If you’ve tried your hand at evangelizing atheists and religious skeptics, you know all too well that some of them will maintain that atheism is the default worldview and there is no evidence or good arguments for God. And, when you whip out your standard Christian apologetic arguments, such as the cosmological argument for God that asserts a creator brought everything we know into existence, they’ll say, “That doesn’t prove the God of the Bible exists!”
I hate to break it to you, but they’re right.
Or when you make them aware of the teleological argument that says the universe and humankind exhibit marks of intelligence and design, skeptics will return fire and say such a case doesn’t mean Christianity is true.
Once again, they’re correct.
Here’s the thing: when you or I dole out Christian apologetic claims in a onesie-twosie fashion, thinking it will seal the deal on someone’s salvation, the end result is usually a crash-and-burn situation for us, with no consideration given to the faith on the side of the unbeliever. This is unfortunate and, in the end, it is our fault because we typically don’t stir the apologetics pot correctly to help the person we’re talking to think about the case for God in the right way.
And just what is that “right way?” While a singular argument can have an impact and get the cerebral juices flowing for some people, a better approach is the cumulative case method that takes progressive steps towards the end goal of showing that Christianity is reasonable to believe and accept.
My apologetics professor, Dr. Norman Geisler, taught this kind of approach and used a twelve-step framework to discuss God with unbelievers that he turned into a couple of books, Twelve Points That Show Christianity Is True and I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist. Now, I’m guessing that strikes you as being lengthy. “Twelve steps? Isn’t that a bit much?” I hear you, but Geisler reasoned that some people were a little further along than others concerning what they believed, so most times, you didn’t need to cover all 12 steps.
A more concise version of the cumulative case method is one used by William Lane Craig, which he briefly discussed during a recent podcast. Let me walk you through his outline and show you how a cumulative case approach can help unbelievers better understand the case for Christianity.
A first cause
For those still asking the question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” that was posed by the co-discoverer of calculus G. W. Leibniz, the first cause argument helps by simply asserting that “something” (the universe, us, etc.) exists and that you don’t get something from nothing. Therefore, an “eternal” something exists.
The options for our eternal reality are surprisingly few — reality is either an illusion, is self-created, is nothing more than the universe, or was created by something self-existent.
Dr. John Lennox rightly discards the first two as ill-conceived and says, “Human intelligence ultimately owes its origin to mindless matter or there is a Creator. It is strange that some people claim that it is their intelligence that leads them to prefer the first to the second.”
Does the first cause argument prove the God of the Bible? Absolutely not. But its evidence does make the idea of a first uncaused cause reasonable to assume.
OK, fine, but where do we go from here? The next logical step is to work backward from the effects of the first cause to determine its nature, and that begins with what it has made.
A purposeful cause
You have to admit that identifying natural vs. intelligence causes is cake. Lennox says, “Is it not to be wondered at that our archaeologist immediately infers intelligent origin when faced with a few simple scratches whereas some scientists, when faced with the 3.5 billion letter sequence of the human genome, inform us that it is to be explained solely in terms of chance and necessity?”
Admit it, we know intelligence when we see it.
The argument from design is very compelling (it’s my favorite) and helped turn around some atheists like Antony Flew. Does it mean Christianity is true? No. But it does indicate that whatever brought reality into existence is intelligent and purposeful, i.e., it had intent. And one of the things it intended to do was help us understand how to live.
A caring cause
It’s both funny and instructive to see those who espouse relative morality the most manifest absolute morals in matters they care about. Many atheist philosophers have given up on opposing objective morality — for example, Louise Atony said, “Any argument against the objective reality of moral values will be based on premises that are less obvious than the existence of objective moral values themselves.”
Yep.
Does the moral argument for God that says objective moral values imply a moral lawgiver seal the deal on the Christian faith being the right belief system? No, but it does support the idea that whatever brought us to life is moral, cares about us, and wants us to live right.
At this point, let’s take a quick breath to note that these three steps, just on their own, lead to some pretty powerful inferences. The cause of reality must be supernatural (it created the natural); powerful (incredibly); eternal (self-existent); omnipresent (it created space and is not limited by it); timeless and changeless (it created time); immaterial (because it transcends space/physical); purposeful (has intent); necessary (as everything else depends on it); infinite and singular (you cannot have two infinites); diverse yet with unity; intelligent (supremely); and moral (no moral law can be had without a giver).
This lines up well with the God described in Scripture who is supernatural (Gen. 1:1); powerful (Jer. 32:17); eternal (Ps. 90:2); omnipresent (Ps. 139:7); timeless/changeless (Mal. 3:6); immaterial (John 5:24); purposeful (Gen. 3:9); necessary (Col.1:17); infinite/singular (Jer. 23:24, Deut. 6:4); diverse yet with unity (Matt. 28:19); intelligent (Ps. 147:4-5); moral (Dan. 9:14) and caring (1 Pet. 5:6-7).
Not a bad start. Now, let’s continue.
A revealing cause
When it comes to Jesus, the agnostic scholar Bart Ehrman admits, “He [Jesus] certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees.” Many of those scholars also agree that Christ was killed under Pontius Pilate, was buried, went missing from His tomb, was reportedly seen by a decent number of people, and His followers swore to that fact and paid the ultimate penalty for it.
Now we get to the fish-or-cut-bait line of the Christian faith. If these things are true, then Christianity is indeed true, and we’ve got God revealing Himself in the flesh to His creation.
Just one last step to go.
A personal cause
Craig has discussed elsewhere the important distinction between “knowing” and “showing” your Christian faith. The steps before this are all about showing how Christianity is true, but ultimately, knowing it’s real comes down to the witness of the Holy Spirit that is personally given to each believer when they’re born again.
Every Christian believes because of the “Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him” (Acts 5:32); “The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children” (Rom. 8:16). The apostle John agreed writing, “If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater; for the testimony of God is this, that He has testified concerning His Son. The one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself” (1 John 5:9–10).
Do others experience “feelings” about God? Sure. The Mormon “burning in the bosom” and similar experiences in Islam are just a couple of examples.
But when you combine the evidence of the “showing” side of faith with the “knowing” that all believers receive, the result is a case that’s hard to refute.
That’s why the cumulate case approach to apologetics is so compelling — it takes rational steps towards rationally accepting the truth about Christianity that are then confirmed inwardly by God’s Spirit, who is given to those who receive Christ.
At that point, a journey begins that was stated well by Anselm, who wrote: “For I do not seek to understand in order that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand. For this also I believe — that unless I believe I shall not understand.”
And that’s a pretty exciting place to be.
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I run into many people online who deny God and judge God as evil and it doesn't matter what you write to them. Just as I run into Chrisitans who believe things that are false. I still try because I don't want their blood on my hands. At least when I stand before God He will know that I did try.
You are free to go and I can attend to the channel in these last couple of months. I created this channel many years ago and have worked very hard to make a go of it. Don't feel obligated now.
John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
You have to decide if this is true or is it a lie that's my answer to people.
What are we here for; why do we exist? At one time in Scripture, God even regretted that He created us. It seems that we were born into a battleground between good and evil. That's what the movies tell us but way back to Little House on the Prairie it seemed more like we were being taught the difference, and with grace. Nowadays we are becoming desensitized to all the evil in this world. It's just normal, it seems, but it's not. I'm glad that God chose to fight the battle for us and with us.
I always asked where did that first cell come from to make life.
And no one has explained to me, how that 1 cell created every species of human, animal insect, bird, fish and disease.
The only plausible answer is a creator.
If there are instructions in scripture to go into all the world, taking boatloads of knowledge and methods and argumentations to captivate minds and hearts of doubters:
•• and prove that God exists,
•• and prove that He created all things,
•• and prove that Jesus lived, and prove that He was sent from God
•• and prove that actually Jesus is the One through whom everything was created
•• and prove that man cannot be his own god nor can he create his own god
•• and prove that eternal intelligence, not random chance out of nothing is the cause and maker of all that can be known --
then...........it makes me believe I have been reading all the wrong scriptures and have no basis from which to even say anything at all.
Back in the earliest dawn of human presence on the earth, when the serpent, the deceiver, the murderer, who intended to kill the life of communion with God in the heart of man, acted to carry out his plan, he did not sit down in the garden with Eve and go into all kinds of dissertations and proofs and methods and pros and cons and calculated academic approaches to persuade Eve of all the intricacies of the knowledge of good and evil....he only beguiled her into taking a taste of the fruit. Then, when she had that taste and found its "pleasantries" and that it tasted good for food and was desirable to make one wise, also, she gave some to Adam, and he tasted.
When God sent His only begotten Son into the world, He did not send Him with the libraries of eternity to awe, astound, amaze and prove to mankind that all that mankind cannot know is true because of the proofs of eternal intelligence and wisdom contained in the eternal libraries of eternal intelligence, all of which is eternally completely out of reach and beyond the capacity and capability of mere human advancement.
Jesus came as the bread of Life sent from heaven for the Life of mankind. He did not put any attempt to "prove" by academic gymnastics and calculations that God exists and that He is Creator of all.
He made it clear that not only for those who are outside the training of the word of God, but even for those who have the scriptures and the training in the scriptures and the history of the environment of teaching and training in the scriptures and the things of God, unless a person takes a taste and eats that Bread of Life that was sent from heaven, they will not know Him....
...the proof is in the eating, partaking of that Life, not in setting it out on an examination table or stringing it up in a debate/theory hashing chamber and hacking at it with preferences, preconceived stances, training, doubts, unbelief, firm beliefs, investigations of suppositions and presuppositions....
.....the proof of the Life is only known in tasting of and feeding on the Life. It is not found nor proven by keeping it out there somewhere at arm's length and attempting to analyze it to death.
A scientist could set off in an extremely remote locale where humans are extremely few and far between, intending to engage in and concentrate on research in the unexplored, undeveloped, pristine wilderness. A local, illiterate, unsophisticated resident of the region would be hired as a porter to pack books and scientific instruments useful for experiments and such.
Several weeks into the excursion, the scientist and porter may wind up in a desolate area without water and readily available food supplies, and the provisions they had packed to carry along were long since used, already. Day after day, their strength is being depleted, and famished and desperately thirsty, they push on.
After several days of being in these dire straits, they come upon a few healthy plants growing where there is no surface evidence of water, other than the healthy plants bearing fruit in the area. The illiterate, unsophisticated porter quickly sheds the burden of experimental scientific equipment, and plucks a couple of the fruits from a plant. Handing one to the scientist, the porter then bites into the other fruit.
The scientist, not being familiar with the fruit, having never seen it before, sets out a board from his supplies and begins a full-scale, in-depth examination of the fruit that was handed to him....it goes on and on during every waking hour over the next few days.
Meanwhile, the illiterate, unsophisticated porter eats a couple fruits each day from the plants that are there. The plentiful moisture and caloric nutrition in the fruits rehydrates the porter and nourishes his famished fibers.
Each day, he questions the scientist if he doesn't see that if he will eat some of the fruit, he will be strengthened by the fruit to continue the scientific research of the fruit as the fruit is digested by him and literally becomes part of him.
The scientist always says he cannot be bothered with that. The importance of this scientific research is going to make a valued place for him in the world and in the records of science, it must not be neglected.
The scientist grows weaker and weaker each day and the porter is strengthened and reinvigorated each day, as the one scrutinizes and analyzes the fruit and the other feeds himself with the fruit.
Then, the day comes that the illiterate, unsophisticated porter picks a few of the fruits and places them into his pouch to be used as his food and fluid replenishment for his journey back to a place where he can report to others the death of the scientist who thought analyzing and investigating the fruit was more important and more noble than eating it for its renewing and strengthening of life.
All of Psalm 34 is useful and profitable to this discussion, and for the sake of simplicity in this comment, I put in just this:
"...taste and see that the Lord is good;
How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!
Fear the Lord, you His saints;
For to those who fear Him there is no lack of anything..."
In the earliest dawn of humans on earth, the deceiver, trying to pass a counterfeit of man's communion with and Life in God, convinced Eve to taste the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Eve got a taste, and saw that the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was good for food and desirable to make one wise...and the devil got his intended wish to murder her communion with God....
.... In the wisdom and love of God, (which is foolishness to those who only hang on to the taste of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil), God says, taste and see that the Lord is good, and He has made to us Jesus to be our righteousness, our sanctification, our redemption, our wisdom......our Life.
And God sends out ambassadors to teach and preach Jesus, not knowledge and arguments and calculations and research and experiments and theories.
Jesus gives life because He is life.
A person could completely know a library full of encyclopedias of "proof" of the existence of God, and all things "bible apologetics", and die in sin and condemnation because of never having tasted and fed upon the Life.