Jan 4, 2020 | Apologetics
In a previous post I argued that it is much easier to believe in Christianity than the alternatives, and discussed three ways we can judge a religion or worldview’s claim to truth. I argued that absolute certainty is impossible, so our goal should be beyond-a-reasonable-doubt certainty. The three ways (apologetics methods) bring us well beyond reasonable doubt for Christianity, and help us to compare it to the alternatives. Here are some examples of how these methods help us do that. (more…)
Dec 25, 2019 | Apologetics
Christmas is upon us again, and for those of us who’ve experienced more than a few, it kind of loses its wonder after a while. It shouldn’t. If what Christmas celebrates actually happened, if it is actually true, then it is the most profound event in all of history, by far. We need to ask ourselves why we should believe this preposterous history in the first place. It is certainly preposterous on its face. God becoming man? Seriously? You have to be kidding. Nope! The incarnation, God becoming man, makes perfect sense in the context of the Christian message: God himself saves his people from their sin (Matt. 1:21). He accomplished it by becoming one of us, and paying the price for us in our place. God himself, in Christ, fulfilled for us, all that he demanded of us. No wonder so many find it hard to believe! (more…)
Dec 21, 2019 | Apologetics
This assertion is completely counter intuitive to secularists, and unfortunately hard for many Christians to believe. But the more you know about the claims for the truth of Christianity, and those of the alternatives, the more you can’t help but believe that Christianity is true. Some explanation of reality has to be true, has to be the way things actually are. Contrary to the silly COEXIST bumper stickers on cars of people signaling how tolerant they are, every religion can’t be true. They all make contradictory claims, so the most basic law of logic, the law of non-contradiction, holds: a thing cannot both be A and not-A at the same time and in the same sense. Aristotle said “that without the principle of non-contradiction we could not know anything that we do know.” Put another way, religion and worldviews are not like ice cream, simply a personal preference. If we don’t believe in Christianity, we have to believe in something else. (more…)
Dec 17, 2019 | Apologetics
My middle son and I are reading Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life together. Peterson has become a cultural phenomenon, and one the secular left hates. That alone is enough to take him seriously, but from the little I’d read and heard, it seems he wants to help men become men, and take responsibility for their lives. This alone is enough the have the alphabet people clamoring for his head. Although he is not a Christian, he takes seriously the cultural tradition of the West that includes the contribution of plenty of dead white men, not so popular today among his fellow academics. But I was compelled to write because of something secular academics do that drives me nuts: They sneak evolution as a creative power into their prose. I will give a couple examples, and once you see this hopefully it will forever drive you nuts too. I’ll also briefly explain why this is so important. (more…)
Nov 2, 2019 | Apologetics
Critics and skeptics of the Bible think that the miracle stories in the gospels are what make them so hard to believe as history. Just the opposite is the truth. In fact, the way the stories are portrayed, and that they happened at all, are evidence for their veracity. The primary reason they are not believed is because of an anti-supernatural bias people bring to the text: Miracles can’t happen, ergo, the miracles in the Bible didn’t happen! Hogwash. The accounts we read in the gospels do not, at all, read like myths and legends, but like eyewitness testimony of events that actually happened. An important point to keep in mind as you are reading the text is the critics’ claim: What you read was made up, to one degree or another. The question we ask in return is, could or would it have been made up? Knowing human psychology as it is, I find this one of the most profound questions I can ask as I’m reading the Bible. My answer is always, no! (more…)
Oct 24, 2019 | Apologetics
In my previous post I wrote that the historical novel, The Robe, was the greatest historical novel ever written. I haven’t read every one, so this may be a bit of hyperbole, but author Lloyd C. Douglas makes a compelling case about how the spread of the gospel message is evidence for its truth. I explained that biblical critics claim that the gospel stories are akin to the telephone game where the initial events are distorted over time to become what we read today in our Bibles. My contention, and what is so expertly conveyed in The Robe, is that this is not at all how the message and events recorded in the gospels spread. In fact, distortion as critics claim was not possible given the events, the culture, and the nature of life lived at the time. Here are some reasons why. (more…)
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