless of their situation, condition, social or economic status, skin color, sex, location, beliefs, or any host of other characteristics that people try to judge others’ value. This allows for objective condemnation and consequences of particular choices and behaviors, which many people do not appreciate, especially if they are accused of committing the atrocities. This view also makes even government and governmental officials responsible to the greater reality of this moral law, which justifies political reform- something that certain rulers and politicians do not appreciate.

Instrumental Value

On the other hand, if humans are merely instrumentally valuable, then treatment of them (regardless of the particular treatment- including murder, rape, torture, or any host of traditionally unthinkable treatments) can only be judged based on their utility towards a particular goal. This view permits the affirmation of the “goodness” of even the most egregious behaviors if a “greater” goal is in view. This view allows for anyone to be able to justify any behavior if they can make their goal sound good or acceptable. There is no objective standard by which to judge the morality of a behavior, only to judge its utility. There is also no objective standard by which to judge a particular goal. Since the goal is subjective, so is the behavior, and no moral judgment is actually permitted. This ultimately reduces to “might makes right:” whoever holds the power to punish holds the power to dictate what is “right” and what is “wrong.” Political reform has no justification other than a differing opinion of someone who may be able to challenge the power of those currently in power. If one holds to this view, they often confuse legality with morality.

The Christian worldview traditionally has held that humans possess intrinsic value in virtue of being created in the Image of God. If this is true, then the first set of implications described above are features of reality that all humans are subject to. Any worldview that cannot justify intrinsic human value is left with the second set of implications described. And, by necessary logical implication, if one wishes to appeal to intrinsic human value, they must justify that appeal by grounding intrinsic human value outside the human race.

Origins of The Image of God

If humans have intrinsic value, it had to come from somewhere (or Someone) outside of the human race. Otherwise, the value that is ascribed to humans is merely subjective and instrumental. As I have described in a previous post (Why Is The Image of God So Important), this discussion is tied to one’s view of human origins. If someone wishes to appeal to intrinsic human value, they must accept some type of connection between humans and an eternally existing, absolute reality that is outside of (and is not) this universe. The only thing that fits this description is the Creator God of the Bible.

In order to argue for the intrinsic value of humans, Dr. Fazale Rana offers several lines of evidence for the sudden appearance of the Image of God in life’s history (which happens to coincide with the sudden appearance of humans on the scene). He calls this sudden appearance a “cultural big bang”:

These pieces of evidence include:

Advanced cognitive ability

The capacity for symbolic thought

A powerful imagination

Superior craftsmanship

Inventiveness and superior adaptability

A driving desire for artistic and musical expression

He goes into great detail about the anthropological discoveries of scientists over the years in his book “Who Was Adam.” In the third section of the book, he addresses modern challenges to his conclusions and brings in the latest discoveries over the past decade. The cumulative, scientific case presented in the book for the Image of God coinciding with the appearance of the human race, by extension, is a powerful evidential case for humans possessing intrinsic value.

Conclusion

It is vital to a proper theory of ethics (and even politics) that we know whether humans possess intrinsic value or not. Ultimately, if humans are created in the Image of God, as argued by Dr. Rana, then the idea that humans possess intrinsic value accurately describes the reality of our species. If humans are intrinsically valuable, that serves as the foundation for how we ought to treat one another (ethics) and that further guides how we should govern one another. If humans are not created in the Image of God (do not possess intrinsic value), then all sorts of heinous treatment of them are permissible even by those who wield the most power (governments and politicians).

Peripheral Visions: Even Science Needs More Than Science to Work Properly

Philosophy of Science, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Terrell Clemmons

Jon Headley has a confession to make. “I’m a 30-year-old man, but until a few years ago, I had no real understanding of the theory of evolution.”

“Ah,” the ex-Christian continues after relieving himself of this confessional burden, “it feels good to get that off my chest.” And with that, the musician and producer expounds upon his religious deconversion in a lengthy Medium.com essay titled “How I Learned to Trust Science: On the difference between dogma and evidence.” “I was taught that capital-S Science was our enemy,” Headley writes, and that there were “three big lies that Science had introduced to the world [that were] especially dangerous.” These are the Big Bang, an old earth, and evolution. As a kid, he was ready to argue with any science teacher because “I was sure of what I believed.”

But in truth, he now confesses, “I didn’t know s***.”

The essay starts out with a potentially helpful dismantling of what might be called “packaged” religion—that is, religious teachings pre-assembled somewhere up the hierarchy and disseminated with the expectation that they will be accepted on church authority. As he explains his upbringing, Headley paints a picture of insulated social groupthink, with the whole package propped up by confirmation bias.

He brings this up to compare and contrast “two foundational ways of looking at the world.” He was raised to look at the world by way of religion, he says, which is based on authority, dogma, and assumptions. The problem with this way, he continues, “was that I had been handed a set of beliefs, and I had never questioned them fully for myself.” By contrast, he now looks at the world by way of the scientific method, the key idea of which goes like this: “Any hypothesis about the world must be tested and proved by repeated experiment.”

He’s right about the problem he identifies with his first way, but sadly, after starting out so well, his second way leaves him in a place that is arguably worse. This is because, while the key principle of proving hypotheses by experimentation is reasonable and works well in the practice of science, it’s highly problematic when taken as the primary way of knowing truth about the world—which is what he has done.

Headley’s second way is what’s called scientism, and he is far from the only one succumbing to it. In Scientism and Secularism: Learning to Respond to a Dangerous Ideology (Crossway, 2018), J. P. Moreland defines scientism as “the view that the hard sciences—like chemistry, biology, physics, astronomy—provide the only genuine knowledge of reality.” Whether expressed in the strong form, which says that science and its methods provide the only valid route to knowledge, or in some weaker form that allows other ways of knowing to have some lesser validity (as long as they bow to science), scientism has become a part of the pseudo-intellectual air we breathe. I say “pseudo” because scientism isn’t intellectual, but is rather, at its very core, intellectually unsound.

From the Ivory Towers to the Streets

We’ll return to that point momentarily, but first, let’s look at a few scenarios that demonstrate how deeply this assumption of scientism has become embedded in the substrate of public life:

In academia: Sir A. J. Ayer, knighted professor of philosophy at Oxford University, taught that a proposition can be meaningful only if it’s true by definition (for example, “A = A”) or if it’s empirically verifiable, meaning testable by the scientific method. This is the reigning paradigm in Western education.
In government: Robert B. Reich, who served under Presidents Ford, Carter, Clinton, and Obama, said in 2004 that “the greatest conflict of the 21st century [will be] between those who believe in science, reason, and logic and those who believe that truth is revealed through Scripture and religious dogma.” Reich’s prognostication reflects the false narrative that knowledge through science and knowledge through revealed religion are inherently in conflict.
On the streets: The inaugural annual March for Science took place on Earth Day 2017, with an encyclopedic display of smarmy slogans such as, “Science is our Future,” “Science is Real,” “Defiance for Science” (complete with the raised-fist symbol for Communism), and “Science is the most precious thing we have.”

Celebrity scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson especially tipped his scientistic hand when he was asked about the politics of climate change in the era of Trump. He defended the authority of science to the point of expressing his exasperation with those who resist bowing to it: “What will it take for people to recognize that a community of scientists are learning objective truths about the natural world?” he asked CNN anchor Fareed Zakaria.

An emergent scientific truth, for it to become an objective truth, a truth that is true whether or not you believe in it, it requires more than one scientific paper. It requires a whole system of people’s research all leaning in the same direction, all pointing to the same consequences.

Do you hear the intellectual imperialism in that little sermonette? The high priesthood of science (with himself as a figurehead, of course) learns and then dictates to the rest of us what is objectively true. (This from a man who also wrote, “After the laws of physics, everything else is opinion,” but I digress.)

Hollywood got the memo. In the wake of the 2017 hurricane season, actress Jennifer Lawrence said it’s “scary to know—it’s been proven through science that human activity—that climate change is due to human activity and we continue to ignore it and the only voice that we really have is through voting.” Has Ms. Lawrence tested and proved the climate catastrophe hypothesis by experiment? No, as Derek Hunter clarifies in Outrage, Inc. How the Liberal Mob Ruined Science, Journalism, and Hollywood (Broadside Books, 2018); “an exhaustive search of the Internet could find no record of Lawrence studying meteorology or weather or even studying beyond high school.” No, she believes in climate change based on the authority of science.

Similarly, what Headley has done, apparently blithely unaware, is merely exchange one way of knowing based on a claim to authority for the same way of knowing, only based on a different authority. Instead of “believing Religion,” he now “believes Science.” (On the upside, though, with this way you can announce your enlightened state of consciousness with a $35.00 t-shirt or $19.00 coffee mug from MarchForScienceShop.com, but again, I digress.)

Disambiguating Science from Scientism

In defense of the scientific-method way, Headley writes, “Science begins with no assumptions.” But this is utterly false because the very practice of science is itself based on several assumptions, and those assumptions are not scientific but philosophical.

Moreland identifies six presuppositions that underpin the empirical sciences. Here are the first four:

A natural world exists independent of any mind, language, or theory. In other words, reality consists of real entities and objects outside of observers. (We’re not in the Matrix.)
There is a rational order to the structure of that world.
Objective truth about that world exists.
Human sensory and cognitive faculties are capable of discovering and grasping truth about that world.

The remaining two have to do with ethical, mathematical, and logical truths, and Moreland shows how all six are necessarily a priori assumptions underlying the scientific enterprise that science itself cannot justify because they are philosophical, not scientific, in nature. “Just as the structure of a building cannot be more reliable than the foundation on which it rests,” he writes, “so the conclusions of science… cannot be more certain than the presuppositions of science.” Thus, in the end, scientism ends up being a foe, rather than a friend, of science.

This should suffice to demonstrate that scientism is unreliable as a comprehensive epistemology (“epistemology” means “way of knowing”), but it gets worse for Headley and his epistemological kin. Moreland identifies two more criticisms of scientism, the most devastating one being that scientism is, itself, self-refuting. Here’s how: Scientism asserts that the only propositions that are even capable of being true are scientific propositions. But as we have already seen, scientism is not itself a scientific proposition but is rather a philosophical proposition about science. Thus, on its own terms, scientism is incapable of being true.

But we’re still not done. There is one more coup de grace to be dealt. Scientism denies the existence of true, reasonable beliefs outside of science. And thus, all those moral posturings by Tyson and the marchers for science (and for “climate justice” and for whatever other “justice” cause you might see on a political placard) are rendered null and void according to scientism.

This is no laughing matter. Not only does scientism throw the very foundation of such essential values as human rights under the hegemonic steamroller of “Progress… because Science,” but it also blinds people to potentially liberating and more comprehensive paradigms for conceptualizing reality.

Astrophysicist Robert Jastrow conceded before his death in 2008 that the evidence he saw from Big Bang cosmology implies a creator, and that he found it hard to believe human life is “all a matter of atoms and molecules.” But because of what “my science tells me,” he could not incorporate the concept of a creator into his understanding of reality. It was a situation he found unsatisfactory. “I feel I’m missing something. But I will not find out what I am missing within my lifetime.”

Indeed, given his epistemological constraints, he could not. With apologies to 1970s music fans, Jastrow was so close, and yet so far. Since he couldn’t know God through the methods of science, he found himself, by his own admission, “in a completely hopeless bind.”

Restoring the Mind by Restoring Philosophy First

Whatever Headley was told in his youth about science, being an enemy is false. None of the empirical disciplines we call science are anyone’s enemy. Neither are the Big Bang, an old earth, or evolution. It is the untested, unproven presumption of scientism that is the free mind’s enemy and the dogma that should be dropped.

Still, Headley’s essay raises important questions for parents and churches about how to apprehend and propagate truth in an information-glutted society. Authoritative claims to knowledge won’t cut it (and never should have, anyway) in the absence of other reasons to believe.

“Religion often attracts people by selling certainty,” Headley says, but we don’t know anything for certain. Instead, he recommends “a large dose of humility.” Because “we are all human beings, with limited and treacherous brains, trying to figure out an infinite and complex universe that is way bigger than we are.”

And that, indeed, is excellent advice. All of us would do well to take this wise counsel and direct it toward the self-appointed, certainty-selling high priests and priestesses of scientism.

Correcting four myths about the history of the Crusades

Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Wintery Knight

Here is an interesting article from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.

Intro:

The verdict seems unanimous. From presidential speeches to role-playing games, the crusades are depicted as a deplorably violent episode in which thuggish Westerners trundled off, unprovoked, to murder and pillage peace-loving, sophisticated Muslims, laying down patterns of outrageous oppression that would be repeated throughout subsequent history. In many corners of the Western world today, this view is too commonplace and apparently obvious even to be challenged.

But unanimity is not a guarantee of accuracy. What everyone “knows” about the crusades may not, in fact, be true. From the many popular notions about the crusades, let us pick four and see if they bear close examination.

The four myths:

Myth #1: The crusades represented an unprovoked attack by Western Christians on the Muslim world.
Myth #2: Western Christians went on crusade because their greed led them to plunder Muslims in order to get rich.
Myth #3: Crusaders were a cynical lot who did not really believe their own religious propaganda; rather, they had ulterior, materialistic motives.
Myth #4: The crusades taught Muslims to hate and attack Christians.

Here’s the most obvious thing you should know. The Crusades were defensive actions:

In a.d. 632, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, North Africa, Spain, France, Italy, and the islands of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica were all Christian territories. Inside the boundaries of the Roman Empire, which was still fully functional in the eastern Mediterranean, orthodox Christianity was the official, and overwhelmingly majority, religion. Outside those boundaries were other large Christian communities—not necessarily orthodox and Catholic, but still Christian. Most of the Christian population of Persia, for example, was Nestorian. Certainly, there were many Christian communities in Arabia.

By a.d. 732, a century later, Christians had lost Egypt, Palestine, Syria, North Africa, Spain, most of Asia Minor, and southern France. Italy and her associated islands were under threat, and the islands would come under Muslim rule in the next century. The Christian communities of Arabia were entirely destroyed in or shortly after 633, when Jews and Christians alike were expelled from the peninsula.6 Those in Persia were under severe pressure. Two-thirds of the formerly Roman Christian world was now ruled by Muslims.

What had happened? Most people actually know the answer, if pressed—though for some reason they do not usually connect the answer with the crusades. The answer is the rise of Islam. Every one of the listed regions was taken, within the space of a hundred years, from Christian control by violence, in the course of military campaigns deliberately designed to expand Muslim territory at the expense of Islam’s neighbors. Nor did this conclude Islam’s program of conquest. The attacks continued, punctuated from time to time by Christian attempts to push back. Charlemagne blocked the Muslim advance in far western Europe in about a.d. 800, but Islamic forces simply shifted their focus and began to island-hop across from North Africa toward Italy and the French coast, attacking the Italian mainland by 837. A confused struggle for control of southern and central Italy continued for the rest of the ninth century and into the tenth. In the hundred years between 850 and 950, Benedictine monks were driven out of ancient monasteries, the Papal States were overrun, and Muslim pirate bases were established along the coast of northern Italy and southern France, from which attacks on the deep inland were launched. Desperate to protect victimized Christians, popes became involved in the tenth and early eleventh centuries in directing the defense of the territory around them.

If you asked me what are the two best books on the Crusades, I would answer God’s Battalions: The Case for the Crusades by Baylor professor Rodney Stark and The Concise History of the Crusades by Professor Thomas F. Madden. If you get this question a lot from atheists, then I recommend you pick these up. Anything by Rodney Stark is useful for Christians, in fact.

Why are there so many denominations?

Podcast

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Skeptics are quick to claim that there are thousands of Christian denominations. Is that really true? If the Bible is true and clear, why is are there so many denominations? Join Frank as he addresses these four questions:

Are just Christians divided?
How serious are denominational disagreements?
What causes divisions?
Is God clear enough?

Along the way, you’ll see that people disagree on almost everything— even science! The bottom line regarding denominations is that disagreement is more about our resistance to clear doctrine than the existence of clear doctrine.

If you want to send us a question for the show, please email us at Hello@CrossExamined.org.

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Tag Archive for: apologetics

The open-minded doubter – John the Baptist

The Hostile Crowd – Jesus and the Pharisees and Sadducees.

What do we learn from Jesus about responding to doubters?

Recommended resources related to the topic:

The Name of Jehovah

Jesus Is “a” God, Not God Almighty

Jesus Was Raised from the Dead Spiritually, Not Physically

The New World Translation, The Trinity, and Jesus

Conclusion

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Tacitus, the Greatest Roman Historian

Doubting Tacitus?

“It’s a Christian Interpolation”

“It’s Anachronistic”

“It’s Hearsay”

“It’s Unofficial”

Good Corroborating Evidence

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Hey, Can We Talk?

See Apologetics As Ministry

Adapt to a Shifting Culture

Earn the Right to be Heard

Conclusion

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Transcript

Introduction

Intrinsic Value

Instrumental Value

Origins of The Image of God

Conclusion

Recommended resources related to the topic:

From the Ivory Towers to the Streets

Disambiguating Science from Scientism

Restoring the Mind by Restoring Philosophy First

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Transcript