Apologetics Course Reflections, Session 4: Introduction to Apologetics

2003-04-26

The first part of the weekend dealt with why God exists, more specifically, the Theistic God as opposed to pantheism and atheism. Then under this category, we examined why Christianity is true. He started the class with a list of 12 proofs of why Christianity is true. First, there must be an infinite cause to a finite universe. Time is not infinite, because at the current moment in time we are at the end of time. Therefore, time must have had a beginning. That beginning must have had intelligence, because intelligence cannot come from non-intelligence. Order must come from an intelligent designer. That infinite creator must have been distinct from the universe. There could only be one infinite being; there cannot be two, because it is infinite. This is a summary of the discussion that destroys polytheism, pantheism, panentheism, and atheism.

In this world, in this particular period of time, there is a belief where truth is relative. This is a self-contradicting statement. Is that statement relative, or absolute? This is truly amazing, when we think about it, that so many widely held beliefs are so obviously contradictory. If we find out where the non-Christian has contradicting views, we can ask counter-questions to get them to think about God and absolute truth.

If God was the cause of the world, then miracles are possible, and miracles therefore could be evidence to confirm a message from God. In the New Testament, miracles confirm who Jesus is, unlike any other religious leader, like Mohammed. Jesus is the Son of God and the Messiah.

The historicity of the New Testament is based off of eyewitnesses and their acquaintances. People such as Luke’s history in Acts is 100% accurate to the secular scholar’s wonder. If Luke is that correct, then we must go back to his first volume in his gospel.

There are more documents of the New Testament than any other writing in the ancient world. They also were not written hundred or thousands of years later, like some others, but in a period of 25 to 50 years. Accordingly, it is the only reliable source we have. Therefore, in the New Testament, Jesus claimed to be God, and it was backed up by the miracles He did. Also, whatever He teaches is true, and that He declared at many times that the Bible, both Old Testament which was already written and the New Testament which He promised, was the word of God. If this is true, then anything opposed to the Bible is false.

Interesting things that I found during the duration of the weekend was something about Islam and the Quran. The professor showed that by the Quran that one could become a Christian just by reading the Quran! Jesus was sinless, virgin born, and the Messiah, He resurrected people from the dead, and ascended bodily into heaven, all according to the Quran. Of course, it states the Jesus did not die, nor was He resurrected, just translated into heaven (Sura 4:187). It is interesting, that Mohammed prayed for forgiveness according to the Quran. I wonder how the Muslim would respond.

We revisited irreducible complexity in brief, as was fitting when proving the existence of God. When we see the overwhelming evidence of the existence of the God we know, it seems all so simple to believe. I think about the times in the past of how I could have used this information. Before I came to Bible college, I had come in contact with many atheists, scientific naturalists, even a Rastafarian that I had shared the gospel with, but had little success because I could not reach them where they were. I know this information will help in the future when ministering to people. As the professor shared with us, we cannot make them accept Jesus, but we can bring them before God without the philosophical blunder standing between them. It sounds a lot like Ezekiel 3 in a way: we can warn them, but not change them. That is what the Spirit of God will do.

It is interesting for how people respond to this. The professor had mentioned that he had been to a lot of places speaking on these matters. At one place, he shared the overwhelming evidence for the case of the New Testament and the resurrection. They were so uncomfortable that they did not ask a single question about the resurrection, or anything else within the scope of the presentation. Instead, they asked about the age of the earth. At Princeton Seminary, he asked the question before his presentation on the inerrancy of the Bible who actually believed that, and few hands were raised. Lastly, at Harvard University, he lectured on philosophy only to get minimal response, based on an argument in prior times that David Hume made about miracles being believed in only by the fool. This is the argument: 1) natural law is by definition a description of a regular occurrence; 2) a miracle by definition is a rare occurrence; 3) the evidence for the regular is always greater than that for the rare; 4) a wise man always bases his belief on the greater evidence; and 5) therefore, a wise man should never believe in miracles. The third point Geisler refuted because rare events are sometimes more obvious than common ones. For example, the creation of the world and history have happened and these are painstakingly obvious. This ‘theorem’ was something that caused Harvard to become the current way it was away from the Christian world view.

It is amazing, that all these amazing arguments exist and that there is no change of mind. It was encouraging to hear, however, that many atheists and agnostics have read Norm Geisler’s Christian Apologetics and have become saved because of it. It was a false belief, as many hold, that God reveals Himself apart from appealing to the intellect. But God reveals Himself through the Bible, and one must weigh the evidence so their mind in convinced, but the Spirit works in the heart.

This weekend was a good conclusion to the course. We touched upon some of the things from the other three weekends. The need to pre-evangelize to the postmodern generation with philosophy was something that was touched upon with the first weekend. Intelligent Design and Irreducible Complexity came back from our second weekend. Sharing the gospel was a big part of the end in which this weekend’s twelve-point proof of Christianity serves as a means, relating to the third weekend. I think of my evangelistic message I wrote, and I struggled with this because I tried to reach the audience that would appeal in such a way so that they would understand it, by explaining the proof of the resurrection with an empty grave and the use of fulfilled prophecy. These things of course were covered in the class this weekend. But such a message, though it might work with those in older generations, might not work effectively at all considering the plethora of world views in my generation and the one after me that is being born now.