1. How can you know
for sure that anything is true?
Among your
acquaintances are likely to be some people who don’t believe in truth. That
is, they don’t believe truth can be known. However, that idea is
easily refuted, as this fictional conversation in the 2011 novel, The
Quest, illustrates:
“I think truth is
out there, somewhere. I just don’t think we can ever really know it.”
“You don’t think
truth can be known or discovered?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Do you think
that’s a true statement?”
I blinked. “What do
you mean?”
“What you just
agreed to: ‘I don’t think truth can be known.’ Do you view that as a true
statement?”
“Well, ye-eah,” I
said slowly. Something didn’t sound right.
She smiled and
leaned forward in her chair. She didn’t say anything, but looked at me
like she was waiting for something.
It took a minute,
but I finally realized what she was waiting for. “You’re saying that if I
think that’s a true statement, then I’ve claimed to know something that
is true….By saying truth can’t be known. I contradicted myself.”
“It’s called a
self-refuting statement,” she said.1
2. Is God a human
invention?
A popular view
these days is the idea that humans invented God in order to meet their
needs and fulfill their desires. But it is at least as reasonable to
believe exactly the opposite: that the innate desire humans have for God
exists because there is Someone who satisfies that desire. As C. S. Lewis
wrote,
Creatures are not
born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A
baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants
to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel s*xual desire:
well, there is such a thing as s*x. 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. Probably earthly pleasures were
never meant to satisfy it, but only arouse it, to suggest the real
thing.2
3. Doesn’t the Big
Bang disprove Creation?
There is a common
misconception that the Big Bang has pretty much eliminated the idea
that God created the heavens and the earth. But the opposite is true.
Former atheist Antony Flew, in his book There Is a God,
explained that the Big Bang model eventually led him to believe in a God
who created the universe, because it pointed to a beginning point in the
universe, and to something (or Someone) behind that beginning that was too
big for science to explain.3
4. How can an
intelligent person not believe in evolution?
Atheist Richard
Dawkins has famously written, “Beyond doubt evolution is a
fact,”4 adding that no reputable scientist disputes it. However,
neither statement is true. First, it is necessary to understand what
people mean when they use the world “evolution,” because it can refer
to both micro-evolution (the observable process by which change happens
over time within species) and macro-evolution (the arguable claim that
starting with a common ancestor, over time simple organisms have changed
into the species that exist today). Macro-evolution is not as widely
accepted as some claim. In fact, more than eight hundred world-class
scientists have signed a formal dissent from Darwinian evolution.5
5. How can you
trust the Bible when it has been changed and corrupted so much through the
centuries?
I (Josh)6 set
out as a young man to refute Christianity. I aimed to show everyone that
Christianity was nonsense. I thought it would be easy. It wasn’t. In fact,
I discovered that the Bible is far and away the most meticulously
preserved and widely attested documents of the ancient world. No other
book even comes close (we go into greater detail on this subject in our
book, Don’t Check Your Brains at the Door). This reliability was
confirmed by the 1948 discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which showed that
after a thousand years of copying, the text as it appears
in modern Bibles was more than ninety-five percent the same, word-for-word
and letter-for-letter, as it had been three thousand years earlier! And
what differences did exist were mainly spelling variations.
6. Hasn’t modern
science pretty much disproved the Bible?
It’s hard to
imagine anything that is farther from the truth than the idea that modern
science has disproved the Bible. In fact, the science of archaeology, to
name one field, has repeatedly confirmed the trustworthiness of the
biblical accounts (we devote a chapter to this subject in our book, Don’t
Check Your Brains at the Door). Archaeologist William F. Albright wrote,
The excessive
skepticism shown toward the Bible by important historical schools of
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, certain phases of which still
appear periodically, has been progressively discredited. Discovery after
discovery has established the accuracy of innumerable details, and has
brought increased recognition to the value of the Bible as a source of
history.7
7. Who even knows
if Jesus ever really existed?
The existence of a
man named Jesus who lived in Galilee and Judea in the early part of
the first century is utterly indisputable from a historical standpoint. In
fact, if you ever encounter such a view from a friend or teacher, invite
that person to travel with you to Israel. In the land where Jesus once
lived, everyone—Christians, Jews, Muslims, atheists—consider the idea that
never existed to be laughable. Why? Because the evidence of his historicity is
a daily reality there.
8. Don’t you think
Jesus could have been just a good teacher who didn’t intend to
be worshiped a god?
Though Christianity
and Christians can be pretty unpopular these days, Jesus remains
widely admired… even by many people who don’t profess to believe in him or
worship him. He is revered as a “good teacher,” as a “philosopher,” but
not as who he said he was, according to the historical record. C. S. Lewis
famously wrote about this phenomenon:
I am trying 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 a 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.8
9. Do you really
believe that Jesus literally rose from the dead?
Many theories have
been put forth to try to cast doubt on the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead. All of them are inadequate; some are even
ludicrous (we devote three chapters to these theories in our book, Don’t
Check Your Brains at the Door). In fact, the historical evidence for
the resurrection is so overwhelming, historians have to become
“anti-historical” in their efforts to build a case against it. As Lord
Darling, a prominent English judge, once said, “No intelligent jury in the
world could fail to bring in a verdict that the resurrection story is
true.”9
10. How can you
believe in that stuff?
The most convincing
evidence for the Christian faith is not historical, textual,
or archaeological; it is the testimony of a changed life. When I (Josh)
set out to disprove the Christian faith, my mind met unassailable facts…
but my heart met irresistible love. I met a group of Christians at Kellogg
College in Battle Creek, Michigan, who exposed me for the first time to
the love of God. Oh, how they loved each other. And I wanted what they
had. That love paved the road of faith for me, and thus began my journey
of faith. All the evidence in the world—the most powerful arguments
and most convincing proofs—probably wouldn’t have gotten through to me if
the transforming power of God’s love had not reached my heart through that
student group and others.
Always keep in mind
that the same will be true of anyone who challenges or questions your
faith. Your answers can help open their hearts, but the vibrant evidence of
a changed life will always be the most convincing apologetic you can
offer.
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