Tag Archive for: worldview

How to Build a More Discerning, Less Naïve, and Better Culturally Engaged Church

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By Natasha Crain 

In my last article, Christian Naivety is Harming the Church’s Engagement with Today’s Culture; I identified four ways that I’ve seen many Christians respond with naivety to calls for discernment in today’s world. At the end, I asked, “How do we fix this?” and said my answer would be the subject of my next article. This is that article. Since this is a follow-up, please be sure to read my last post before this one for context.

Let me start by saying that the title of this article is a rather sweeping proposition. Obviously, this is a single article, the issues are complex, and I’m not claiming that what I write here is a complete answer to all the problems we have. But I want to offer what I see as some key levers needed to drive change in how Christians engage with today’s culture.

In my years as a marketing executive, I came to deeply appreciate one particular model that people in the marketing field have used for over one hundred years (in various shapes and forms). It’s a simple funnel that describes the psychological stages people go through before committing to an action:

AIDA model

Though this originates in marketing, I’ve noticed many times in the last few years how this model applies to so much in the area of ministry as well. As such, I’m going to use it as a framework for my current subject. If we want to move more Christians to the bottom of the funnel—the action point of being more discerning, less naïve, and better culturally engaged—here are the key levers I see at the awareness, interest, and desire points leading there.

  1. Grow awareness of worldview differences by addressing biblical illiteracy.

Every time there’s a heated discussion on social media about some issue of discernment (calling out sin, the intersection of morality and politics, etc.), you can count about 5 seconds before a Christian drops a comment reminding everyone involved that Jesus says not to judge.

Or that Christians just need to “love” people (however, the person defines that).

Nothing to me represents a bigger lack of biblical literacy than when people make those two culturally popular comments, completely lacking in context and understanding of what the Bible says on these subjects.

Now, if research showed that Christians read their Bibles consistently and deeply and we were still seeing pervasive comments that suggest a lack of understanding, I would be writing here about the need for more guidance in Bible study. Guidance is surely important too, but the research shows many Christians aren’t even reading the Bible in the first place.

A study by LifeWay Research, for example, found that only 45 percent of those who regularly attend church read the Bible more than once a week. Almost 1 in 5 churchgoers say they never read the Bible, and that’s about the same number who read it every day.

If a person doesn’t realize that their understanding of the Bible lacks appropriate context and depth, they end up navigating the stormy cultural waters in whatever way happens to make sense to them based on what they think the Bible says. Ironically, without an accurate biblical anchor, their Christian views get completely watered down by the cultural waves…and discernment no longer functions effectively. They’re less able to engage effectively with culture because they aren’t even fully aware of how a biblical and secular worldview really differ.

A less naïve, more discerning church must start with deeper biblical literacy. This should be a top priority for churches everywhere.

  1. Grow interest in cultural engagement by addressing (lack of) conviction.

Even if a person gains a better understanding of what the Bible says on relevant cultural topics (the awareness I just addressed), it doesn’t mean they’ll be interested enough to become culturally engaged. There could be many reasons for that, but there’s one that’s especially problematic: a lack of conviction that Christianity is objectively (and exclusively) true.

Pew Research shows that 65 percent of Christians believe many religions can lead to eternal life. This, of course, is another example of pervasive biblical illiteracy; the Bible clearly claims that only through Jesus is there eternal life (see Chapter 7, “Did Jesus Teach That He’s the Only Way to God?” in Talking with Your Kids about Jesus for more on this). If a person believes that Christianity is one of many worldviews that ultimately leads to the same truth, they aren’t going to be all that interested in standing up for what they perceive to be just one of those so-called “truths.”

A church filled with Christians who lack conviction that Christianity is the one true worldview is a church filled with Christians who will never care enough to challenge a non-Christian culture.

This is why there’s a desperate need for apologetics in the church today (apologetics is the study of why there’s good reason to believe Christianity is true and how to defend the faith against various challenges). Christians need to understand: 1) the evidence for God’s existence (see chapters 1-6 in Talking with Your Kids about God); 2) why multiple religions cannot be true (see chapter 10 in Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side); 3) the evidence for the resurrection (i.e., the truth test for Christianity as the one true religion—see part 4 of Talking with Your Kids about Jesus); and 4) the evidence for the reliability of the Bible (see part 4 in Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side).

Knowing why there’s good reason to believe Christianity is objectively true—and why that truth makes an eternal difference—is a critically important step toward building a church that cares enough to stand for truth.

  1. Grow desired or engagement by destigmatizing the relationship between politics and religion.

Let’s now say that we have a person who is aware of what the Bible says on today’s hot topics, and they’re interested in engaging culture because they’re convicted that the Bible offers the one true picture of reality.

That doesn’t mean they’ll actually do something.

Marketers are well aware that awareness and interest do not always lead to a strong desire to do something because there’s often some kind of barrier. There are a lot of barriers I could list here with respect to cultural engagement, but a major one I’ve seen is the prevailing stigma about mixing politics and religion.

Just saying the words “politics” and “religion” in the same sentence immediately puts people on the defensive. Unfortunately, many pastors and Christian leaders have emphasized a generic dichotomy between the two areas, and over time the stigma of mixing them has grown. Consequently, when important cultural concerns arise—such as the ideology of the Black Lives Matter organization (which I discussed in the last couple of posts)—many Christians automatically bucket those questions into the “don’t touch this” category of “politics and religion,” as if it’s their Christian duty to stay out of it. Meanwhile, people start burning Bibles as part of BLM protests, and Christians are surprised! If you paid attention to their underlying ideology in weeks leading up to this, it’s not surprising at all.

We need to be able to think in more nuanced ways about the interaction of politics and religion if we’re ever going to have a more culturally engaged church that isn’t taken by naive surprise as hostility to Christianity increases.

Here are a few quick things I think we should be able to all agree on:

  • While some “political” issues are worldview neutral (e.g., local zoning laws), many are not (e.g., abortion or religious freedom laws).
  • When we’re talking about issues where biblical morality conflicts with secular morality, someone’s morality will be legislated; legislation based on a secular worldview isn’t the “neutral” option.
  • Acknowledging that there are political issues that involve the moral direction of our country and that Christians should care enough to be engaged in such areas, is not the same as saying one political party or the other represents Christianity. It’s also not the same as saying that we’re looking to a political leader to be our savior, or that we think we’ll eventually build an earthly utopia. These are often the strawmen people try to knock down when claiming Christians shouldn’t mix their faith with politics.
  • There are also many political areas where Christians can legitimately disagree. For example, we should all agree that God cares for would-be immigrants, but we may have very different policy opinions on how best to process immigration in this country. Identifying where grey exists is important for maintaining charitable conversation among Christians while uniting on issues that should be more black-and-white for anyone with a Christian worldview.

In short, we need to quit ending culturally relevant conversations before they begin by perpetuating the idea that politics and religion shouldn’t mix. Of course, they should, in some cases.

In all three of these areas, there is much that any pastor could do in a church through sermons, groups, studies, initiatives, and more. But that doesn’t mean others can’t make a significant impact as well. For example, you can:

  • Use social media to share biblically-sound articles that educate others about cultural issues from a Christian worldview. (I do my best to share a variety of such articles from my author Facebook page—you can follow me there if you don’t already.)
  • Take the time to engage in a thoughtful dialog when you see Christians make comments online that lack biblical understanding. It’s worth the time even if the person you initially respond to doesn’t seem to appreciate it—remember that others are reading too. If a comment is best addressed privately, do it that way. But resist the urge to just be silent because that’s the easy thing to do.
  • Lead a Bible study (online or in person, through your church or on your own).
  • Lead a book study that addresses current cultural questions from a biblical worldview.
  • Start a group to learn apologetics. (If you’re interested in starting a group specifically for parents and grandparents, we give you all you need to get going with Grassroots Apologetics for Parents. You can start an in-person or online chapter!)
  • Encourage your pastor to address more of these questions in sermons.
  • Work with your church to invite subject matter experts to provide training. Many of these experts are currently offering training online. For example, the Life Training Institute a 4-day Zoom event next week that anyone can sign up for: How to Survive Being Pro-Life on Campus in a Cancel Culture. Many apologetics speakers are also offering remote sessions right now. The Center for Biblical Unity is offering trainings on a biblical approach to current racial questions. So much is available!
  • Commit to the serious discipleship of your kids. They are literally the future. Training them in the same ways I’ve mentioned here for adults is just as important.

With more discernment from biblical literacy, more interest from conviction, and more willingness to engage by removing the “politics vs. religion” barrier, we can shape a better culturally engaged church. Perhaps one of the positives that will come from the chaos of this year will be a wider recognition that these things are so desperately needed in the body of Christ.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

American Apocalypse MP3, and DVD by Frank Turek

Correct, NOT Politically Correct: How Same-Sex Marriage Hurts Everyone (Updated/Expanded) downloadable pdf, Book, DVD Set, Mp4 Download by Frank Turek

The Case for Christian Activism MP3 Set, DVD Set, mp4 Download Set by Frank Turek

You Can’t NOT Legislate Morality mp3 by Frank Turek

Fearless Generation – Complete DVD Series, Complete mp4 Series (download) by Mike Adams, Frank Turek, and J. Warner Wallace

 

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: https://bit.ly/30RAGmC 

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Marx Attacks!

By Phil Bair

If I were to ask you who the most influential philosopher of the 21st Century is, what would your answer be? The correct answer might surprise you.

It is Karl Marx.

Karl Marx believed that class struggle would occur naturally on its own without the help of any social engineer. He believed the Communist Revolution was the inevitable outcome of socio-economic forces, and it was only a matter of time.

He was wrong.

The marxists of today believe in the class struggle, just like Marx did in his day. Except that now, the new Marxists recognize that it won’t naturally happen on its own. They have forged a new agenda to bring about a social revolution similar to the one Marx imagined. Except this time the intended outcome will be a cultural and social revolution they hope to control through deliberate measures rather than an unpredictable result left to chance.

A Worldview and its Weapon

A study of this cultural marxism can be summarized as the movement to apply classical marxist ideas of economic class struggle to cultural classes and identities primarily based on proportionality. The majority classes (e.g., white anglo-saxon male, cisgender Christians) are seen as oppressive just because they are the majority. Minorities are seen as oppressed just because they are minorities. Power is perceived as an automatic property of having greater numbers in your group, and that alleged power is always seen as villainy.

Whenever you see and hear people use language like “American racism,” or “systemic racism,” or “American original sin,” or any other expression of built-in institutional or structural bias cited as the cause of socio-economic disparities, cultural marxism is behind it. It is blaming imaginary policies and systems for what it sees as institutional discrimination rather than identifying the real causes of the disparities. It is the myth that the whole system is rigged against minorities and in favor of the “privileged.” It is the idea that what was institutional discrimination in the past still exists, despite the fact that Jim Crow laws and the earlier scourge of slavery have been eradicated. It is blaming society for disadvantages rooted in individual dysfunction and/or cultural pathology.

The left-wing marxist soldiers are engaged in a systematic and widespread attack on Western Civilization. They use an insidious tool known as “critical theory” to accomplish their objectives. It is important to understand that despite having the word “theory” in its name, critical theory is not technically a worldview or an ideology. It is a methodology. It functions as a weapon designed to torpedo social frameworks that are healthy and beneficial for all mankind. The worldview behind the methodology of critical theory (cultural marxism) sees those frameworks as evil and oppressive. Critical theory poisons the minds of those in society against those frameworks and deceives them into thinking they should be dismantled and replaced by an anti-Christian collectivist framework that becomes the true oppressor and destroys the freedom and rights of God’s image-bearers. Critical theory is not the ideology itself, but the blueprint for aggression and activism that is designed to pulverize the existing social fabric and establish the new order the marxist ideology visualizes.

The weapons of the critical theory include challenges from radical feminism, identity politics, the weaponization of homosexuality and transgenderism, and the accusations of systemic racism, bigotry, xenophobia, homophobia, sexism, and evangelical religious oppression. The battle is waged against what they view as the establishment of “whiteness.” The Equinsu Ocha, the white devil, is the enemy, and has to be destroyed at all costs in order to bring about social justice and cultural transformation.

The strategy? Criticize, demonize, disrupt, divide, and destabilize Western society and its institutions by cultivating resentment and grievance culture so that they can be dismantled more easily and a new social order can replace them. The criticism and accusations of critical theory don’t have to be true, and they rarely are. Truth doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is the marxist narrative, to be accepted as dogma through blind ideological conformity. Critical theory seeks to turn people against each other by fostering tribal warfare and victim culture. It stirs up hatred and animosity based on false narratives people have been brainwashed in for decades in our colleges and universities.

One of the largest flaming arrows critical theory has been shooting at us over the last few years is the idea that evangelical Christians have abandoned the Gospel to embrace a power-centered “right-wing” political agenda. We are told that our efforts to promote the Kingdom of God in this life and in our society have been co-opted by a fawning devotion to the spiritually and morally problematic “orange man” occupying the White House. (And by the way, it’s called the “White House.” Hello? The White House.) The purpose of this accusation is to shame and intimidate us into silence when it comes to speaking into our current socio-political climate. After all, we are subordinate to the Son of God, not the Republican Party. This has taught us to avoid politics in the church so as not to offend those in the laity whom the marxist ideology has infected, and to avoid any potential divisiveness taking a stand may cause. Very clever.

The reality is, God is the author of all truth. Truth always has political implications, whether we like it or not. Therefore to avoid politics is to avoid truth. To avoid truth is to ignore the author of all truth: God. Which group of people are terrified of getting political more than any other, and which community avoids it like the plague with unrelenting tenacity? The church. Take your time.

The easiest way to establish a new order is to silence the most vocal opponents of that order. Social engineering is just as much about silencing dissent as indoctrinating the credulous. Critical theory has had overwhelming success in this regard.

Marxism vs Freedom

What does this new social order look like? No classes. No racial “inequality.” No “oppression.” No white “privilege.” No wealth or income, “inequality.” Absolute uniformity of outcome through the coercive power of the state. No dissent. No opposing ideas. Utopia.

Oh, and by the way, no freedom. Free people are at liberty to think and speak as they wish, based on their convictions, and this is not allowed. Nothing contrary to the marxist narrative of class ideology is permitted, no intolerance of the state ideology will be tolerated.

Every outcome is equalized through force. The state is greater than the individual, and until the revolution is complete, people will be treated and judged according to their class, not as stand-alone human beings created in the image of God. If you are white, you are privileged, and you are damned in the name of social justice. Whether you enjoy any personal “privilege” or not, and whether you are personally racist or not, you are guilty, privileged, and racist anyway — period. None of the details about who you are as a person matter. The only thing that matters is that you belong to the white class, and therefore you are a target.

It is almost impossible to dislodge this ideology from its acolytes. The false accusations carried into our minds by the pathological vector called critical theory are so deeply embedded and so thoroughly pervasive in our society that they have been elevated to the status of axiomatic certitude. Anyone who challenges these presuppositions is seen as a drooling hateful neanderthal and will be treated as a pariah. The mechanism to silence dissent is known as “political correctness.” You are not allowed to question the narrative nor attempt to refute it by speaking the truth. Truth is offensive. This is what happens when myth has been implanted in the minds of multitudes of people through indoctrination (from the entertainment industry, the media, and academia) and repetition for so long that people are no longer capable of seeing the world any other way.

The Infected Church

Now this poison has invaded the Body of Christ. Untold numbers of Christians are redefining the principles of their faith to conform to the agenda of social justice rather than personal redemption. The Gospel articulates and endorses a well-defined concept of true justice. But it stands in sharp contrast to the false justice in modern marxist ideology that now has so much of the Church in its death grip.

The monolithic ideology of “white guilt” is wreaking havoc in the Church by pressuring white Christians into “apologizing” for things they didn’t do, and to adopt an attitude of self-condemnation as a means to redeem themselves before the judgment seat of social justice. It comes in the form of progressives (which are now almost identical to marxists) insisting on whites becoming “woke” to their alleged implicit racial bias and defining themselves by their newly enlightened status as pathetic inferiors.

The most virulent lie in the arsenal of critical theory in our present moment is the idea of systemic racism, belief in which is a form of mental illness (a mind detached from reality). Those who are brainwashed by it will attack you like rabid animals if you so much as question their holy article of faith or offer evidence that systemic racism doesn’t exist. Facts don’t matter. The only thing that counts is subjective interpretation of personal experience guided by junk ideology. That is why they spray such toxic venom at their own black brothers and sisters who are trying to teach them a different way of understanding their condition — a way that embraces the truth. For them to admit, that possibility would force them to stop blaming their favorite scapegoat (whiteness), and to honestly examine the real roots of their suffering.

Make no mistake: those who believe in the lie of systemic racism have no desire to see that alleged racism eradicated — ever. If it did exist, and if it came to an end, their precious grievance culture and celebration of their own victimhood would cease to exist. They must believe it’s true, and they will never believe otherwise. The accusation of racism toward whites is what they live for. It is what nourishes and sustains them. That their psychotic security blanket could ever be taken from them is unthinkable. Do not believe for a second that movements like Black Lies Matter really care about black lives or true justice. They only care about one thing: the obliteration of the foundations of Western Civilization. Their web site speaks of dissolving the nuclear family. Their leaders openly inform us they are trained marxists. Their marches advocate deadly violence against the police. Meanwhile, they ignore the over 300,000 black victims of homicide at the hands of other blacks over the last 40 years. The only time they protest and riot against the loss of a precious black life is when it occurs at the hands of the police. And they don’t give a flying rat’s patoot whether it was justified or not. I repeat: they don’t care about black lives — at all. Black Lies Matter is a race-baiting hate group, and the only thing that matters to them is the perpetual decomposition of our society. They are the most high profile puppets of critical theory you can possibly find.

Conclusion

This is the essence of the attack of left-wing marxist pathology in our society. It has achieved the lofty status of a militant social cult. It has already destroyed Europe, and we are next in line. The invasion has already begun. The most tragic aspect of all this is that gullible Christians, especially the millennial variety, have been brainwashed into the new marxist ideology and are busy helping the left do the dirty work of destabilizing American society, and worst of all, invading the Body of Christ like a metastasizing flesh-eating disease that is exterminating the true Gospel of Christ and replacing it with a demonic substitute.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

American Apocalypse MP3, and DVD by Frank Turek

Correct, NOT Politically Correct: How Same-Sex Marriage Hurts Everyone (Updated/Expanded) downloadable pdf, Book, DVD Set, Mp4 Download by Frank Turek

The Case for Christian Activism MP3 Set, DVD Set, mp4 Download Set by Frank Turek

You Can’t NOT Legislate Morality mp3 by Frank Turek

Fearless Generation – Complete DVD Series, Complete mp4 Series (download) by Mike Adams, Frank Turek, and J. Warner Wallace

 

Phil Bair studied philosophy, technology, earth sciences, and music theory at the University of Iowa, the University of Colorado, the National Institute of Technology, and Simpson College in Indianola Iowa. He has been dedicated to independent study and research for over thirty years in a variety of subject matter pertaining to the Christian world view. He has written several monographs on the relationship between theology and hope, being true to the Word of God, the creation/evolution controversy, and critiques of alternative spiritual doctrine and practices. He has written two books: From Rome To Galilee, an analysis of Roman Catholic theology and practice, and Deconstructing Junk Ideology – A Modern Christian Manifesto, a series of essays on the culture wars and applying Biblical principles to our socio-political landscape. He has delivered lectures, seminars, and workshops to churches and educational institutions on apologetics, textual criticism, creation science, ethics, critical thinking, the philosophy of science, understanding new age thought, and the defense of Christian theism, as well as current religious, philosophical, cultural, and political trends, with an emphasis on formulating a meaningful and coherent Christian response in those areas. His roles include author, speaker, Bible study leader, worship pastor, and director of contemporary music and worship for several evangelical churches. He has served as a philosophy consultant and speaker for Rivendell, a cultural apologetics organization founded in Denver, Colorado, and headquartered in Santa Barbara, California.

Original Blog Source: https://bit.ly/32Cfnqk

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An Accurate Picture Of The World

By Bob Perry

Jesus is the Logos. The Logos is a combination of truth, goodness, and beauty. Truth, goodness, and beauty are the references that give us a grounded Christian spirituality. That’s the True Horizon model — spirituality based on an accurate picture of the world. But what does a spirituality grounded in the real world look like?

More Than An Analogy

I have used an aviation analogy as a model for visualizing what it means to be spiritual. But an analogy is just a way to represent something real. And analogies can only go so far. Please don’t miss the purpose behind it. My point is simply that the culture has convinced too many of us that spirituality is disconnected from reality. That it is some free-floating source of emotional comfort. What I’m suggesting is that that is not what Christianity teaches. Christianity is grounded in the Logos. It produces a spiritual life that is attached to, and reflects, the real world.

Grounded In Truth

The dictionary definition of truth is “correspondence to reality.” In other words, if what you believe about something matches the way the world actually is, then what you believe is true. Again, truth doesn’t exist in our minds. To seek truth is to want to believe things about how the world is, not about how we would like it to be.

Christianity matches what we find in the world in several different ways.

Common Observations and Experiences

Here are a few things that every one of us can see when we look at the world around us:

Human life is inherently unique and valuable. 

This matches our common experience of the human condition. We don’t need anyone to teach us to respect and value human life.

The universe we live in owes its existence to an external source.

The universe had a beginning that requires an explanation. This is a conclusion that both science and philosophy lead us to.

Lies and deception are destructive.

We see this all around us every day. No one wants to be lied to. Everyone recognizes the harm that lies can bring to us individually and as a society.

Evil repulses us. Goodness attracts us.

Remember, we are talking about a feature of reality here. This is not about how we know good and evil. It is about the fact that both exist.

There is an order, intelligence, and purpose to the universe.

There are laws of logic and mathematics that describe the universe. Our location in time and space is fine-tuned to an incomprehensibly unlikely level. There is a digital code more complex than any computer algorithm ever written that controls and sustains every form of life on the planet.

There are many more examples, but all of these are different forms of truth, goodness, and beauty. And here’s the point…

A Grounded Spirituality

Based on just these things, a grounded spirituality should:

  • Pursue a life that values other human life.
  • Recognize that we are created beings, not gods unto ourselves.
  • Make us truthseekers and truth-tellers.
  • Understand that goodness, and the morality it demands is not based on our feelings and experiences, but in the nature of the Creator who made us.
  • Stand in awe of the miraculous nature of our very existence.

And each of these holds three things in common:

  • We can learn them directly from our observations and experiences in the world.
  • We don’t need the Bible to know any of them.
  • They are perfectly consistent with Christianity.

This is what I mean by a “grounded spirituality.” It matches what the Bible says — and it is supported by reality itself.

Common Ground

Don’t misunderstand. When I say, “we don’t need the Bible to know any of them,” I am not diminishing the importance of the Bible in our spiritual life. I am simply pointing out that this gives us confidence that truth is grounded in the Bible — and that the Bible is grounded in the truth.

Both come from the same Source.

When we understand that, it gives us common ground for discussing spirituality with everyone. Whether they are a hardcore atheist or a spiritually disoriented Christian, they live in the same world as you and me. And we should love them enough to have the courage to confidently, but respectfully, help them re-orient their thinking.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Counter Culture Christian: Is the Bible True? by Frank Turek (DVD)

Is Morality Absolute or Relative? by Dr. Frank Turek DVD, Mp3 and Mp4

How Can Jesus be the Only Way? (mp4 Download) by Frank Turek

 

Bob Perry is a Christian apologetics writer, teacher, and speaker who blogs about Christianity and the culture at truehorizon.org. He is a Contributing Writer for the Christian Research Journal and has also been published in Touchstone and Salvo. Bob is a professional aviator with 37 years of military and commercial flying experience. He has a B.S., Aerospace Engineering from the U. S. Naval Academy, and an M.A., Christian Apologetics from Biola University. He has been married to his high school sweetheart since 1985. They have five grown sons.

Original Blog Source: https://bit.ly/3iRsvOb 

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“The Ring of Truth”

“The Ring of Truth”

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By Tim Stratton

What religion or worldview possesses the “Ring of Truth?” It is definitely not Islam or atheism!

To be sure, this is not a deductive argument like the Kalam, Freethinking, or Ontological Arguments. I am simply encouraging readers to pay attention to their intuition. Although we cannot always trust our intuition, I contend that it is a great place to start when searching for the truth. Moreover, when one’s intuition is supported by a cumulative case of data, there is a good reason to continue trusting intuition.

With this in mind, consider the “Ring of Truth” to be frosting on top of a metaphysical cake already baked to perfection by a cumulative case supported by logic, science, and historical data:

The Kalam Cosmological Argument

The Leibnizian Cosmological Argument

The Moral Argument

The Teleological Argument

The Ontological Argument

The Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism

The Freethinking Argument Against Naturalism

The Historical Argument for the Resurrection of Jesus (The Facts)

The Historical Argument for the Resurrection of Jesus (The Explanation)

With the cumulative case of evidence in mind, now consider three of the most popular worldviews on the planet: Islam, atheism, and Christianity. Next, consider what logically follows from each of these worldviews and examine them through your intuitive lens:

— If Islam is true, it is objectively good to kill infidels (non-Muslims).

— If atheism is true, it is neither objectively good or objectively bad to kill anyone.

— If Christianity is true, then it is objectively wrong, bad, and evil not to love everyone from your neighbor to your enemies.

What seems most likely or probably true? Which worldview has the “Ring of Truth?”

If you are not sure, consider the Muslim man who murdered 49 people of the LGBT+ community at The Pulse nightclub the summer of 2016 in Orlando, Florida. According to the teachings of Muhammad (Islam), this mass murder of homosexuals was good and the right thing to do.

In fact, according to the final commands of Muhammad, Muslims ought to kill all infidels and non-Muslims (Quran 2:191; 9:5; 9:73; 9:123)! Nabeel Qureshi, a former devout Muslim, explains why Islam is not a peaceful religion in a short video (click here).

Is atheism any better? Not really. According to logically consistent atheism, since God does not exist, then humanity was not created on purpose or for a specific purpose — we are nothing but a “happy accident” — nothing more than dust in the wind. If this is true, then it follows that there is no objective purpose in which humans ought to approximate. Thus, if atheism is true, there is nothing really wrong with anything!

Does that “ring” true?

According to logically consistent atheism, there was nothing really good or bad with the mass murder of homosexuals at the Pulse nightclub. Nor was there anything objectively wrong with the recent mass murder of fifty Muslims in New Zealand while worshipping at their mosque.

Moreover, if naturalism is true (a view held by many atheists), then humans do nothing but deterministically “dance to the music of their DNA” as the famous atheist Richard Dawkins contends. Thus, the Muslim who shot up the gay nightclub and the man who shot up the New Zealand mosque each had no moral choice in the matter. Do not blame guns or the shooter — blame physics and chemistry (imagine a ban on physics and chemistry)! If naturalistic atheism is true, then nature determined the slaughter of those in the Pulse nightclub and the New Zealand mosque.

The Christian worldview, as opposed to Islam and atheism, “rings” true.

According to the Law of Christ (Christianity), as opposed to naturalistic atheism, we have a categorical ability to make real moral choices (Deuteronomy 30:10-20; 1 Corinthians 10:13). We possess the libertarian freedom to make objectively good choices… or objectively evil choices. Moreover, according to the teachings of Jesus, it is objectively wrong to murder or persecute homosexuals, Muslims, or anyone else!

The apostle Paul echoes the commands of Jesus in Romans 12:18:

18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.

Paul was the first one to preach “COEXIST.” However, Muhammad disagrees, and consistent atheism/naturalism is not only neutral on the matter, but also implies that we have no choice in the matter (since all that exists is matter).

Pay attention to intuition. As Gandalf would say, what worldview has the “ring of truth?”

I assume that the vast majority of those who are willing to answer honestly admit that Christianity at least seems to ring true (even if they do not want it to be true for some reason)! However, for those who continue to reject their intuition, Christians still have a cumulative case of logically deductive arguments that cannot be ignored (see the above list to get you started).

Christians stand on solid ground. We do not have to ignore logic or what is intuitively obvious. We ought to wear the “Ring of TRUTH” for all to see!

Stay reasonable (Isaiah 1:18),

Tim Stratton

 

Tim Stratton (The FreeThinking Theist) Tim pursued his undergraduate studies at the University of Nebraska-Kearney (B.A. 1997) and after working in full-time ministry for several years went on to attain his graduate degree from Biola University (M.A. 2014). Tim was recently accepted at North West University to pursue his Ph.D. in systematic theology with a focus on metaphysics.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2X2YuCZ

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Whirled Views

Whirled Views

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By Terrell Clemmons

A Framework for Mapping Reality & Engaging Ideological Confusion.

“Science is more than a body of knowledge. It’s a way of thinking,” said Carl Sagan in the last interview he gave before his death in 1996 at age 62. Sagan and Charlie Rose were discussing Sagan’s last book, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, and the danger that America’s deficiency in basic science posed for future generations. People in positions of power, they agreed, as well as the electorates who put them there must have a correct understanding of “the way the universe really is” and not be informed by doctrines that “make us feel good.” “If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true,” Sagan stressed, “then we’re up for grabs for the next charlatan, political or religious, who comes ambling along.” The upshot of it all was that science, rather than demons or doctrines, must be the “candle” that lights our way to the future.

Sagan is best known as the author and host of the 1980 PBS series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, which was the most widely watched PBS series of the 1980s. His legacy lives on in the 2014 Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, which aimed to capture for a new generation the “spirit of the original Cosmos,” according to host Neil deGrasse Tyson. Building on the popularity of the original, Tyson explained, the 21st-century remake would “present science in a way that has meaning to you, that could influence your conduct as a citizen of the nation and of the world—especially of the world.”

Salvo readers should be familiar with the concept of agenda-driven science, and to those who listen with an ear to discern it, it’s clear that Sagan, Rose, and Tyson are using science as they understand it to advance an agenda—to influence the way people think, with the aim of changing their behavior. This is the stuff of propaganda, and like most propaganda, Cosmos served up a slickly produced package of truths, half-truths, and subtle lies, skillfully laced with running undercurrents of moralistic appeals to emotion.

How does one respond to wholesale agendas like this without coming off as an abject contrarian? Try the worldview reset.

Worldview Reset

In How Now Shall We Live? (1999), Nancy Pearcey and Charles Colson laid out a framework for worldview analysis that can be applied to any narrative, idea, or agenda that comes ambling along. Here’s how it goes: Any worldview must provide an answer to three questions:

Who am I, and where did I come from? This is the question of origins.

What is wrong with the world? This is the question of the problem.

How can it be fixed? This is the question of the remedy.

Put through this filter, Christianity can answer each question in one word: Creation, fall, and redemption. God, sin, and Christ or the cross would work equally well. The point is not to nail down precise terminology, but to sketch out the main points on the biblical map of reality. Christianity is not just a relationship with Jesus, or adherence to a set of doctrines or rules, or association with a religious institution. Those things may have their place, but it’s more than that. Christianity is a full-orbed, comprehensive worldview that puts forth testable truth claims about all of reality.

The same framework, then, can serve as a test for coolly analyzing alternative worldviews. All agendas operate according to some worldview, and our first objective in the face of one should be to identify it. In the case of Sagan and Tyson, this is straightforward. They’re scientific naturalists. But even if we didn’t know that, we could figure it out from the grandiose opening to the original Cosmos, where Sagan intoned, “The cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be.” From there, given the title of his book and his discussion with Rose, we can see that the problem they diagnose in the world stems from authorities and doctrines that are unscientific. Following through, the remedy they prescribe is for people to question those authorities, reject those doctrines, and think “scientifically,” just like they do.

Popularized through folksy celebrities like Tyson and Bill Nye “the Science Guy,” this materialistic narrative, along with its socio-moral dictates, is just one of the subliminal narratives that have become deeply entrenched in our culture.

First Things First: The Question of Origins

In practice, worldviews tend to bleed together, but the most prevalent ones in the developed world today are: scientific naturalism, which says that God is effectively nonexistent; postmodernism, which says that the question of God is unanswerable or irrelevant because cultures make up their own stories; pantheism, which identifies God with nature or the universe and then sees in nature a myriad of non-transcendent deities; and Judeo-Christianity, which says that there is one transcendent God who created the universe and everything in it.

It is supremely important to note that, of these, the Judeo-Christian worldview is the only one that is actually theistic. It alone, along with its offshoot Islam, answers the question of origins with a self-existing God. All the others are non-theistic. They amount to some form of philosophical naturalism and then try to explain all of reality, including human history, behavior, and culture, within those limits.

In 2016-2017 Morgan Freeman hosted a National Geographic series on religion called The Story of God, in which he traveled the world asking people of different faiths how they viewed death, evil, the afterlife, and other matters related to religion. The series was visually stunning, but its name is actually a misnomer. It was really a “story of a man”— a professed atheist attempting to explain the panoply of human experience within the confines of naturalism. Freeman’s worldview governed his interpretation of all the incoming data, and viewers who don’t understand that at the outset will likely find the series confusing.

Worldview and Ideologies

The concept of worldview is closely related to the concept of ideology, but the two are not quite the same thing. Every ideology is born of a worldview, but not every worldview is an ideology. Dictionary.com defines ideology as a body of doctrine, myth, or belief that guides an individual, group, or movement, together with a socio-political plan and devices for implementing it. In simpler terms, an ideology is an idea that has been elevated to worldview status and then activated into an agenda.

Let’s look at a few ideologies that are dominant today and identify the worldview behind them. Broadly speaking, environmentalism is an ideology that begins with philosophical naturalism, diagnoses the problem in the world as human mismanagement of the earth’s resources, and then prescribes changes to resource management, usually to be implemented by the government. Marxism, too, begins with naturalism, but it diagnoses the problem in terms of some kind of inequality between people groups. From there, it prescribes as the remedy some form of equalization, also usually to be implemented by the government.

Sexual ideologies grew out of Freud’s naturalism-based diagnosis that human problems stem from sexual repression, and they accordingly prescribe a remedy of casting off restraint. And, for an example of how ideologies bleed together, LGBT demands for “equality” effectively fuse the Freudian and Marxian diagnoses of the problem and then demand equalization for “sexual minorities” with respect to such social benefits as moral approval and state-endorsed marriage.

Interrogating the Disconnect

When one is confronted with a pre-assembled agenda masquerading as a good idea, applying the three-point worldview framework will facilitate dialogue in a way that clarifies, rather than clouds, the conflict. The framework does this by keeping attention on the incoming worldview and examining its truth claims. To use Sagan’s terminology, we interrogate it —Where is this idea coming from? What unstated presuppositions lie behind it?—with the goal of mapping the worldview disconnect and then peacefully shifting the discussion to the actual point of contention.

This can revolutionize a conflict in two ways. First, it draws all ideas out into the open. I was recently invited to participate in an informal roundtable discussion with Ben, a college student majoring in philosophy. When asked about my worldview, I answered within the three-point framework: God, sin, Christ. He liked that structure and used it to articulate his worldview as well: evolution, dogma, better science education—right in line with the Sagan-Tyson synthesis. Then he elaborated. Scientists aren’t doing enough to educate the public about what they know, he said, particularly with respect to the beginning of the universe and the origin of the first living things.

Now, if you’ve been reading Salvo for any length of time, you know why scientists aren’t providing these explanations. It’s because they don’t exist. And our discussion exposed this and other gaping holes in Ben’sworldview that are being filled with a materialistic version of faith.

Second, a worldview reset can reorient a potentially contentious dialogue. With most conflicts regarding secular ideologies, the disconnect is, at root, a clash between the theistic and non-theistic foundations. This can be the case even if both sides are invoking biblical imagery.

For example, sexual ideologies are often pushed with slogans like, “Jesus would accept gays and transgenders.” That may be true, but if Jesus is going to be invoked, then it’s fair and intellectually honest to redirect the discussion to the question of worldview foundation. If the Judeo-Christian God created humanity male and female and instituted marriage, then certain implications for sexuality follow from that. If not, then anything goes.

The relevant point for discussion would be, Which worldview foundation are we starting from? Is it Christian theism? Or is it some form of philosophical naturalism? If naturalism, then moral dictates based on what Jesus may or may not have done are irrelevant. Furthermore (and worse for the naturalist), in naturalism, morality is an ungrounded, arbitrary chimera. Whenever possible, then, ideologues, whether sexual, environmental or otherwise, should be pressed to grapple with the full implications of their worldview foundation. This is not rhetorical tit for tat. Wisely executed, it’s an act of Christian love.

Practical Peacemaking

Another entrenched narrative out there says that truth claims are the source of human conflict. But a worldview reset can actually be a move toward peace. Family counselor Beverly Buncher created a communication strategy for families of addicts called BALM—Be A Loving Mirror. It involves remaining calm in heated situations and, as lovingly as possible, reflecting back your opponent’s thoughts and emotions. The objective is to stay in the relationship, grounded in your own reasoned composure, in hopes of serving over time as a peacemaking, transformative presence for your loved one.

Both the worldview filter and the BALM approach are powerful aids for remapping ideological impasses and bridging relational divides. More important, they provide a setting for illuminating truth.

 

Terrell Clemmons is a freelance writer and blogger on apologetics and matters of faith.

This article was originally published at salvomag.com: http://bit.ly/2zJGiBe

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Religion Tested Truth

Can Religion Be Tested for Truth?

By Luke Nix

Most of the time, I’m not too fond of using the term “religion”. I normally prefer to use “worldview” because it is more clear about what all a belief-system entails. However, for this post, I will use the term common for the question posed in the title: Can religion be tested for truth?

Many years ago, I would not have even thought to ask if religion can be tested for truth. I never thought much about it, because the obvious answer to me seemed to be “Yes”. Apparently, though, many people are questioning whether religion can be tested for truth today. Some even say that religion can’t be tested, thus such a term as “true religion” is an oxymoron. A common slogan that I hear is, “You can’t put God in a test tube”. I thought that I might take a few minutes to break this down and form some kind of defense for the idea that religion can be tested.

Just to get us started, I want to give a basic definition of “religion”. I want to go with “a series of beliefs and practices”. If we further define “beliefs”, we find that beliefs are a series of propositions about reality that one trusts accurately reflect reality. If someone were to say, “I believe A”, they are saying that they trust that A accurately reflects reality.

Some people have stated to me that a person can have a religion that has nothing to do with reality. I beg to differ. If a necessary part of religion is a trust that a proposition accurately reflects reality (belief), then religion must have something to do with reality. What’s really great about most religions of the world is that they tend to not just make claims about how we should live (practice), but they make claims about reality- propositions that are claimed to accurately reflect our world. This makes it quite easy to test the religions of the world for truth.

It seems to me, though, that people have forgotten that “religion” includes beliefs. They tend to think that “religion” is merely a series of practices or routines. In this context, the claim that religion cannot be tested for truth makes a little bit more sense…but not much. No, practices don’t have a direct “truth value”, but they do have a “moral value”, and “moral value” is determined by propositions about reality being true. The “truth value” of practices are indirect, but that is not to minimize their “truth value”. The “direct” vs. “indirect” distinction comes into play when we are trying to figure out the “truth value”. For beliefs, the “truth value” can be found directly by testing it against reality. To find the “truth value” of a practice, we must test the “truth value” of the beliefs that necessarily lead to the practice.

A while back, I wrote an article about right beliefs being required before right action (practices) can be performed (here). However, I think that I would have to adjust and nuance that position a bit. If one does not have the true beliefs, they can still perform right actions. However, I would say that right action is useless without right intention (which is derived also indirectly, from beliefs). Notice that I did not say that it is “wrong”, just “useless”. Of course, “useless” implies a purpose. So, if a religion posited no purpose, then practices could be neither useless nor useful- they would just “be”. Whether or not actions possess a “use value” depends upon purpose existing (a proposition that contains truth value), and that can be derived by testing the truth values of propositions of a religion that claims purpose does, in fact, exist.

That purpose exists, is not enough, though. We would need to determine what the purpose actually is before we could determine right intention, which would lead to useful action. Not only must an action be right, but it must also be useful to possess a positive truth value. It is possible to have a right action that is useless to the purpose.

In order for us to know that our actions are the true actions that we should be performing, we need to know if the basis of those actions accurately reflect reality. We can know if the bases are true by testing them against reality. If our bases (beliefs) do not accurately reflect reality, then we must adjust them to accurately reflect reality. When we have accurate beliefs that inform accurate practices, then we have an indication of the true or correct religion.

Any religion that makes claims about reality is subject to being tested. Whatever is responsible for this universe has (un?)wittingly handed itself to humanity in a test tube. If what is responsible for the universe is an intelligent Being, then It has given us the tools to discover It. We can even test the identity of the intelligent Being if different religions claim different things about the creation (reality) created by its intelligent Being. If there is no intelligent Being responsible for the universe, that is testable also. We just need to gather the claims about reality from the different religions and put them to the test.

Check out this post from Bill Pratt: Can Science Test for the Supernatural?*

This post from J.W. Wartick: Can We Evaluate Worldview? How to Navigate the Sea of Ideas

And this post from Wintery Knight: Ground Zero: Why truth matters for preventing another 9/11-style attack

Other Related Posts

Can We Be Good Without God?

Can You Trust Your Senses and Reasoning?

Nature vs. Scripture

Great Websites For Testing Christianity Against Reality

Reasons to Believe

Reasonable Faith

Risen Jesus

Stand to Reason

Apologetics 315

Notes

*Thanks to Greg West at The Poached Egg for finding this article.

 

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

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Ideas About God

The Secret Battle of Ideas About God with Dr. Jeff Myers

Podcast: Play in new window

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | iHeartRadio | Blubrry | Email | TuneIn | RSS

A virus has been spreading across America. Chances are you’ve already been infected without even realizing it. The virus is made up of dangerous ideas—worldviews that don’t reflect Jesus and biblical living.

According to a recent Barna study, less than one in five practicing Christians have a biblical worldview. Idea viruses—stemming from secularism, Marxism, postmodernism, new spirituality, and Islam—are rampant in our churches today.

But don’t give up—there is hope! The Secret Battle of Ideas about God is a manual for winning the battle of ideas that is raging for our hearts and minds. Join Dr. Jeff Myers on this podcast as he’s interviewed by Frank about his fascinating new book ➡️The Secret Battle of Ideas About God!

 

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Yes, We Can Make the Case for Christianity with Music

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At the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, we often talk about the importance of worldview. Each of us, as Christians, ought to allow our Christian beliefs to shape the way we think about every aspect of life, including the way we consider notions of beauty and artistic expression. That’s why I was delighted to hear about a new concept album from Aryn Michelle, a Christian pop and alternative rock artist. Aryn just released a series of songs (in a collection called The Realist Thing) inspired by William Lane Craig’s book, Reasonable Faith. That’s right, an apologetics album of sorts, walking through “several philosophical arguments for the existence of God and the primary evidences for Jesus Christ as his son.” Sounds interesting, right? Aryn agreed to let me interview her about this groundbreaking effort:

J. Warner:
Aryn, I will confess that I was not familiar with your work prior to this collection of songs. I was incredibly impressed with the creativity and quality of the effort, can you tell us something about your musical journey?

Aryn:
I began writing songs when I was fifteen years old. Initially I had hoped that God would use me as a “light in the darkness” in that I would be a believer writing and working in the secular music industry while always maintaining artistry from a Christian perspective. I pursued this goal for almost ten years (and two albums) before I had the revelation that perhaps working within the secular music industry was how I wanted God to use me, but was not necessarily how God had gifted and equipped me. It took me that long to realize that I needed to approach God and ask him how HE wanted to use my life and the giftedness he had given me. I could see that God had brought me up in a background of church music (I’m the daughter of a music minister), and he has given me a heart for the church and for encouraging the people of God. Even when I was not making “Christian” music, followers of Jesus tended to be the ones who responded to my music. About 5 years ago I turned my attention to write explicitly faith-based music in order to encourage believers, dig deep into God’s truth and follow in obedience in using my gifts for God’s calling.

J. Warner:
In your video you mention being in a place in your life as a Christian where you had many questions. Can you tell us a little bit about that and how Christian apologetics literature helped you to answer some of those questions?

Aryn:
Several years ago I approached one of our pastors and asked to meet with him to talk about some struggles I was having. I told him that while I felt confident in my heart about my belief in Jesus, I felt like my head had not caught up with where my heart was. I felt like I had been neglecting the life of the mind in regards to my faith. I didn’t often have intellectual conversations with other believers about difficult questions where philosophy and theology converged. I was frustrated that it felt like no one around me was expressing an interest to seek out the answer to hard questions. He gave me the wise counsel that if I had a thirst for knowledge then I needed to ask God to reveal to me answers and also to seek out that knowledge. To read books, to dig deeper, to go out searching. He suggested a few books to start with and from that point I kept reading and eventually decided to tackle Dr. Craig’s book Reasonable Faith. This book was very helpful on my journey into a deeper life of the mind because it comprehensively covered a good deal of what I was hoping to learn. I want to clearly state that I believe the testimony of the Holy Spirit is the greatest witness one can give, but I was thankful to be able to also articulate philosophical arguments for the existence of God and evidences for Jesus Christ as God’s son after reading that book in particular

J. Warner:
It’s amazing to me that you actually wrote songs about the evidence for theism and Christianity. Can you tell our readers about the evidences that inspired you to write each song?

Aryn:
The album features a prelude and postlude (both entitled “Honesty”) that give the listener my personal perspective and state of mind as I began and concluded this project. Beyond those two songs each one of the songs aligns with a different argument featured in Dr. Craig’s book. “The Realest Things” discusses the ontological argument for the existence of God, summarized in the line “if something could be greater than God, it would be God.” The next song, “The Question,” discusses the cosmological argument when it asks the question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” The teleological argument is featured in the song “Order,” where I give examples of intelligent design and fine-tuning in lines such as, “there’s a constant in the pull of gravity, a balance of the forces strong and weak.” Following that is the moral argument for the existence of God in the song “Good” which says, “If there is good, don’t you think there is God?” After that song I transition into two songs dealing with evidences for Jesus Christ as God’s son. The first of those songs, “Miracle Man” explores the miracles and eyewitness accounts of the works of Jesus. The next songs entitled, “The Story of Redemption” explores the self-understanding and resurrection accounts of Jesus. It was obviously a great challenge to condense such rich material into one song a piece for each argument, but my hope is that I’ve tried to grasp a key component of each argument in a memorable way.

J. Warner:
This is such an interesting project in that it has the ability to reach an audience that standard apologetics blogs, book and videos can’t reach. What is your hope for the concept album?

Aryn:
My primary hope for this album is that it can be an equipping tool and encouragement for believers. I wanted to give people a song in their hearts to go along with the deep thoughts in their heads. My hope is that when people are striving to call these arguments to mind that they can use the songs to help them remember and express what these arguments are about. Music is a powerful tool for engaging memory and emotions. I also hope that more artists will strive to create a marriage of creative expression and reason. Sometimes we may be tempted to think that creativity and rationality are mutually exclusive or working against each other, but I know that God has created us with a heart AND a mind to be engaged for service to him.

J. Warner:
This last question cheats a bit and includes a few related questions: Will you be singing these songs in live concert settings, ( and is it difficult to find venues that are open to such an interesting concept)? How can our readers learn more about you and what’s next, now that you’ve tackled Christian apologetics?

Aryn:
I primarily perform these songs in house concerts. For this project in particular I find private house concerts to be the best venues to share the music because it allows me an intimate setting to talk and really communicate the motivation behind the album and also the individual concepts within each song. I have also attended a few apologetics gatherings for students and been able to share the songs in that setting. I also hope to be able to take the music to churches or bible studies who may have an apologetics emphasis. I think the main point is having an environment where discussion and thoughtfulness can thrive. If people would like to stay in touch with me they can find me at my website: www.arynmichelle.com, or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/arynmichelleband.

Aryn’s new album is more than a great idea, it’s a great collection of songs and an excellent example of how a Christian worldview can shape every aspect of someone’s life. Aryn has employed more than God’s gifting to create this project; she’s allowed her Christian worldview to shape and inform the words in every song. The result is excellence in both word and melody. I cannot recommend it more.

J. Warner Wallace is a Cold-Case Detective, Christian Case Maker, Senior Fellow at the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, and the author of Cold-Case Christianity, Cold-Case Christianity for Kids, God’s Crime Scene, God’s Crime Scene for Kids, and Forensic Faith.

Comment or Subscribe to J. Warner’s Daily Email

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Religion Avoiding Truth

Is Religion the Practice of Avoiding Truth?

By Luke Nix

Introduction

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

Missing Philosophical Foundations

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

The Missing Will and Intentionality

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

The Missing Ability to Reason Reliably

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

The Over-Abundance of “Useful Fictions”

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

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Major Worldviews

8 Major Worldviews (Part 2)

By Bryan Chilton

In our last article, we presented the first four of the eight major worldviews. As we noted, this is a revision to a previous article that only listed six. The first article in this series presented the worldviews known as atheism/naturalism, agnosticism, pantheism, and panentheism. This article will provide the last four. To keep from confusion, the last four worldviews will be listed as #1-4 in this article even though they represent #5-8 on our list.

  1. (#5) Polytheism: Several Gods Exist.

The term “polytheism” comes from two Greek terms: “polu” meaning “many” and “theos” as we have already defined as the term for God. In the polytheistic worldview, it is held that many gods and/or goddesses exist. Certainly, aspects of Hinduism meet the worldview. But, Hindus hold that the universal God manifests in various avatars. Polytheism is better represented in pagan religions, Greek and Roman mythologies, as well as Mormonism.[1]

The trouble with polytheism is found in necessary beings. Even if it is possible that there are many universes populated by Mormon men and women, one would be forced to push their existence back to a Prime Necessary Being. As noted earlier, all material, physical universes must hold a starting point. The universe demands an explanation for its existence. According to the BVG theorem, there cannot exist eternal material universes. Therefore, even if there are multiple universes populated by multiple gods and goddesses, those universes and beings become contingent upon the necessity of a transcendent, omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being we know as God. Because of the concept of Ockham’s Razor,[2] polytheism fails as gods and goddesses are not necessary beings, whereas God is. The Christian apologist will need to use the issue of necessary and contingent beings among other areas as a starting point with polytheists.

  1. (#6) Dualism: God and the Physical World are Irreparably Separated.

Dualism is the belief that the spiritual and physical realms are irreconcilably separated. One must not confuse the dualist worldview with the dual nature of mankind (soul/body). A form of dualism in the human person can be demonstrated biblically.[3] However, the dualist worldview takes the distinction between the soul and body to extreme measures. Dualists will claim that the spiritual dimension is good and the physical dimension is bad. Thus, resurrection is not accepted nor is recreation of the new heaven and new earth presented in Revelation 21. Ancient Gnosticism, Platonism, and New Age philosophies often fit within the dualist paradigm.

The trouble with dualism is twofold. On the one hand, not all spiritual beings are good. Angels are considered spiritual beings. However, Satan and his demonic cohort are certainly not good. Rather, they are the epitome of evil. So, dualism fails to account for the fact that not all spiritual entities are good. On the other hand, dualism fails to account for the historicity of Jesus’ literal bodily resurrection. God, who is Spirit (John 4:24), created the physical world. The grand theme of Scripture is God’s restoration of the world and humanity. This includes the physical world. The Christian apologist will need to describe these distinctions and will want to provide the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection to the dualist.

  1. (#7) Deism: God as a Deadbeat Dad.

Deism is unique in that it takes its name from a Latin word rather than Greek. The Latin term “deus” is the word for “God.” Deism holds much in common with theism. Deists generally accept the existence of a transcendent God who is worthy of worship. The deist also accepts that this God is worthy of praise. The key distinction comes in God’s current involvement with creation. Deists reject the idea that God is immanent. They hold that God created everything at the outset but does not interject or intervene in creation since that time. Think of a wind-up toy. A person winds up the toy and releases it. The toy continues until it winds down without any involvement from the one who wound it. God is presented much like a deadbeat dad—that is, a dad who is uninvolved with his child’s life. Thus, deists reject the miraculous, revelations in any form except for reason, and personal relationships with the divine. Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Locke are among the more famed deists.

Deism fails if one miraculous claim can be proven. If one miracle can be demonstrated, then deism fails because the miracle serves as evidence of God’s involvement in creation. Craig S. Keener’s two-volume work Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts will help the Christian apologist defeat deist claims. Also, the apologist will want to demonstrate the historicity of Jesus’ bodily resurrection as evidence of God’s involvement.

  1. (#8) Monotheism/Theism: God is Omnipotent, Transcendent, and Personal.

Finally, we come to the final worldview. The last worldview is monotheism or theism. Theists hold that one God exists. God is both transcendent (separate from creation) and immanent (works within creation). Thus, God is omnipotent (all-powerful) and omniscient (all-knowing). But, God is also omnibenevolent (all-loving) and omnipresent (in all places). God is beyond the scope of the universe and is not constrained by the laws of nature. Yet, God is also personal and reveals himself to humanity. The three classic religions of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are considered theistic in scope.

Theism triumphs in many ways. Theism best explains the necessity of God’s being, the creation of the universe, the miraculous, personal revelation, and the substance dualism of humanity. However, one must note that while all Christians are theists, not all theists are Christian. The Christian apologist will want do demonstrate the reliability of the New Testament, then illustrate the reliability of the Old Testament, in addition to providing evidence for the life and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. In doing so, the Christian apologist will show that God has ultimately revealed himself in Jesus.

Conclusion

Everyone has a worldview of some sort. The first step in presenting the gospel message comes by understanding where the person’s worldview currently resides. Understanding a person’s worldview comes by listening. Apologetics and evangelism are not a quick process. As Douglas Groothius claims, the Christian worldview is argued as the best hypothesis “carefully, slowly, and piece by piece…this means paying close attention to the components and implications of the Christian worldview, with an eye for detecting false stereotypes and caricatures.”[4] The process takes time, but if a person comes to faith in Christ, it’s worth every moment spent.

  Notes

[1] Mormons hold that God the Father is wed to a divine mother. Jesus is believed to have been the first spirit child. Mormon theology also holds that Mormon men and Mormon women wed in Mormon temples are able to become gods and goddesses of their own celestial universe and will produce their own spirit children.

[2] That is, the simpler explanation is preferred.

[3] See the works of J.P. Moreland, especially his book The Soul, for more information on substance dualism.

[4] Douglas Groothius, Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith (Downers Grove; Nottingham, UK: IVP Academic; Apollos), 50.

© 2017. Bellator Christi.

 

Resources for Greater Impact

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I Don’t Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist (Paperback)

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Why I Still Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist (Set)

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