“Instead, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And if someone asks about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it.” 1 Peter 3:15 (NLT)
Apologetics is defined as a branch of Christian theology that aims to present historical, reasoned, and evidential bases for Christianity, defending it against objections. And recently, apologetics has grown as a passionate interest of my heart. The defense of the Christian faith is a defense that we are all called to and one that I feel that is very important, especially in the recent vocal growth of other philosophies and religions. In the near future, I would love to write and share my heart from the Christian perspective regarding the Christian faith on different popular viewpoints among our society today. These viewpoints include that of atheism (belief that there is no God), pantheism (the belief that all reality is identical with ‘God,’ or that everything composes an all-encompassing, immanent god), and polytheism (belief in multiple Gods), as well as other direct comments toward today’s more prominent competing religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam, starting today with some comments on atheism. While I cannot comment on every single viewpoint, I can do my best to encompass some of the more popular views that are held by these different belief systems to better understand where others are coming from so that we may give our heart for truth that encompasses the gospel. I believe that there is great importance in understanding where a person is coming from and being able to share the hope that we have in Christianity in light of what they believe. I plan to use this to externalize thoughts for myself and open myself up to constructive feedback as well as intellectual discussions regarding Christianity.
My heart behind apologetics is far from winning arguments with people and more directly on the lines of winning people to Christ. Sometimes in conversation, I’ve found it much better to leave a person at their argument when I see they are only seeking to argue and prove themselves right with no regard or hunger for seeking truth together in an intellectual conversation. With the amount of people asking questions of the faith going in this day, I believe that this shows there are people that, underneath their layers of asking important questions or objections, are on the inside seeking truth and purpose in life. Christianity, among other ‘religions’, is one that through the years has survived scrutiny historically, evidentially, and especially archeologically(unlike other prominent religions); has continued to be upheld by science; and is the one that goes the furthest in answering the deep questions to the meaning of life, purpose, and existence. Augustine of Hippo put it best this way as we seek the understanding of life, “A right faith is the beginning of a good life, and to this also eternal life is dude. Now it is faith to believe that which you do not yet see; and the reward of this faith is to see that which you believe.” Many today seek all the truth before they will believe today while it is the ones that took what they had and ran with it who will be rewarded for the ground they covered. This being said, it is above all things the lovethat we Christians will carry alongside the power of prayer and the truth that we hold to that will win souls to faith in Christ and eternity.
While the number of Christians has been growing radically in the past few centuries all across the world, you’ll find that atheism has been climbing as well as a belief clung to especially in the Western Hemisphere. Atheism is defined as “the absence of belief in the existence of God(s)” and one thing you’ll find about atheists is that they are very firm in the idea that their atheism is not actually a belief, hence why the definition is worded as the absence of belief. During conversation, this topic of faith is a topic probably better left out because it will most likely lead to an argument leading away from an open discussion. But regarding the difference between Christianity and Atheism, the line that divides these two beliefs (or lack of belief and belief) is very clear and if ever engaged in this conversation could proceed from one distinction. Atheism vs. Theism. Atheism is, as said earlier, the belief that there is no God whereas Theism is the belief that there is a God or higher power that exists and has the power to permeate the universe. The reason that it is best to start here is because generally Atheists try to dodge around this topic by going on the offense and attacking Christianity as a whole through unreliable objections thrown around among atheists that tend to not be backed up by research of evidence such as the Bible being unreliable or saying that miracles are against science then using this to disprove God. This would deal more-so with an agnostic argument against Christianity, but the problem here is the acknowledgement of God. The case for atheists, at this point, remains at the distinction that they claim there is no God at the heart of their argument. To which we find ourselves as Christians at a crossroads of where to go from here, not due to a lack of where to go from here, but with a list of many options of where we could go.
The point behind this is that it’s dependent upon their seeking of truth, not winning an argument. To continue in conversation, it’d be best to not shut down their points as they come but have an open heart to see where they’re coming from and see the reasoning behind why they believe this or that. Different areas of point to go from here could be taking claims against Christianity and showing the counterclaims of truth that there are to offer. Two of my favorite off the top of my head are the Law of Human Nature or the claim that science supports atheism. I will take these because they are popular among atheists and I believe both point to the existence of a creator and could also deal with a third claim against miracles. To deal with this topic, we must look at the two contrasting views held and see where these points take us from there; these two views being that of macroevolution from a big bang or a creation made by a creator. Some have argued that both views may be held but in my opinion, this is in contrast to the Christian perspective and is a different discussion for another time. And so leading from these contrasting views let us give our counterclaims as Christians.
#1 Law of Human Nature
The Law of Human Nature is defined in depth by one of the most influential apologetic writers for the Christian in our time, C.S. Lewis, in his book Mere Christianity. In this book, Lewis goes as far to show that the human race, as far as the tale of history will tell, has been governed by an overall belief that there is a right or wrong thing to do that has not been manipulated over the course of history. This is most easily seen, though a tragic example communicates the point, in the example that if you were ask many peoples thoughts on serial killers and whether or not it has been ok for them to do this whereas the overall astound consensus would be an astounding no. The point of this one example among money is that it centralizes the major viewpoint that there is a right or wrong thing to do here, pointing to an understanding of morality that we carry within us and can’t deny. To say that this would even be ok would go against what the inside would say. We can carry this view into our perspective history and see the governments of history attempt to set laws to govern peoples across the world with the idea of achieving this law of morality that’s within us, to continually fail. The point that we can take away from the Law of Human Nature is this: There is a law concerning the morality that is within us that points back through history to the beginning of creation that is found to be only within humans. Regarding macroevolution and the Dawkins theory, most atheists are unaware that when they argue for this that they are agreeing when Richard Dawkins claims that there is no such idea as morality and that good and evil are something that we came up with on our own and that the human race would be best off to rid ourselves of this idea and revert back to our true nature. Not to mention that this raises the inconsistency of the fact that we have a feeling of being okay contrasted to being uneasy as a result in direct correlation to whether we feel something to be right or wrong. On to the second view that deals briefly with this topic a little further.
#2 Science Supports Atheism
This is a rather farfetched claim in and of itself once actually looked at for what it is saying and first deserves a definition for the word science. Science is defined as “the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.” In other words, science is the act that brings together reason and reality by studying structure and behavior of events through observation and conducted experiments in the world that can be seen and touched. With this being said, to say that science could determine whether or not the world was formed by a single bang versus whether it was created by a creator is, again, a rather farfetched statement as it cannot be observed, tested, or experimented on and this must point any scientist that makes a claim about this topic to change his title from Scientist to Philosopher. Regarding this claim, it is inaccurate and the topic of God is one that science must remain silent about. Unfortunately, atheists of the day have put their faith in incomplete evidence regarding evolution they believe dating back to an age that had dinosaurs even though recent evidence and archeology has pointed towards Christ. I recall recently reading that the Bible was claimed to be inaccurate due to archeological problems regarding the locations and people named in the Bible within the past 3 centuries due to over 50 archeological contradictions to which recent discovers has narrowed down to 1 in the past century. One example of this being the location of Nazareth, where Jesus was born, not being a location at the time but one developed by people whereas recent archeology has disproved this theory that seemed to disprove the Bible. Go figure! I love that the definition of science brings together both reason and reality because in my opinion, I could say the same about the Christian faith. That’s why we’re called to be prepared to give a reason and an answer for the hope we have! It is within our reason to evaluate the evidence of other religions in comparison to the claims of Christ and the result becomes the reality of God in our life as we invite Christ into our lives and this continues to be reality. In my opinion, science seems to simply point towards a creator, as Albert Einstein among many other renowned scientists noted. Some of the greatest scientists in history made the best observations who held the belief that there must be a God who created the laws of the universe. Science may not prove that there is a creator but the more it makes observations of the world, the more it’s coming to look like the unve was crafted perfectly for human life. Another way to look at the science of the world is through an example that John Lennox gives when Aunt Matilda gives her nephew John a cake for his birthday. Science can tell you the circumference and dimensions of the cake through mathematics, the chemicals used inside the cake and the chemical reactions happening as the icing melts through chemistry, and the particles all inside the cake and what’s happening according to physics among many more things; it could even tell you the process of how the cake was made and observe the cake in many more ways. But here’s the stopping point, science can tell you these dimensions and things that we probably could go without hearing, but science cannot tell you why Aunt Matilda made her nephew a cake. Science can’t tell you that there is a reason, but we as humans have minds and know that Aunt Matilda made that cake for a reason. This, I believe, is similar to the world that we live in. Another example used is with Mr. Ford and the car he crafted. Science can evaluate the dimensions and particles in the car as well as the laws that govern the car but if you look at it long enough, it becomes pretty clear that it was created and the car was not just there, even though that is out of science’s reach to tell us that. Science has continued to affirm different laws that govern the universe such as the law of gravity or the law of thermodynamics and I could go on. But where did such laws come from? Where did our sense of right and wrong come from? Why is there a world swarming with people like a crushed anthill on the ground swarm with ants? It seems to me that we live on a creation and created planet that points to a creator, this being God. From here, it simply points to the purpose for which we were created, that being found in Jesus Christ and the claims of Christ.
To go from here and summarize what these points point towards is that there is a creator and even if the atheist is not sold on this point, he should very well be intrigued to pursue the truth behind the matter for it is eternity at hand. C.S. Lewis put it this way “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.”. The heart behind the matter is to encourage the atheist into his own pursuit of truth because at the end of the day, all truth and evidence has continued to point to Christ and his time on Earth and in turn, His coming again or our coming to him at our death. Archeology, Science (in my opinion), and even the reality of walking through life as a follower of Christ point towards the reason and reality that there is more to life than to just exist for no purpose, and that purpose is found in God and the relationship that He desires with us and sent Jesus Christ down to Earth to die on a cross for us. Similar to how Geisler and Turek said it, I truly don’t have enough faith to be an atheist.
This has been some of what I’ve learned and grown in and like I said earlier, there are many questions along this line of topic that I could not answer in a single sitting but if one is in the pursuit of finding the truth for themselves, will be pointed towards that truth. The truth of Christianity has been, currently is, and always will be prepared for the test of scrutiny.
I hope to write more soon.
Thank you for reading!
