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The Evidence For Jesus' Resurrection, Part 8_ Some Unanswered Questions

The Evidence For Jesus’ Resurrection, Part 8: Some Unanswered Questions

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by Evan Minton 

This is part 8 in a blog post series on the historical evidence for Jesus’ resurrection. In parts 3, 4, 5, and 6 of this series, we’ve seen powerful historical evidence that (1) Jesus died by Roman crucifixion, that (2) His tomb was found empty the following Sunday morning, that (3) the twelve disciples believed they saw Jesus alive after His death, that (4) a church persecutor named Paul converted to Christianity on the basis of what he perceived to be an appearance of the risen Jesus, and (5) a skeptic named James converted to Christianity on the basis of what he perceived to be appearance of the risen Jesus.

In part 7, we looked at various ways that skeptics have tried to account for the minimal facts, and we saw that they all fail. No naturalistic theory can account for all 5 of the minimal facts. The only theory that can account for them is not a naturalistic theory at all, but a supernaturalistic theory: God raised Jesus from the dead. The hypothesis that God The Father miraculous raised Jesus to life explains all of the data perfectly. It explains why Jesus’ tomb was found empty, why His disciples (and Mary Magdalene) believed they saw Him alive after His death. It explains why a hard-headed, hard-hearted terrorist like Saul of Tarsus would become one of the people he sought to destroy virtually overnight, and it would explain why James, despite being skeptical of his brother’s claims, would become such a firm believer that he would be willing to die a martyr’s death. The resurrection explains every piece of data that is in need of explanation, but even the best of the naturalistic theories could explain one of the five facts at most. The majority didn’t even explain that many. The “He Is Risen” hypothesis has exhaustive explanatory scope and power and ergo outshines any other proposed explanation.

So Why Do People Still Deny It?

In fact, In a lecture titled “Evidence For The Minimal Facts” given on October 14th, 2017 at The National Conference On Christian Apologetics in Charlotte, North Carolina,[1] Dr. Gary Habermas said that in scholarship today, the vast majority of non-Christian historians affirm the 5 minimal facts as true, and they also will admit that they can come up with no naturalistic explanation to account for them. Their attitude can basically be summed up in this sentence: “We admit these 5 facts are true, and we admit that we cannot come up with a good alternative to explain them, but we will not conclude that Jesus rose from the dead.”

Why is that? If you have an empty tomb, and various people claiming and believing that they saw Jesus alive after his death, and every single naturalistic theory that can be posed is an abject failure, why would you not conclude that the best explanation is that Jesus rose from the dead? I mean, it has the ability to explain all of the data, it meets C.B Mcullah’s 6 tests for being a good historical theory[2], why would you just dig in your heels and say “I don’t know how to account for this data, but I know Jesus didn’t rise from the dead”?

*It’s A Heart Issue, Not A Head Issue

Well, one reason could be what I said in Part 1 of this series; namely that this is not merely a matter of whether the evidence is sufficient, this is a moral and/or emotional issue for them. As I point out in my blog post “What Is The Significance Of Jesus’ Resurrection”, if Jesus rose from the dead, the entire Christian worldview is vindicated. For some non-Christians (scholars and laypeople alike), they just don’t want Christianity to be true. If Christianity is true, then they know that they’ll either have to change the way they’re living so they can have a nice afterlife or else face God’s judgment for living in rebellion against him. Atheism is a crutch for these people; if they can make themselves believe there’s no God, then they can live however they want and not have to worry. If there’s no God, there’s no soul. If there’s no soul, there’s no afterlife. If there’s no afterlife, there’s no Hell. If there’s no Hell, then they can sin, sin, sin away and have a perfectly clear conscience about it. It may also be that they had family or friends die who weren’t Christians, and they know that if Christianity is true, those people are in Hell now, so it’s more comforting for these people to just continue believing it isn’t true.[3]

Read this candid statement from a famous atheist, for example:

“[A fear of religion] has large and often pernicious consequences for modern intellectual life. […] I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact… that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.” – Thomas Nagel[4]

Of course, this applies to atheists and agnostics. For other non-Christians, like Muslims or Mormons, their non-intellectual aversion is slightly different. Ask any Christian who has been converted out of Islam and he or she will tell you that it’s hard. Your family turns your back on you, perhaps they’ll try to murder you in an honor killing, your friends will leave you, every loved one you had who was also a Muslim will shun you and maybe even try to kill you.

Let me just quickly say something to those of you who may fall into the above category; having a relationship with Jesus Christ is worth more than anything you could ever have in this world. The apostle Paul, who, as we saw in part 6, endured severe hardships for being a Christian, wrote; “But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage that I may gain Christ.” (Philippians 3:7-8). According to Paul, having a relationship with Jesus Christ is worth so much, that everything else is garbage by comparison! Nabeel Qureshi, whose family turned his back on him when he converted to Christianity wrote; “All suffering is worth it to follow Jesus. He is that amazing.”[5]

Speaking as a Christian myself, I wholeheartedly agree with Paul’s and Nabeel’s statements. My relationship with God means more to me than anything this world has to offer.

*Unanswered Questions May Linger

Of course, for others, it may be the case that unanswered questions still linger. Some readers may be thinking “Gosh, there sure is a lot of evidence for Jesus’ resurrection, but I still have unanswered questions. Why didn’t Jesus appear to any of His enemies after He rose, such as Pontius Pilate or Caiaphas? This would have convinced them that they were wrong to crucify Him, they would repent and become Christians? Also, why is it that Mark’s gospel records no appearances? If Mark’s gospel is the earliest gospel as most scholars say, does this imply that the appearances were legendary embellishments? I don’t think I can commit my life to Christ when there are still so many answered questions.”

Dealing With Unanswered Questions 

First of all, you shouldn’t need to have all of your questions answered before you can make a decision for Christ. We will never have every question answered in this life. What you should do is weigh the evidence. Imagine a scale with the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection on one side and your unanswered questions on the other. Does the totality of the evidence tip in favor of Jesus’ resurrection? If so, then you should conclude that Jesus rose from the dead, despite there being a few unsolved mysteries about it. Would your question, if left unanswered, affect the weight of the arguments in any way? If not, then you should be comfortable with it being left unanswered.

  1. Warner Wallace, cold case homicide detective, and Christian Apologist said this about unanswered questions:

“After a long career as a cold-case detective, I’ve learned to get comfortable with unanswered questions. In fact, I’ve never investigated or presented a case to a jury that wasn’t plagued with a number of mysteries. As much as I wish it wasn’t so, there is no such thing as a perfect case; every case has unanswered questions. In fact, when we seat a jury for a criminal trial, we often ask the prospective jurors if they are going to be comfortable making a decision without complete information. If potential jurors can’t envision themselves making a decision unless they can remove every possible doubt (and answer every possible question), we’ll do our best to make sure they don’t serve on our panel. Every case is imperfect; there are no cases devoid of unanswered questions. Every juror is asked to make a decision, even though the evidential case will be less than complete. As detectives and prosecutors, we do our best to be thorough and present enough evidence so jurors can arrive at the most reasonable inference. But, if you need ‘beyond a possible doubt,’ rather than ‘beyond a reasonable doubt,’ you’re not ready to sit on a jury. The standard of proof is ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ for a good reason; no case is evidentially complete; no case maker can eliminate every possible reservation.”[6]

I think the evidence is sufficient to warrant the conclusion that Jesus rose from the dead and Christianity is true, even in spite of some unanswered questions. Think about it for a moment; would the absence of an answer as to why Jesus’ didn’t appear to Pilate and the Pharisees undermine the powerful historical evidence that He did appear to the disciples, Paul, and James? How would an inability to answer that question undermine the evidence for those 3 minimal facts? Would it undermine the evidence for the empty tomb? Would it mean that the resurrection isn’t the best explanation for the 5 minimal facts? Certainly not. I think we could say “Why didn’t He appear to his enemies? It’s kind of weird that he didn’t do that. But the evidence that he did appear to the disciples, Paul, and James is strong enough, and since no naturalistic theory can account for them, I’m still justified in concluding that Jesus rose from the dead.”

Answering The Unanswered Questions 

But do answers to these questions exist? I think they do. Let me take the time address these one by one.

Question 1: Why Didn’t Jesus Appear To Pilate And The Pharisees? 

This is a common question that skeptics and believer alike have asked. If Jesus really rose from the dead, then why didn’t he appear to Pontius Pilate, the Pharisees, and all who doubted him? Surely He would have done this for scripture teaches that God wants all people to be saved (2 Peter 3:9, 1 Timothy 2:4) and that Christ died for the entire world (John 3:16, 1 John 2:2), and that confession of Jesus’ lordship and in His resurrection are requirements for salvation (Romans 10:9), so then why didn’t Jesus appear to Pilate and the Pharisees so that they could believe in Him so that they could be saved? I propose several answers.

1: Who Says He Didn’t Appear To Them? 

This is often overlooked, but there’s a passage in the book of Acts that suggests that Jesus did appear to at least a few of the religious leaders, resulting in their conversions. Acts 6:7 says  “So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.” (Emphasis mine). Now, granted, it could be that these might not be the same Pharisees who were constantly trying to trip him up and voted to condemn him to death, but they could be. It’s possible that some of the people who ridiculed Jesus, opposed him throughout his ministry, and voted for his death were among the 500 individuals whom Jesus appeared to in 1 Corinthians 15, and that these are the priests Acts 6:7 referred to. So, while this verse isn’t irrefutable proof that Jesus appeared to those who opposed him throughout his ministry, it does at least open to the door.

2: It’s Possible That It May Have Done No Good

If the skeptics of today are any indication, it doesn’t matter how good the evidence is; they will always find a way to avoid following it where it leads. People who don’t want to believe something, won’t believe it, no matter how strong the evidence is. It could have been the case that had Jesus appeared to Caiaphas; he would have said that Satan was trying to deceive him. After all, the religious leaders appealed to demonic forces to try to explain away his other miracles, like his exorcism in Mark 3:20-30, for example. Pilate might have explained his appearance away as a hallucination or a vision, and blamed it on a guilty conscience. Only God knows how these people would have responded to a postmortem appearance of Jesus. If it would have done no good, then Jesus would have just been wasting his time appearing to them. In the book of Exodus, Pharoah had more than enough evidence to know that Yahweh existed and wanted him to let the Israelites go free. Yet, it took about a dozen plagues over a period of time before he finally consented. But even after consenting, Pharoah changed his mind again and chased after the Israelites who were on their way to The Red Sea. People who truly desire not to believe and repent, won’t.

Question 2: Why Are There No Appearances In Mark’s Gospel? 

According to most scholars, Mark’s gospel is the earliest gospel to have been written. Matthew and Luke were written sometime later, and John’s gospel was written last. However, Mark’s gospel contains no appearances. There is a longer ending to Mark which does include appearances, but most scholars agree that these were added by a scribe later on. Most are in agreement that Mark’s gospel ends at verse 8. If this is true, then the earliest gospel contains no appearances while the later ones do. Is this a sign of theological embellishment over time?

1: Mark Doesn’t Include Appearances, But He Does Predict Them 

While it’s true that the ending to Mark’s gospel includes no narrative where Jesus shows up and says “Hi, Y’all. I’m back!”, Mark includes predictions that there will be appearances. The young man told the women “Don’t be alarmed; You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’” (Mark 16:4-5, emphasis mine).

So, certainly, Mark believed there would be appearances. He just didn’t record any interactions between the risen Jesus and his apostles.

2: The 1 Corinthians 15 Creed Predates Mark 

Secondly, remember that in part 5 of this series, we saw that the earliest tradition of Jesus’ postmortem appearances is the creed cited in 1 Corinthians 15. This creed contains several appearances, including appearances to the twelve disciples, and this creed dates to within 5 years of Jesus’ death. Moreover, all scholars, Christian and non-Christian alike affirm that all of Paul’s letters predate the gospels. So, if any embellishment went on, it was going in the opposite direction; appearances to non-appearances!

3: The Evidence From Paul and The Church Fathers Let Us Trace The Claims Of Resurrection Back To The Disciples 

Even if we threw out the gospels entirely, we could affirm that the disciples claimed they saw Jesus alive and that they really believed it through the writings of Paul and the church fathers. I talked about this in part 5 of this blog post series. Paul says that the disciples were claiming that Jesus appeared to him since he took two trips to Jerusalem to meet with them. One of these trips is recorded in Galatians 1, the other in Galatians 2. In Galatians 1, Paul says he spent 15 days with the apostles Peter and James. Don’t you think that the resurrection would have come up once in that conversation? Indeed, in Galatians 2, he specifically says that that’s why he went to Jerusalem; to compare the gospels that he and the other apostles were preaching. He wanted to make sure that the gospel he was preaching was the same gospel the twelve disciples were preaching, and he said: “They added nothing to my teaching.” After citing the 1 Corinthians 15 creed, he says in verse 11 “Whether it is they or I, this is what we preach” (i.e., Jesus’ postmortem appearances). Paul gives us a direct link to what the disciples were claiming. Moreover, the early church fathers Irenaeus and Tertullian said that Polycarp and Clement were students of the apostle John. Polycarp and Clement wrote in their writings that the disciples claimed that Jesus rose from the dead. Polycarp and Clement are a direct link to what John and the other disciples believed. They say that the disciples were preaching Jesus’ resurrection.

Additionally, church history is unanimous that all of the disciples were brutally killed for making this claim. No one would ever die for something they consciously believed is a lie. The fact that they died for preaching that Jesus rose from the dead, proves they really believed it. Why did they believe it? Because they saw him.

In conclusion, the faith that Mark doesn’t report any postmortem appearances doesn’t hurt my case one iota.

Question 3: Don’t Miracle Stories In Other Religions Discredit The Resurrection? 

It has been argued by skeptics, both scholars, and layman, that miracle stories in other religions disprove or cast doubt on the resurrection of Jesus and the other miracles reported in The Bible. Sometimes this is posed in the form of this question “You reject all of these other miracles as being credible or true, so why do you accept the resurrection of Jesus as being a fact of history? Aren’t you being inconsistent? Aren’t you cherry-picking which miracles you want to believe and which you want to disbelieve? Moreover, if you’re going to accept the miracles of The Bible, you should accept the miracles of Islam and Buddhism, and Mormonism.”

What should the Christian Apologist say in response to this objection? I can give 3 reasons why this objection doesn’t carry any weight.

1: The Historical Evidence Establishes That Jesus Rose From The Dead

Most people who make this objection don’t even realize that there is any evidence of the resurrection of Jesus. But as we saw in parts 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 of this blog series, there is excellent evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. Just using the standard criteria of authenticity that historians use, we’ve determined that (1) Jesus rose from the dead, (2) His tomb was empty, (3) his twelve disciples believed they saw him alive after his death, (4) that a church persecutor named Paul converted on the basis of what he perceived to be a postmortem appearance of Jesus, and (5) a skeptic named James became a Christian because of what he perceived to be a postmortem appearance of the risen Jesus. In part 7, we saw that no theory can account for these 5 facts other than that Jesus rose from the dead, and therefore we are within our rational rights in coming to this conclusion.

Now, by contrast, other miracle claims in other religions tend to be rather poorly attested. Sometimes the sources come centuries after the event is alleged to describe (such as the miracles of Buddha and Krishna)[7], and/or is found in only one source (like Islam’s Hadith, which report the miracles of Muhammad). This isn’t the case with The New Testament records. Even the most skeptical liberal scholars date all of them to within the first century, only mere decades after the event.[8]

The fact that other miracles are poorly attested or are made up cannot be used as an argument that the resurrection of Jesus is likewise poorly attested and made up. In fact, each miracle claim has to be examined on an individual, case-by-case basis.

2: If Christianity Is True, We Need Not Necessarily Explain Away Or Reject Other Miracle Claims 
If the Christian worldview is true (and we’ve seen good evidence throughout this series to believe that it is), then we should expect to find at least a few miracle claims in other cultures at different points in time. Even in Scripture, God acted supernaturally among unbelievers, such as healing Naaman’s leprosy (see 2 Kings 5). According to The Bible, demons can perform actual supernatural wonders or counterfeit miracles intended to confound people, such as the magi of Pharoah (in Exodus 7-8), the Anti-Christ (see 2 Thessalonians 2:9, Matthew 24:24), and the fortune teller who harassed the apostle Paul (in Acts 16:16-18), for examples.

Thus, Christians have no obligation to disprove miracle claims in other religious traditions and writings. In fact, I’ve sometimes conjectured whether an actual angel appeared to Muhammad, but that it was a demon. This would be plausible given the fact that The Bible says that Satan can disguise himself as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14).

3: Miracle Claims In Other Religions Can Usually Be Explained By A Naturalistic Theory

Often times, these supposed miracles can be explained by a natural explanation. For example, legendary embellishment can account for the miracles of Muhammad and Buddha. But this explanation fails for Jesus since (1) The epistles of Paul which mention the resurrection only dates to within a few decades after Jesus’ death (1 Corinthians being dated to A.D 55), (2) There’s good evidence, as we saw in part 5 of this series, that the creed contained in 1 Corinthians 15 dates to within only 5 years after the death of Jesus (WAY too early for legend to develop), and (3) through the apostle Paul, and the church fathers Clement and Polycarp, we can trace the claim that Jesus rose from the dead back to the very lips of the apostles, as explained above and in part 5. Since the claim that Jesus rose from the dead can be traced to the very lips of the apostles, the resurrection of Jesus isn’t a legend that developed over time.

Question 4: Isn’t This Whole Approach Dishonoring To God’s Word? I Mean, You’re Scrutinizing It and cross-examining The New Testament documents like a witness on trial. 
This objection comes, not from skeptics or seekers, but Christians. Isn’t The Minimal Fact Approach Dishonoring to God’s Word? Isn’t it sacrilege to subject the inspired text to the same historical scrutinizing that we subject secular texts to? Aren’t we expressing that we doubt God’s word when we need some criterion of authenticity to tell us whether an event mentioned in it is true?

It’s important to realize that The Minimal Facts Approach is trying to reach people who don’t believe The Bible is the inspired word of God, and maybe believers who are doubting. It’s not meant to reach people who already believe its claims. The Minimal Facts Approach reaches unbelievers where they are epistemologically. It’s not that I personally doubt or am skeptical of what The Bible says, but the people I’m trying to reach are. This approach is entirely biblical. The Apostle Paul was a skilled apologist. Acts 17 records two occasions on which Paul argued with people, trying to convince them of Christianity’s truth. The first occasion was with Jews in a synagogue and the second occasion was with the Greeks on the hill in Athens. In the first occasion, Paul appealed to Old Testament prophesies to convince his fellow Jews that Jesus truly is the Messiah. But when speaking to the Greeks, he didn’t use the New Testament. He appealed to general revelation (i.e. the natural world), he quoted their Greek poets, and he used philosophical arguments to reach his gentile hearers. He knew that the Athenians didn’t care about The Old Testament or what it had to say, so he changed his tactics. His message didn’t change, and neither did his goal. But his method did change.

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 Christian Apologists 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.

Question 5: Why Did The Women Go Down To The Tomb To Anoint The Body Of Jesus If They Knew That It Was Sealed? Do Their Actions Really Make Sense?

This is a question Lee Strobel posed to William Lane Craig in their interview in the book The Case For Christ. Craig responded to Strobel with the following:

“Lee, I strongly feel that scholars who have not known the love and devotion that these women felt for Jesus have no right to pronounce cool judgments upon the feasibility of what they wanted to do. “For people who are grieving, who have lost someone they desperately loved and followed, to want to go to the tomb in a forlorn hope of anointing the body— I just don’t think some later critic can treat them like robots and say, ‘They shouldn’t have gone.’ … Maybe they thought there would be men around who could move the stone. If there were guards, maybe they thought they would. I don’t know. Certainly, the notion of visiting a tomb to pour oils over a body is a historical Jewish practice; the only question is the feasibility of who would move the stone for them.”[9]

I find Craig’s response to Strobel to be intellectually satisfying. Also, notice that even if this question went unanswered, it wouldn’t have altered our case. It wouldn’t have undermined any of the arguments for the 5 minimal facts nor would it have given us a non-supernatural way to account for them. This question, like the others in this blog post, have answers to them. But even if they went unanswered, it wouldn’t affect the case for the resurrection.

Question 6: You Said In Part 3 That Jesus’ Death By Crucifixion Was Multiply Attested in 7 Independent Sources. But Why Aren’t There More Sources?

For one thing, very few documents from ancient history have survived up to the present time. As Ryan Turner, author for CARM (Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry) wrote in an article on Carm.org:  “There are a number of ancient writings that have been lost, including 50% of the Roman historian Tacitus’ works, all of the writings of Thallus and Asclepiades of Mendes.  In fact, Herod the Great’s secretary named Nicolas of Damascus wrote a Universal History of Roman history which comprised nearly 144 books, and none of them have survived. Based on the textual evidence, there is no reason to doubt the existence of Jesus of Nazareth.”[10]

The fact of the matter is; there may have been more sources that spoke about Jesus and his death by crucifixion for all we know. But they most likely decayed away or they simply haven’t been discovered yet by archeologists. If documents aren’t copied over and over again at a quick enough pace, they aren’t likely to survive for 2,000 years.

Moreover, the evidence we have for Jesus’ death by crucifixion is still overwhelmingly strong. Four secular sources and 3 biblical sources attest to His death by crucifixion, which adds up to a total of 7. As I said in part 3, it is statistically impossible for 7 independent sources to all make up the same fiction and then proceed to treat it as a historical event. The principle of multiple attestations applies here. Secondly, Jesus’ death is attested in two enemy sources (sources which are ridiculing Christianity in the very passage they mention Jesus’ death by crucifixion, those sources would be Tacitus and Lucian. So this minimal fact is likely to be true on the basis of the principle of enemy attestation. Also, the principle of embarrassment verifies Jesus’ death by crucifixion in 3 different ways; (1) Crucifixion was not only a painful death but a shameful one. If the gospels fabricated a tale of Jesus’ death, they would have had him die in a more dignified way, such as death by stoning. (2) All of the disciples except John abandon Jesus, and only the women stand before the cross to be with Him in His final moments (save for John). Why the author of John’s gospel paint the disciples in such a bad light if that didn’t actually happen? (3) Jesus said on the cross “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me!” Although an explanation for this saying exists, it’s still extremely awkward as it makes Jesus look like He’s doubting the Father and forgot his mission. It’s unlikely this saying of Jesus is made up, but this saying is in the context of Jesus dying by crucifixion.

You can ask “Why aren’t there more sources?” but it’s foolishness to say that the evidence we do have is insufficient.

Question 7: Aren’t Jesus’ Postmortem Appearances Like Elvis Sightings? 

Several years ago, when I was debating the evidence for the resurrection with an atheist on Twitter (Twitlonger to be precise), he compared the postmortem appearances of Jesus to alleged sightings of Elvis. People have claimed to have seen Evil after he died, yet we don’t give these claims any credibility. In fact, we have a tendency to dismiss them out of hand. Why don’t we do the same with sightings of Jesus?

First of all, Jesus left an empty tomb behind (see part 4 of this series), Elvis didn’t. Anyone interested in disproving any resurrection of Elvis could go down to his tomb, exhume the corpse and prove that Elvis didn’t re-enter the building. Had the opponents of Christianity did this back in the first century, they would have persuaded everyone that Jesus was still dead. Christianity would have died before it even began. Since it’s still around, we can conclude that they didn’t exhume Jesus’ corpse, and they didn’t exhume Jesus’ corpse because there was no corpse in the tomb to be exhumed.

Secondly, Elvis sightings can be explained naturalistically. If only one person saw him at one time, that might have been a hallucination. Certainly, we know that Elvis impersonators are about, so maybe what these people are seeing are just these impersonators. Thirdly, it’s possible that Elvis never died, but faked his death. While this is somewhat unlikely, it’s still possible. But we saw in part 7 that multiple people on multiple different occasions (including 2 skeptics) saw the risen Jesus, and group hallucinations (especially ones that occur over and over) are impossible. We also know based on medical evidence, that Jesus was dead when they took him down from the cross. There’s no way Jesus could have faked his death. So while there are plenty of plausible non-supernatural explanations for Elvis, none exist for Jesus.

Thirdly, Elvis never claimed to be divine or performed any miracles. Jesus did. Jesus’ resurrection occurred in what scholars call “A religious-historical context.”

Conclusion
We’ve seen that the lingering questions some of my readers may have had up until this point have good answers to them. Most of them wouldn’t affect the case for the resurrection of Jesus even if they went unanswered.

So, at this point, if you’re an unbeliever, let me ask you a question: are you convinced yet? If so, what are you going to do about it?

Notes 

[1] This lecture can be purchased as an MP3 file at http://www.catapes.com/viewresults.cfm?cid=363

[2] See the previous blog post in this series.

[3] I tackle this issue in chapter 9 of my book A Hellacious Doctrine: A Defense Of The Doctrine Of Hell. Losing a loved one who wasn’t saved can be hard, but that’s no reason why you should shake your fist at God and end up there yourself.

[4] Thomas Nagel, The Last Word, Oxford, 1997

[5] Nabeel Qureshi, “Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity”, February 11th 2014, Zondervan, page

[6] J. Warner Wallace, from the article “How Can You Trust Christianity When There Are So Many Unanswered Questions?”, March 26, 2014, http://coldcasechristianity.com/2014/how-can-you-trust-christianity-is-true-when-there-are-so-many-unanswered-questions/

[7] See Edwin Yamauchi, Jesus, Zoroaster, Buddha, Socrates, Mohammad, Revised Edition (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1972), esp. 4– 7, 18, 38– 41.

[8] This is because the early church fathers quote from The New Testament very frequently in their writings. These church fathers, like Polycarp, Irenaeus, Ignatius, Tertullian, etc. are writing in the second, third, and fourth centuries. Obviously, the books they’re quoting from had to pre-exist their own writings. I can’t quote from a book in a book of my own unless the former had already been written and published. This is why all scholars from all theological perspectives agree that the entirety of The New Testament had been completed before the end of the first century. Most scholars date Mark in the 60s, Matthew and Luke in the 70s, and John in the 80s, with Paul’s epistles being completed between 50 and 60 A.D. More conservative scholars, like Craig Blomberg, have given very compelling arguments for gospel dates between 50 and 62. And I happen to agree with these arguments for more conservative dating.

[9] Strobel, Lee; Strobel, Lee. Case for Christ Movie Edition: Solving the Biggest Mystery of All Time (Case for … Series) (Kindle Locations 4436-4443). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

[10] Ryan Turner, “Did Jesus Ever Exist?”, CARM – Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry, https://carm.org/jesus-exist

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2J0LXWs

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4 Things That Must Happen Before More Christian Parents Will Care About Questions of Faith and Science

4 Things That Must Happen Before More Christian Parents Will Care About Questions of Faith and Science

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By Natasha Crain 

In my newest book, Talking with Your Kids about God, there are six chapters that focus on the intersection of faith and science. They answer the questions: Can science prove or disprove God’s existence? Do science and religion contradict each other? Do science and religion complement each other? Is God just an explanation for what science doesn’t yet know? Can science explain why people believe in God? And What do scientists believe about God?

I was particularly excited to write these chapters because I know how important the topics are for parents and kids to understand today, yet so many parents are uncertain of how to approach them. However, over the last few months, more than a few readers I’ve talked to at events or online have sheepishly told me they skipped that section of the book because (I’m paraphrasing) science is out of their “comfort zone.”

This is deeply problematic—not that someone would skip a section of my book, but that parents so often resist engaging in such a critical faith issue today.

The belief that Christianity is anti-science has become a leading reason why many young adults are walking away from faith. Researchers at the Barna Group have found that 29 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds with a Christian background say churches are “out of step with the scientific world we live in,” and 25 percent say “Christianity is anti-science.” The fact that more than a quarter of kids from a Christian background accept this harmful and false narrative should raise a giant flag of concern for Christian parents.

Think this subject is being handled or will be handled by your child’s youth group? Think again. Barna research has also found that only one percent of youth pastors address any issue related to science in a given year. The disconnect between the need and the response to that need is huge right now.

That means parents need to take responsibility for discussing these questions with their kids. But there are four things I think will have to happen before more parents do so.

  1. Parents will have to understand that it doesn’t matter whether we personally care about science or not—our kids still need to engage with these issues.

In my experience talking with parents, I think this is the number one reason why most aren’t having these conversations: They just don’t personally care much about science themselves. To be sure, no one actually states that as the reason. Usually, parents just say it’s something they “need to look into” or that it’s “too complicated” (more about that in point four). But as with most things in life, if we truly believe something is important for our kids’ well-being, we will rise to the task. We care out of necessity.

For example, my son recently had an allergic reaction to cashews after eating one for the first time. I went into mommy doctor mode and researched everything I could online to know how to help him best. Is there a ton of information on nut allergies? Yes. Are there differences of opinion on what to do? Yes. Did I feel overwhelmed by learning all this? Absolutely. Did I for one minute decide that it was too difficult to sort out, so I wasn’t going to do anything at all to help him? Absolutely not.

I assure you that I don’t naturally care about nut allergies. But as soon as I knew it was important for my son that I educate myself on them, I got equipped. In the same way, it doesn’t matter whether we “care” about science; the question is whether knowledge of faith and science issues is important for our kids. Research (as I noted earlier) has answered that with an unequivocal yes.

  1. Parents will have to understand that it doesn’t matter whether our kids care about science or not—they still need to engage with these issues.

One parent recently told me that his kids “just aren’t scientists.” He said they are more into the arts, so he wasn’t going to try to get into the details of faith and science issues when that’s not an area of concern or interest for them.

Assuming that science questions won’t affect your kids’ faith because they aren’t into science is a big mistake. In fact, I think kids who don’t dive into science are just as likely to have their faith challenged by these issues as those who do. Why? If they lack interest in personally considering the issues in any depth, they may simply defer to whatever seems culturally accepted. Culture says science and faith are opposites and I have to choose just one? Okay. Culture says science has disproven God and faith is just blind acceptance of something without evidence? I guess I’ll choose science because I don’t want to feel ashamed.

Does that mean every kid needs to understand the intricacies of scientific debate? Not at all. But, as I explain in my chapters on science, everyone should understand the key terms and concepts the debate turns on and the assumptions made by varying worldviews.

  1. Parents will have to recognize that questions of the relationship between faith and science are multifaceted.

While many parents are overwhelmed at the thought of learning about science issues, others have oversimplified the matter. I see this a lot in Facebook groups. Someone posts a question about how their child is starting to question his or her faith because of “science,” and within seconds, everyone in the group has solved the problem by breezily pasting a link to the organization that champions their view on the age of the earth. Don’t get me wrong—age of the earth and evolution questions are extremely important (I wrote eight chapters on this in Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side!), but there are many contours of the conversation beyond those particular issues. Kids who have knowledge of just one area—and just one view within that area—will not have the broader foundation needed to engage with today’s world.

  1. Parents will have to accept that we don’t have to be science experts to be knowledgeable guides.

My nine-year-old daughter has been preparing for her first piano competition. After listening to her practice her piece many times recently, I realized that she kept struggling with the same couple of measures. She insisted, however, that there wasn’t a problem. I couldn’t easily describe where I heard the issue, so I asked her to play the piece while I looked at the music.

Even though I don’t play piano myself, I’ve been in enough of her lessons over the last three years to understand the basics of how to read music. I can follow along and see the rhythm, rests, dynamics, and so on. When she got to the trouble part, I said, “Here! This is the measure you need to look at!” My daughter, who is very independent and never wants help with anything, wasn’t exactly happy with my direction. She replied, “You’re not a piano expert. You don’t even know how to play the piano! How would you know if something is wrong or where it’s wrong?”

It’s certainly true that I’m not a piano expert, but my daughter missed the point that I don’t need to be an expert in order to be a knowledgeable guide for her. I had learned enough of the basics and theoretical framework to show her where the problems lie—even if I couldn’t sit down and play the piece myself.

In the same way, parents don’t need to be science experts to be knowledgeable guides for their kids on the intersection of faith and science. But many parents “bow out” of the conversation because they just don’t feel qualified to have it. There’s no reason to do so. Just because you can’t teach your kids the intricacies of evolutionary theory (or anything else) doesn’t mean you can’t be equipped to guide your kids in a meaningful, God-honoring way.

With a little motivation and effort, you can learn to show how beautifully science describes God’s creation—not disproves it.

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2G0YSoM

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% Common Answers Kids God

5 Common Answers to Kids’ Questions about God That Can Do More Harm Than Good

By Natasha Crain

A couple of years ago, my husband and I were invited to a dinner party with a few other new parents from our kids’ Christian elementary school. After we worked our way through appetizers and the requisite small talk, the conversation turned to our respective faith backgrounds. One of the moms confessed that, as much as she loved the Lord, she struggled with how to share her faith with her son—so she had enrolled him at a Christian school where others might be able to do a “better job.”

Another mom replied, “Well, I don’t worry too much about it. I just tell my daughter that believing in God is like believing in Santa Claus. Some people believe, and some don’t. It’s a matter of faith.”

I glanced over at the mom who said that, ready to laugh with her at the idea of placing God and Santa in the same category.

But she wasn’t laughing.

She had just matter-of-factly shared what she honestly thought was a helpful way of explaining belief in God’s existence to her daughter.

Now, if an atheist had overheard this dinner party conversation, he or she would have delighted in my friend’s comparison of God and Santa because that’s precisely how atheists want us to think . . .

  • God and Santa: two entities with no evidence to demonstrate their existence.
  • God and Santa: childish beliefs people should outgrow once they understand there’s no evidence to demonstrate their existence.

Without realizing it, this mom was playing right into the hands of atheists. She was talking about God in a way that could actually damage her daughter’s faith eventually, given the types of challenges she’s likely to encounter.

As Christian parents, it’s critical that we understand our job isn’t to just talk about God in any way we can.

How we talk about God matters.

I was reminded of this fact—and my God vs. Santa experience—when I joined a Christian parenting Facebook group recently. Within a couple of days, I saw someone post that her 12-year-old son was suddenly struggling to believe in God and was asking his mom how we know God exists. She asked the group what she should tell him.

Dozens of parents chimed in, but almost all of the answers offered were in the “God and Santa” category—answers that can actually do more harm than good. It was really disheartening.

So today I want to share five kinds of responses I saw—and see often—that we should avoid when our kids ask questions about God’s existence.

5 Answers That Can Do More Harm Than Good

  1. (Just) have more faith.

I don’t know if any word today is more misused than “faith.” For example, several people replied something to the effect of, “It just takes faith. Tell him this is what faith is all about.”

This answer implies that even when we don’t think God exists, we just need to somehow summon up enough “faith” (sheer force of will?) to hold on to our beliefs. But that’s not what biblical faith is all about. Biblical faith is trusting in what we have good reason to believe is true—not committing ourselves ever more strongly to a blind leap in the dark with no rational basis.

When we understand that, we can see why it doesn’t make sense to answer a child’s question about God’s existence by telling him or her to just have more faith. Faith comes from the conviction that something or someone isworth trusting. The answer, therefore, isn’t to tell kids to focus on theoutcome of conviction—it’s to increase their conviction by giving them solid reasons to believe God exists.

  1. (Just) pray.

Many people said that the mom should start praying fervently for her son and tell him he needs to pray as well. I would say that too.

But it should be clear from every part of the Bible that we must pray andtake earthly action. Noah didn’t just pray to be saved from the flood; he built an ark. Joshua didn’t just pray to conquer the Canaanites; he marched around Jericho. Paul didn’t just pray that the gentile world would come to know Jesus; he spent the rest of his life on missionary journeys.

So, yes, pray. But don’t stop there. Kids need to learn why there’s good reason to believe there’s actually a God to pray to.

  1. That’s (just) the enemy attacking you.

I’ll never forget reading a detailed “About Me” page written by a young man who grew up in a Christian family but eventually lost his faith…and became a vocal atheist. Over and over, he came back to the fact that his family and church didn’t answer the specific questions he had. Instead, they continually reiterated that he was under attack from the enemy and he just needed to mentally fight against his doubts. For a long time, his faith hung on by a thread; he no longer believed in God but told himself that it was only Satan making him think that way. Eventually he gave up and let go of the thread.

As with the first two points, there is certainly truth to the reality of spiritual warfare. Ephesians 6:12 says, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” People were quick to point this out to the mom on Facebook.

But the fact that someone may be under spiritual attack doesn’t lessen the need to offer them specific answers to their questions. Offering those answers—in this case, the evidence for God’s existence—actually grounds them in the truth that allows them to withstand spiritual attack.

  1. General restatements of Christian belief that don’t address the question asked.

Several of the Facebook responses said something like, “Remind him [the child] that God loves him and Jesus died for him.” Well, yes, God does love him and Jesus did die for him. It certainly never hurts to remind anyone of that. But if a child is asking how we even know God exists in the first place, this kind of statement is unlikely to help him or her through a spiritual crisis.

  1. Silence.

Another suggestion was to just be patient, as this is a “phase” many kids go through. Silence, however, says so much. To a child doubting God’s existence, it says, “I don’t have good answers for your questions so I’ll just be over here in the corner waiting this whole thing out.” And if mom and dad don’t have good answers, kids are unlikely to assume good answers exist elsewhere. Silence is not golden.

Need Help with Better Answers?

Parents, questions of God’s existence are foundational to our kids’ faith. We have to get these conversations right, particularly in a world that challenges the fact of God’s existence each and every day.

That’s exactly why I wrote my new book, Talking with Your Kids about God: 30 Conversations Every Christian Parent Must Have. I wanted to help parents not just talk with their kids about God, but do so in the ways most needed by kids growing up in a secular world. In the book, you’ll find five sections that will prepare you to discuss how we know God is real and what we can know about Him from many different angles (check out the full table of contents here):

  • The Existence of God
  • Science and God
  • The Nature of God
  • Believing in God
  • The Difference God Makes

Every chapter even has a step-by-step conversation guide. If this looks like a valuable resource for your family, church, or school, please take a minute to pre-order it now at christianbook.com, bn.com, or amazon.com. It comes out in just a few weeks, and your early support encourages retailers to stock it!


Let’s work together to give our kids the answers they deserve. We don’t want anyone ever to grow up thinking there’s no more evidence for God than there is for Santa.

“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge” (Psalm 19:1-2).

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2eIJXF2

 

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Science Questions

Can Science Answer All Questions?

By Paul Rezkalla

In the movie Contact? Ellie told her father that she loved him, but she couldn’t prove it scientifically. That’s because science can’t do that sort of thing. Science can’t show that two people love each other. Science is simply a tool that we utilize to uncover facts about the observable universe. So here’s a fun fact: Science is not omniscient. It cannot answer all our questions. Not by any stretch of the imagination. And the idea that we can’t know anything unless we have scientific evidence for it, is ridiculous. The claim ‘We can’t know anything unless we can verify it scientifically’ cannot, itself, be verified scientifically. That kind of argument is self-defeating. Interesting, no? So when someone says, “There’s no scientific evidence for that, therefore I won’t believe it”, I can respond by saying either:

1. Your face has no scientific evidence

or

2. There are things that we know to be true apart from any scientific evidence.

I find the latter to be more efficient, although not nearly as epic.

Here are 2 categories of facts that we all accept without help from science:

1. Metaphysical Facts

Metaphysics, by definition, lies outside the realm of science. The term ‘Metaphysics’ means ‘meta-physics’ or ‘beyond physics’.  Metaphysical facts include the existence of other minds, the existence of the world outside of your own mind, and the reality of the past. We believe that there are minds other than our own, the external world is real, and the past wasn’t created 5 minutes ago and given only the appearance of having aged as it did. These beliefs are what philosophers call properly basic beliefs. That means that they are foundational. We can’t show them to be true or false. We accept them as facts without question, but they cannot be proven by science.

Science cannot tell me that there are minds other than my own. When I’m in a lecture, I assume that the professor who is lecturing is a real entity with a mind and not simply a figment of my imagination or a part of my dream (as much as I’d like to think so). I treat the world around me as if it is real. I could be stuck in the matrix or I could be a brain floating in a jar of chemicals being stimulated by some crazy scientist who is giving me the illusion of this world. But I know I’m not. I know that the past is real; I was not created 5 minutes ago and implanted with 22 years’ worth of memories. I comfortably believe all of this and yet there is no scientific evidence that confirms it.

2. Ethical Facts

A lot of interest has been generated recently in the field of Evolutionary Psychology. Some experts in this field have argued that we can get morality from understanding who we are as social mammals. The idea of the purely ‘selfish gene’ is slowly being understood to be false, or at least an incomplete picture of who we really are. We are not simply lone mammals on the quest to propagate our DNA at all costs—there is a complex social infrastructure in mammalian groups/herds that has an inbuilt morality for the purpose of helping us deal with each other. Elephants bury their dead, bonobos comfort each other after loss, and most primates understand and operate by the laws of reciprocity and justice. This explains morality, right? Science has given us ethics!

Just a minute, buddy. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. This kind of argument commits what David Hume articulated as the            Is-Ought fallacy. You can’t get an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’. This means that observing and understanding how things are cannot tell us that this is the way things ought to be. Just because we observe that mammals help each other doesn’t tell us that we should help each other. Well, maybe we can say that we ought to help each other because that increases human flourishing. Right? Ok, but that presupposes that human flourishing is good and should be striven towards. But why is increasing human flourishing good in the first place? Why should we pursue it? Any answer that one gives to that question will not come from science. That’s because science is descriptive, not prescriptive. The ‘should’ or ‘ought’ has to come from elsewhere. Science can’t give us that.

Science doesn’t tell us that rape is evil. Science can’t tell us that rape is evil. The value judgment, evil, lies beyond the scope of the scientific method. Sure, science can tell us that rape can have biological and psychological repercussions on individuals and societies, but to say that rape is evil is not something that science can do. We know that rape is evil wholly apart from science.

Science can’t answer questions beyond those about the observable, testable world around us. Trying to do so is akin to using a yardstick to find the weight of a bucket of water. It won’t work because that isn’t the correct tool. My point here is not to say that science is bad. Not at all. I love science. Science has given us, and continues to provide us with progress in health and understanding the world around us. But we should not try to apply science outside of the fields for which it is meant.

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How to Get Your Kids to Ask More Questions About Their Faith

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By Natasha Crain

The most popular post on my blog is one I wrote last year called, The Number One Sign Your Kids are Just Borrowing Your Faith (and Not Developing Their Own).

That post has been read by more than 80,000 people and shared almost 14,000 times. Clearly it resonated deeply with people.

So what was the sign that your kids are just “borrowing” your faith?

They rarely, if ever, ask questions about it.

Many parents wrote to me and said the post made them realize that they were doing a lot of talking about God…but their kids weren’t doing a lot of talking back.

If your kids aren’t showing much proactive interest in talking about faith, I have a very easy and effective solution to share with you today: Start a questions night.

For the last several months, our family has set aside a night each week in order to simply sit and answer any questions our kids have about faith. They absolutely love it. And I can tell you that they weren’t asking these questions before we started the questions night. They knew they could always ask us questions, but that doesn’t mean they actually did. Setting aside a special time for questions opens the doors of communication in ways that don’t necessarily happen otherwise.

These question nights have facilitated some of the most important conversations we have ever had with our kids.

Here are 9 tips to help you get started with your own!

 

1. You don’t need to know how to answer all your kids’ questions before you launch your questions night.

Whenever I mention to someone that we have a questions night, the first response is always, “I don’t think I could answer my kids’ questions!”…followed by an uncomfortable laugh. If that’s what you’re thinking as you read this, please don’t let that concern stop you from doing it! You will never know how to answer all of your kids’ questions. No matter how prepared you are, they will ask questions you’re not sure how to answer…so there’s no point in waiting.

 

2. When you don’t know an answer, there’s no need to be embarrassed…just use it as a chance to teach your kids how you find answers yourself.

I’ll never forget one of the first questions my daughter asked: Why did Jesus have to be baptized if He wasn’t a sinner?

I have to admit I had never thought about that (if you’re interested in the answer, here’s a nice quick article). I laughed and told her that was a really great question that I hadn’t even thought about. Then I showed her how we could use my study Bible to find an answer.

Here’s the thing to remember: When your kids stump you, they’re proud of themselves…not ashamed of you. Praise them for asking a great question, then use it as an opportunity to demonstrate how to find the answers together. My kids love thinking of questions so good we can’t answer. And we love it too.

 

3. Explicitly tell your kids that any question is OK.

If your kids are old enough that they may have doubts about their faith, they may not open up with those questions by default. Other kids might fear their questions are too basic and won’t want to admit they don’t understand something they feel they should. Be sure to explicitly tell your kids up front that all questions are welcome and you’ll never bedisappointed by or angry about something they want to know.

 

4. If you think your kids might need time to warm up to the idea of asking questions, have some ready to go in advance.

If you’re not sure that your kids will hit the ground running with the new questions night, pick a couple of interesting questions in advance to throw out on their behalf. That way you won’t be sitting around awkwardly staring at each other in silence. If you need some ideas, check out my list of 65 questions every Christian parent should learn how to answer.

 

5. If you have more than one child, “open the floor” to questions but make sure everyone has the chance to ask something.

When we first started doing this, we went around in a circle, having each of our kids ask a question on their turn. The good side of doing it that way is that it encourages everyone to be thinking. The bad side is (1) that it can kill the momentum of the night if one kid is not feeling particularly thoughtful (everyone will be sitting around waiting for them to come up with something), and (2) that if your kids are competitive (as mine are), they’ll spend more time thinking up a good question for their impending turn than listening to the current discussion. We found the whole night flows better when you simply let everyone throw out questions as they have them. Just make sure that if someone didn’t ask something on their own, you give them the chance to.

 

6. Don’t assume young kids don’t have big questions to ask.

For a while, it was only my twins (age 6) asking questions. My 4-year-old rolled around on the floor, seemingly bored by the more “advanced” conversation going on around her. When I asked her each time if she had a question, she gave me an embarrassed look and said, “Nooo!” She was intimidated by the questions from her older siblings.

But one night she finally spoke up and said she had a question.

“Mommy, why did God create soldiers who kill people?”

I was more than surprised that this was a question on my 4-year-old’s mind (I still don’t know where it came from).

If you have young kids, don’t assume they don’t have big questions. Kids as young as 3 or 4 can benefit from doing this! It might take time for them to speak up, but you just might be surprised how much they’re already thinking.

 

7. When your kids ask a question that the Bible doesn’t clearly answer, be honest about that and use it as a key teaching opportunity.

Quite often, I find myself answering a question with “the Bible doesn’t tell us for sure” or “the Bible doesn’t give us all of the details on that.” For example, my kids often ask questions about heaven—what it will be like, what we’ll be doing, etc. I tell them that the Bible doesn’t give us all the details, and that there are many things like that.

But I don’t like to leave it there. I think it’s an important time to teach them about the three points I described in my post, How to Handle Questions God Didn’t Answer: God’s revelation is not broken, we can trust that God has revealed all we need to know, and it should be our life’s work to understand the answers He has given us.

 

8. When your kids ask a question that’s been a struggle for you personally, tell them as much.

This might sound counter-intuitive, but I actually love when the kids ask something that’s a difficulty in my own faith. As for many people, the problem of suffering in the world has always greatly troubled me. When the kids ask questions on this subject, we discuss free will and its implications, but I’m quick to tell them that this has always been hard for me (and many others) to understand. I explain to them that it’s easy to look at those things and see them as evidence against God. I’m very honest about it. But after I acknowledge that, I use it as a perfect opportunity to talk about how much evidence there is for God and why we are Christians despite those difficulties.

Getting real about your own faith challenges gives you credibility with your kids and helps give them a more realistic understanding of what a living, breathing faith looks like.

 

9. If you miss a week…or two…or three…don’t give up on it.

There was a period of about a month when we got busy and didn’t do our questions night. It would have been easy to let it go at that point. But when we told the kids one evening that it was time to do it again, they cheered and all ran into the living room to sit down. They started waving their hands in the air to be the first to ask something. And we literally couldn’t stop the questions from coming.

After just one month.

Again, they could have asked us those questions at any time. They didn’t need a “questions night.” But in the hustle and bustle of life, those questions often don’t naturally arise. So give it a try in your own family. It could completely transform your kids’ spiritual life.

 

Here’s a challenge to all of you as an easy start toward this. Ask your kids today, “What is one of the biggest questions you have about God, Jesus, or the Bible?” Come back and share what they asked and what happened in your conversation!

 

For more articles like: How to Get Your Kids to Ask More Questions About Their Faith visit Natasha’s site at ChristianMomThoughts.com

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65 Apologetics Questions Every Christian Parent Needs to Learn to Answer

65 Apologetics Questions Every Christian Parent Needs to Learn to Answer

By Natasha Crain

In prior posts, I’ve talked about why parents have to care about apologetics (the reasoned defense of Christianity), and I’ve shared resources for getting started with apologetics. I realize, however, that it can seem pretty ambiguous to have a goal of “learning apologetics.” We need to know the specific questions we most need to study and discuss with our kids, the ones that non-believers most frequently challenge Christians on and the ones that most frequently turn young adults away from the faith after spending 18 years in the church.

That’s the purpose of this post.

I want to give you a very specific list of 65 apologetics questions every Christian parent needs to learn to answer and discuss with their kids (in age-appropriate ways). Of course, any such list is subjective. I created this list based on my own study and experience with engaging in these topics, with a special emphasis on the issues challenging young adults today.

You may not think I’ve narrowed it down much by giving you 65, but there are hundreds of questions that could have been listed! In case this looks overwhelming, I’ve highlighted in red my “top 20.” Start with those if you’re new to these topics.

I encourage you to take some time and challenge yourself here. Read each question and give yourself a “point” for each one you feel you could thoroughly answer. What would your score be if you had to answer these questions today?

Questions About the Existence and Nature of God

1. What key arguments are there for (and against) God’s existence?

2. What are the practical implications of an atheistic worldview?

3. Why would a good God allow evil to exist?

4. Why would a good God allow suffering to exist?

5. Why would God command the death of so many people in the Bible (e.g., the Canaanites)?

6. How can a loving God send people to hell?

7. Why does God remain so “hidden?”

8. Why does the “Old Testament God” seem different than the “New Testament God?”

9. Why would God need people to worship Him (isn’t that egotistical and arrogant)?

Questions About Truth and Worldviews

10. What is the difference between absolute and relative truth?

11. How can it be reasonable for Christians to claim knowledge of objective truth?

12. What are the role and danger of using “common sense” in evaluating truth claims?

13. Isn’t hell an unreasonable punishment for not believing in a specific set of truth claims?

14. How can Christians think their personal religious experiences with God are any more “true” than those of adherents to other belief systems?

15. Do all religions ultimately point to the same God? Why or why not?

16. What are key similarities and differences between the world’s major religions (e.g., Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism)?

17. Is Christianity a less intelligent worldview than atheism? Why or why not?

Questions About Jesus

18. What extra-biblical evidence is there that Jesus existed (as a historical person)?

19. What major Old Testament prophecies did Jesus fulfill?

20. Was Jesus wrong about the timing of his second coming? Why or why not?

21. What are the key passages in the Bible that show Jesus claimed to be God?

22. What does the Bible say about the exclusivity of Jesus with regard to salvation?

23. Why did Jesus have to die on the cross for our sins to be forgiven (couldn’t God have just pardoned sins without a gruesome death involved)?

24. What are the four minimal facts of the resurrection that are “so strongly attested historically that they are granted by nearly every scholar who studies the subject, even the rather skeptical ones?”

25. What are the main theories non-believers have about the resurrection (e.g., unknown tomb, wrong tomb, disciples stole the body, authorities hid the body, etc.)?

26. Why do Christians believe a supernatural (bodily) resurrection explains the minimal facts better than all the other theories?

27. Why does it matter whether or not Jesus was resurrected (and that the resurrection wasn’t simply a metaphor)?

Questions About the Bible

28. Who selected what books are in the Bible?

29. How were the books of the Bible selected?

30. Why were some “books” we know about today (e.g., the Gospel of Thomas) left out of the Bible?

31. How can we know that the Bible we have today is a reliable record of the original writings?

32. What major “contradictions” exist in the Bible (and what are the explanations)?

33. Does the Bible support slavery? Why or why not? (Don’t laugh at this and the next two questions…these come up constantly in discussion with atheists.)

34. Does the Bible support rape? Why or why not?

35. Does the Bible support human sacrifice? Why or why not?

36. What does the Bible say about homosexuality?

37. How do Christians determine what parts of the Bible are prescriptive and which are descriptive?

Science and Christianity

Young Earth Creationism

38. What is Young Earth Creationism (YEC)?

39. What are key pieces of scriptural support for the YEC interpretation of creation in six 24-hour days?

40. How do YECs determine that the earth is 6,000-10,000 years old?

Evidence for an Old Earth (i.e., billions of years old)

41. What areas of science have implications for the age of the earth?

42. What are major methods scientists use to estimate the age of the earth, and what is their consensus on the estimate?

43. What is the relationship between belief in a global flood and the age of the earth? Old Earth Creationism

44. What is “Old Earth Creationism (OEC)?”

45. What are the major reasons OECs reject the YEC interpretation of creation?

46. What are the key pieces of scriptural support for the OEC interpretation?

Intelligent Design

47. What is Intelligent Design?

48. Why do Intelligent Design proponents consider it a scientific theory and not a religious one?

49. What are the major reasons Intelligent Design proponents reject evolution as a sufficient explanation for the existence of life?

50. What does it mean that the universe appears to be “finely tuned?”

Evolution

51. What is evolution (from a purely scientific perspective)?

52. What are the key pieces of evidence for evolution?

53. What are the key questions evolution has not answered?

54. What do people mean when they talk about “macroevolution” versus “microevolution”?

55. Why do evolutionists reject the theory of intelligent design?

56. What are the theological implications for acceptance of evolution?

57. What are the theological implications specifically for Adam and Eve not being literal, historical people? Other Science and Christianity Questions

58. Why would Jesus-loving, Bible-believing Christians differ on their view of origins?

59. How can Christians believe miracles are possible, given what we know about science (e.g., the miracle of Jesus’ resurrection)?

Other Important (and Common) Questions

60. What does it mean (biblically) to have faith, and how is that different than the popular definition of faith?

61. If Christianity is true, why are there so many Christians whose lives look no different than those of non-believers (aren’t many Christians hypocrites)?

62. Why are there so many denominations (and does the fact of many denominations invalidate the truth of Christianity)?

63. Is Christianity “responsible” for millions of deaths throughout history? Why or why not, and what implications does the answer have for the evaluation of Christian truth claims?

64. What happens to people who have never heard the Gospel?

65. Why don’t miracles happen as frequently today as they did in the Bible?

You needed something to work on in 2016, right? I know I have my work cut out for me! I’ll be blogging about these topics over time, with my usual emphasis on delivering the message to our kids. Want to be sure to see each post? Sign up for my email list below!

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Talking with Your Kids about God: 30 Conversations Every Christian Parent Must Have by Natasha Crain (Book)

Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side: 40 Conversations to Help Them Build a Lasting Faith by Natasha Crain (Book)

Courageous Parenting by Jack and Deb Graham (Book)

Proverbs: Making Your Paths Straight Complete 9-part Series by Frank Turek DVD and Download

Forensic Faith for Kids by J. Warner Wallace and Susie Wallace (Book)

God’s Crime Scene for Kids by J. Warner Wallace and Susie Wallace (Book)

 

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

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/37yH8z2

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Did They Really Exist? A Biblical and Scientific Defence of Adam and Eve

Did They Really Exist? A Biblical and Scientific Defence of Adam and Eve

The historicity of Adam and Eve is a question which strikes at the heart of the Christian faith. If the primordial pair did not exist, then the historical and Biblical doctrine of the fall becomes extremely difficult to maintain. The apostle Paul clearly linked God’s redemptive plan and Christ’s atonement for sin with the fall described in Genesis (e.g., see Romans 5:12-21). We read in Romans 5:12-14,

 

12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned— 13 To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. 14 Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.

In 1 Corinthians 15:20-22, we similarly read,

20 But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. 22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.

Further evidence that Paul took Adam as a literal historical figure can be found in 1 Timothy 2:11-14 where he appeals to this doctrine in order to make an argument concerning the role of women in the church with respect to men. Paul writes,

11 A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.

Indeed, Jesus Himself clearly understood Adam and Eve to have been historical figures. In response to questioning from the Pharisees about marriage and divorce, Jesus declared (Matthew 19:4-6),

4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

As if that wasn’t enough, the genealogies recorded in 1 Chronicles 1 and Luke 3 treat Adam as a historical figure. The literature associated with second temple Judaism also recognized Adam as a historical individual. The context and genre of the book of Genesis does not give any indication whatsoever that it is intended to be non-literal or ahistorical in the sense that much of apocalyptic literature (e.g., the book of Revelation) is. If we read the book of Genesis as metaphorical, at which point do we stop? The life of Abraham (to whom we are first introduced in Genesis 12) is clearly connected to the history that came before him, going all the way back to Adam. Those who discard Genesis 1-11 as metaphorical but understand Genesis 12 onwards to be historical are being inconsistent. The narrative simply does not allow for this interpretation.

Christians may have disagreements about peripheral matters such as the age of the earth. As I have discussed before, I don’t think that Genesis commits one to accepting a young earth position. However, the historical existence of Adam and Eve is another matter — it is a Gospel issue. Without a historical Adam and Eve, and without a historical fall, the doctrine of the atonement and redemption makes very little sense.

Having presented some Biblical reasons for thinking that Adam and Eve were literal historical individuals, I want to turn my attention to some of the common scientific arguments which are advanced against the notion of a historical Adam and Eve.

Minimum Effective Population Size

It is argued by many that coalescence theory and analysis of single nucleotide polymorphisms/linkage disequilibrium (SNP/LD) show that the mean effective population size for the hominid lineage is 100,000 individuals over the course of the last 30 million years. According to some theories, a genetic bottleneck occurred in the hominid lineage during the Middle Pleistocene with, according to one recent study, a mean effective population size of only 14,000 individuals. A range of values for the most recent common ancestor (TMRCA) is given as “450,000-2,400,000 years for the autosomes, and 380,000-2,000,000 for the X chromosome,” (Blum and Jakobsson, 2011).

The trouble with such attempts to estimate the effective population size and times of most recent common ancestors is the number of simplifying assumptions which are involved in the calculation. These include:

  • Fixed population size.
  • No migration.
  • Random mating.
  • Non-overlapping generations.
  • Constant mutation rates.
  • No selection.

The problem is that human populations change in size, migration in and out of the population does occur, humans selectively mate, mutation rates are often not constant, and selection does occur. Indeed, rates of recombination are also known to differ with respect to a location on the chromosome. Attempts at estimating effective population sizes and coalescent times, therefore, are rendered difficult by their high dependency on the assumptions made and the constancy of the pertinent variables. This makes it extremely hard to make dogmatic claims in this regard.

Let’s take an example to illustrate this point. One research paper examined 377 short tandem repeat (STR) loci pertinent to 1,056 individuals from 52 different populations (Zhivotovsky et al., 2003). The study inferred that modern humanity arose from a common ancestral population living between 71 and 142 thousand years ago from a relatively small population size (less than 2000 individuals). A previous study estimated this ancestral population size to be comprised roughly of 500 individuals (Zhivotovsky et al., 2000). This non-congruity was apparently resultant from the use of varying number of loci by the two studies as well as use of different sample sizes.

The Y-Chromosomal Adam Paradox

It is widely known that molecular dating based on the male-specific Y-chromosomal DNA tends to give somewhat more recent dates for the most recent common ancestors of modern humans than does molecular dating based on the maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA. This has been argued by some to show that Adam and Eve lived tends of thousands of years apart from one another. Though there are obviously alternative explanations for this phenomenon, one interesting hypothesis relates to the genetic bottleneck pertinent to the great flood described in Genesis. In that case, the most recent male common ancestor would be Noah (Noah’s three sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, boarded the ark along with their respective wives). The most recent female common ancestor, however, would be Eve. This would quite readily account for the discrepancy between the data yielded from the Y-chromosomal and mitochondrial DNA sequences.

Where Did Cain Get His Wife?

The first thing to take notice of is that Adam and Eve had other sons and daughters besides Cain, Abel, and Seth. According to Genesis 5:4, “After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters.” It is also noteworthy that Genesis 5 records very long life spans, with people living up to an age of 900 years. Given this, Dr. Hugh Ross argues that “the possibility existed for a veritable population explosion. In fact, the world’s population could have approached a few billion by the time of Adam’s death at the age of 930.” There is some Biblical support for thinking that there was a reasonable population size following Cain’s murder of Abel. According to Genesis 4, Cain is given a mark “so that no one who found him would kill him.” This presupposes that there was a population size sufficient such that (a) there were people who might find Cain in the wilderness, and (b) Cain might be mistaken for someone else.

The possibility that Cain may have married his sister raises the old question of incest. It is not until the book of Leviticus, however, that laws are given against marriage between siblings. Adam and Eve were probably created genetically pure. It is, therefore, likely that the genetic defects resulting from the marriage between siblings would not present an issue for the first couple of dozen generations.

Summary and Conclusion

In conclusion, attempts to estimate coalescent times and effective population sizes are fraught with problems and require that we make a number of unrealistic assumptions. Perhaps it is possible that some of these estimates pertain to the human population sometime after the creation of Adam and Eve. The question of Cain’s wife is effectively resolved if we suppose that genetic defects resulting from the marriage between siblings was a later development. The existence of a historical Adam and Eve, however, is foundational to a full and proper understanding of the Gospel and Christ’s role as the “second Adam.” “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ, all will be made alive,” (1 Corinthians 15:22).

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