Weekly postings on Mondays

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Elevator Apologetics part 8: The Universe as a Theater for the Glory of God

In my apologetic presentations on college campuses I portray the universe as a theater where the glory of God is put on display.

But of course a theater cannot create itself.

Theaters are things. Things cannot create themselves. Maybe they were formed from prior things, but then one naturally wonders where the whole series of things came from.

A series of things needs a non-thing to create it. A theater needs a non-theater to create it. This "non-thing" is what we call God.

*******

At this point atheists often ask me where God came from.

Answer: I don't know.

Just because I can't tell you where God came from doesn't mean God didn't create the world, however.

Consider this example: My dear relatives in southwestern Minnesota have discovered arrowheads on their farm property. Where did the arrowheads come from?

Most likely from Native Americans who inhabited the land for centuries before white settlers came to the region.

OK, good enough.

But the skeptic objects: "But where did Native Americans come from? I'm not going to believe they produced the arrowheads until you tell me where they came from."

What?

That's weird. You're not going to believe my answer to the arrowhead mystery until the Native American mystery is also solved?

But why? I just gave you a solid answer to the question at hand: where arrowheads came from. The origin of Native Americans is a separate question.

Similarly, the origin of God is a separate question from the origin of the universe.

If you must know, Christian philosophers tell us that God, by definition, is self-existent. He is the necessary cause of the created (contingent) order. But that's a discussion for another time.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Elevator Apologetics part 7: A Wedding Ceremony

For many thoughtful Christians, faith comes in two stages -- the evidential and the relational.

Last week I wrote about the evidential stage. It is analogous to skydiving: You examine all the evidence that skydiving is safe before you take the plunge, er, leap.


The relational stage of faith comes second and can be compared to a wedding ceremony: You walk down the aisle and say your "I-do's" to Jesus.

A commitment is made. A covenant is enacted. You officially become a Christian. God welcomes you into the family of faith.

This relational stage is indispensable because it takes us beyond the mind to the heart -- beyond mental assent and into friendship with God.

***

Atheists often tell me that this second (relational) stage is all I have. They deny that the evidential stage is relevant or even possible.

They are fond of saying that faith, by definition, is a blind leap. That there can be no evidence. It's a clever trick of logic on their part:

1. define faith in a certain narrow way.
2. force me into that definition.

But I tell them it's my faith, and if I have evidence to back it up, that's my business. Nor can they tell me otherwise.

Nor should you let them tell you otherwise. If they cannot understand the idea of faith being supported by evidence, that is their tough luck.


Sunday, April 15, 2012

Elevator Apologetics Part 6: Skydiving

This series offers concrete images for apologetic conversations that you can put into play quickly -- even on a short elevator ride.

It seems to me that for many Christians, faith comes in two stages:

1. The evidential stage
2. The relational stage

The evidential stage is like skydiving.

"Look before you leap," is my motto.

Before ever jumping out of an airplane to dangle in mid-air under a giant hankey, I would carefully investigate all the evidence that suggests I'd be safe.

According to the United States Parachute Association, there were only 21 fatalities in 2010 out of three million jumps. That's a 99.993 success ratio.

I'd also examine all the gear and the plane and the pilot and . . .

You get the idea.

Being the scaredy-cat that I am, however, I would still never take this flying leap.

My wife Sharon, by contrast, would love to do a jump sometime. I refuse to watch.

I have agreed to attend her funeral, however.

That was a joke! Do not think ill of me.

Skydiving is a good image for the first stage of faith because it illustrates how important evidence is for faith, though proof is never attainable.

To repeat: evidence but not proof.  That's how my faith works. Without evidence (historical, philosophical, scientific, experiential) that Christianity is true, I would not be a believer.

And without evidence, I would never be a believer in (Sharon's) skydiving success.

Next week: an image for the second stage of faith, which is the relational part.

Monday, April 09, 2012

Elevator Apologetics Part 5: The Bible is Dumb. So is Basketball.

What question do I hear most often from students on college campuses?

Anything about the Bible: its dubious authorship, unfairness, contradictions, oppression of women/gays/slaves, etc.

Many such questions can be answered simply by interpreting the Bible correctly.

How? It's not easy.

Our goal should be to understand what the biblical authors intended to say within the context of their world. That is, the ancient world.

Then (and only then) can we begin to apply the teachings of the Bible to our world, our personal lives.

Analogously, imagine a person two thousand years in the future trying to interpret "ancient" newspaper accounts of the strange game of basketball.

Words and phrases such as pick-and-roll, field goal, and dunk would be head-scratchers.

Conflicting stories would fail to meet 23rd century standards of precision and honesty.

A skeptical reader could easily come to the following conclusions:

  • Goal posts must have been part of every BB court so that players could make "field goals." That's assuming the reader knows about football. 
  • Referees acted as tools of oppression against losing teams. They were bribed by winning franchises in collusion with league officials.
  • Conflicting accounts in various newspapers regarding big games indicates that the games are fictitious. Unhistorical. Never happened. (Close agreement between sources indicates the same.) 
  • Wilt Chamberlain is a mythological giant whose amazing statistics were cleverly planted in all the old records.
By the way, what's a newspaper?


On the topic of Bible interpretation, I'd recommend the superb book, How to Read the Bible for all its Worth by Fee and Stuart. 

Monday, April 02, 2012

Elevator Apologetics part 4: A Royal Flush

I'd like to share a concrete image for the design argument.

You'll remember that the argument from design says that the most plausible explanation for the appearance of order in the universe is God.

This conclusion seems patently obvious to me, but . . . not to everyone. Certainly not to atheists and other skeptics, who offer a variety of objections to intelligent design.

Here is the image: a royal flush.* 

Let's say someone shuffles a deck of cards and deals you a royal flush. The odds were against it, but so what? Once in a blue moon it happens.

The deck is shuffled a second time, the cards are dealt, and . . .

Whoa, two in a row.

Then it happens again. And again. And again -- that makes five consecutive RFs.

It happens a hundred times in a row. The odds are nearly incalculable.

Heck, after only the third RF you were starting to get suspicious. A Minnesota Vikings Superbowl victory is more probable.

Someone is manipulating the cards.

97 more RFs (in a row) screams with each successive occurrence that "chance" is not the best explanation here.

In the same way, the complexity and fine-tuning of the universe is just too good to be true. Some-one -- not some-thing -- has a hand in shaping all this order.

We call this someone God.

* * *

Remember what this series is about: Images in apologetics that you can put into play quickly. The images are not comprehensive arguments, just helpful illustrations.

* I learned the royal flush image from Prof. David Clark at Bethel University.