The belief that there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and then nothing magically exploded for no reason, creating everything and then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for no reason whatsoever into self-replicating bits which then turned into dinosaurs. Makes perfect sense.
Death is an underrated tool in the apologists’s toolbox. Put another way, we can use death more often and more effectively to defend the veracity of the Christian faith. Christians are usually put on the defensive when the subject of death (and suffering) comes up because, well, I don’t know why. Ever since the so called Enlightenment when human beings began to believe they could sit in judgment on God, death (and suffering) became known as “the problem of evil.” Succinctly, the argument goes this way. If God is all powerful he should be able to keep evil from happening, but he obviously can’t, so he’s not. If he’s all good, he should not allow evil to happen, which he obviously hasn’t. So God is obviously not all powerful, nor all good, ergo he doesn’t exist. Or something like that.
The problem with this explaining away of God is that it leaves a far bigger problem in its wake: if there is no God, why, then, is there evil and suffering at all? The atheist’s answer: Uh, because. Now that’s intellectually satisfying, and emotionally fulfilling. NOT! And why is it bad? I guess because it’s not pleasant. But the only thing the God-less can say of evil and suffering (and death) is that it just is, deal with it. Brute fact, too bad, so sad. But getting rid of God only makes the problem of evil worse because, then, there is absolutely no reason at all for the misery all human beings experience. It is meaning-less.
Back in 1968 as the sexual revolution was raging, Pope Paul VI wrote a profoundly counter-cultural encyclical called Humanae Vitae. One of the things that made it so profound (and something completely missed by the Evangelical leaders of the day) was its appeal to natural law, or telos in nature. If you are not familiar with the word telos, in Greek it means purpose, and it was used as an important means of understanding the world for the ancient Greeks, especially Aristotle. Evolution News recently had a piece that connected the Pope’s arguments of telos in nature, and Intelligent Design (ID). The latter is a very simple, biblical, assertion that there is evidence of design in nature, and thus a designer. I know, shocking! I’ll explain why ID, and thus telos, is so “controversial” in a moment, but Paul tells us in Romans 1 that God, thus design, thus telos is obvious from his creation:
20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
In addition to writing here at The Persuasive Christian Parent, several years ago I started writing my way through the Bible. I gave that blog the uninspiring title of, My Walk Through the Bible. Recently I finished the gospel of Mark and moved on to Luke. As I was writing my first post on Luke, I realized my thoughts would be good for readers of PCP given the apologetic nature of the end of the second gospel and the beginning of the third. Here are those thoughts.
I’ve never noticed before now the apologetics connection between the last verse of Mark and the first verses of Luke. I love the way that works! Mark ends his book (or whoever wrote the disputed last section of Mark) saying that the Lord confirmed the disciples spreading his word “by the signs that accompanied it.” Those signs would be miracles. God provides evidence for the veracity of the message, never expecting us to believe just because someone says so. Christianity is different than every other religion on earth because it is based on facts that require evidence.
I’d never heard of this movie with Ben Stiller until a few days ago, and when I read the premise and learned it was on Amazon Prime I figured we’d give it a go. Brad’s Status is about a 50-something middle class man watching his only son explore college, Harvard no less, before he leaves the nest. The title of the movie has to do with Brad’s obsession with his own status in life, or the lack thereof. And an obsession it is. He sees everything in his life as an indictment of his own failure to live up to his successful college friends who seem to “have it all.” If only he “had it all” he’d be just as happy and fulfilled as he thinks they are. Of course they’re not, which only adds to the irony of his obsession.
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