There are many things that cannot be proved through reason; everything not experienced firsthand remains unproven to the religiously skeptical. What we believe through reason to be true depends on whether we believe the claim, truth, or source of the truth to be reasonable through logic or character.
I think the grandest claim any man can make is to know God; to know of His existence and His character. It is the most significant truth that could be declared as such. We had best be prepared to sound reasonable when explaining the basis for what sounds like an insurmountable leap of faith to the minds of many.
It is important to think, to question, and to challenge what is doubted. Truth always remains when the search is honest. The points I will be presenting are not my own, but those I've enjoyed most of great thinkers who have taken great strides to map the reason behind their faith. Apologetics deals more with matters of the mind rather than of the heart, and as such will not convince anyone completely; it is a way to encourage and to challenge, no matter who the audience. To use it as a weapon is to undermine its strength, as intent speaks louder than words.
I. The argument for the existence of God from time and contingency
Whatever comes into being and goes out of being does not have to be; its non-being is a real possibility. The origin of the universe is the origin of being, but what about reality before that? From nothing, nothing comes, so the universe cannot simply begin. So, there necessarily must exist something which must exist, which cannot not exist. This sort of being is called necessary.
There must be a being whose necessity is not derived from another; there must must an absolutely necessary being in order for anything to exist. A being with no beginning. For there to be anything in existence there can never have been a state of absolute nothingness. Right when we see a physical object, it reveals the reality of the necessary someone; it is impossible for there to have ever been only nothing, for that state would yet persist, and infinitely so. We will call this absolutely necessary being God.
II. Evolution presupposes order
If something exists, there must exist what it takes for that thing to exist; a plant presupposes a seed. The universe exists, therefore there must exist what it takes for the universe to exist. Notably, what is takes cannot be bound by the same principles. Therefore, what it takes for the universe to exist must transcend both space and time, which are parts that came about at the beginning. The necessary being must be greater than the system brought about. The tools of science cannot be sufficient in the provision of a knowledge of God.
Linked to this is the problem that comes about when proof of God is demanded from science, is a quote by C.S. Lewis:
“If there was a controlling power outside the universe, it would not show itself to us as one of the facts inside the universe – no more than the architect of a house could actually be a wall or staircase or fireplace in that house. The only way we could expect it to show itself would be inside of ourselves as an influence or a command trying to get us to behave in a certain way. And that is just what we find in ourselves. Surely this ought to arouse our suspicions?”
More on conscience later.
III. The interacting whole
Since the parts make sense only within the whole, and neither the whole nor the parts can explain their own existence, then such a system requires a unifying cause to make it a unified whole.
There must be an intelligent cause, for the unity of the whole depends on the unity of its parts, the inherent order. It must somehow be presented as an effective organizing factor. Notably, only an idea can hold various unified elements at once without destroying or fusing their distinctions.
Since the parts of the universe are spread out over space and time, the only way they can be together at once as an intelligible unity is within an idea; the unity of the system must find its origin in an idea, thus the creative ordering mind, independent of the system itself. This points to the transcendental creative mind.
IV. Argument from the origin of the God idea: Descartes
We have ideas of many things, and these ideas must arise from either ourselves or from beings outside of ourselves. One of these ideas is that of God as infinite and all-perfect. This idea could not have been caused by ourselves, because we know ourselves to be limited and imperfect and because no effect can be greater than its cause.
Therefore, the idea must be caused by something outside of us that is equal to the demanded qualities; thus, God as the source of the idea.
Again, Lewis says it well:
"Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction of those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there exists such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” Nature creates no desires in vain.
V. Conscience and morality
What about relativism? Are there really no universally binding moral obligations? A problem arises, because in relativism the moral absolute becomes: always obey your own conscience no matter what it says. So, where did conscience get such authority? The possibilities are:
- From something less that me (nature)? Impossible, as a part cannot obligate the whole. Morality cannot arise from evolution; the lesser cannot be used to explain the greater. A molecule cannot demand a good will. Only a good will can. Only love can demand love.
- From me? But how can I obligate myself absolutely? If I have the power to obligate myself in such a way, I also have the power to undo it, thus destroying the premise of absolute obligation to conscience. A locksmith cannot lock himself in a room.
- What about society? Numbers cannot transform relative to absolute. This is no different than saying another person can obligate absolutely; quantity does not affect quality.
- And what of something superior to me? This is the only adequate source of the absolute.
"My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?" -C.S. Lewis
Everyone wonders why bad things happen to good people; it is a widely recognized dilemma. Yet, this very recognition hints at a solution to the problem of evil. The fact that we do not naturally accept this world full of injustice, suffering, disease and death—our very outrage at evil is a clue that we are in touch with a standard of goodness by which we judge the world as defective and falling short of the mark.
Here's an argument:
- If one of two contraries is infinite, the other is completely destroyed
- but God means infinite goodness.
- If, therefore, God existed, there would be no evil discoverable in the world. But there is evil therefore God does not exist.
- God exists
- God is all-good
- God is all-powerful
- Evil exists
- If God exists, wills all-good, and is powerful enough to get everything he wills, then there would be no evil.
- If God exists and wills only good but evil exists, then God does not get what he wills. Thus, he is not all-powerful.
- If God exists and is all-powerful and evil exists too, then God wills evil to exist. Thus he is not all good. If God means a being who is both all-good and all-powerful, and nevertheless evil exists, then such a God does not exist.
Evil is not a being; it is not a thing, substance, or entity. This was Augustine's great breakthrough that frees from thinking in terms of two ultimate beings, one good, another evil. He realized that all being is good metaphysically, or in its being; for all being is either the Creator or his creature.
If evil were a being, the problem of evil would be unsolvable, for then either God made it, and thus he is not all-good—or else God did not make it and thus is not the all-powerful creator of things. But evil is not a thing; things are not evil in themselves. Where is evil? It is in the will, the choice, the intent, which puts wrong order into the physical world of things and acts. Even the story of the devil of the Bible is a story of good gone bad; the corruption of the best things are the worst things. To be morally bad, you must first be ontologically good.
Even physical evil is not a thing; the lack of power in a paralyzed limb is is physical evil, but is is not a thing, like another limb.
Is evil then merely subjective? A fantasy, an illusion? No, for if it were a mere subjective illusion, then the fact that we fear this mere illusion would be really evil; as Augustine says, “thus either the evil that we fear is real, or the fact that we fear it, is evil.
The second major confusion about evil is to fail to distinguish between moral evil and physical evil, sin and suffering, the evil we actively do and the evil we suffer, the evil we freely will and the evil that is against our will, the evil we are directly responsible for and the evil we are not.
A. Omnipotence and free will
Love cannot exist without free will; if the God of the Bible is love as he claims, it is in His nature to insist on free will. Evil is a wrong relationship, a nonconformity between our will and God's will. Why did God then grant us free will? That question is irrelevant, much like asking why do triangles have three sides? Free will and humanity are one and the same and cannot be separated. Evil's source is man's freedom. Then why didn't God create a world without human freedom? Because that would be a world without hate but also without love, for love too proceeds only from free will. Thus, even an omnipotent God cannot forcibly prevent sin without removing our freedom; this “cannot” does not mean that his power meets some obstacle outside of himself. It is simply his nature, not an extension toward self-contradiction. If, then, evil and its characterization as an extension of human choice toward disorder is dependent on our free will, then God is off the hook when it comes to the design and creation of evil.
VII. Christ
“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic -- on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg -- or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” -C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity.
“Even those who have renounced Christianity and attack it, in their inmost being still follow the Christian ideal, for hitherto neither their subtlety nor the ardour of their hearts has been able to create a higher ideal of man and of virtue than the ideal given by Christ of old.” --Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Everyone who reads the gospels agrees that Jesus is a good, wise, and trustworthy teacher. The account of Jesus is unique; it is an instance of the author placing himself into his narrative being fully in and fully out. If we believe the humanity and trustworthiness of Jesus better than we know what is possible for God to do, it is reasonable for us to believe Jesus and change our theological expectations; if you know another better than you know the universe, and that someone claims something extraordinary, you have a choice to make. If he is trustworthy, knowledgeable, and not insane, it is reasonable to regard it as truth.
A. Jesus as myth?
"Only Christ could have conceived Christ." - Joseph Parker
The accounts of Jesus go back to his generation, not two or three later. If it were faked, those who knew him would have refuted it completely. Notably, if the incarnation didn't really happen, then an even bigger miracle did; the conversion of most of the world by the biggest lie in history.
there are two options here:
1) Jesus rose, then you have Christianity
2) Jesus did not rise: the apostles were myth makers.
Any literary scholar knowledgeable in myths will verify how clearly different the gospels are from myths. There is no childlike exaggeration, overblown events, nothing is arbitrary, and everything fits. Furthermore, there are signs of eyewitness experience with inclusion of things not understood by the author (John 8:6). If it was invented, it was realistic fantasy two thousand years ahead of its time.
Furthermore, there was not enough time for the myth to develop. No one disputes that Paul's letters were within the lifetimes of eyewitnesses to Christ. Any controversy around the age of the gospels suffers, as they hold intimate knowledge of Jerusalem before its destruction in AD70, less than a generation from the time of Jesus.
There is no attempt to harmonize between gospels, as there are discrepancies between accounts. If the idea was to sell a contrived idea, it is reasonable to expect that rough edges be smoothed over to strengthen the appeal to the audience. Inconvenient aspect of the account were left untouched, despite alternatives being more appealing. None is more telling than that having to do with the social status of women at the time.
The social status of women was low, as they had no legal right to serve even as witnesses; yet, theirs was the initial eyewitness testimony to the resurrection, the hinge of the entirety of Christianity. Their testimony as such was worthless according to their culture, but it was the truth and the details of what happened were reported as such, socially and legally inconvenient as it was.
Were the apostles deceivers? Was this a vast conspiracy? No one ever confessed that it was a deception, even when they denied Christ to escape death. The picture given by the gospels of the disciples is one of 12 poor and fearful men, in their own strength; could they change the Roman world with a lie? There seems to be no motive, and a fabrication of events so soon after their occurrence and in the same place they occurred seems impossible.
Perhaps Jesus didn't actually die? The Romans didn't mess around; they knew death and how to deal it. They did not break his legs because they were sure he was dead, seeing blood and water pour out of the would they made in his side. Would such an injured and weak man be able to convince his followers that he was raised up after death and given a new body after having woken up in the tomb?
B. The text
- Many events that are regarded as firmly established have far less documentary evidence than Biblical events
- Documents upon which historians rely are written far later from date of occurrence than those regarding gospel times.
To disregard the accuracy of the gospels requires one to make a deliberate exception to the rules used elsewhere in history. What one must not do is argue in circles, saying the bible is a myth because of unbelievable miracles, and the resurrection is a myth because the bible is a myth.
"Our problem is this: we usually discover him within some denominational or Christian ghetto. We meet him in a province and, having caught some little view, we paint him in smaller strokes. The Lion of Judah is reduced to something kittenish because our understanding cannot, at first, write larger definitions." -Calvin Miller
"It is as if God the Father is saying to us: "Since I have told you everything in My Word, Who is My Son, I have no other words that can at present say anything or reveal anything to you beyond this. Fix your eyes on Him alone, for in Him I have told you all, revealed all, and in Him you will find more than you desire or ask. If you fix your eyes on Him, you will find everything, for He is My whole word and My reply, He is My whole vision and My whole revelation." -Anthony M. Coniaris
"The message of Christ is not Christianity. The message of Christ is Christ." -Gary Amirault
Referenced:
Kreeft, P., Tacelli, R. Handbook of Christian Apologetics. InterVarsity Press: 1994.
