Jan 04 2022 30 mins
Episode 141 – Truth and Proof – Part 1 – Defending the Faith
Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God.
Script:
While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there.
Acts, Chapter 17, verses 16 and 17, New International Version
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VK: Hello and Happy New Year! I’m Victoria K. Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. We’re excited to be with you at the start of this New Year and we pray that this year will bring joy and blessings to all our listeners, especially the joy of having a closer fellowship with our Lord Christ Jesus. Today on Anchored by Truth we’re going to start the new year with a new – and frankly challenging – series of discussions. As just about everyone knows, the Christian faith in America has been subjected to more challenges in the last decade than probably in the first two centuries of the country’s existence. So, as we open up this New Year we want to tackle a subject that has particular relevance in our day and time –being able to demonstrate that the Christian faith has a firm basis in reason and evidence. To help us get started on addressing this very important topic we have RD Fierro, author and founder of Crystal Sea Books, in the studio today. RD, why are we undertaking this series?
RD: We live in an age where our historical cultural consensus has shifted. Some commentators have said that we are now living in a “post-Christian” world. For people who are not believers this means that they live in a world that has gone “beyond” the constraints and “narrowness” of Christianity. Fewer people, as a percentage of the population, belong to churches than in generations past, and many of the mainline churches are experiencing declines not only in membership, but in influence on society, government, education, family, and the culture as a whole. As we look around us we see that young people are far more consumed by the death of an entertainer than the death and resurrection of Jesus. We also see that more people are consumed by concern for temporary pleasures than their eternal destiny. It seems that everywhere our societies are all about money, entertainment, personal freedom, free expression, anything goes – everywhere it’s Babylon: the city of Satan, where it’s “all about me.” This is obviously is dangerous to individual destinies but it is also dangerous to the destiny of our communities and nation.
VK: And this danger has been recognized for quite a while now, hasn’t it? In their 1994 book, Handbook of Christian Apologetics, Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli, who are both professors of the philosophy of religion at Boston College, said the following:
“Western civilization is for the first time in its history in danger of dying. The reason is spiritual. It is losing its life, its soul; that soul was the Christian faith. The infection killing it is not multiculturalism – other faiths – but the monoculturalism of secularism – no faith, no soul. Our century has been marked by genocide, sexual chaos and money-worship. Unless all the prophets are liars, we are doomed unless we repent. . .The church of Christ will never die, but our civilization will. If the gates of hell will not prevail against the church, this world certainly won’t. We do apologetics not to save the church, but to save the world.”
RD: Exactly. People within the church have been warning of the danger we’re facing for decades. So, we’ve titled this series “Truth and Proof” because in it we want to point people back to the eternal truth that there is a God and that God has a plan not only for people but for communities, nations, and the world. But we don’t want to just proclaim the truth, though that is obviously where we must start. We also want to explain the evidence and reasons behind our belief. That’s the “proof” part of the series. It’s not uncommon to hear people say in this day and age something like, “you trust in faith, but I trust in logic, reason, and science.” In doing so they are trying to trying to set logic, reason, and science in opposition to faith. As we’ve said many times on Anchored by Truth, that is a false dichotomy that tries to say that if you are a Christian and you believe in the Bible you have abandoned a reliance upon logic, reason, and evidence. Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth. Some of the greatest thinkers of the last two millennia and some of the greatest scientists of all time have been devout Christians.
VK: Well, before we go too much farther we want to acknowledge the person who originally inspired this particular series, Dr. Gregg Alexander. Dr. Alexander practiced medicine in Tallahassee, Florida for over 4 decades but more importantly for us, he led a Sunday school class in his church for more than 25 years. Dr. Alexander is extremely thoughtful and insightful. We are indebted to him for giving us much of the information we’re going to bring to listeners during this series.
RD: And Dr. Alexander will be joining us on several of the episodes during this series. As you said, he is thoughtful and insightful and even beyond that he is one of the clearest thinkers that I know. He has framed a mature, intelligent, and coherent Christian world view and in that regard I believe he sets an example that all believers would do well to emulate.
VK: So, where do you want to start? It sounds like we have a lot of material to discuss. So, let’s get to it.
RD: Well, I always think a good place to start is with defining some terms. So, earlier when you mentioned the book title, you used the word “apologetics,” and that’s a broad umbrella term for what we’re talking about. Apologetics can broadly be defined as “a defense for our faith.” Apologetics comes from a compound Greek word. Greek, like English, has compound words made of two or more other words. In this case the Greek words are apo, primarily used to mean “from;” and logos, primarily meaning, in its most generic sense, “word.” Logos is also commonly used in an expanded way to mean “reason, the mental faculty of thinking, meditating, reasoning, and calculating.” The Greek philosopher Heraclitus first used the term Logos around 600 B.C. to designate the divine reason or plan which coordinates a changing universe. The Apostle John’s used that same word in John 1:1.
VK: – The Gospel of John, chapter 1, verse 1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Apologetics means “from the mind,” and, in the sense of John 1:1 it means “from the mind of God.” We now use the term “apologetics” to mean the defense of the Christian faith.
RD: Right. But the simplicity of the definition masks the complexity of the problem of fully defining apologetics. It turns out that a diversity of approaches to defending the Christian faith that might be classified in some way as apologetics. There is no universal way of doing apologetics. And the approaches seem to be determined by the perspectives of individuals or groups. But there are some generally understood terms we can use to identify apologetic “categories.” Many scholars will recognize four basic approaches to apologetics: classical apologetics, evidential apologetics, pre-suppositional apologetics, and fideist apologetics. Each has a particular focus, and each has its champions. During this series we’re going to focus on the classical and evidential approaches because we think they are the approaches that people will connect with most easily.
VK: Our goal on Anchored by Truth is to help ordinary Christian believers develop a more mature Christian faith and especially to give them tools to help their children and grandchildren do so also. We know that our listeners are serious about their Christian faith and serious about wanting to understand the Bible better. But we also know that most listeners have very busy lives and may not have the time to sort through volumes of information that they might like to. So, what we try to do is take areas that pertain to Christianity and sift information for them and for you. We are not professional Christian apologists and we’re not going to become them. We suspect most of our listeners are the same. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t all learn enough to provide intelligent answers to reasonable questions that might come our way. Fifty years ago, and possibly 25 years ago if you told someone that you are a Christian, people didn’t think there was anything unusual about that. But a lot of has changed. Now it’s often not enough to simply know what you believe but you must know why you believe it.
RD: That is unfortunately true. Some commentators say that we are living in a post-Christian society. But I’m not interested in trying to characterize our society as much as I am in trying to change it. That’s what the gospel has always done. While overt unbelief is certainly more common today, in a certain sense every society throughout history has had plenty of unbelievers. That was certainly true in the early church but that didn’t stop the Apostles and first disciples from carrying the gospel to the ends of the earth.
VK: In fact, in Acts, chapter 19, verses 23 through 41 there is a description of a riot that occurred in the City of Ephesus. Many of the tradespeople in Ephesus were upset because of the increasing influence of the Christianity in their city because of the Apostle Paul’s ministry. Verses 23 through 26 tell us, “About that time there arose a great disturbance about the [Christianity]. A silversmith named Demetrius, who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought in a lot of business for the craftsmen there. He called them together, along with the workers in related trades, and said: “You know, my friends, that we receive a good income from this business. And you see and hear how this fellow Paul has convinced and led astray large numbers of people here in Ephesus and in practically the whole province of Asia. He says that gods made by human hands are no gods at all.”
RD: And earlier in that same chapter the book of Acts says “This went on for two years, so that all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord.” So, Paul’s ministry was so effective that in less than two years just about everybody in the Roman province of Asia had heard the gospel. Asia was a very large Roman province, the equivalent of one of our largest states. Yet, Paul accomplished that in a society that was openly hostile to Christianity. Paul did that because he knew not only what he believed but also why he believed it. As we heard in our opening scripture, Paul regularly reasoned with the people he encountered. We must be willing to do so today. So, as important as proclamation of the gospel is, explanation of the foundation for our belief in the gospel is now almost as important. That’s where apologetics steps in.
VK: Apologetics, as an area of study, can help us add the “why we believe” to the “what we believe.” A lot of people who hear the word “apologetics” may think that the whole idea of studying it might be intimidating. But you don’t believe that apologetics has to be intimidating. You strongly believe that a good understanding of some of the major apologetic ideas is available to all believers. You certainly don’t believe anyone has to go to a seminary or attend formal classes to obtain a basic understanding of apologetics, do you?
RD: No, I don’t. But that’s one of the reasons that as we are doing this “Truth and Proof” series that I don’t intend to spend much time on presuppositional apologetics. Presuppositional apologetics makes the presupposition of the authority of the Bible and the existence of God. It essentially argues that the starting point for demonstrating the existence of God is the presupposition that God exists and the Bible is authoritative.
VK: That sounds like a bit of a circular argument – an argument that assumes the truth of the proposition the argument intends to prove.
RD: Well, I think that’s one of the major problems for most people using presuppositional apologetics in witnessing to people. Just about any person who has even a basic understanding of logic will immediately point out that it sure looks like a circular argument. So, then the first thing the presuppositional apologist must do is show why it’s not circular. Now, I’ve heard skilled, professional presuppositional apologists do that, but frankly the way they go about it makes me believe most of us would never understand the argument well enough to present it effectively. Presuppositionalists try to show that worldviews that do not acknowledge the existence of God cannot be internally coherent.
VK: Which is a point that we made in our “Lord of Logic” series on Anchored by Truth.
RD: Yes. So, I don’t mean to dismiss presuppositional apologetics entirely. I think there are some interesting and valuable points that are contained within the line of reasoning. But I just don’t think it’s as helpful or easy to use as, for instance, what is sometimes termed “classical apologetics.”
VK: Classical apologetics places emphasis on reasoning and on the rational. It makes use of philosophy and science, and all forms of evidence. The key word is “reason” for it is rational. Historically, it was the form of apologetics used by Anselm of Canterbury and Thomas Aquinas. In the 20th century C.S. Lewis and Norman Geisler [GUY-SLUR] are two very well-known classical apologists. This is the approach that will mostly be using during this series.
RD: Yes. And we may do a little bit of evidential apologetics and historical apologetics. Evidential apologetics seeks evidence as its name indicates. The evidence can be historical, scientific, archaeologic, or even prophetic. The key word is “fact” because it is empirical. Historical apologetics can be seen as a specialized form of evidential apologetics. Historical apologetics stresses historical fact and evidence as the basis for demonstrating the truth of the Christian faith. We make use of this approach frequently on Anchored by Truth when we use of extra-Biblical or archeological evidence to demonstrate the historicity of the Bible. But we don’t confine ourselves to just historic evidence. For instance when we did our “Truth in Genesis” series we used an abundance of scientific evidence to show that the creation account contained in Genesis can be reasonably accepted as literal history.
VK: You also said that you don’t intend to do much with fideistic [FEE-DAY-IS-TIK] apologetics during this series.
RD: No. Fideist apologetics is based in sola fide which means “by faith alone.” The key word is, of course, “faith” for it is intuitive. Karl Barth was a 20th century apologist along these lines, and one who has had tremendous influence in some seminaries. Barth held that the Bible was a record of revelation, but not revelation in itself. Barth did not acknowledge the infallibility of scripture although he did claim scripture was a “gateway” to God. Norman Geisler says this about Barth and about fideism in general: “Fideism is unfounded. To argue that there are no rational supports for the Christian faith is self-destructive. It is an argument in support of a religious position claiming that arguments cannot be given in support of religious positions. Further, fideism may be internally consistent, but there is no indication of where it touches reality, so it is impossible to distinguish from falsehood.”
VK: And so the head scratching and headaches begin. What you’re saying is that a lot of different people have come up with different approaches to prove that God exists. But during this series we are not going to attempt to tackle all the different approaches. You want to confine yourself to just one or two of the approaches. Right?
RD: Right. And even the apologetic approaches we’re going to tackle we’re only going to be able to touch on the key points. There are people who spend their entire lives just on one of the approaches and there have been thousands of books written about them. But as we touched on earlier our goal on Anchored by Truth is to present discussions of these important topics that can assist everyday believers to have a more effective witness to a world that right now is wandering far from God.
VK: I guess you could say our approach to discussing the Christian faith is like the person who wants to be able to prepare a nice meal for their family. You can prepare tasty and nutritious dishes every day without attending culinary school. In fact many of us had mothers or grandmothers who made dishes we all remember and would happily eat again but who didn’t know the chemical difference between proteins and carbohydrates. But they knew what they needed to know to take care of their families and a lot of kids grew up “big and strong” based on those meals. And they knew how to make things that were not only good for you but tasted good. That’s what we want to do. We want people to understand that Christianity and a Christian worldview make sense. Sure, you don’t need to grasp apologetics thoroughly to be a devoted Christian. But in this day and age you need to know enough to provide some protection for your family.
RD: Yes. Seminary president Alex McFarland tells the story of a 40-something year old university professor who had a reputation of denying the existence of God, ridiculing Christianity, intimidating his students, and tying up others in philosophical knots. Alex tells it like this: “The professor ignored the offer of a handshake and then looked me over, sizing me up. ‘Give me a couple of hours and I can turn any Christian into an atheist. Even you.’ In 15 years of teaching the Bible and speaking hundreds of times throughout America, I had never met someone so openly angry and rude. I smiled at the professor and said, ‘Well, you and the devil are in the same business.’ I let that sink in, then added, ‘He’s just faster.’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘In the Garden of Eden, Satan convinced Adam and Eve to doubt God,’ I explained. ‘Satan turned them into doubters and agnostics, but it took him only a couple of minutes.’ For the next couple of hours we sat in his home office and talked. Regardless of the conversation topic, the professor kept knocking down Christianity and its followers, calling them ignorant, uninformed, simpleminded believers. With just as much determination I kept reminding the professor about the reality of Jesus and of Jesus’ love for him personally. At one point, I leaned across the desk looking him directly in the eyes [and] said, ‘you are obviously very intelligent, and highly educated, and you say you’re an atheist. So doesn’t it strike you as odd that for two hours I’ve listened to you talk about someone who doesn’t exist?
VK: And the point that Alex’s story ended with is that this particular person – opposed as he was to Christianity, and openly hostile to it – was not ignorant of the arguments for God’s existence. He had given the “God-thing” some consideration, but he had rejected the appeals from the Holy Spirit to accept Christ into his life.
RD: Well, the story did have an unusual twist – one that is especially pertinent for us as we begin this particular series – and it went like this: “The professor said some things that have stuck with me: ‘In a way, I’m envious of people who can have faith. But what I can’t understand are these Christians who never learn anything about what they say they believe. If I ever did convert, I would learn everything possible about God.’” This professor – and everyone else – has to make a decision at some time in life concerning Jesus. Every one of us will develop some type of system to answer the questions inherent in all of us: Where did I come from? Why am I here – what is my purpose? And what happens when I die?
VK: So, in essence, our goal is to help listeners understand how to contend for their faith with certainty and confidence. We’re going to make no assumptions whatsoever of what anyone may, or may not, already know. We’re planning to start at the place where all knowledge starts – at the point of the absoluteness and the knowability of truth. We’ll be using the basic building blocks of knowledge and logic – called “first principles” – to lay a firm foundation on which we will erect a spiritual skyscraper. We want to show that any thinking person can prove the existence of God. This is the central truth of Romans, chapter 1, verse 18-20. “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 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 men are without excuse.”
RD: Well said. So, I think we should close with two thoughts. First, as we have often said on Anchored by Truth one of the reasons we want people to develop a stronger understanding of not only what they believe but why they believe it is because the world has become unbelievably dangerous for kids raised in Christian homes. Many surveys have reiterated the finding that up to 75% of the kids raised in Christian homes will lose their faith when they go off to college or out into the world. To prevent that from continuing we must do a better job of preparing our kids for what they encounter when the world says silly things like “you have faith, but I have science.” The second thought is that we cannot achieve the objective of helping people understand the basis for our faith without reminding ourselves that we can only accomplish our objective knowing that what is in our heads is not as important as the One Who is in our hearts. We will never assist the Holy Spirit in drawing anyone to Christ if we rely only on the objective and academic facts of Christianity. We are Christians called to the ministry of reconciliation, i.e., bridging the gap between Christ and those in need of knowing Him, and pulling the one who is unwilling toward the One who is always willing. And we must do these things as the apostles taught us – with patience, diligence, and love.
VK: Well, sounds like we’re in for quite a thought-provoking journey. Hopefully, not too many headaches. This sounds like a great time to pray. Today let’s listen to a prayer of praise of Adoration for the Creator God who set the cosmos into motion and established a home on the earth for His people as He prepares them for an eternity with Him in heaven.
---- PRAYER OF Adoration for the Creator
VK: We’d like to remind our audience that a lot of our radio episodes are linked together in series of topics so if they missed any episodes or if they just want to hear one again, all of these episodes are available on your favorite podcast app. To find them just search on “Anchored by Truth by Crystal Sea Books.”
If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not famous but our Boss is!”
(Bible Quotes from the New International Version)
Acts, Chapter 17, verses 16 and 17, New International Version