Category Archives: Apologetics

Defense of the Christian Faith

Fairytale Apologetics, the Doctrine of Demons and Biblical Inerrancy

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Big Bang Fairytale

What happens when you mix a lie with the truth? Do you wind up with a true statement, or a false statement? That’s easy. You get a false statement. For example:

The ark was a huge boat that was 450 feet long. (True – Gen 6:15)
The ark could fly. (False)
Combined:
The ark was a huge boat that was 450 feet long that could fly. (False)

The final statement is clearly false. Unequivocally false. Either the entire statement is true, or it is false. This mixing of the truth with lies is a favorite tactic of Satan. He used it way back in the garden of Eden on Eve:

“You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman.
“For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
(Gen 3.4-5)

Notice his mixing of truths and lies: Continue Reading

Evidence is for Believers – Not Mockers

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“Let the children come” – Jesus

If you’re reading this, you likely have an interest in either finding evidence for the Christian faith, or presenting evidence to defend your faith. The endeavor to defend the faith is known as apologetics. When doing  apologetics we often have a focus on presenting evidence or reasons to believe in the Christian faith. That is why you see apologetics ministries with names like Reasonable Faith[1] or Reasons to Believe[2] and even my own Rational Faith. In this age dominated by Science and scientism[3] many have identified the need to defend Christianity against pervasive claims that modern minds cannot believe in the ancient claims of Christianity because many of those claims appear unscientific or outright impossible and are therefore unbelievable.  After all how can the modern mind believe in a 7 day creation and a 6000 year old universe; and an original Adam and Eve when the modern scientific community is telling you the universe is some 13.7 billion years old, and humans were not created, they evolved?

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Conspiracy Theory: You Killed JFK (And other false claims and abuses of Evidence)

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JFK Motorcade

NO EVIDENCE. In what amounts to an abuse of evidence, atheists are fond of saying that there is no evidence for the existence of God. If you doubt that, take a look at this brief collection of atheists telling the world that very thing.  But is that a true claim? When a proposition is not true, you would expect to find no evidence for that proposition.

Take for example the proposition in the title – that  you, yes you dear reader –  killed JFK on the fateful day – November 22, 1963 at Dealey Plaza in Dallas. All reading this could no doubt  refute that claim. But those born after that date have a particularly easy and obvious piece of evidence that falsifies the proposition. The claim that they weren’t even born yet backed with a birth certificate to prove it. Continue Reading

Leibniz’ Cosmological Argument: Testimony of the Golden Gate Bridge Part 2

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The above logo was created for the 80th anniversary of the opening of the Golden Gate bridge.  According to retired Security chief Bill Rumsford, they were expecting 40-50,000 people. But the turnout was closer to 250 to 275,000 people. While they were confident the bridge would hold, Chief Engineer Denis Mulligan noted “What was interesting is that’s the greatest loading the bridge has ever seen. It carries trucks and buses and cars everyday, but people packed in there like sardines in a can actually caused the bridge to sag.”[1]

But this article is not on the structural integrity of the bridge. This is about something a bit more obvious. The above logo is painted on a building near the bridge. (Note the artist painting it.)

A Painting Requires a Painter

The obvious point that I want to make is that for a painting to exist, it needs a painter. Obvious right? Because a painting – in this case a logo – is a special case of a design that is implemented.  In the previous article we looked at another special design – that of irreducible complexity. As discussed in the previous article, an irreducibly complex object cannot be made by random forces. It must be designed and assembled by an intelligent designer.  And as pointed out in part 1 – a suspension bridge like the Golden Gate bridge is irreducibly complex. Continue Reading

Lies my evolutionist told me

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No doubt the first thing someone will ask me is, “what are you talking about ‘my evolutionist’? People don’t have evolutionists!” To which I say sure they do. Everyone does. Perhaps it’s your biology teacher – the one you think is so great, who so diligently teaches the evolutionary line, refusing (perhaps for fear of losing her job) to even mention the problems of evolution, or the alternatives to it. Perhaps he’s that famous author you love to quote because he makes you feel intellectually fulfilled. Or perhaps he’s that smug cosmologist you find so funny because he likes to mock those who don’t toe his materialistic evolutionary line. Well article titles are supposed to be short and attention getting. And “Lies that my favorite evolution promoting – biology teacher, author or science guy – told me” is a bit too long for a title. I trust the title, short as it is, has served its purpose. There’s nothing else to see here so let’s move along to matters of substance.

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If the resurrection is true, why doesn’t everyone believe?

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Prefect Mauritius Gallas speaks with the Apostle Paul in “Paul, Apostle of Christ”

A Meditation for Easter

Just-in-time for resurrection day (aka Easter), is the movie Paul, Apostle of Christ. In it, we find the apostle Paul (played by James Faulkner) in the jail of  Roman prefect Mauritius Gallas (played by Olivier Martinez). As I mentioned in my review, this film presents the thinking Christian with many questions to ponder. One of those questions is about the resurrection and is posed by the prefect, which if memory serves, is actually phrased as a statement along these lines: If the resurrection were the truth, then all would believe.  The movie has the apostle answering with a verse from his often quoted chapter on the resurrection (1 Cor 15.1-20):

“… if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless…” (1 Cor 15.14)

But that response answers the question, “is the resurrection true?” It does not really address the deeper issue the prefect appears to be getting at. That question is, Continue Reading

Is the Big Bang a Faithful and True Account?

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Martin Luther and his 95 theses in front of a depiction of the Big Bang

Today we will apply the advice of apologist Sean McDowell. McDowell, son of “Evidence that Demands a Verdict” apologist Josh McDowell and an author[1] and college professor in his own right, suggests:

With his PhD and years of experience, starting no doubt as a child at the foot of his apologist father, many Christians turn to McDowell for advice on witnessing. And what he provides above is solid advice. So here’s the question: is using the Big Bang as a witnessing tool to back up the Biblical account being faithful to Christ? Let me answer as Jesus often did: with a question. Would you use the details of the back story of Superman to support the miraculous powers of Jesus? Such a story (a work of fiction I would remind you) might go something like this: Continue Reading

The Moral Argument – Revealer of Hypocrites

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In the book of Daniel, we find one of the less frequently referenced titles of God. It’s just before the turn of the sixth century B.C. King Nebuchadnezzar who will soon to besiege and capture Jerusalem, has already captured the leading families in the southern kingdom of Judah and  carried away anyone with potential to Babylon. After the death of his father Nabopolassar, Nebuchadnezzar has decided to clean house of fake wisemen and astrologers. His method of discerning who’s fake? He’s had a disturbing dream and has  decided that unless his “magicians, enchanters, sorcerers and astrologers” (Dan 2.2) can both tell him the dream and explain it, their fate is sealed. The king had firmly decided  he would “…have you cut into pieces and your houses turned into piles of rubble.” (Dan 2.5) if they could not both reveal the dream and interpret it.

It is in this context that the prophet Daniel, then a young man who had been carried off to Babylon with the other promising young future leaders, made known a rarely referenced, but often experienced (though not necessarily recognized) work of God: that God is the “revealer of mysteries.” (Dan 2.29 NIV;  KJV uses “secrets.”) God proceeds to reveal to Daniel both  Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and the meaning, thus saving his life along with his friends and the other wise men.

God revealed truth that Nebuchadnezzar knew to be true. He dare not deny it. And to his credit he didn’t. The Moral Argument likewise reveals truth that all who are confronted by it know to be true. But unlike Nebuchadnezzar, those unwilling to acknowledge the existence of God are not as forthcoming. They will recognize the truth, but will refuse to verbally acknowledge it. Instead, they try to hide the obvious by suggesting a  number of common but ineffective excuses as to why the Moral Argument doesn’t prove God exists, or impose moral obligations. The excuses are ineffective because just as God is the revealer of mysteries, the Moral argument is the revealer of hypocrites and it exposes those who deny it. Continue Reading

Are Biblical accounts copied from pagan religions? Part 2. The Resurrection

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Depiction of the empty tomb of Jesus

Depiction of the empty tomb of Jesus

Since the original sin in the garden of Eden, mankind has searched for reasons not to believe God so he could live a life independent of God. In the garden, the serpent convinced Eve not to trust God. Why? Supposedly because God was holding back the knowledge of good and evil to the detriment of Adam and Eve. The serpent suggested God was wrong f0r withholding that knowledge, but that if they were to discover the truth, they would be “like God”. (Gen 3.5) That was a big lie. God was indeed withholding the knowledge of evil, but he was not wrong in doing so because he knew that (experiential) knowledge of evil (like disobeying God) would lead to death.  And the biggest irony is – they were already like God (Gen 1.26),  there was nothing to be gained from what the serpent offered.

Today there is another lie circulating to destroy belief in God: The claim that the biblical accounts are not history, but rather stories borrowed or stolen and then adapted from the made up stories of pagan religions. If there’s no reason to believe the pagan religions, then there’s no reason to believe a made up story based on it either. Continue Reading