Introduction to Apologetics

Transcription

(AP1)
Put on the full armor of
God. . . . Stand firm
then, with the belt of
truth buckled around
your waist. . . .
Take the helmet of
salvation and the sword
of the Spirit, which is
the word of God
Always be prepared
to give an answer to
everyone who asks
you to give the
reason for the hope
that you have.
But do this with
gentleness
and respect.
(Eph. 6:13 a , 14 a , 17)
Preface
Chapter 1 Knowing your “Enemies”
Chapter 2 Biblical Premises for Apologetics
Chapter 3 The Birth of Christian Apologetics
in the 2nd Century Early Church
Chapter 4 Proper Sources of Apologetics
Chapter 5 Priority Target of Apologetics
Chapter 6 What to Look for in the
Opposing Arguments?
(1 Peter 3:15 b )
2-16
17-22
23-29
30-53
54-63
64-88
AP1: Introduction to Apologetics
1
Preface
Hello, my name is Ryun Chang and I invite you to take the course,
Introduction to Apologetics. Every generation, from the very inception of the
Christian faith, has had its share of critics who dutifully tried to debunk it. Our
generation is no exception as numerous critics of the Bible and atheists have
become household names with their bestsellers. The churches in general have
shown that dealing with this issue is not high on their priority. Unfortunately,
clever arguments of these critics are not without repercussions as many have
succumbed to doubting their faith after encountering these lofty ideas.
The goal of this and ensuing apologetics courses is to equip believers to
cogently articulate and defend their faith. The first course establishes theological,
historical and philosophical framework of apologetics before dealing with specific
charges against Christian faith in later courses. (This course discusses several
specific arguments against Christian faith as well.) An effort will be made to avoid
simple and superficial answers to complex issues that require sound thinking.
Ultimately, the goal is to become thinking and praying Christians whose thoughts
and actions transform our society through the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Ryun Chang, Ph.D.
Acts Ministries International (AMI)
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“Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like
a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Pet. 5:8)1
You would think that the enemy would leave the believers alone since he lost that battle, and instead
work extra hard to make sure that the unbelievers stay that way until the end. Well, he certainly does
the latter, but 1 Peter was written to the believers in Bithynia (1 Pet. 1:1), meaning that the adversary is
also looking to devour the believers as well. But what does that mean? At the very least, he aims to
disrupt their lives in such a way that they are unable to fully enjoy the abundant life avail-able in Christ
and be ineffective for God’s work (Jn. 10:10 2 , Mk. 4:14-19). But if the enemy has to do all the heavy
lifting by himself, there is a good chance that he may not get to you any time soon. After all, there is
only one of him but there are millions of us. So there must be some other ways through
which he tries to accomplish his objective. The ensuing discussion talks about one of those ways.
Chapter I Know Your “Enemies”
The “enemies” are everywhere, coming at us, or rather at what we believe, from every conceivable
angle! Though their expertise and grievance against the Christian faith are not identical, they are
like conjoined twins, sharing several things in common. Who are they? Well, let’s get to know
our enemies, for this adage applies to apologetics as it does in sports or in combats.
A. In essence, there are three things that unite them.
1. First, these individuals are highly-credentialed academics who have a
knack for writing bestselling books.
2. Second, they share a passion to utterly destroy the Christian faith.
a. Richard Dawkins, an Oxford scientist who wrote the bestseller The
Blind Watchmaker (1986) and The God Delusion (2006), and also the
irrefutable leader of the New Atheism, wants to tell us that the so-called “watchmaker”
(i.e., natural selection) is blind and the belief in a divine being as the creator of the
universe is delusional.
(1) He is not an indifferent academician who is merely content to show how much smarter
he is than the rest of us; he surely does that but there is more to it. Dawkins is also a
passionate advocate of what he has committed himself to believe. I am sure Dawkins
1
All citations from the Bible are taken from the New International Version (1984) unless otherwise noted.
John 10:10: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the
full.”
2
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would balk at the italicized statement, retorting, “Believe? No! I know. I am a
man of science.” (Later we will discuss whether such confidence is warranted.)
(2) In the preface of The Blind Watchmaker, the book that made Dawkins famous,
he wrote: “Far from being dispassionate, it has be to confessed that in part this book is
written with a passion which, in professional scientific journal, might excite comment.
Certainly it seeks to inform, but it also seeks to persuade and even . . . inspire.”3
b. Not too far behind Dawkins’ missionary zeal is Bart Ehrman, the New
Testament Greek scholar who heads the religious-studies
department at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hills. This
man is literally everywhere, debating on campuses, writing books, and
making his lectures available through the Teaching Company. So what
is his message?
(1) He is eager to tell us, and he did in his Lost Christianities (2003), that the theological
forerunners (a.k.a., proto-orthodox) of today’s evangelicals in the 2 nd century used any
means necessary to silence other Christian groups who thought differently on
important doctrinal matters.
(2) Noting that “some of the early Christians believed in one God, some in two, and
others in 30,” he said, “There were some who believed Jesus’ death brought about the
world’s salvation . . . and others who thought it had nothing to do with it. Others said
Jesus never died.”4
(3) So what was the main method used by the proto-orthodox group to beat out their
competitions, such as Ebionites, Marcionites and Gnostics? According to Ehrman, they
revised those biblical texts that allegedly favored the teachings of
these other groups so that the changes agreed with doctrines
preferred by the proto-orthodox group.
c. Then there is Elaine Pagels, professor of religion at the Princeton
University and author of such bestsellers as Gnostic Gospels (1989)
and Beyond Belief (2003). She is determined tell us that the gospels
that we need to heed are the Gnostics Gospels because they show an alternative way to
3
4
Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker (London: W. W. Norton & Company, 1996), xiv.
David Van Biema, “The Lost Gospels,” TIME, December 22, 2003, p. 58.
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salvation.
(1) Pagels loves the Gospel of Thomas 70, which says, “If you bring forth what is within
you, what you have will save you.”
(2) What does that mean to her? Pagels commented in Beyond Belief: “God’s light shines
not only in Jesus but, potentially at least, in everyone. Thomas’s gospel encourages the
hearers not so much to believe in Jesus, as to seek to know God through one’s own,
divinely given capacity, since all are created in the image of God.”5
d. Wow! If these people, who are raising some serious questions about the
fundamentals of Christian faith, are right, then, we the believers are in a serious trouble!
3. There is yet another aspect of their lives that binds them. This one is even more
alarming, because it proves that their stuff really works, meaning, it can easily topple
anyone’s faith!
a. What am I talking about? At least in the case of Ehrman and Pagels, they confessed
to having been born-again Christians in their youth.
(1) In fact, Ehrman, who now calls himself as a “happy agnostic,” graduated from
Moody Bible Institute, one of the flagship institutions of higher learning for
conservative Christian parents. Then he studied at the Wheaton College, a
leading evangelical liberal arts school.
(2) Pagels, in reference to her religious experience as a youth, said, “I was born again.”
Then she added: “As a teenager, I was introduced to an evangelical Christian group
and found it unlike the church in which I was raised. It was intense and powerful.”6
(3) What about Dawkins? Well, the frequency in which he invokes the things
related to the Bible in his writings and talks seems to indicate that he did not
miss out on too many Anglican chapels in his youth.
(a) For instance, in The Blind Watchmaker, he named two imaginary fish
species as Jacob and Esau to illustrate how all living things are related (in
what is called the cladistic taxonomy that attempts to show this connection
through branching diagrams).
5
6
Elaine Pagels, Beyond Belief: the Secret Gospel of Thomas (New York: Vintage Books, 2004), p. 34
Elaine Pagels, “Women & Leadership,” Newsweek, October 17, 2007, p. 65
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(b) In fact, in a 2011 TV interview7 , Dawkins,
quoting the words of the apostle Paul in 1
Corinthians 13:118 , declared that he has put the
childish way of religion behind him, now that
he is an adult.
(4) So one thing is certain for them: Adherence to the
Christian faith is a thing of their past.
(a) They now are zealous “missionaries” of their
own beliefs: pluralism of Pagels, biblical
criticism of Ehrman, and atheism of Dawkins.
(b) And they eagerly shout into the ears of
Bible-believing Christians that they got it
all wrong, and that they have been duped!
b. So why did they abandon the faith of their
youth? We know what they advocate now, but what
was the initial issue that raised such level of doubts
that they ended up discarding what they (i.e., Ehrman
and Pagels) genuinely believed at one time.
(1) Why is this important to know? As students
of higher education and parents of future
teenagers, many will be exposed to the same
doubts. They need to handle them better, or else
may face the same outcome.
(2) For Pagels, she parted company with evangelical
Christianity upon being told that people who
do not believe in Jesus Christ, including those of
other religions (such as her Jewish friend who
Let’s Discuss1
1. How does 1 Peter 5:8 fit in with
what Dawkins, Pagels, and
Ehrman are trying to
accomplish?
The Adversary wants to put
doubts into the minds of the
believers so that they either give
up on their faith or become
inactive in sharing it due to the
fear of being embarrassed.
2. Having read that Ehrman
abandoned his faith over alleged
errors & revisions in the Bible,
how do you feel about that? He
isn’t telling a fib but there are
ways to come to reasonable
solutions.
3. What do you suppose are some
effective ways to handle what
these antagonistic scholars are
trying to do?
Praying for them; carefully
reading their works to find
fallacies in their thoughts, then
sharing these with the skeptics
& doubters.
4. Who would be the top 3 or 4
European thinkers from the 19 th
century whose arguments deeply
affected the intellectual
landscape of Western world
against belief in God?
Marx (God & religion are tools of
the capitalists to justify the
unjust economic structure);
Freud (the concept of original
sin is erroneous); Darwin (life is
random without purpose);
Nietzsche (“God is dead,”
meaning, intelligent people do
not need him as a crutch.)
had died of a car accident), will go to hell.
Revelation TV Interview Richard Dawkins [Video]. (2011). Retrieved September 16, 2011, from
http//www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfe4IUB9NTk.
8 “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, and I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put
childish ways behind me.”
7
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(3) Ehrman abandoned his conservative religious root after developing serious doubts
about the reliability of the Scripture while studying Greek at a doctorate level.
(a) To him, there were just too many factual errors and revisions in the Bible to
warrant his continued belief in God.
(b)So now he is aggressively persuading the believers to be a happy agnostic like him.
(4) As for Dawkins, the day he found the Darwinian evolution in his adolescence, he knew
then that any type of faith in a divine being was going to be incompatible.
4. What does this all mean?
Looking for
someone to devour!
Remember 1 Peter 5:8 that says the devil is looking for
someone to devour. At least it means that our
adversary does not work alone in trying to do this.
(That would be quite inefficient for him.)
a. He has human agents, who, unbeknownst to them, end up doing his bidding with a
weapon called “arguments and pretensions that sets itself up against knowledge of
God” (2 Cor. 10:5).
b. It was said earlier that these scholars are zealous “missionaries” eager to spread their
version of the good news: freedom from spiritual and intellectual ignorance of
conservative Christianity.
c. And they know their stuff works because they are the living proof of it.
5. And many of us are being affected in one way or another by their arguments.
Obviously, these arguments, when taken seriously, raise doubts about the truthfulness
of what we have been taught in the church and Christian homes.
a. Once I received an email from this rather committed Christian, who once spent a whole
month in Mexico on short-term mission trip.
(1) Apparently, this university student had read the popular novel Da Vinci Code (2003)
that reflects some ideas that Pagels and Ehrman advocate.
(2) At one point in the novel, a key character declares, “What I mean . . . is that almost
everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false”.9
b. Alarmed and dismayed by what she read, this university student wrote:
“That book was so good but I hated it because it messed with my mind. I could
9
Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code (New York: Doubleday, 2003), p. 235.
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only imagine how many people got screwed over from reading that book.”
6. Furthermore, while our lack of interest in knowing what they advocate may not affect our
Sunday service per se, we may become increasingly irrelevant, first, to the influencers of our
society who shape our culture with their ideas, and second, among those who are influenced
by them.
a. I saw an example of being irrelevant to the world in an interview of Dawkins conducted
by a Christian host, who confessed that he in no way was an intellectual at the level of his
guest. Well, not many of us are, but we can still stay in the “game” if we are adequately
prepared and perhaps get an upset victory.
b. But the host apologized that he had not read any of Dawkins’ books.10
(1) Perhaps that is why, for the most part of the interview, he resorted to citing passages
from the Bible and sharing his supernatural experiences.
(2) I, for one, agreed with most of the things said by the host since they aligned with the
Scripture.
c. Nevertheless, he was speaking to a militant atheist who did not believe the Bible, and that
was precisely Dawkins’ point when said to the host, “You come back to biblical quotation
as though I am supposed to be impressed. Why would you expect me to be impressed?”11
In other words, he was saying to the Bible-quoting Christian, “Your argument is irrelevant
to me.”
d. I am not entirely faulting the host since Christ was exalted in his talk
even if Dawkins did not like it, but it was like giving what is “holy to
dogs” and throwing “your pearls before swine” (Mat. 7:6).
e. But while listening to this one-hour interview, I kept wishing that the
host had enough interest in his work to have read some of it (or
secondary source by Christian philosophers, such as William Lane
Craig or J. P. Moreland) so that he could have raised more relevant questions, such as
asking Dawkins to explain many of his tenuous concepts (examples given later.)
*Now let’s go over the questions in “Let’s Discuss1 ” in page 5.
10
The host said he was going to read some of Dawkins’ work in the week prior to the interview but could not due to a
family tragedy. While I felt bad for the host, I couldn’t help but think that he should have started his preparation much
earlier. After all, it is not every day that Richard Dawkins walks into a Christian program.
11 Revelation TV Interview Richard Dawkins [Video]. (2011).
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B. Does this fit the vision of AMI?
“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[a] the name of the Father and of
the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And
surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Mat. 28:19-20).
At this juncture, some may wonder, saying, “What does this have to do with
the vision of AMI?” For some who may not be familiar with it, one key
vision of AMI, as articulated by Pastor Keith Park of Southland Church in
Anaheim, California, is this: “The core calling of the church is to reach out
and the Holy Spirit came to makes us a creditable witness ultimately in
reaching out to the world (i.e., missions).”
1. So then in what sense does missions cross paths with apologetics?
a. I spent more than 10 years in Mexico as a missionary dedicated to the intellectual
development of pastors and seminarians (through books I wrote and the courses I offered).
b. After offering countless courses to thousands of student, I am convinced of this:
Without relevant and updated apologetics, much gains made in the mission field will
quickly be lost, as this disturbing trend has already run its course in Europe as well as in
large pockets of American churches.
2. How so?
a. As the world becomes smaller by each day (thanks to lightening speed advances made in
transportation and communication ), the ideas and thoughts of the detractors of the
Christian faith, such as the three mentioned earlier, are quickly made available to
the churches in the Two-Third World.12
b. Then there are western missionaries who come to the nations to expose these
ideas to the seminary students.
3. Allow me to offer some examples gleaned from my time in Mexico.
a. In one apologetics class taught in Chihuahua, Mexico, a United Methodist pastor chimed
in, saying, “There is one book missing from the NT, the Gospel of Thomas.”
(1) Upon hearing it, I wondered whether he ever read this Gnostic book loved by
Elaine Pagels, because it teaches that Jesus is not the only way to salvation.
(2) He later went to the US to pursue a master degree in theology at a United
In November, 2010, Richard Dawkins participated in the panel debate held in Mexico City on “Does the universe have a
purpose,” which included the renown Christian apologist William Lane Craig who noted: “The unspoken assumption
throughout the conference was that science, and science alone, is the way to truth and knowledge.”
12
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Methodist seminary in California. One day he wrote me an email, saying,
“Hermano, this school is really liberal!”
b. In Oaxaca, Mexico, while I was there to teach a course in this seminary, 2 students from a
nearby Baptist seminary, where I taught a course in the previous year, came to ask me to
return to their school. Why?
(1) An American missionary with a
Ph.D. in theology just taught a
“Lacy” Baptist Theological Seminary,
Oaxaca, Mexico.
course there called “Christian
Spirituality and Missions”
which astounded them.
(2) So what did he teach?
(a) Having begun his lecture from
Genesis, this man introduced
the so-called documentary hypothesis of the Pentateuch (dating back to 19 th century
German rationalism), which denies the Mosaic authorship of the 15 century BC in
favor of multiple authors whose independent works are redacted into a single
volume in the 5th century BC.
(b) Calling the Genesis’ account of creation a myth, he went on to deny the historicity
of all the patriarchs, even David and Solomon.
(3) When asked, “How did the students respond?” their answer was quite interesting:
(a) “Those who came to school without any firm convictions believed him while those
who had it did not.”
(b) The trouble, however, was that they did not know how to refute what this theologian
had taught.
c. My last example occurred in San Pedro, Guatemala, where I was teaching a missiology
course. During a break, the coordinator of the event, a seminarian, asked for my take-on
something her professor, another missionary from America, taught in the class.
(1) So what did he teach? The motto of religious pluralism that declares, “All religions
lead to the same God.”
(2) Again, it is a lot easier to respond, “Of course, that’s wrong” than to carefully
examine both worthy (“Is there such a thing?”) and disagreeable aspects of other
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religions in order to uphold the exclusivity of the
gospel while sustaining the spirit of pluralism
inasmuch as the Scripture warrants it (“It does?”).
(3) Although she already knew the answer, what she
did not know was how to think through this issue.
4. The tasks of the Great Commission
I shared these stories in an attempt to join missions with
apologetics so that no one may say, “I’m not interested
in apologetics because I am into missions.”
a. AMI believes in planting new churches both at home
and abroad, but that alone does not fulfill the Great
Commission; teaching the new churches everything
Christ commands does.
b. I hope that the readers can readily see that
correcting disagreeable teachings that
discredit the teachings of Christ is critical both to
evangelism and teaching aspects of making
disciples of all nations (including the US).
c. People like Pagels, Ehrman, and Dawkins are
amazingly dedicated to persuade the world in
general and the believers in particular, toward
their pluralistic-agnostic-atheistic vision for life.
d. Our Christ-centered-vision must match their
Let’s Discuss2
1. There are other doctrinally
aberrant groups in Latin America that feast on both Catholic &
evangelical churches. It means
that our mission effort must
address this issue as well. Do you
know who they are?
The Mormons for the most part
and the Jehovah’s Witnesses not
too behind. As of 2004, 5
countries had a Mormon
population of 250,000 or more:
Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, &
Mexico. From 1990 to 2004,
Brazil & Argentina had a growth
rate of 144% & 99%,
respectively. There are more
Mormons in South America than
in Utah.
2. The gospel reached Scotland,
full of Druids, for the second time
by a Celtic missionary named
Columba in 563. Why do you
think it was necessary to reevangelize this area?
Ninian was the first but the
larger part of the country remained pagan. Some “believers”
probably returned to paganism
while many were never reached.
While he should be commended
for going there, the evangelized
people must be discipled
through being taught; without
this, they may become worse
than before (Mat. 12:43-45).
proficiency, dedication, and geographical sphere
of influence, or it may be
“game over” a lot sooner than we think in the mission field (e.g.,
the churches in Europe or what’s left of it), not to mention on the home (see the mainline
churches).
*Now let’s review the questions in “Let’s Discuss2 .”
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C. So what do we do about all these disagreeable teachings that try to torpedo the Christian faith
both at home and abroad?
Dear friend, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because
many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God:
Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God (1 Jn. 4:2-3).
1. There are basically two possible responses:
a. We can always bury our heads in the sand,
pretending not to hear anything; and many, in
fact, do just that!
b. Or, we can face them head on, which is what
Apostle John seemed to have done, according to
1 John 4:2-3. But our faith can be badly bloodied
if it turns out that we have little or nothing to
counter their charges with.
2. A historic case of “being badly bloodied” occurred in
1925 when the Tennessee public school teacher John
Scopes was brought to a trial for teaching evolution
against a state law prohibiting it (a.k.a., Scopes’
Monkey Trial).
a. William Jennings Bryan, a three-time nominee for
the presidency and an anti-evolutionist Presbyterian,
participated in the trial as the counsel for the
prosecution.
b. But once on the stand, Bryan was grilled by the
agnostic lawyer for the defense, Clarence Darrow,
with questions that he was not prepared to answer.
(1) “Asked when the Flood occurred, Bryan consulted
Usher's Bible Concordance, and gave the date as
2348 BC, or 4273 years ago. ‘Did not Bryan
know’, asked Darrow, ‘that Chinese civilization
Let’s Discuss3
Matthew 5:13: “You are the salt
of the earth. But if the salt loses
its saltiness, how can it be made
salty again? It is no longer good
for anything, except to be
thrown out and trampled by
men.”
1. In what sense did the church
(through Bryant) lose its
saltiness in the Scopes’ Monkey
Trial?
The church had a position that
was not well-prepared to
defend. If the earth really is
6,000 years old, then, those who
advocate that view must think
through its ramifications in
other areas, such as civilizations
that supposedly are older than
6,000 years, or the light from
far-away stars that has reached
the earth after travelling for
apparently much longer than
6,000 years.
2. How can we get this saltiness
back?
The American theologian
Francis Schaeffer exhorted the
church to reengage with the
culture, which implied that
Christians become much more
sophisticated in their thinking
than before.
had been traced back at least 7000 years?’ Bryan
conceded that he did not.”
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(2) “He was also asked if the records of any other religion contain any mention of a flood
at the time he cited?” And Bryan replied: ‘The Christian religion has always been
good enough for me—I never found it necessary to study any competing religion.’”13
c. Even though Bryan’s side won the trial, the national media mercilessly lampooned Bryan,
saying that Darrow had “made a monkey out of” Bryan due to his ignorance of the Bible;
unfortunately, he died five days later.
d. Several Christian scholars have marked this trial as a watershed moment for conservative
churches because they began to disappear from American public life shortly hereafter.
(1) After being belittled by the national media, the marginalized churches withdrew from
the “public square” (i.e., institutions of higher learning, political involvement,
participating in arts, etc.) to establish their own fundamentalist subculture, consisting of
their own schools, publishing houses, conferences, etc.
(2) What does this mean? While the marginalized believers were blessing each other in the
privacy of their subculture, all spheres in American public life were increasingly
becoming secular!
(3) In other words, the lamp was put under the bowl so that it failed to give light to
everyone in the house (Mat. 5:14-15).
*Now let’s reflect on the questions in “Let’s Discuss3 ” in page 11.
D. That was then; what about now? What has happened to some of us already?
The Scopes’ Monkey Trial was rather a spectacular case, involving famous people and playing
it out on the national stage.
1. A more likely scenario is the perturbed reaction that was mentioned
earlier of a young committed Christian after reading The Da Vinci Code,
written by a man who majored in English in college (so Dan Brown
writes well), and purported it to be based on impeccable (historical)
research. (Not really!)
a. Through the mouth of highly endowed fictional characters in the novel
(one in particular is the royal British historian Teabing), the novelist Brown, in a nutshell,
declared that the divinity of Jesus and the canonicity of the NT books were invented
by the early church, under the leadership of the emperor Constantine, as an effort to
13
Paul Y. Anderson, 1936:293-301 in Wikipedia. “William Jenning Bryan.” Web. 1 Sept. 2011.
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suppress the advance of women in the church.
b. Do you recall what this mid-western university student confessed? “That book was so
good but I hated it because it messed with my mind. I could only imagine how many
people got screwed over from reading that book.”
2. Upon reading her letter, I had a two-sided reaction.
a. First, I felt disdainful toward people like Dan Brown who would twist and distort
history to sell books, quite unconcerned that his willful misrepresentation of facts can
affect the faith of many.
(1) Seeing some examples of how Brown actually does this in his novel14 (the so-called
historical revisionism, which is explained later) may be helpful to get the gist of this.
(As to the different types of arguments typically leveled against Christian faith is
discussed in Chapter VI.)
(a)A key event mentioned in Chapter 55 of the novel is the Council of Nicaea where,
according to Brown, “‘Son of God’ was officially proposed and voted on,. . . a
relatively close vote at that.”15
(b) Through the mouth of Teabing, Brown further stated that “until that moment in
history, Jesus was viewed by His followers as a mortal prophet . . . a great and
powerful man, but a man nonetheless. A mortal.”16
(2) Is this right? No. Brown’s assertion is patently false in view of credible historical data.
(a) First, in a letter written by Governor Pliny (62-112) of Bithynia to the Emperor
Trajan, asking him for instruction on how to handle Christians, he referred to
Christians as “recit[ing] a hymn . . . to Christ, as to a god.”17 This admission (by
an antagonist of the church) and other testimonies like it fly in the face of Brown’s
assertion that Christ’s followers saw him as a mere man before 325.
(b) Second, what was at stake in the Council of Nicaea was not whether Jesus was
divine; everyone agreed with that even Arius who, however, insisted that Jesus was
of different substance than the Father, who created him out of nothing. 18
14
A detailed study of several historical misrepresentations made in this novel will be addressed in a future course .
Brown p. 233
16 Ibid.
17 Pliny (the Younger), “Christians in Bithynia,” Documents of the Christian Church, ed. Henry Bettenson (London:
Oxford University Press, 1967), p. 3.
18 Earle E. Cairns, Christianity Through the Centuries (Grand Rapid: Zondervan, 1967), p. 143.
15
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(c) Third, a vote was indeed taken but instead of being close, the result was a “near nohitter.” According to the A&E documentary The First 1,000
Years of Christianity, produced with contributions mainly from
liberal theologians, the vote was 300 to 2 against Arius.
Brown: A close game!
A close vote? What planet
is Brown from?
b. Yes, Brown deserves a huge thumbs down, but I was
also piqued at churches in general, whose indifference
to the intellectual development of Christians continues
to turn out individuals who are quite vulnerable and
susceptible t to the lure of lofty arguments against
the knowledge of God.
(1) Richard Dawkins, in his book The Blind
Watchmaker, gleefully told a story of a young
Earth creationist who, according to him, was
“educated at a small fundamentalist college in the
US.”
(2) After taking a course of lectures on evolution from
Dawkins himself at Oxford, this young student,
“beaming with the primal joy of discovery,” told
him, “Gee, this evolution . . . really makes sense.”19
3. What these stories indicate is that churches need to do a
Let’s Discuss4
1. What may be some differences
between loving the Lord with
your heart and your mind?
In a superficial sense, praise &
prayer refer to loving the Lord
with your heart while studying
the Bible is to love Him with our
mind. In a deeper sense, to love
God with our heart is to be
humble before Him, without
guile & having an ulterior
motive. Much knowledge in fact
can hinder that (1 Cor. 8:1). To
love God with our mind is, on
the one BIG hand, to know the
Scripture to believe and obey
Him; on the other smaller hand,
to develop our intellectual
capacity to explain and/ or
utilize the wonders of God’s
natural law, creation & general
knowledge to better the world &
our testimony of Him.
2. If you don’t mind, let’s share
our experiences of having being
bloodied; maybe you silenced
them.
better job of equipping their people intellectually.
a. In biblical context, it is a key component to loving the Lord your God with all your mind
(Mat. 22:37) as well as renewing it (Rom. 12:2) so that we will not conform to the opinions
of the world.
b. In the Matthew passage, a compound Greek word dianoia (from the root dia+noeō) is used.
While noeō (νοέω) means “to think,” adding the preposition dia (which means “through”)
as prefix intensifies the meaning as in, “a thinking through or over, a meditation,
19
Dawkins, 1996:xi
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reflection.”20
c. Obviously, loving the Lord with our mind is neither a casual reading of the Scripture nor
a casual attitude toward studying in general. Our ministries certainly should take
seriously loving the Lord with our mind as the greatest commandment.
4. If we do not adequately address this issue in the church, many young Christians--like
Pagels and Ehrman once were—studying in the universities will fall prey to the exalted
arguments against the knowledge of God presented in the universities.
a. One manifestation is that more than a few will actually abandon their faith.
(1) I will never forget this professor of music at a small private university in Orange
County, California. A student of his, a member of the praise band of my church,
pleaded with me to meet him out of her concern for his mental state.
(a) Upon entering his apartment, I noticed that this man in his early 50s was half-drunk
and covering his lower body (clad only in underwear) with a blanket. And stacks of
books on philosophy and science were found everywhere.
(b) I quickly learned several things about this man: his father was an evangelical pastor;
he had earned a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley; and he was
recently divorced.
(c) Most importantly, he no longer believed in God because of his conviction that
science has disproved his existence. Saying that it is better to live in misery than to
live with lies, he kept repeating that the belief that God created the universe is
absurd.
(2) What does this mean to you and me?
(a) Most of the members of AMI churches are on the younger side; now when you reach
your 50s, a period in life when Christians can serve God with more influence and
finance, would your faith still hold up?
(b) Among several factors that may determine the eventual outcome, one is adequately
handling intellectual challenges that the enemy hurls at them.
b. Be that as it may, the most common manifestation of falling prey to intellectual challenge
is the reluctance to share faith with others, fearing that they might be stomped by those
arguments to which they are unprepared to respond.
20
W. E. Vine, An Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publisher, 1985) p. 408
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c. The young pastor Timothy also felt somewhat reluctant to share the faith, but the stakes
were much higher in his case: imprisonment, which was what his mentor Paul was facing
when he penned the following words to encourage his spiritual protégé.
(1) He wrote in what turned out to be his last letter: “So do not be ashamed to testify about
our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel,
by the power of God” (2 Tim. 1:8).
(2) Allow me to change the last part of that verse: “Join with me in preparing for the
defense of the gospel, by the power of God.”
E. Goal of our study
The goal of this study, therefore, is to augment our intellectual capacity in dealing with critical
issues relating to our faith, not only to survive but also to thrive in this open season declared
against conservative Christians.
1. Alarmed by all that is going on, we can easily settle for a quick, easy, and “quoting from the
Bible” answers. But in all that AMI does, whether it is church planting, missions or
theologizing, we want to be grounded both to intellectual and spiritual traditions of our
historic faith. And that includes apologetics as well.
2. Thus, before engaging in hand-to-hand combat against specific charges against our faith, the
first task is to lay down necessary theological, philosophical, and historical groundwork for
apologetics before imparting a series of courses under that rubric.
3. Without it, we are bound to engage in apologetics on a superficial level where any gains
made at the outset may be offset by inadvertent oversight and negligence in the strategy and
substance of our arguments.
F. The structure of this study is as follows:
1. The next two chapters deal with biblical and historical premises for apologetics.
2. Chapter 4 addresses “reason vs. faith” matter in discussing proper sources for apologetics,
while Chapter 5 deals with “essential and nonessential doctrines” in the context of what
aberrant teaching should be targeted first.
3. The last chapter analyzes four types of arguments typically utilized by the critics of Christian
faith to discredit it.
*Now let’s review the questions in “Let’s Discuss4 ” in page 14.
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Chapter II
17
Biblical Premises for Apologetics
Although the word "apologetic" and "apologetics" may sound and look very similar, their meanings
are not; apologetics certainly is not making an apology for being a Christian. When used as a
plural, it refers to “the branch of theology that deals with the defense and proof of Christianity”
(The American Heritage Dictionary). Such concept for apologetics is clearly found in 1 Peter 3:15:
"But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone
who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.
But do this with gentleness and respect. "
A. First, let’s look at the historical context in which
1 Peter was written.
Written around the time of emperor Nero’s (54-68) brief
yet intense persecution of Christians in Rome by the
emperor Nero, the Apostle Peter penned this letter to the
Christians spread throughout in Asia Minor (today’s
Turkey) who were facing a different sort of persecution. In
short, they were the victims of “ignorant talk of foolish
men” (1 Pet. 2:15) who insulted (1 Pet. 3:9) and “accuse[d
them] of doing wrong” (1 Pet. 2:12). So what were they
saying against Christians? There were four main
accusations, of which three were spurious and one with
some merits.
1. Let’s look at the spurious ones first.
a. Amazingly, the charges of cannibalism (having
heard that they eat the body of Christ and drink
his blood) and committing incestuous
relationships (“love brothers and sisters”) were
leveled against the believers.
b. Moreover, “Christians became the scapegoats for
any public disasters that occurred,”21 for it was
Let’s Discuss5
How would you have responded
to these charges?
1. Atheist: “Not worshipping
created things does not make
me an unbeliever. I separate the
Creator from the things He
created; I worship the One who
created all things.”
2. Incest: “When a Christian calls
someone ‘brother’ or “sister,” it
means that they have been
adopted into the same family, of
God, through Christ. The love
that we have for one another is
agape (unconditional kind)
instead of eros of sexual desire.”
3. Cannibalism: “When Christ
died, his body was broken and
blood was shed as the means to
atone for our sins. The bread
and wine we use in our
communion represent those two
things. We are not literally
eating anyone. The verbs eat
and drink indicate that He lives
in us spiritually.”
4. Scapegoat for public
disasters: “We are not sure why
these things happened, but it is
not because your local gods are
offended because they don’t
wield such power. But we are
here to help the victims and
rebuilt the houses.”
reasoned that the traditional gods of Rome were
21
S.M. Houghton, Sketches From Church History (Carlisle: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1980), p. 12.
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angered for having been rejected by many who converted to the Christian God.
2. Moreover, it was said that Christians were atheists since they rejected nature (rocks, trees,
animals, etc.) as well as Roman emperors (pontifex maximus—chief priest) as divine
objects of worship.
a. As ridiculous as this may sound—calling Christians atheists—this charge had some merits
from the viewpoint of the animistic Romans.
b. The theologian Harvey Cox, in his seminal The Secular City (1965), wrote:
(1) “The Genesis account of Creation is
really a form of ‘atheistic propaganda.’
It is designed to teach the Hebrews
Cut it out! This rock
is not divine!
that the magical vision, by which
nature is seen as a semidivine force,
has no basis in fact.”
(2) “Yahweh, the Creator . . . is centered outside the natural process. . . . Nature is neither
his brother nor his god. As such it offers him no salvation. When he looks up to the
hills, Hebrew man turns from them and asks where he can gain strength. The answer
is, Not from the hills, but from Yahweh, who made heaven and earth.”22
c. Thus when Christians endorsed the observation of Paul who said, “Although [Romans]
claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for
images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles” (Rom. 1:23), the
Romans called them “atheists.”
3. So in this context of mostly trumped-up charges against the believers, Peter exhorted them to
have a well-prepared answer to those who would accuse them of doing wrong.
*Let’s go over the questions in “Let’s Discuss5 ” in page 17.
B. We will see how Church Fathers responded to these charges later in the study; but for now,
let’s consider how we would respond today.
1. In today’s world, calling Christians “atheists” may be equivalent to calling conservative
Christians a “narrow-minded-bigot” for being disagreeable over issues like homosexuality
and religious pluralism.
a. There are some (perhaps many) Christians who would rather change their views on the
22
Harvey Cox, Secular City (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1965), pp. 20-21.
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spot to avoid being stereotyped, criticized, or even ostracized by their coworkers or
acquaintances.
b. One reason is that many are often unprepared to respond to specific questions or
accusations regarding Christians beliefs, so instead of sounding ignorant (laliá) or
offensive they end up agreeing with (or pleasing) their accusers. (You recall that the
Apostle Peter did that.)
c. I often wonder whether this is one reason several national surveys have indicated that
many evangelical Christians believe that one can go to heaven through other religions.
d. For instance, in the 2005 TIME magazine survey, 68 percent of evangelical Protestants
said “Yes” to the following statement: “Can a good person who doesn’t share your
religious beliefs attain salvation or go to heaven?”
(1) That is only 5 percent higher than the response given by the non-Christian sample in
the survey.
(2) For a group of people who regularly attend churches that routinely proclaim that Jesus
is the only way to salvation, that number seems awfully high.
2. Another hot potato issue is homosexuality. For instance, if someone says, “Science
has proven that homosexuals are born that way” (basically, nature over nurture), would you
know how to respond to that other than perhaps quote the Scripture?23
3. Admittedly, the exclusivity of Christ and a position not in favor of homosexuality (but not
against the homosexuals) are difficult matters to defend in a postmodern setting.
4. Therefore, that is all the more reason we need to develop biblical arguments that uphold the
spirit of pluralism, that is, in as much as the Scripture would allow it, in order that at least we
engage in meaningful dialogues with the naysayers of the Christian faith. This truly is the
purpose of this course and others to follow.
C. In speaking of being prepared, it is quite useful to analyze the key Greek word found
in 1 Peter 3:15.
The word "answer" (NASB: defense) derives from a compound Greek word apologia.
23
There have been two or three experiments conducted in the 1990s to establish some sort of physical predisposition
toward homosexuality but without much success. The most famous one involved Simon LeVay, a Harvard neuroscientist
and gay, who claimed the hypothalamus (part that controls sexual activity) of gays was smaller than that of heterosexuals.
His samples for gay men, all of whom died of AIDS, turned out to be unreliable since this disease in its later stage can
affect the size of the brain.
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1. The Greek preposition apo (άπο: from), when used as a prefix, emits a sense of “moving
away from."
2. The Greek noun logos (λόγος), stemming from the verb légō (to speak), means “intelligence”
or “reason”; thus, it can be said that logos is a “word as the expression of that intelligence.”24
3. Now contrast logos/légō with laliá (λαλιά) and laleō (λαλέω) in Greek. Sometimes, lalia
refers to unintelligent sound and noise (like that which the animals produce), while laleō
alludes to “speaking without necessarily saying anything intelligent or understanding it as
such.”25
D. In view of this, a practical question may be:
What will come out of our mouths when atheists, agnostics, and religious pluralists ask us:
“Why are you a believer, being an intelligent person?”
1. Will logos, intelligent and reasonable words, surface in our response so as to present an
effective and articulate defense? Or, will we sound like animals, rambling, ranting and
repeating ourselves?
2. Interestingly, that same question (“Why are you a believer?”) was asked by the great
astronomer Carl Sagan, claiming to be an agnostic to his dying breath, to a friend who was a
believer. She responded to Sagan, saying, “Why don’t you believe, being an intelligent
person?”
3. The brevity of this answer belies a very powerful logos (reason) for believing:
Belief in God is quite rational once the mind has examined all the evidences.
E. Now, whereas 1 Peter 3:15 speaks of forging a good defense, another dimension to
apologetics is addressed in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5: that of launching a good offense.
1. The Apostle Paul, addressing the believers in Corinth, which, as late as the second
century BC, was the center of Dionysian worship (characterized by drunkenness in an effort
to experience the presence of Dionysius, the Greek god of wine) said:
“For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. [4] The
weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have
divine power to demolish strongholds. [5] We demolish arguments (NASB:
speculation) and every pretension (NASB: lofty thing) that sets itself up against the
24
25
Spiros Zodhiates, ed., The Complete Word Study New Testament (Chattanooga: AMG Publishers) p. 932.
Ibid.
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knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”
a. Here the verb demolish is actually from a Greek noun kathairesis (καθαίρεσις),
literally meaning, “a pulling down” or “overthrow.”26
Now, to pull down something
requires a firm grip on the object to be pulled.
b. Applying this concept to apologetics, it can be said that an ability to pull down the
opposing arguments will not happen out of a vacuum.
c. Meaning what? An adequate defense and the counter-offensive that could effectively
neutralize the false knowledge would require a firm grip (read comprehension) on, not
only what Christians believe as truth, but also the false knowledge itself.
2. A good example of this (i.e., doing the homework on opposing arguments) is what
Apostle Paul declared to the polytheistic Athenians in Acts 17:23 (NIV):
“For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship,
I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD
(agnōstō teō; ΑΓΝΩΣΤΩ ΘΕΩ) . Now what you worship as something
unknown I am going to proclaim to you.”
a. What’s this about?
(1) To debunk the idolatry of the Athenians (17:16) in favor of one-supreme-God of the
Scripture, Paul’s defense centered on his knowledge of this lone altar built in the 6th
century BC.
(2) Instead of lumping this altar with the rest that were dedicated to idols (“against the
knowledge of God”), Paul’s familiarity with its history enabled him to formulate a
defense of the Christian faith based on this altar.
b. In short, he already knew that the altar had been built at the suggestion of Epiménides, a
6th century BC Cretan prophet (Titus 1:12 27 ), to commemorate the termination of a deadly
plague that decimated the Athenians.
(1) Having been invited to bring to a halt the pestilence that would not stop despite the
placation to numerous Greek gods, the Cretan prophet told the Athenians to release a
flock of unfed sheep on the grass of Mars Hills the following morning.
(2) Those animals that would not graze but lie down were to be sacrificed; to the
26
27
George Wigram, Analytical Lexicon Greek N. T. (Wilmington: AP&A, n.d.), p. 205.
“Even one of their own prophets has said, “Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons.”
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amazement of the onlookers, several sheep indeed do just that.
(3) Thus, several altars were built on the spot where
they rested; later the animals were sacrificed on
them.
(4) Not knowing to whom to dedicate the altars, the
Greeks named it TO AN UNKNOWN GOD; soon
thereafter, the plague stopped.
(5) About 600 years later, when Paul had arrived in
Athens for the first time, only one altar
had survived.28
c. What does this show? Before ever setting his feet
inside the city of Athens, Paul had done his
homework; thus, he confidently launched his offense,
declaring that Jesus Christ is the Son of this
UNKNOWN GOD.
3. In this manner, the defensive scheme of 1 Peter 3:15 is
complemented by the offense-minded 2 Corinthians
10:3-5.
Let’s Discuss6
1. What does it say about God’s
heart and character from the fact
that He had something built that
was going to be used 600 years
later as a tool to reach the Greeks
with the gospel?
God has a long-term vision,
prepares ahead of time, and a
great love for the nations. One
more: God contextualizes the
message to each culture so that
it will reach the heart; we
should work on that in our
missions and evangelism.
2. How can we transform our
laliá (animal sound) into logos
(words that represent
intelligence)?
We must take seriously loving
the Lord with our mind.
Suggestions: less on TV,
internet, keeping up with the
sports world & Hollywood
gossips; more on serious Bible
study & reading books that will
help us to think better.
a. A cogent defense of Christian faith, capable of pulling
down arguments opposing the knowledge of God, requires dexterity not only with what
one believes, but with the opposing argument itself.
b. This kind of approach to apologetics is quite evident
in the way the Church Fathers handled themselves in the 2 nd century in facing a plethora of
opponents who arose against the Christian faith.
*Let’s go over the questions in “Let’s Discuss6 .”
This story is based upon a tradition recorded as history by Diogenes Laertius, a Greek author of the 3 rd century
AD. Don Richardson, Eternity in Their Hearts (Ventura: Regal Books, 1984), pp. 12-16.
28
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Chapter III
The Birth of Christian Apologetics in the 2nd
Century Early Church
Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted
with Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days (Gal 1:18).
Perhaps some would question the relevance of returning to this
ancient period when the church was growing by leaps and
bounds without many obstacles. Certainly they did not have to
put up with sophisticated arguments raised against their faith as
is the case today, right?
A. Relevancy of Church history in Christian Apologetics
The perception that church history is irrelevant to the
Christian life in the 21st century pretty much quells any
interest in it.
1. Thus that explains why a typical list of the bestselling
Christian books (in the nonfiction category) does not
include any books on church history, while a typical NY
Times bestseller list would include two or three.
2. This trend is not without consequences, for the latest
method to debunk our faith is historic revisionism, which
thrives on people utterly ignorant of history.
3. What is it? Basically it is retelling key events in the past
in such a way that what we learned in church and school
turns out to be false.
4. As mentioned earlier, in the novel The Da Vinci Code,
Dan Brown has the fictional character Teabing, a royal
historian, say to the unsuspecting Sophie, “What I mean . .
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23
is that almost everything our fathers taught us about Christ
is false”.29
Let’s Discuss7
The Greek word historeō (history in English) used in Gal.
1:18 is translated in the NIV as
“get acquainted.” According to
Strong, it literally means, “to
visit for information (interview).” In the context, Paul,
still in his early days as a believer, was visiting Peter for 15
days to obtain, among other
things, more information
about the life & ministry of the
Lord.
1. In light of that, why should
we study Church History?
All of our mistakes have been
made in the past by others.
We can avoid repeating the
same mistakes if we take the
time to “visit” them to learn
from their situations.
2. Why have we not taken
Church History seriously
despite the fact that 12 OT
books are historical?
a. Partially it is due to the way
it is taught: too much focus on
meaningless dates, place and
names, and not much emphasis on discerning important
themes that repeat themselves throughout history.
b. As pragmatic people living
in a lightning-fast world, we
want solutions that are quick,
convenient, and easy to apply
(in bite-sizes). Learning from
history takes time, because
one needs to read the
unfamiliar past, and then
reflect on what it means in the
modern setting. Many don’t
have the patience for it.
*Let’s address the questions in “Let’s Discuss7 .”
29
Brown p. 235.
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B. So is church history irrelevant?
1. Is it really true that the early church did not have to face any serious threats to its faith? Of
course, nothing can be more farther from the truth. For before any systematic theology was
formulated (more or less a Reformation phenomenon), there was apologetics!
2. It is to say, the historic faith of Christianity was specified and sharpened during the
process in which the early church tried to answer various
individuals and groups who twisted its essential beliefs
and doctrines beyond recognition.
C. Let’s briefly look at some of the major antagonists of
the Christian faith that arose in the 2nd century.
1. We could already see a major threat that arose in 1 John,
written close to the end of first century.
a. Known as Docetism (from the Greek word meaning
“appear”) and as a precursor to the Gnosticism of the
2nd century, this teaching denied the real humanity of
Jesus, insisting that “he had not come in the flesh, but
in ghost-like, docetic appearance.”30
b. The Apostle John, known for his profound love of
God and fellow brothers (1 Jn 4), did not mince any
words in condemning this group. He said: “This is
how you can recognize the Spirit of God:
Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has
come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that
does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is
the spirit of the antichrist,. . .” (1 Jn 4:2-3b).
2. Then early in the second century (135), a Jewish sect
called Ebionites taught that Jesus was the last and the
greatest prophet, but still a mere man.
Let’s Discuss8
1. It is not like the Mormons,
Jehovah’s Witnesses & Muslims
do not believe Jesus, but the way
they define him does not seem
to agree with the Bible. Is that
OK? Does it matter what we
believe about Jesus as long as
we believe in some type of
Jesus?
In Mormonism, the spirit of
Jesus was the 1st spiritual
entity created long before his
birth while his body was the
result of sexual intercourse
between God & Mary; in
Jehovah’s Witnesses, Jesus is a
created deity inferior to God
the Father; in Islam, Jesus is
the second most important
prophet. These are all
“another Jesus” (2 Cor. 11:4,
NASB) who does not lead us to
the Father (2 Jn. 9).
2. 2 Jn. 9 says, “Anyone who
goes ahead and does not abide
in the doctrine of Christ does
not have God; he who abides in
the doctrine has both the Father
and the Son” (RSV).
What are some essential
doctrines of Christ that must be
upheld in order for our belief to
be efficacious for salvation?
Complete humanity & divinity;
sinlessness; virgin birth,
substitutionary death & the 2nd
Coming.
a. According to this teaching, Jesus “so completely
30
Williston Walker, A History of the Christian Church (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1970), p. 51.
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fulfilled the Jewish law that God chose Him to be the Messiah”31
b. Thus, Christ descended upon Jesus at baptism but left shortly before the crucifixion.
3. Around the same time, the Gnostics (from the Greek word meaning “knowledge”), as an
ideological offspring of the Docetics, created a great confusion in the churches with extreme
dualism that pitted Jesus against the God of the OT. For instance, the teaching of Marcion,
which, after beginning in Rome (AD 140) and spreading quickly to Arabia, Armenia, and
Egypt, put forward the following theological thoughts 32 :
a. First, the OT God, an inferior god emanated from the true God of the NT, was a god of the
Jews only, who was vindictive and the author of evil. By contrast, the God of the NT was
a God of grace and had love for everyone, who was revealed in Jesus Christ.
b. Second, since the creation was not an act of a good god, Christians must reject both
the world and the idea of a bodily resurrection.
c. Third, Marcion, thereby, rejected the entire OT along with some books of the NT (e.g.,
Hebrews, Acts, Matthew, and Mark) which he thought favored the Jews.
4. In time some proponents of Gnosticism, initially an ascetic movement, veered off into
extremely licentious behavior, where sinning was promoted under the belief that the spirit is
unaffected by what the body did.
a. One such group was the Cainites who “perversely honored Cain and other villains of the
OT.”33
b. Now this was the group that produced the Gospel of Judas, which received much notoriety
in 2007 when the National Geographic released a new edition shortly before the Passover.
(1) The controversial passage from the book is what verse 56, Scene 3 says: “Jesus told
Judas, ‘But you will exceed all of them. You will sacrifice the man that clothed me.’”
(2) So what does this signify? It has been interpreted to mean that Jesus asked Judas to
betray Him as a favor, so as to remove the bondage of the flesh from Him.
5. In addition to all these, as mentioned earlier, a very popular accusation against
Christians in the Roman Empire was that they were atheists and immoral people.
*Let’s review the questions in “Let’s Discuss8 ” in page 24.
31
Ibid., p. 35.
H. Dermot McDonald, “Marcion,” Eerdmans’ Handbook to the History of Christianity, ed. Tim Dowley (Grand Rapids:
WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1977), pp. 102-103
33 Edwin M. Yamauchi, “The Gnostics,” Eerdmans’ Handbook to the History of Christianity, ed. Tim Dowley (Grand
Rapids: WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1977), p. 98.
32
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D. So how did the Church Fathers respond to these teachings that did not seem right?
Remember that a key goal of this course is to underscore the importance of apologetics, so that
many will take it seriously enough to continue the study with future courses on the subject. So
how important was apologetics in the early church?
1. Likely, when we think of great theologians in that early period who clearly
Athanasius
defined the orthodox of the church, names like Augustine and
Athanasius of the 4th century will emerge in the minds of most Christians.
a. But first “theologians” who had established a firm doctrinal
framework (called “proto-orthodoxy”) for the theologians of the 4th
century were the apologists of the 2nd century.
b. It was their response to groups like the Ebionites and the Gnostics that began to clarify
what the church really believed, long before the advent of ecumenical councils in the 4th
and 5th centuries (i.e., Nicaea, Ephesus, Constantinople, and Chalcedon) that fine-tuned it.
c. In other words, the apologetics of the 2nd century set in theological motion toward a
precisely defined orthodoxy shortly therefore.
2. Let’s start with Justin Martyr (100-165), whose First Apology was addressed to the
Emperor Pius.
a. With respect to Rome, he declared that the accusation against Christians as being atheists
and immoral had absolutely no basis.
b. Why did he think that way? Martyr reasoned: “We are taught that Christ is the first-born
of God, and we have shown above that He is the reason (word) of whom the whole human
race partake, and those who live according to reasons are Christians, even though they are
accounted atheists. Such were Socrates and Heraclitus among the Greek, and those like
them. . . .”34
3. In regard to the Gnostic Marcion who rejected the God of the OT as well as the OT itself,
the Church Father Tertullian (160-240) defended the use of the OT for the Christian church
and the unity of God, both as a Creator and Savior, saying, “I deny that the goodness of the
God of Marcion is rational.”
4. Now among all the Church Fathers, Irenaeus of Lyons (115-202) was one of the most prolific
Justin Martyr, “Apology,” Documents of the Christian Church, ed. Henry Bettenson (London: Oxford University Press,
1967), p. 5.
34
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writers against the Gnostics and the Ebonites.
a. In fact, his extant writing had served as a main source of understanding
Gnosticism until the 19th century because he included many excerpts
from their books.
(1) Some scholars were not sure whether he quoted them fairly, but /
later discoveries of many Gnostic books (e.g., Nag Hammadi,
Egypt, 1945) confirmed that he did.
(2) Again, this shows that Irenaeus had done his homework; he wasn’t throwing windmill
punches hoping to land a lucky shot to the jaw of his enemy.
b. Against the Jewish sect the Ebionites, he wrote: “Those who are called Ebionites . . . use
only the Gospel according to Matthew; they reject the Apostle Paul, calling him an
apostate from the law. . . . They are circumcised, and persevere in the customs according
to the Law, and in the Jewish mode of life, even to the extent of worshipping Jerusalem, as
if were the abode of God”35
c. With respect to extremely dualistic Gnosticism, he “stressed the fundamental Christian
doctrines that were being challenged by [it]: that the world was created by God; that Jesus
Christ, son of the Creator [fully man as well as fully God], died to save men; that there
will be a resurrection of the body.”36
d. Against the Cainites, producer of the Gospel of Judas, Irenaeus wrote in his Against
Heresies (Book I. Chapter XXXI.1) written in 180:
(1) “Others again declare that Cain derived his being from the Power above, and
acknowledge that Esau, Korah, the Sodomites, and all such persons, are related to
themselves. On this account, they add, they have been assailed by the Creator, yet not
one of them has suffered injury. For Sophia was in the habit of carrying off that which
belonged to her from them to herself.”
(2) “They declare that Judas the traitor was thoroughly acquainted with these things and
that he alone, knowing the truth as no others did, accomplished the mystery of the
betrayal; by him all things, both earthly and heavenly, were thus thrown into
Irenaeus, “Against Heresies,” Documents of the Christian Church, ed. Henry Bettenson (London: Oxford University
Press, 1967), pp. 36-37.
36 Everett Ferguson, “Irenaeus,” Eerdmans’ Handbook to the History of Christianity, ed. Tim Dowley (Grand Rapids: WM.
B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1977), p. 76.
35
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confusion. They produce a fictitious history of
this kind, which they style the Gospel of Judas.”
(3) What does this mean? Irenaeus, having received
the apostolic teaching through his teacher
Polycarp, who was a disciple of John,
considered the Gospel of Judas (written in the
mid the 2nd century) as a work of fiction,
precisely because it did not agree with the first
century teaching of the apostles.
e. These then were some of the earliest theologians
known as "apologists" (that is, defenders of the
Christian faith).
E. How did they carry out their apologetics work for
the most part?
1. First, they delineated clearly and fairly what the
opponents of Christian faith were saying and writing.
a. They took time to read their arguments then
prepare a response.
b. It was not entirely based on secondary sources and
certainly not on hearsay.
2. Second, while their responses were thoroughly biblical,
they also incorporated thoughts and examples from
classical history as well as non-inspired writings. For
instance, Church Fathers such as Tertullian, Martyr, and
Clement of Alexandria (c. 200) believed that Greek
philosophy had laid the groundwork for the advent of
Christianity.
a. In fact, Clement went as far as saying, “Philosophy
was given to the Greek. For philosophy was a
Let’s Discuss9
1. Why do you suppose the
National Geographic released the
controversial Gospel of Thomas
just before the Passover in 2007?
It was to maximize their profit
margin. This means that the
company (like Dan Brown) didn’t
care how this book might affect
the Christians as long it shocked
them into buying it. As it turned
out, this book was not translated
correctly in many places. (We
will look into it later.)
2. While Marcion rejected the
entire OT, many Christians and
even some pastors seemed to have
given up on the OT. Why do I say
that? They don’t read much of it
and certainly don’t preach out of
it. Some just carry the NT to the
pulpit. Why is that?
Reasons: Due to biblical illiteracy,
people just don’t know the OT,
and to explain it from the pulpit
takes too much time to finish the
sermon in less than 30 minutes;
some assume that the entire OT is
about measurements and
genealogies. It is not!
3. How do you feel about the fact
that some early Christian
apologists readily mixed Greek
philosophy with the Bible in
defense of Christian faith?
It seems that they were not being
too careful & discerning with it.
Since Greek philosophy was not
inspired, it was contaminated
with incorrect thoughts here &
there. Thus, this could have
resulted in syncretism. However,
a sensible usage of Greek
philosophy was useful in
contextualizing the Christian
message to the Hellenistic people
who were quite unfamiliar with
the Hebrew Bible or worldview.
‘schoolmaster’ to bring the Greek mind to Christ, as
the Law brought the Hebrews. Thus philosophy was a preparation, paving the way
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towards perfection in Christ.”37
b. Justin Martyr went further, for he believed that “the God of Plato is the God of the Bible; that
Socrates, like Abraham, was ‘a Christian before Christ’, and his death an example for
Christian martyrs.”38
3. What? I am sure they meant well, but it sure sounds quite controversial.
a. Well, at the very least, it introduces us to one very crucial aspect of Christian apologetics:
From what source should the data be drawn to formulate a Christian defense?
b. Do we draw it from the philosophy of reasonable man or from divine revelation from God, or
from both?
*Let’s go over the questions in “Let’s Discuss9 ” in page 28.
Clement of Alexandria, “Another ‘Liberal,’” Documents of the Christian Church, ed. Henry Bettenson (London: Oxford
University Press, 1967), p. 6.
38 David F. Wright, “What the First Christians Believed,” Eerdmans’ Handbook to the History of Christianity, ed. Tim
Dowley (Grand Rapids: WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1977), p. 110.
37
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Chapter IV
30
Proper Sources for Apologetics
I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from?
My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth (Ps 121:1-2).
What is this about? It is a question of, from which well should the relevant data be extracted in
formulating our defense as well as launching a counter-offense.
A. In essence, there are only two wells to draw from: the well of human reason and that
of divine revelation.
One might ask, “Why is this matter such a big deal?” Obviously, no Christian will object to
basing apologetics on divine revelations of the Scripture.
1. But is it OK to draw data from non-inspired sources (often deriving from nonbelievers),
such as science, history or philosophy, to validate the claims of the Scripture, beginning with
God’s existence?
2. Before examining this issue, it would be helpful to know how some nonbelievers (i.e.,
atheists) approach this matter of faith and reason. “What is there to know,” one might
retort, saying, “Of course they adamantly oppose mixing reason with faith (i.e., religion).”
3. Ironically however, some believers would actually arrive at the same conclusion as would
most atheists but through taking a different route. While it is understandable why atheists
would oppose integrating faith and reason, why would some believers think in the same way?
B. First, let’s briefly examine two ways in which some unbelievers (read,
atheists) think on this issue.
In short, while most of them have no use for religion, some compartmentalize
it in such a way that faith is useful for certain things but never beyond those.
1. As far as the so-called New Atheism is concerned, known for its total
disdain for religion, reason clashes with religion in every conceivable
way, so much so that the two cannot coexist in anything.
a. Here, reason refers to that which is knowable about the world backed by evidence.
b. By faith, it means to believe something as being true (“God exists”) despite having
no evidence for it.
c. Thus, Sam Harris of the New Atheism wrote in his first book entitled The End of
Faith (2004): “Everyone human being comes to desire genuine knowledge about the
world. This has always posed a special problem for religion, because every religion
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preaches the truth of proposition for which it has no evidence. In fact, every religion
preaches the truth of propositions for which no evidence is even conceivable.”39
d. According to this outlook, belief in a divine being is so irrational that no reasonable
person can be a theist, much less believe in the unreasonable Bible as the authoritative
guide to any kind of truth.
2. Another perspective on this matter, as was expounded by Jay Gould of Harvard some years
back (Rocks of Ages 1999), is to permit religion to deal with matters of purpose, meaning, and
value of life, but never with matters pertaining to science. In other words, science is no place
for religion. Why did he think that way?
a. For Gould, the aim of science is to document the
objective character of the natural world with concrete
data and objective facts—science wants to know.
b. But religion, for him, is based on subjective
experiences, which its adherents believe, thus making
it unfit to adequately analyze the phenomena of the
universe.
3. Obviously, nonbelievers, in their pursuit of knowing the
natural world, do not want anything to do with faith (i.e.,
what the Bible espouses) because (to them) it is thoroughly
untrustworthy.
*Let’s go over the questions in “Let’s Discuss10 .”
C. As said before, there are believers who do not want to
mix religion with reason (e.g., secular learning, liberal arts,
such as philosophy), similar to the stance taken by many
nonbelievers, because that is akin to depending on man
instead on God.
1. First, there are those, likely of Calvinistic variety, who
might object to utilizing human reason in Christian
Let’s Discuss10
What are some philosophical
arguments to prove the existence
of God? Obviously, these are
irrelevant to people like Gould
and Harris, but many leading
philosophers debate the merits of
them.
1. The teleological argument:
The fine-tuning of the universe
(for intelligent life), or biological
complexity (of cells) point to a
designer.
2. The cosmological argument:
a. Everything that begins to exist
has a cause; b. The universe
began to exist; c. Therefore, the
universe has a cause. Of course,
many atheists believe in an
eternal universe with no
beginning, which many
cosmologists (e.g., Borde, Guth &
Vilenkin) have proven to be
false.
3. The moral argument:
a. If God does not exist, objective
moral values & duties do not
exist; b. Objective moral values
& duties do exist; c. Therefore,
God exists (William Lane Craig,
“God is not dead,” Christianity
Today, July, 2008, pp. 24-25).
apologetics on account of the doctrine of total depravity.
39
Sam Harris, The End of Faith (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004), p. 23.
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a. In regard to this doctrine, the esteemed Reformed theologian Louis Berkhof stated: “The
generally prevailing view among the Reformers was that, as a result of the fall, man is
totally depraved, incapable of doing any spiritual good, and therefore also unable to make
the least advance toward this recovery. Luther and
Calvin express themselves strongly on this point.”40
b. Thus, it can be reasoned that the data drawn solely
from human observation and reasoning cannot be
trusted since they are somehow tainted by sin’s biases;
obviously, wrong data will lead to an erroneous
conclusion!
2. Be that as it may, I would argue that an effective yet
biblical apologetics hangs in the balance of a proper
relationship between reason and faith.
a. Consider now how one Mexican pastor dealt with this
potential conflict. Chosen to address his colleagues at
their monthly district meeting (September 2006), he
declared (roughly translated from Spanish):
"Plato, Aristotle, Galileo41 and all other Greek
philosophers represented the deceptive spirit of men.
Thus, those of us who want to study courses, such as
hermeneutics and apologetics have the same deceptive
spirit because these depend on human reason rather
than the spirit of God.”
b. What do you think? Does it seem like he was trying to
strike a fine balance between human reason and divine
revelation? No, I do not think so.
(1) As far as I know, he was not a Calvinist but,
according to other pastors who knew him well, a
Let’s Discuss11
A Reformed minister, not too
pleased with Bill Bright, the
founder of CCC, said:
Why should I imitate leaders like
him when I disagree with his
Arminianism. . . . I think he is a
brother in the Lord, however, he
stated that in the next revival
“more people would come to the
kingdom and will serve the Lord”
because he will fast 40 days.
1. Why do you suppose this man
did not like Bright’s statement?
To him this undermines God’s
sovereignty because human effort
(even though it is an act of
obedience) is presented as the key
in advancing God’s work.
2. How would this person respond
to the assertion that through
human reason alone we can know
something positive about God?
Likely to disagree on account of
depravity of man and Rom. 1:28
that says that the unregenerate
does not retain the knowledge of
God (assumedly obtained from
human reason).
3. Is there any verse that seems to
indicate that some do retain it?
Yes, Acts 17:27 says that God
made and arranged the world (2426) in such a way that “men (like
the pagan Greeks) would seek him
and perhaps reach out for him and
find him.” Could we just say that
men can do some good but it is
never sufficient for salvation apart
from Jesus Christ? (Acts 4:12).
neo-Pentecostal.
40
41
Louis Berkhof, The History of Christian Doctrines (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1975), p. 148.
This is his word, not mine. Obviously, Galileo was from Italy.
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(2) What is neo-Pentecostalism? At least in the Mexican context, that movement
eschews rather thoroughly that which is of man (including taking lessons to learn
how to blow shofar, a horn used in Jewish religious purposes, which this
pastor claimed to have learned by the Spirit to play in the worship service) in
favor of the supernatural!
(3) It is rather ironic how Calvinistic anthropology and pnematology of the
neo-Pentecostalism end up in the same path: thoroughly against any usefulness
of man insofar as it relates to understanding God and carrying out His work.
*Let’s deal with the questions in “Let’s Discuss11 ” in page 32.
D. Now, let’s examine different ways in which some notable scholars in the past
tried to work out this faith/reason dilemma. The first way is called “faith in reason.”
One key person in church history who seriously grappled with this issue was
Thomas Aquinas of the 13th century, perhaps the greatest Catholic theologian
of all time. His approach to resolve this dilemma can be called “faith in
reason.”
1. Historical context: To appreciate the philosophical position of this
medieval theologian, the historical context from which his thinking
emerged needs to be understood.
a. Slumbering out of its dark ages in the 11th and 12th centuries, Europe rediscovered the
writing of Aristotle mainly from Muslim scholars in Spain, such as Averroës, who also
supplied ample commentaries on his work.
b. The result? The faith of many intellectual Europeans was shaken when faced with these
for the first time. The historian Robert Clause wrote: “The shock of these new ideas is
difficult to exaggerate, and can be compared with the impact of Darwin’s theories in the
19th century.”42
c. So what did they discover from the work of Aristotle?
(1) In short, he “presented a complete explanation of reality, without any reference to a
personal God.”43
(2) Many were particularly troubled by the commentaries of Averroës on Aristotle, stating
Robert G. Clause, “Flowering: The Western Church,” Eerdmans’ Handbook to the History of Christianity, ed. Tim
Dowley (Grand Rapids: WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1977), p. 283.
43
Ibid.
42
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that the “universe had always existed and was therefore not created.
(3) He also denied the immortality of the human soul,”44 which the Bible asserts as
being eternal once created at conception.
(4) Moreover, “history was an endless cycle of existence, striving to be like the
‘Unmoved Mover’, but never reaching its goal.”45
2. So how did Aquinas try to restore the faith of those shaken up by the teaching of the
one whom he called the “Philosopher”?
In a nutshell, he tried to harmonize the Christian beliefs with the teaching of Aristotle, not
seeing any contradictions between the two.
a. In his Summa Contra Gentiles, Aquinas wrote:
(1) “Although the truth of the Christian faith which we have discussed surpasses the
capacity of the reason, nevertheless that truth that the human reason is naturally
endowed to know cannot be opposed to the truth of the Christian faith.”
(2) “For that with which the human reason is naturally endowed is clearly most true; so
much so, that it is impossible for us to think of such truths as false.”46
b. What do these statements reveal? Accepting Aristotle as a guide in reason and Scripture
as the rule of faith, Aquinas believed that there was a meaningful relationship between the
two: revelation supplements but never contradicts reason.”47
c. To produce this synthesis, Aquinas seemed to have relied on two methods:
(1) One, a selective reading of Aristotle to complement what the Scripture says about
any given issue
(2) Two, a forced attempt to reconcile that which is not reconcilable between
reason and revelation.
3. Some examples may clarify Aquinas’s methodology.
a. In regard to selective reading, Aquinas, in his Summa Contra Gentiles, quoted
Aristotle’s statement that said: “Man should draw himself towards what is
immortal and divine as much as he can. . . . What we know of the higher substances
is very little, yet that little is loved and desired more than all the knowledge that we
44
Thomas H. Greer, A Brief History of the Western Tradition (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, INC., 1982), p. 217.
Clause, p. 283.
46 St. Thomas Aquinas, “Summa Contra Gentiles,” Classics of Western Thought: II. Middle Ages, Renaissance &
Reformation, ed. Karl F. Thompson (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, INC., 1982), p. 64.
47 Clause, p. 287.
45
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have about less noble substance.”48
(1) From this, Aquinas concluded that that “the most imperfect knowledge about the
most noble realities brings the greatest perfection to the soul.”
(2) He, then, followed that with the citation of 1 Cor. 2:11, 10 to complement Aristotle’s
thought: “So the things that are of God no man knoweth but the Spirit of god. But to us
God hath revealed them by His Spirit.” Is this OK? Well, we already know what our
neo-Pentecostal Mexican brother will say on this matter, but what about you?
b. In regard to forced reconciliation, a good example is given by the historian Clause.
(1) With respect to the providence of God, “Aristotle had stated that God (or the
‘Unmoved Mover’) neither knows nor cares about the world; yet the Bible states
frequently that God is intimately concerned with his creation.”49
(2) So how did Aquinas try to reconcile this difference between the Philosopher and
Scripture?
(a) He said that “this was not a real contradiction because God as the Maker of the
world is its ultimate cause, and knows of the effects of this creation. Since he
knows everything in himself, he knows of the whole creation.”50
(b) He added: “Also, because he created time, his knowledge of his work is eternal.”51
(3) Say what? It appears to me that Aquinas’ response (that God knows) in fact disagreed
with Aristotle’s view on God’s providence (that God does not know), but somehow
Aquinas tried to make them fit but without much success, at least to me.
4. Evaluation
a. As will be seen later, a selected citing of secular literatures (i.e., human reasoning) was
practiced even by several biblical writers.
b. However, a forced reconciliation of biblical truth in disagreement with a particular
observation made by human reason can ultimately result in dismissing divine
revelation itself in pursuit of truth and knowledge.
c. This is readily evidenced in the 18th century European Enlightenment in which, while a
deistic God was still believed, the supernatural aspect of the Scripture (i.e., miracles) was
48
Aquinas, p. 62.
Clause, p. 287.
50 Ibid.
51 Ibid.
49
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thoroughly rejected since it was not reasonable to the human mind.
d. A good example is the so-called Jefferson Bible, which is the work of the third president
of the US who was also a leading Enlightenment thinker in America at that time.
(1) As a deist, he “certainly did not believe in the divinity of Jesus
Christ and, while he was President, wrote a version of the Four
Gospels from which he removed all references to ‘fantastic’
events” (i.e., miraculous), “retaining only the ethical content of
Jesus’ teaching.”52
(2) Why would he do that? Precisely because miracles
were not reasonable to his enlightened mind.
*Let’s review the questions in “Let’s Discuss12 .”
5. Before moving on, it would be helpful to see some
current examples of having more faith in reason than in
God’s revelation.
Too often, our faith (i.e., question of why I believe what I
believe as a Christian) appeals too much to science (both
physical and social), and in doing so enthrones this
discipline as the final arbiter of the veracity of biblical
narratives.
a. For instance, some of us make too much of the latest
archeological digs in favor of the historicity of biblical
narratives, as if the entire Christian faith hangs in the
balance.
b. For others, proving scientific inadequacy of the
evolution theory (which no doubt needs to be
addressed at some point), or harmonizing the
literal understanding of the first chapter of Genesis
Let’s Discuss12
1. Why are some western
Christians so suspicious of
miracles happening today?
Two reasons: Systematic theologies like Dispensationalism and
the Reformed theology actively
teach that signs & miracles are
not for today. One wonders
whether such view is warranted
by the Bible, or these have been
co-opted by the spirit of the
Enlightenment; people became
weary due to highly-publicized
bogus miracles (e.g., Peter
Popoff).
2. Upon being asked, “Who is a
liberal?” this professor answered,
“He is someone who stopped
praying while studying.” What
did he mean by that?
If the human mind, in pursuit of
higher knowledge, is not graced
daily by God’s presence, such
knowledge gained will make
that person prideful (1 Cor 8:2)
& self-sufficient.
(e.g., a young earth) with scientific
evidences is an obsession that fuels their faith.
52
Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (New York: Penguin Books,
1986), p. 53.
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c. But to the young earth crowd and theistic evolutionists, I would ask, “Can we really
appeal to science when, according to Genesis 1:16, sun was created on the 4th day, that is,
after the earth had already been created and the land produced vegetation?”
6. Proving that human reason, even that of an atheist, sometimes has merits, the philosopher Kai
Kielsen, in debating the Christian philosopher J. P. Moreland who frequently appealed to
science in his presentation, warned against the pitfalls of such approach with the following
words53 :
a. “[Moreland] talks about what science is showing now. What sort of evidence have you got
for the probabilities of various things, appealing to scientific authorities? . . . But there is
something very dangerous for a theologian or a
Christian philosopher or, for that matter,
for an atheist philosopher to use that strategy.”
b. “Take, to illustrate, the Big Bang theory. I don’t know much about this, but I gather that
is the reigning theory in cosmology now. Years ago the kinetic states theory54 was the
alternate operating theory. . . . I don’t know which of the beliefs is more plausible apart
from the implication they appear to have for religion.”
c. “But if you rest your case on scientific evidence like this—highly speculative scientific
theorizing—you make your religious claims very much hostage to
changing scientific fortunes and even fashions. . . .”
A quick comment here: What Kielsen points out here is an inherent
danger of having too much faith in reason, becoming a type of crutch.
d. “But that is risky business. Scientific fads come and go, and the speculative fringes of
science are very much subject to change. It is always fallible. It always alters. It grows,
but it falters. . . .”
7. A few comments are needed here: We can readily see this tendency in two ways—one at
the theoretical level and the other at the practical.
a. Regarding the uncertainty of science at the theoretical level, Thomas Kuhn, philosopher
of science who introduced the term paradigm shift, “has told us that scientific theories
undergo whole sale revision with each generation and therefore do not converge on the
53
J. P. Moreland and Kai Nielsen, Does God Exist: The Debate between Theists & Atheists (New York: Prometheus
Books, 1993), pp. 69-70.
54 It states that all matter is made up of very small particles that are in constant motion, and can be used to explain the
properties of solids, liquids, and gases, as well as changes of state.
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truth.”55 Seeing examples of a reigning scientific theory being challenged at best and
refuted at worst would be helpful at this point.
(1) The first example is what we were taught all our lives that nothing (according to
Einstein) is faster than the speed of light. “But a team of European scientists has
reportedly clocked a flock of subatomic particles called neutrino moving at a shade
over the speed of light.”56
(a) For instance, in terms of covering the distance between the moon and Earth, while
light can cover it in 1.2830 seconds, neutrino does it in 1.2829 seconds.
(b)This would imply that “particles that move faster than light are essentially moving
backward in time, which could make the phrase cause and effect obsolete. ‘Think
of it as being shot before the trigger is pulled,’” explained University of Rochester
astrophysicist Adam Frank.57
(c) What does this mean? “That splinter of a second isn’t much, but that’s enough to
overturn a century of firmly established physics and rewrite the textbooks. . . .”58
(2) The second example is the long held evolutionary paradigm that posits that humans
evolved in a single clean line of descent, from Australopithecus (i.e., ape from
south) to Homo habilies to Homo eretus to Homo sapiens, supposedly a direct human
ancestor.
(a) “But in testing a layer of sediment where the Java fossils were found, scientists
discovered that Home erectus may have lived as recently as 27,000 years ago. It is
possible that all three evolutionary groups (including the Neanderthal—italic mine)
were alive at the same time.”59
(b) What does this mean? Dr. Philip Rightmore, a paleoanthropologist with the State
University of New York at Binghamton, stated: “’It is no longer chronologically
plausible’ to argue that Homo sapiens evolved from Homo erectus.”60
(c) Dr. Susan Anton of the University of California, Berkeley, added: “Look, this flies in
55
Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962; reprint, Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1970) cited by
Harris p. 75.
56 Michael D. Lemonick, “Faster than Light,” TIME, October 10, 2011, p. 17.
57 Ibid.
58 Ibid.
59 Leslie Kaufman, “Welcome to the Club,” Newsweek, December 23, 1996, p. 52.
60 Ibid.
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the face of everything I was taught, too. This is a big deal.”61
(3) Does this mean “there’s no telling which of our current theories will be proved wrong
tomorrow, so how much confidence can we have in them?”62
(a) The New Atheist Harris, having raised that question in his book, said that one can
still trust science since it is based on a firmer footing.
(b) Obviously, the Old Atheist Kielsen did not see it that way.
b. We can see the uncertainty of science in a practical matter involving scientific
experiments performed on laboratory animals to see the harmful effects of certain
chemicals used in things consumed by humans.
(1) Typically, the results that the experimenters hope to find depend on the
level of dosage injected into these animals.
(2) For instance, the alar scare of 1989 (chemical used by apple growers) was
the result of an experiment where the rats were injected with a daily dosage of alar
found in 1,000 apples. A similar experiment on the
effect of saccharine had the rats injected with a daily
dosage found in hundreds of diet coke cans.
e. Perhaps this sort of thing is all the more reason Kielsen
then said: “So it seems to me very very very risky indeed
to center an argument for the existence of God . . . on
something that relies heavily on these speculative
matters. The same, of course, would be true for
argument for atheism that relied on speculative
cosmological theories.”63
8. I think these cautionary words, whether they emanate from
an atheist or not, are quite apt for those who are engaged in
dialogue with skeptics and doubters.
Let’s Discuss13
Even Richard Dawkins would
agree that the “complex &
delicate balance” of the initial
condition of the universe was
fine-tuned for intelligent life. He
just does not believe that a
designer is needed to explain it.
He proposes alternative theories,
which are discussed later.
In view of Swinburne’s statement,
what would you say to Dawkins?
Why does a fine-tuned universe
exist at all? Was that the only
outcome possible, or were there
billion other possibilities? So
was it good luck that our life
giving universe emerged out of
infinite possibilities? Please
respond!
a. Of course, natural and social scientific studies favorable
to Christian faith ought to be utilized to corroborate it; but these studies are more useful in
pulling down opposing arguments rooted in bad science, such as speculative cosmology
61
62
Ibid.
Harris, p. 75.
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and biology of Dawkins. (The same can be said about arbitrary and somewhat silly
interpretation of history by Harris, which will be discussed in the last chapter).
b. Nevertheless, it is imperative that we do so with the limitations of science in mind.
9. On this topic, none does it better than the Oxford philosopher Richard Swinburne.
a. He argues that, science can explain two things:
One: “Occurrence of one state of affairs S1 in terms of a previous
state of affairs S2.”
Two: “Some laws of nature which make states like S2 bring about
states like S1.”
(1) For instance, scientists explain the occurrence of moon (S1) in terms
Earth, which, they say, preceded it (S2).
(a) Using a computer simulation, it has been posited that “some 4.5 billion years ago,. . .
a Mars-sized object roaring it at 25,000 m.p.h. struck the young [Earth]. The
glancing blow hurled molten and vaporized debris into space, where it cooled, began
circling Earth and eventually coalesced to form the moon.”64
(b) As a result, Earth’s current rotational rate, our 24-hour day—was purportedly
established; without the moon, it was a 5-hour day.
(2) Now, not many people realize that without the moon in its precise orbital position,
evolution wouldn’t have transpired since this explosion, according to evolutionary
scientists, “reduced Earth’s rotational wobble and set the stage of ocean tides and
ultimately life.”65
(3) In view of this fortuitous turn of events in favor of evolution, three questions are raised:
(a) What were the odds of randomly creating a moon that is perfectly positioned to
produce life on Earth?66 Try infinite!
(b) Could any other orbital position of the moon out of infinite possibilities have
produced the same result? No!
(c) “Why did this infinitely improbable event (that had only one shot of succeeding)
occur? Was it good luck! Can science really explain why?
b. This is why Swinburne said that science “cannot explain why there are states of affairs at
64
65
Leon Jaroff, “Moon Blast!” Time, August 27, 2001, p. 56.
Ibid.
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all. That there is a universe and that there are laws of nature are phenomena so general
and pervasive that we tend to ignore them. But there might so easily not have been a
universe at all, ever.”
(1) One undeniable fact is that “the universe might so easily have been a chaotic mess.”
Giving credence to this perspective, the British physicist Steven Hawking wondered
in A Brief History of Time:
“Why did the universe start out with so nearly the critical rate of expansion that
separates models that recollapse from those that go on expanding forever, that even
now, 10 thousand million years later, it is still expanding at nearly the critical rate?
If the rate of expansion one second after the Big Bang had been smaller by even one
part in 100 thousand million million, the universe would have recollapsed before it ever
reached its present size.”67
(2) But that “there is an orderly universe is something very striking, yet beyond the
capacity of science to ever explain.”68
(a) Thus, Hawking once confessed, “It would be very difficult to explain why the
universe should have begun in just this way, except as the act of a God who
intended to create beings like us.”69
(b)Paul Davies, an agnostic mathematical physicist who later became a deist, once
stated in his earlier article entitled, Tailor Made Universe: “It looks like somebody
made the universe. I don’t think it was made but it sure looks that way.”
(3) In other words, human reason and observation are capable of explaining many things
but not everything.
*Let’s deal with the question in “Let’s Discuss13 ” in page 39.
C. The second alternative in the faith/reason dilemma is “faith apart from reason,” which is
illustrated by the aforementioned Mexican pastor.
Going back to Aquinas, his approach was not universally accepted as scholars like Duns Scotus
and William of Ockham (of England) saw human reason as
an unreliable source for drawing correct conclusions about
67
Steven Hawking, A Brief History of Time, (New York: Bantam Press, 1998), p. 138. The state of the universe fine-tuned
to support life is called “anthropic principle” (Dis cussed in detail in Apologetics II).
68 Richard G. Swinburne, “The Justification of Theism,” Truth Journal. Volume 3 (1991).
69 Hawking, p. 144.
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God.
1. Directly contradicting the synergetic approach of
Aquinas, Scotus declared: “God is
completely free and not bound by human reason. Thus
He does not need to conform to reason; his acts,
therefore, by implication, may even be contrary to
reason.”
2. What then is the role of reason in proving the Christian
beliefs?
a. “None” according to Ockham who declared, "No
Christian belief can be proven through reason by
logic.”70
b. Thus, in faith apart from reason, human reason is
rejected in its entirety as having no merit in the correct
contemplation of the things of God.
3. Let’s evaluate as to what its final outcome was.
a. Not too surprisingly, this approach eventually resulted
in dogmatism, authoritarianism, and mysticism, which
Let’s Discuss14
According to Daniel, King
Nebuchadnezzar invaded
Jerusalem for the first time in the
3rd year of Jehoiakim (Da 1:1).
But Jeremiah said that this
occurred on the 4 th year of his
reign (25:1, 9). Oops, do we have
a contradiction here, or did this
Babylonian king invade the holy
city for 2 consecutive years?
The answer is found in
understanding the cultural
difference between Babylonia
and Israel. In the Babylonian
culture, the year in which the
king was enthroned was
considered the Year 0, while in
Israel the same was considered
Year 1. So a king enthroned on
December 31st would already be
in the second year of reign by
the next day. Thus, the 3rd year
of reign in Babylonia would be
the 4th year in Israel. There is no
contradiction here! This
example shows that the
inspiration took place within
cultural frameworks.
ended up strengthening the Catholic Church because it
left many people in intellectual darkness.
b. In time, the ruling maxims became:
(1) “Just believe what the Catholic Church teaches,”
which is what Scotus insisted (corresponding to dogmatism).
(2) “Believe it because the Pope says so” (authoritarianism).
(3) “Feel the truth” (mysticism).
4. So what are some examples of faith apart from reason?
a. One is those who oppose Christian youths attending secular universities in fear that they
cannot learn anything good or useful from non-Christian professors.
(1) An educator of a MK school, which my daughter attended in Mexico, equated
secular university to a pornographic store. When asked to explain, he responded, “No
70
Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of Christianity Vol. I (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers), p. 517.
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one who enters one or the other can come out unscathed.”
(2) While there are some good reasons for avoiding these institutions, one of them should
not be a categorical denial that human reason alone cannot impart some truth.
b. An unfortunate fact is that there are countless examples of faith apart from reason in the
fundamentalist-evangelical camp. Here, one quick example is presented in the area of
inerrancy and verbal plenary inspiration.
(1) Harold Lindsell, then a professor of Fuller Theological Seminary, had commented that
the Apostle Peter denied Jesus 6 times instead of 3.
(2) Why? While the Gospel of Mark has Peter denying Jesus
3 times before the rooster crowed twice (14:72), Matthew
(26:24) and Luke have the rooster crowing just once.
(3) This, then, was his way of resolving an apparent
discrepancy in the biblical narratives, precisely because
his view on inspiration (in the mode of apart from reason)
would not allow any sort of numeric incongruity in the Bible.
(4) A reasonable faith, which ensues as the third option, would posit that terms like
inerrancy or inspiration ought to be defined in accordance to what was culturally
acceptable as a legitimate “storytelling” in the Hebraic-Greco world.
(5) While the 21st Western Christians may sweat over numeric inexactness in the Bible
[e.g., the number of Jacob’s descendents who immigrated to Egypt: 70 (Ex. 1:5, Dt.
10:22) or 75 (Acts 7:14)], it appears that the Jews in the antiquity did not.
(6) The commentator William Baker, in speaking of some variations in Stephen’s
speech in Acts 7 wrote: “[These] discrepancies may easily be explained as typical
of the inexactitudes of current Judaism, of which Stephen’s words are simply a
reflection.”71
*Let’s go over the question in “Let’s Discuss14 ” in page 41.
D. The third option in the faith/reason dilemma is called “reasonable faith.”
1. So what is a reasonable faith and how should it be distinguished from the previous
two? The eminent British theologian John Stott put it like this: “It is a great mistake to
William Baker, “Acts,” Evangelical Commentary of the Bible, ed. Walter A. Elwell (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House,
1989), p. 893
71
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suppose that faith and reason are incompatible. Faith and sight are set in opposition to each
other in Scripture, but not faith and reason. On the contrary, true faith is essentially
reasonable . . . .”72
a. Consequently, reasonable human observation can validate and authenticate the veracity
of divine truths revealed in the Scripture; in other words, human reason itself does not
oppose divine revelation categorically.
b. Nevertheless, it is vital to recognize that human reason has its limits in validating divine
revelation; thus, it cannot be always be trusted. We will look at the limits of human reason
after looking into whether or not the Scripture includes any (inspired) truth that was first
brought to light through human observation.
2. First of all, it is commonly acknowledged that Paul utilized “reasonable observations” made
by three gentile writers of the classical Mediterranean world to buttress the revelation of God.
a. One is the aforementioned Epiménides, a Cretan prophet
in the 6th century BC. His observation that “the Cretans
are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons” (Titus 1:12)
harmonizes well with the doctrine of man’s sinful
nature, as revealed in Romans 3:23: "For all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God.”
b. The second example is found in Acts 17:28.
(1) The first part of the verse that says, "For in him we
live and move, and have our being”
also derives from Epiménides in his Cretica.
(2) The second part that says, “As some of your own
poets have said, ‘We are his offspring,’” comes from
the work called Phaenomena by Aratus, a poet from
Cilicia in the 3rd century BC.73
(3) Here the observations made by Epiménides and
Let’s Discuss15
1. Does the fact that some
uninspired writings are included
in the Scripture bother you?
If so, why?
The Bible is a holy book but
wouldn’t the inclusion of these
make the book appear
contaminated & compromised?
2. To the extent that these
observations are in agreement
with divine revelation, how did
these gentile writers discover
them?
Despite their sinful nature, they
were able to grasp some aspects
of God’s truth through human
reason & observation.
Aratus, respectively, agree with the doctrine of the
sovereignty and omnipresence of God.
72
73
John R. W. Stott, Your Mind Matters (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1972), p. 34
NVI Study Bible p. 1681.
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For instance, Proverbs 20:24 says, “From Jehovah are the steps of man” and 15:3 says,
“The eyes of the LORD are everywhere, keeping watch on the wicked and the good.”
c. Another example is found in 1 Corinthians 15:33 that says, “Be not deceived: evil
communications corrupt morality.” This came from the “Greek comedy Thais written by
the Greek poet Menander.74
(1) Obviously, Menander’s observation in regard to the process in which something good
eventually becomes thoroughly corrupted, due to the introduction of a bad element into
it, was agreeable to Paul, who applied it to the effect of a bad doctrine (in this case, the
teaching that there is no resurrection) on people’s faith.
(2) In effect, the meaning of Menander’s quote is quite similar to that of Galatians 5:9. In
referring to the effect of the false doctrine that circumcision is a requirement for
salvation, Paul wrote, “A little leaven leavens the whole mass.”
d. Moreover, the book of Jude contains two quotations from uninspired Apocryphal books.
(1) One is from I Enoch 1:9, quoted in Jude 1:14, which says, “Enoch, the seventh from
Adam, prophesied about these men.”
(2) Another is from The Assumption of Moses, quoted in Jude 1:9, which says, “But even
the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses,
did not dare to bring a slanderous accusation against him, but said, “The Lord rebukes
you!”75
*Let’s review the questions in “Let’s Discuss15 ” in page 45.
3. So what does it mean that several quotes from uninspired books (based on human
observation) found their way into the divine revelation of the Scripture?
a. First, it must be recognized that all truth, whether derived from special (i.e., Scripture) or
general revelation (i.e., creation and the law written in the human heart—Rom. 1:20,
2:14-15) are from God.
(1) For example, “1+1=2” is a mathematical truth, which derives from the mind of God.
(2) A child acting violently toward his parent is a sin and must be disciplined, as legislated
by the Babylonian King Hammurabi three centuries before Moses (“If a son has struck
his father, they shall cut off his hand”), is a moral
74
Ibid., p. 1757.
Dewey Beegle, “Inerrancy and the Phenomena of Scripture,” The Living God, ed. Millard J. Erickson (Grand Rapids:
Baker Book House), pp. 294-297.
75
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truth, which also comes from God.
(a) On what ground can that connection be made?
It’s because this law corresponds with the
revelation of Exodus 21:15 that says, “And he
who strikes his father or his mother shall surely
be put to death,” originated from God.
(b) The same can be said about another law of
Hammurabi that stipulates:
“If a citizen after (the death of) his father lies in
the bosom of his mother, they shall burn them
both. This law corresponds to Leviticus 18:7 that
says, “Do not dishonor your father by having
sexual relations with your mother.” (Must be cut
off.)
Let’s Discuss16
How do we reconcile men’s
apparent ability to discern and
seek God’s truth (Acts 17:27) with
Romans 1:18 that says that they
suppress what may be known
about God?
Instead of choosing one over the
other (they always seek, or they
always suppress), we should
conclude that they do both at
the same time. They do seek
God, as evidenced in their
religious pursuits, but at the
same time, they seek to escape
from him, as seen in their greed,
violence, and immorality. This
seeking does not lead to
salvation but may prepare them
to respond to the gospel
affirmatively.
b. Second, though humans are born sinful, they retain the
rational nature embedded in the image of God (i.e., the
Spirit of God) with which they were created.
4. I believe this assertion (that sinful man is still capable of a positive contemplation of the
divine) needs to be analyzed lest a rigid adherence to the doctrine of total depravity
may equate this with humanism or Pelagianism (i.e., born morally neutral with the ability to
not sin).
a. In Genesis 2:7, God breathed His Spirit into an inanimate body that became a “living soul”
thereafter. This term derives from the Hebrew word nepeš, which the Septuagint translates
as psuchē (ψυχή) in Greek (as in psychology).
b. Now, the fall of man left him spiritually dead (Eph. 2:5, 4:18) since the Spirit of God
departed from him.
c. However, this did not leave man devoid of that which was formed in him when the Spirit
of God had entered the inanimate body of Adam: a living psuchē or soul.
d. Zechariah 12:1 says that the “LORD . . . forms the spirit of man within him”; no doubt this
refers to the “spirit of man,” which 1 Corinthians 2:11 mentions.
e. So when was the spirit of man formed? Unless one believes that the living soul and the
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spirit of man are completely separate entities, it would be safe to assume that both were
formed on the day God breathed His spirit into Adam.
f. So do the living-soul and the spirit of man refer to the same thing?
(1) While the debate between dichotomists and trichotomists may not end any time soon,
soul is commonly viewed as “the spiritual nature of man considered in relation to God”
(American Heritage Dictionary).
(2) If these terms are not synonymous, then, at least they are very closely related.
g. What’s even more important to note is that the spirit of man continues to remain in sinful
man, who as a living soul, keep on bearing God’s likeness (Jas. 3:9 b: “We curse men, who
have been made in God’s likeness”).
h. Though the rational nature of man has been weakened and corrupted by sin, it did not
entirely incapacitate his ability to think, reason, and analyze; therefore, certain truths of
God can sometimes be observed by human reason alone. It is akin to a broken clock
being right twice a day, 730 times a year!
5. Therefore, whenever human reason happens to correspond to divine
revelation, it is useful in affirming the veracity of the Bible as well as
contextualizing the revelation to make the message more culturally
appealing to a particular audience.
a. There is little doubt that Paul, when speaking to people in the Hellenistic cultural milieu,
quoted from the aforementioned writers because they were quite familiar with them.
b. Another example of this is the Apostle John’s usage of the Hellenistic concept of logos,
defined originally by Heraclitus, of Ephesus in the 6th century BC.
(1) After observing that the world, despite constant flux and changes occurring in it at
every turn, was not a complete chaos, he declared that the Logos—the word, the reason
of God— was one that controlled it.
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(2) Moreover, he held that “nothing moved with aimless feet; in all life and in all the
events of life there was a purpose, a plan and design. And what was it that controlled
events? Once again, the answer was Logos.”76
(3) John, upon learning this Greek concept that predated him by almost six centuries, was
inspired to apply it to Jesus whom he declared as the Word of God that not
only created the universe, but continues to order it (Col 1:16-17).
(4) So how did this Ephesian philosopher Heraclitus
figure this out? Again, his correct observation was due
to exercising the rational nature of man instead of
being inspired by the Holy Spirit.
*Let’s go over the question in “Let’s Discuss16 ” in page 47.
6. Be that as it may, this certainly does not mean that all of
their observations, whether they be of Epiménides or of
Let’s Discuss17
Pastor Terry Jones of Florida
finally made good on his threat:
he burned the Koran. The
members of the Wesboro Baptist
Church in Kansas celebrate at the
funerals of soldiers killed in the
Middle East, proclaiming, “That’s
God’s judgment against sinful
America.”
Aristotle, are correct.
a. Thus, while a selective reading of the latter’s work by
Aquinas was akin to what Paul did, he failed to pull
down those arguments of Aristotle that rose against the
knowledge of God.
b. Ultimately, these writers from the antiquity were sinners
and, as such, their hearts could have easily distorted their
observations as well as conclusions drawn from them.
c. It is not without reason that Jeremiah declared in the book
that bears his name: “The heart is deceitful above all
How does something like this
affect the perception of
Christians by secular world?
This plays well into the hands of
the secular media who will use a
broad brush to paint all
conservative Christians to be
hateful, ignorant, and utterly
intolerant of everything.
things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (17:9).
E. As this chapter concludes, we must ask this question: “What good comes from apologetics?
Let’s look at it this way: apologetics does not save anyone and can become a crutch for those
who find the Bible sort of inadequate to validate what they believe.
1. First, while it is the gospel that can save lives (Rom. 1:16), apologetics certainly can be a preevangelistic tool to basically silence those who protest or talk too much against our faith!
a. It behooves us to be aware that many nonbelievers (who perceive themselves as
76
William Barclay, The Gospel of John Volume 1 (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1975), pp. 34-35.
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intellectuals) think that Christians are quite ignorant.
b. Remember the American astronomer Carl Sagan asking his believing friend, “Why do you
believe, being an intelligent person?”
c. Sam Harris is not that subtle, saying that religious beliefs “should not survive an
elementary school education.”77
d. And this is not just an American phenomenon.
(1) In Chihuahua, Mexico, someone handed me a flyer of which the very first line declares,
“CRISTIANISMO = IGNORANCIA.”
(2) It then says, “Definitively, Judeo-Christianity is the greatest example of ignorance and
superstition that the humanity has known.”
e. Thus it should not be too surprising to notice that some unbelievers tend to talk down to
Christians, overtly trying to be factual (i.e., scientific and logical) in telling them all that
are wrong with their beliefs.
*Let’s talk about the question in “Let’s Discuss17 ” in page 49.
2. So what should we do in that type of uncomfortable situation? I advise that we listen
attentively, without being defensive or interfering, until that is, a factual error has
been made, which occurs often.
a. Why? Most of the critics at the lay level are as unprepared to cogently attack the
Christian faith as much as Christians are unprepared to give a reasonable response.
b. I would grab that moment to say, “with gentleness and respect,” to the critic: “Excuse me;
I believe you were incorrect on this and that point. What really happened was . . .”
(1) Once the critic is momentarily silenced and his error has been adequately addressed, I
would quickly switch over to sharing either my personal testimony of how God
changed me or the gospel.78
(2)The key is always being prepared, which should have been done in anticipation of all
kinds of questions and doubts that the critics might raise to us at given any moment.
3. Now, allow me to share a personal story that touches on every one of these points. Many
77
Harris, p. 25.
Alister E. McGrath on how to speak to postmodernists (Christianity Today, 2002, p. 59): “Our culture seems to have
come to value stories over arguments. This allows you an opening to tell your story —the story of how the gospel became
real in your life. The gospel is not just true, it is real. Telling your personal story of faith is one of the best way of
declaring the transformative power of the gospel.”
78
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years ago, a visitor to my Sunday school class (we were discussing the Nicene
Creed of 325), voiced his objection to me for being a conservative Christian.
a. At the time, this Filipino-American was pursuing a Master degree in Asian American
Studies (which is on the anti-establishment side) from UCLA, and being told that I had
already finished the same program several years back, he wondered out loud why I
continued to be a conservative Christian.
b. His charges against me? He said:
(1) “How can you still be a Christian in light of the fact that it is a white man’s religion and
its doctrines are so Eurocentric?”
(2) “Moreover, was not the church responsible for killing the Jews and Muslims in the
Spanish Inquisition?”
c. Remember, his objection was raised in front of
several others who were in the
classroom, nervously watching what was taking place. (Wondering whether their pastor
has anything good to say in return.)
(1) There was no time to either look over my notes (there were none) or stall for time since
the question was raised during the class.
(2) But the Holy Spirit quickly reminded me of what to say; that is, He enabled me to say
that which I had previously downloaded into my hard drive—my mind—in anticipation
of this type of questions.
d. My defense, which needed to be clear and crisp (not convoluted), went something like
this:
(1) To the charge that Christianity is a white man’s religion, I first asked him whether he
considered the Jewish people as part of the white race.
(a) Upon hearing “No,” I said to him: “Then, how can you call Christianity a white
man’s religion when thirty-nine out of 40 authors of the 66 books of the Bible were
Jews?”
(b) “You can call it a Jewish religion but certainly not one of white man’s.” Silence
ensued!
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(2) To the charge that Christian doctrines, such as that of the Nicene Creed, are
Eurocentric, I asked him whether he considered Turkey and Northern Africa as part of
the European hegemony (consisting of England, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain).
(a) Upon hearing “No,” I said to him: “All the seven ecumenical councils of the early
church from the 3rd to the 8th century, from which all the major Christian doctrines
were officially expressed, occurred in today’s Turkey” (Nicaea, Ephesus,
Constantinople, and Chalcedon).
(b) The dominant majority of the participants came from the East (to the east of
Alexandria, Egypt), not the West. For instance, “of about 300 hundred bishops
present only six were from the West.”79
(c) “In fact, two of the greatest theologians in the
early church, namely, Augustine and Athanasius,
were from North Africa: Augustine’s parents
were Berbers and Athanasius was from
Alexandria.”
(d) “So you may call Christian doctrines
‘Easterncentric,’ but certainly not
Eurocentric.” Silence ensued!
(3)Concerning the charge of cruelty against the Jews
and Muslims at the hand of the church during the
Spanish Inquisition (1492), I said to him:
(a) “I completely agree with you since the prime
victims of the Spanish inquisitors in the 16th
century were my spiritual forefathers, the first
wave of Protestants, who were mercilessly
slaughtered during the Counter-Reformation of
Let’s Discuss18
Matthews 12:11: “When you are
brought before synagogues,
rulers and authorities, do not
worry about how you will
defend yourselves or what you
will say, for the Holy Spirit will
teach you at that time what you
should say.”
In the context of having to
respond to questions about our
faith that are addressed to us out
of the blue, what does this verse
teach us?
I believe that the Holy Spirit
reminds us of the right things to
say at an appropriate moment.
However, we do need to put
things in our data bank (mind)
for the Holy Spirit to be able to
do this. This means two things:
first, we need to constantly
study, second, we need to learn
how to discern, and then to trust
the voice of the Holy Spirit who
speaks to us internally.
the Catholic Church.”
(b) “An undeniable fact is that more Protestants were killed by the Spanish inquisitors
than the Jews or the Muslims.
(c) For instance, it is estimated that 10,000 Protestants were executed by the Spaniard
79
Walker, p. 108.
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Duke of Alba between 1567-1573 in the Netherlands alone.”80 Another silence
ensued!
(4) After I was done addressing his comments, instead of talking more about church
history, I quick changed the subject to Jesus and what the gospel is all about!
(5) Afterwards, he told me of his plan to return to my church but never made good on that
promise. A university student in the class did tell me how encouraged she was hearing
my response to him.
*Let’s reflect on the question in “Let’s Discuss18 ” in page 51.
4. To those who are too much into apologetics, because they feel, perhaps unwittingly, that the
Bible alone is insufficient to validate what they believe, I suggest reading carefully the
narratives of the Bible regarding the resurrection of Christ.
a. Why? If one can believe that supernatural event, then, that person should not have too
much trouble believing the rest of the Bible.
(1) In fact that’s what Paul, when addressing the polytheistic Athenians, used as the
ultimate evidence of God being the creator and the sovereign mover of all things.
(2) After saying, “God . . . made the world and everything in it” (Acts 17:24 a),
“therefore . . . we are God’s offspring” (17:29 a), Paul declared: “He has given
proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead” (17:31 b).
b. Now, we may certainly try to establish the plausibility of the resurrection of Christ by
relying on several implicit sources outside the Bible.
(1) For instance, the 1st century Roman historian Tacitus (60-120), in his Annales, used the
phrase “this pernicious superstition” as an apparent reference to the resurrection.
(2) The famous 1st century Jewish historian Josephus, in his Antiquities of Jews, wrote:
“But those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship.
They reported that he had appeared to them 3 days after his crucifixion, and
that he was alive.”
c. But the approach that the British scholar N. T. Wright uses is unique
in its simplicity, for the root of his argument is drawn from the biblical
narrative itself. After noting from the NT that the disciples continued to
proclaim Jesus the Messiah even after seeing him helplessly executed
80
Cairns, p. 350.
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on the Cross, he said:
(1) “The crucifixion of a Messiah did not say to a first-century Jew that he was
the true Messiah and that the kingdom had come. It said exactly the opposite.
It said that he was not and that it had not.”81
(2) Then “why [did] this group of first-century Jews, who had cherished messianic hopes
and focused them on Jesus of Nazareth, not only continued to believe
that he was the Messiah after his death . . .
. . . but actively announced him as such in the Jewish as well as the
pagan world, cheerfully redrawing the picture of Messiahship around
him but refusing to abandon it[?]”82
(3) His unequivocal answer: They saw a physically-resurrected Jesus!
d. Yes, there is more to Wright’s argument than this, (for his book on resurrection is
700+ pages long) but I use this example to exhort those who find more comfort in the
words of scholars (whether secular or Christian) than the inspired words of Paul or John
with this reminder:
(1) Read the Bible unhurriedly.
(2) Observe the narratives with inquisitiveness.
(3) Pray in earnestness and quietness
(4) Regularly worship God in the company of a community of believers.
(5) Don’t pick up another book on apologetics for awhile.
81
N. T. Wright, The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus was and Is (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 1999), p.
138.
82 Ibid., p. 139.
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Chapter V
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Priority Targets of Apologetics
“Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly;
I do not fight like a boxer beating the air” (1 Cor. 9:26)
As noted in the first chapter, the list of those who attempt to discredit the
Christian faith is very long. We are physically not able to address every one
of them at the same time. We need to make a list of priority targets.
A. It is a question of whom should we “go after” first in the midst of seemingly countless
opposing arguments.
1. Like what 1 Corinthians 9:26 suggests, we should neither be aimless nor beating the air in
choosing whom to respond to first. For some Christians, their favorite target is other
Christian groups over minute differences in view of the grand scheme of things.
2. In this chapter, I would like to present an objective criterion through which we can prioritize
which disagreeable teachings ought to be addressed first.
3. This is an important question to raise particularly at the personal level because any attempt to
seriously address this concern will drain our resources, such as time (needed to investigate)
and money (to buy books).
B. So what constitute essential doctrines?
1. For several years in Mexico I offered a course entitled, "Exposing false doctrines
that defy sound doctrines.”
a. One peril that was addressed in this course was judging those believers
who do not believe as I do theologically, as if they were a Joseph
Smith (founder of the Mormon Church) or Taze Russell (founder of
Jehovah’s Witnesses).
b. To avoid this myopic outlook that always results in dissension among
brothers, distinguishing our doctrines into two broad categories—
essential and nonessential—is imperative.
c. This issue is quite important to AMI since the pastors of AMI are not required to
agree on every single doctrinal issue in the Bible.
(1) Of course, they do need to be in agreement on certain doctrinal matters, the essential
issues, but not on all issues, the nonessential ones.
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(2)This very unique
situation exists in AMI
because relationships and
trust among the pastors
are valued over a rigid
conformity to all
doctrines, for not all
doctrines are alike in
Agreeing on the essentials;
Agreeing to disagree on the nonessentials
importance.
2. Again, the question is what constitutes the essential
doctrines of the Christian faith?
a. The Bible addresses many important things— living a
holy life, taking care of the poor, even taking care of
the environment (but not as an ideology)—but the
primary reason Jesus died then resurrected was to
redeem sinners scattered among all the nations, so
that they can partake in God’s eternity beginning
from now.
b. So any teaching that nullifies that possibility would
be considered a matter of life and death, which
obviously becomes an essential matter.
(1) For the sake of illustration, the essential doctrines
can be liken to a car’s engine, for without it, the
car is completely useless as a means of
Let’s Discuss19
Are the following issues a matter
of essential or nonessential
doctrine?
1. Ordination of women:
Nonessential since it does not
affect salvation.
2. Mariology of the Catholic
Church, a belief that she is a coredeemer:
Essential since such belief
nullifies the substitutionary
death of Christ.
3. Infant baptism:
It depends on how one views it:
if done as a means to salvation,
it is an essential issue; if done to
dedicate the baby to the Lord, it
is nonessential, meaning, it is OK
to practice or not practice it.
transportation.
(2) In the same way, the essential doctrines are those Christian beliefs that touch on the
theme of salvation; any corruptions in these undermine the power of the gospel to save.
*Let’s go over the question in “Let’s Discuss19 in page 55.”
3. The New Testament reserves two ironic terms in reference to this sort of erroneous teaching:
a different Jesus and a different gospel.
a. In 2 Corinthians 11:4, Paul says: “For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other
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than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received,
or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.”
(1) It is worth noting that a gospel that preaches a different Jesus, likely referring to erring
on his nature, life and work, is not the true gospel.
(2) What this implies is that the essential doctrines not only take
account of redemptive events (e.g., Virgin birth, crucifixion,
resurrection, etc.) pertinent to salvation, but also include the
nature of the three persons in the Trinity (e.g., God is spirit,
Jesus, being divine, is of the flesh, and the Holy Spirit is a
Can this
New-Age
Jesus
save?
person).
b. As to which false teaching in Corinth provoked Paul to utter these
tough words is quite unclear, but the same cannot be said about
why he said the same thing to the church in Galatia. According
to Paul, many in that church began to believe that “unless you are circumcised, you cannot
be saved.”
Galatians 1:6-7, 9 (NASB): “I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who you
called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; [7]which is really not another;
only there are some who are disturbing you, and want to distort the gospel of Christ. . . .
[9] As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel
contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed.”
4. To appreciate what Paul says here, it would be helpful to compare the two Greek words that,
in English, mean the same: the word “different.”
a. heteros (ἕτερος) refers to “another of a different kind” while allos (ἄλλος) refers to
“another of the same kind.”
b. In both passages heteros is used, meaning, it is substantially different from the authentic
gospel; in other words, the different gospel is fundamentally foreign to the true gospel.
5. To put this in perspective, at the end of the 20th century heated arguments were
exchanged among the advocates of the Reformed Theology (e.g., Michael Horton), Free
Grace83 (e.g., Zane Hodges), and the Lordship Salvation84 (e. g., John MacArthur) over what
This teaches that once people believe, they are always saved “even if they later stop believing in [Jesus] for eternal life.”
Robert N. Wilkin, Confident in Christ: Living by Faith Really Works (Irving: Grace Evangelical Society, p. 1999), p. 185.
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MacArthur
Hodges 57
is the true gospel. (Please read the footnote.)
a. I would classify this as battling over euangelion allon
(εὐαγγέλιον ἄλλον), that is, “another gospel of the
same kind.”
b. The differences among them are not without
consequences, but
certainly not to the extent of being saved or not saved
(notwithstanding what these theological combatants
actually said against each other’s understanding of the
gospel).85
c. Therefore, this sort of differences would not be
discussed in any apologetics course, but will be
addressed in a course entitled, “Comparative
Systematic Theology.”
(1) The aim of such a course, unlike that of apologetic, is
to abridge any perceived differences while
clarifying the real ones, mostly through reading
each other’s literatures.
(2) While apologetics does not seek spiritual unity with
those who err on the essential doctrines, the course
like comparative systematic theology certainly does,
for instance:
(a) Between the Calvinists (sovereignty of God) and
Let’s Discuss20
Read the footnote 79-81. If those
statements are true ( made by
this doctor of theology from
Dallas Theological Seminary),
then, MacArthur is unsaved.
1. Discuss the merit or danger of
such perspective:
I may not like MacArthur’s
cessationist view (due to
“inaccuracies & weak
research”), but to consider him
unsaved really hurts the body of
Christ, for many hang on his
words for daily encouragement.
2. How can this type of
disagreement be better handled?
For the most part, I would focus
on the consequences of how a
particular understanding of the
gospel can affect how we live.
For instance, Free Grace can
promote licentiousness while
MacArthur’s way of thinking can
lead to a performance-based
sanctification.
Armenians (man’s responsibility)
(b) Between the cessationists (all the sign spiritual gifts disappeared with the completion
of the canon) and Pentecostal. (“They still exist.”)
In countering the teaching of Free Grace, MacArthur so emphasized work as the means to verify the authenticity of one’s
saving faith that he almost made it a prerequisite to salvation. He said, “Real faith results in obedience,” “disobedience is
unbelief,” and “faith is not complete unless it is obedient.” John F. MacArthur Jr., The Gospel According to Jesus pp. 46,
47, 173, cited by Michael Horton, “Don’t Judge a Book by Its Cover,” Christ the Lord: The Reformation and Lordship
Salvation, ed. Michael Horton (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1992), pp. 35-36.
85 Wilkin of Free Grace wrote (p. 185): “A person who believes in Lordship Salvation, no matter how moral, does not
believe the gospel. I am not saying, however, that all who believe in Lordship Salvation are unsaved. . . . If a person
believes the gospel and is then led astray by Lordship Salvation, he or she is still a Christian, albeit one who no lon ger
believes the gospel.”
84
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(c) Between the premillenialists (Israel≠church; thus rapturetribulation2nd
Comingthen literal millennial kingdom) and amillenialists (Israel=church; thus
2nd Comingthen heaven).
*Let’s go over the questions in “Let’s Discuss20 ” in page 57
6. Returning to the theme of apologetics, another helpful way to distinguish between the
essentials and non-essentials is to compare two English words that still resemble their
Greek root.
a. The words are orthodoxy and heresy/heretic:
(1) First, the word orthodoxy is made up of two Greek words, orthōs (ὁρθῶς),
meaning “correct”, and doxa (δόξα), which originally meant belief or opinion.
(2) Second, the meaning of the Greek word hairetikos (αἱρετικός), from which
comes the English word “heretic,” means “the ability to choose.”
b. In view of this, with respect to the essential doctrines, there is no option to choose.
Instead, it is always a matter of:
(1) First, recognizing the correct belief clearly delineated in the Scripture
(2) Second, accepting it as the dogmatic truth.
c. Again, what is the consequence of doctrinal deviation in regards to the essentials?
It is none other than separating oneself from the communion with the invisible church,
which constitutes of those who believe the true gospel of the biblical Jesus.
(1) Thus, when one exercises the option to choose over the essential doctrines, he or she
becomes a Mormon or a Jehovah’s Witness, or a liberal “Christian”; in other words,
they become modern day heretics.
(2) This is precisely what John alluded in 2 John 1:9 when he said, in reference to those
who used to walk with him (1 Jn. 2:19) but now denied that Jesus came in the
flesh (1 Jn. 4:2-3): “Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching
of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father
and the Son.”
(3) In short, those who deviate from the essential doctrines of the Christian faith are
no longer or never were brothers.
(4) So then how should we treat them? We will deal with this issue after discussing the
nonessential doctrines. Suffice to say, when this freedom to choose is applied to the
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nonessential doctrines, we then have Calvinists, Arminians, Dispensationalists, and
Pentecostals.
C. So what constitutes nonessential doctrines?
Returning to the car illustration, if the essentials are like a motor, then the nonessentials,
(i.e., secondary doctrines) are like those auto parts that are not necessary to start the motor
and then drive the car out of the parking lot.
1. It means that these secondary doctrines, which separate one systematic theology from
another (for instance, from the Dispensationalism to the Reformed theology), in no way
affects the matter of how one is saved spiritually.
2. Let me offer some examples to clarify this matter, starting with Dispensationalism.
a. Among some dispensationalists, there is so much
emphasis on rapture that it seems as though it
were the most important doctrine of the
Christian faith. Without a doubt, it is a doctrine
that deserves to be discussed in all seriousness,
but whether one believes it or not has nothing to
do with how one is saved.
b. Another example has to do with the three positions as to when the rapture may happen: at
the beginning of the Great Tribulation, in the middle, or at the end of
it (which actually
be the Second coming of Jesus).
(1) I personally hold to a position that I believe has more biblical support, but one cannot
deny the fact that other believers may think differently on this topic.
(2) And in a course on apologetics, this type of matter would not be addressed.
3. As for some Pentecostals, speaking in tongues is the only sign that would indicate that
one has been baptized in the Holy Spirit.
(1) Without a doubt, this matter is extremely important because it often creates much
confusion among believers, but again, it does not equal in importance to the
matter of salvation or the nature of the Trinity.
(2) However, when some Pentecostals, such as Unitarian Pentecostals, teach that one
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needs to speak in tongues to be saved,86 this suddenly becomes a matter of essential
doctrine because it touches on the issue of salvation.
4. The final example has to do two types of controversy
over water baptism.
a. One has to do with the manner of baptism—
immersion or sprinkling —which is a secondary issue
since the act itself does not contribute to being saved.
b. But some teach that a person who is not baptized is
still unsaved even if he confesses to believe.
(1) In this case, the matter of water baptism turns into
an essential doctrinal issue since it adds work to
how one is saved.
(2) This is the same reason speaking in tongues
can become an essential issue if it is added on as a
prerequisite to being saved.
Let’s Discuss21
We sometimes idealize the early
church, but she was not immune
from being fractured over petty
issues. For example, the church
in Corinth was divided into 4
factions, among those claimed to
follow Paul, Apollos, Peter, and
Jesus (1 Cor. 1:12). According to
Paul, what was their basic
problem? (3:1-4)
It wasn’t theological; rather it
had to do with the lack of
character and carnal spirituality.
The root was jealousy, but they
tried to hide it under the façade
of theological differences. Paul
called them spiritual infants and
worldly people.
*Address the question in “Let’s Discuss21 in page 60.”
D. So what are some consequences of disagreeing over secondary doctrines among believers?
1. First, a disagreement over the nonessential doctrines is what distinguishes evangelical
denominations among themselves; in other words, they all agree on the essentials.
2. Second, too many conservative Christians argue among themselves over secondary
doctrines, wasting, thereby, valuable time and energy needed to battle against sects,
liberal and postmodern critics of the Bible who deny the historic faith of Christianity.
3. Third, the ensuing lack of genuine unity in the body of Christ weakens its ability to be
an effective witness in the world.
a. As for the importance of unity among brothers, John 17:22-23 says: “I have given them
the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: [23] I in them and you in
me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and
have loved them even as you have loved me.”
Vinson Synan, The Spirit Said ‘Grow’: The Astounding Worldwide Expansion of Pentecostal & Charismatic Churches
(Monrovia: MARC, 1992), p. 8.
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b. In a nutshell, this would mean that without this
Christian unity among believers, the world would
say to us, "You are same as us.”
E. So how do we handle legitimate disagreements
among brothers?
1. First, we should have our own well-articulated
biblical position with the understanding that other Christians could think differently.
a. Paul alluded to this in Romans 14:5-6 to address an internal matter that rose between the
liberated Jewish Christians and those who were not quite there yet. He said: “One man
considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each
one should be fully convinced in his own mind. [6] He who regards one day as special,
does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and
he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God.”
Realizing this allows us the freedom not to judge others as well as not quarrel about
secondary doctrines (2 Tim. 2:14).
b. When discussing nonessential doctrines, the believers ought to maintain an attitude
of tolerance in the love of Christ (1 Cor. 13:3). It is likely that the meaning of Luke
9:49-50 is the importance of preserving unity among fellow Christians despite of
some differences: “‘Master,’ said John, ‘we saw a man driving out demons in your
name and we tried to stop him, because he is not one of us.’ [50] ‘Do not stop him,’
Jesus said, ‘for whoever is not against you is for you.’”
2. Second, narrowing the focus, it is imperative that these principles are applied to a very
divisive issue among believers whether in the US, in Mexico or in Vietnam: speaking in
tongues.
It is an undeniable reality that Pentecostals and the adherents of Dispensational
theology (many independent churches and Baptists) do not agree in regards to the
baptism in/of the Holy Spirit. (The problem starts with which preposition to use to
translate en in Greek.)
a. The issues are, first, whether the baptism occurs when one is saved or is subsequent
to salvation; and second, it deals with the existence and the practice of speaking in
tongues.
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b. To preserve the unity of Christ among believers, while each group can certainly hold
firmly to its biblical convictions, it is imprudent to demean those whom one disagrees with
flammable and gratuitous comments such as:
(1) “Those who do not speak in tongues have not received
the Holy Spirit.”
(a) I wonder whether those who make this kind of
statement would rather believe that an ex-drunk,
who stopped drinking after becoming a Christian
at a Baptist church, did so with his own willpower
rather than God’s power. Why? By their
definition, his “inability” to speak in tongues (being a Baptist) proves that he has
yet to receive the Holy Spirit.
(b) If that were the case, where is the glory of God in that?
(2) Not to be outdone, some who do not speak in tongues have been known to say
regarding those who speak it:
(a) They are babbling just like the Corinthians, who were likely praying to a
“pagan deity”87 when they were praying in tongues.
(b) “It is incited by the devil, or if not, it is certainly induced psychologically”
(most cessationists believed the latter to be case).
c. Obviously, these complex issues should be studied carefully with the help of
impartial scholars. In fact, such study will be presented in another course called,
Compared Pnematology & Charismatology.
(1) But, as was seen earlier, one undeniable fact is that there are always two (or more)
“teams” that do not think the same way with respect to many secondary doctrinal
matters.
(2) Therefore, if we can avoid intensifying the conflict through being courteous and civil
toward one another, why don’t we do it?
d. Also, we should behave with loving discretion.
(1) In 1 Corinthians 13:5, Paul defines love as follows: “Love. . . . is not rude, it is not selfseeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.”
87
John F. MacArthur Jr., The Charismatics: A Doctrinal Perspective (Grand Rapid: Academie Books, 1978), p. 161.
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(2) A few chapters before, in 1 Corinthians 8:13, Paul gives an example of this
aspect of love with respect to eating meat sacrificed to idols, which was a nonessential issue since they were allowed to eat it (1 Cor. 10:25-27, 1 Tim. 4:4).
1 Cor. 8:13: “Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will
never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall.”
(3) Applying this principle of love to the issue of speaking in tongues (a secondary
doctrine), we can say the following: “If speaking in tongues causes my (cessationist)
brother to fall or cause trouble since he does not
accept nor understand this, then I will not practice
speaking in tongues in his presence or do it very
quietly.”
3. Another important and relevant question is what to do
when those who uphold correct essential doctrines teach
incorrectly in the area of the nonessentials (for
instance, the prosperity theology)?
a. It is still necessary to point out and correct their
mistakes, but as brothers in Christ.
2 Thessalonians 3:14-15 says: “If anyone does not
obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of
him. Do not associate with him, in order that he may
feel ashamed. [15] Yet do not regard him as an
enemy, but warn him as a brother.”
(1) At that time in that city, someone erroneously
taught that the Day of the Lord had already come,
so Jesus would return to the world instantly.
(2) However, despite this doctrinal error (actually a
Let’s Discuss22
It is almost funny the extent to
which some non-Pentecostals will
go l to deny the legitimacy of the
gift of tongues today. One book
said that it is the ability to
quickly learn a foreign language.
MacArthur said that the tongue
spoken in the Corinthian church
was gibberish (p. 159). Many in
the Reformed theology think that
today’s tongue is psychologically
induced. Why do you think they
are so adamantly opposed to this
particular gift?
Now, each has its own
systematic theology that
produces their position. (None
is convincing). But the real
reason has to do with the
worldview conflict. Having
accepted that miracles are not
for today, they have a hard time
accepting this gift (nonhuman
language) because it does not
seem very reasonable, if not
uncouth. Of course, it didn’t
help that many practitioners of
this gift badly abused it with
excess & pride.
very serious error), Paul still called them a brother.
b. In such a case, while one may not have much fellowship with that individual, but no longer
considering him as a brother does not appear to be justifiable (Tit. 3:9-10).
*Let’s talk about the issue addressed in “Let’s Discuss 22 in page 63.”
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Chapter VI
64
What to Look for in the Opposing Arguments?
They will pursue us until we have lured them away from the city, for they will say, ‘They are running
away from us as they did before.’ So when we flee from them, 7 you are to rise up from ambush and
take the city. The LORD your God will give it into your hand (Joshua 8:6-7)
Does this passage seem like an odd choice to start off this chapter, for this
was the military strategy used by the Israelites to defeat the army of Ai?
Not really because we also need an effective strategy to bring down the
arguments of those who oppose the knowledge of God. Now the final
section of this course deals with a very practical matter of what to look for
in the opposing arguments in order to demonstrate its fallacy. It is,
therefore, quite instructive to be cognizant of different types of charges
leveled against the Christian faith.
A. Types of arguments leveled against the Christian faith.
1. In short, there are four distinctive approaches in two broad categories through which the
opponents of Christian faith attempt to discredit it.
a. The first category has to do with the manner in which the biblical text is handled.
b. The second approach argues against the Christian worldvie w.
2. To frame their accusations, each one of them follows a two-step argument:
a. First, they declare that the Christian positions and arguments are without any merit
because they suffer from the following maladies:
(1) Lacking credible evidences to back up their beliefs. (Of course to the naysayers,
the Bible does not count as a credible source.)
(2) Badly flawed with inconsistent, contradictory, and artificial reasoning.
b. Then they insist that their arguments are superior precisely because these are
backed up by facts and evidences coalesced into a cogent reasoning.
3. However, it will be shown through examples given here that it is their arguments that suffer
from a lack of evidences and absence of consistent reasoning! By the way, the discussion
given here is not exhaustive but representative; the problems posed by major erring
individuals and groups will be covered in great details in later apologetics courses.
B. For starters, let’s look at one very popular way of discrediting the historic Christian faith,
often executed by people who claim to take the biblical text seriously, such as Jehovah’s
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Witnesses (who have their own translation) and the Mormons (who, despite having other
sacred books, do not entirely dismiss the Bible).
1. Their method is radically reinterpreting the Bible in such a way that the outcome corresponds
with their theological views, which differs substantially from the historic Christianity in the
essential areas.
a. Of all the spheres of apologetics, this may be the least popular one mainly because it is not
always clear what the differences are, at least in comparison to the obvious differences
between Christianity and world religions.
b. The degree of difficulty in handling the errors of cults perhaps is not as great as dealing
with, for instance, speculative arguments of Dawkins, but with groups like the Jehovah’s
Witnesses, some understanding of Greek is necessary since they use the Greek grammar to
advance their points.
2. So then what are some of their theological points that radically differ from the historic
Christian faith?
a. There are many, for they deny the Trinity, the personhood of the Holy Spirit, and the
existence of hell, just to name a few.
b. One other substantial difference is their view on Jesus Christ: to them he is a created being
with a definite beginning.
(1) Their view is quite similar to the doctrinal view held by Arius of Alexandria in the 4th
century that was, as seen earlier, almost unanimously rejected at the Nicene Council in
325.
(a) “Arius believed that Christ was a being, created out of nothing, subordinate to
the Father and of a different essence from the Father.”88
(b) Thus, “he was not coequal, coeternal or consubstantial with the Father.”89
(2) Henceforth, the Jehovah’s Witnesses need to present Jesus as less important
than God the Father; therefore, in their own version called New World
Translation of the Holy Scriptures, they depict Christ a god.
3. For instance, John 1:1 of this version says, “In [the] beginning the Word was, and
the Word was with God, and the Word was a god.”
88
89
Cairns, p. 143.
Ibid.
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a. Notice that at the end of this verse, the Word [i.e., Jesus (Jn.
1:14)] is rendered as a god (meaning, less than God the
Father), which they justify in the following manner: since
the definitive article does not appear before the Greek word
“god”, this should be translated as a god.
b. Now it is true that the Greek definite article for this
particular case, namely, ho (ὁ), is not found in front of the
word theos (theos ēin ho logos/καì Θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος).
c. But the two aspects of the Greek grammar that the
Jehovah’s Witnesses fail to mention are:
(1) One, the indefinite article does not exist in Greek.
(2) Two, while the Greek article is used to point out particular identity (as in “not any
man but the man who did this”), “when no definite article is used with the noun, it
indicates quality or characteristics”90 of the subject (functioning, in effect, as an
adjective), which in this case is logos, word.
d. This means that theos without the definite article ho in John 1:1 refers to the divine
character or essence of logos (i.e., the Son). But theos with the definite article ho (ho
theos) would have pointed out a particular identity, that of God the Father; this then would
have meant that the Father is the same person as the Son, which is incorrect.
(1) Thus, “theos was the Word” means that while the Word (i.e., Jesus the Son) was divine
just like God the Father, the Son is not identical to Him in person.91
(2) In other words, John, writing to polytheistic Greeks, was trying to avoid presenting
God the Father and Jesus the Son as two disparate deities but as one unified God of two
distinctive persons.
4. So it is the argument by the Jehovah’s Witnesses that turns out to be without merit, for
it lacks the credible grammatical evidence. Moreover, they are not even consistent with
their own pseudo-grammatical approach.
a. The fact is that the NT uses the word theos without the definite article in many places;
in John 1 alone, the word theos92 without the definite article is found in at least four
90
Ray Summers, Essentials of New Testament (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1950), p. 16.
Ibid., pp. 130-131.
92 John 1:6, 12, and 13 have this word in the genitive case of theou while John 1:18 has it in the accusative case of theon.
91
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places (6, 12, 13, and 18).
b. Thus, according to the grammatical logic of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, this word should be
translated as a god since they translated it as such in John 1:1.
(1) For instance, John 1:12 should say, “To them he gave authority to become a god’s
children (all’ ek theou/ἀλλ’ ἐκ θεοῦ) but it does not.
What does it say then? Well, it says what my Bible
says: “To become God’s children.”
(2) So out of five incidences in John 1 where theos is
used without the definitive article, only John 1:1 is
rendered as a god but the rest has God.
How convenient! How inconsistent!
c. Again, this is not a study on how to refute the erroneous
doctrines of the Jehovah’s Witnesses per se and others
like them. Rather, it tries to show what to look for in
their typical arguments against our faith: inaccuracy,
inconsistency, and misunderstanding.
*Reflect on the issue addressed in “Let’s Discuss”23 (p. 67).
C. Another favorable way to debunk the Christian faith,
this one done mainly by liberal scholars, is to nullify the
authenticity and authorship of the biblical text through
what is called textual criticism, which consist of lower
and higher forms.
1. Although textual criticism in and of itself is a neutral
Let’s Discuss23
A few people had asked me why I
was teaching Greek to pastors in
Mexico. I reluctantly did it
because so many requested for it.
As a Korean who learned English
as his second language, I wasn’t
sure if I could teach Greek in
Spanish. But the Lord helped me
to pull it off, and now I know
Greek better than when I was
studying it in seminary (though I
am still inadequate). I didn’t see
the value of learning then but I
do now: to aid my understanding
of the NT and to combat groups
like Jehovah’s Witnesses, & even
detect inconsistency in Greek
scholars like Pagels & Ehrman.
Now let’s discuss on whether we
have the hunger to really invest
our time, money & effort to
demolish arguments and every
pretension that sets itself up
against the knowledge of God?
Sometimes we evangelicals get
lazy with loving the Lord with
our mind, always looking for easy
answers. Well, how about it?
tool, nonetheless, in the hands of liberal scholars, it
quickly turns into a powerful weapon to disparage the Scripture.
Two scholars mentioned at the outset—Elaine Pagels and Bart
Ehrman—are just two of many who represent this type of attack against the Christian faith.
2. The lower criticism deals with transcriptional alterations—whether intentional or accidental
— introduced into ancient manuscripts of the Bible, which are the basis for today’s Bible.
a. The question is no longer whether or not this happened. It did!
(1) Several notable differences among the versions that the conservative Christians
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prefer (KJ, NASB,NIV 1st ed., ESV, etc.), in verses such as Romans 8:1, 1 John 5:7 and
1 Peter 5:2, indicate that some alterations did take place.
(2)Denying this would make our faith unreasonable or apart from reason.
b. The real issue then is whether or not those letters and words in the original text (which no
longer exists) that have been altered can be recovered through science and art of textual
criticism.
(1) Obviously the liberal scholars do not think so.
(a) In the 1990s, the Jesus Seminar scholars declared that only 18% of the words
attributed to Jesus in the gospels are really from him.
(b) The rest were add-ons by the early church to serve its own political purpose.
(2) But the textual criticism done fairly and skillfully can definitely imbue confidence in
and a sense of reliability on the Scripture (to be demonstrated in another course).
3. The higher criticism deals with the historicity of each book of the Bible with such
questions as when was it written? and who wrote it?
a. For instance, a matter of great importance is the dating of
the book of Daniel. While all liberal scholars date it in the
2nd century BC as a work of an anonymous Jewish author,
many conservative scholars see it as a 6th century BC
document produced by Daniel himself.
b. What is at stake?
(1) If the 2nd century BC dating were correct, Daniel would
no longer be prophetic, but merely historic, since the
events purported to be prophesized in this book
(i.e., the rise of world empires in the order of Babylonia,
Medo-Persian, Grecian, and Roman Empire) would
already have happened by the 2nd century BC.93
(2)More importantly, the 2nd century BC dating would undermine the divinity of Christ
since it would show that he erroneously believed that Daniel indeed wrote this book as
a prophetic document. Matthew 24:5 has Jesus saying: “So when you see standing in
93
The 2nd century BC dating obviously has a problem with placing the Roman Empire since it did not become an empire
until 27 BC with the enthronement of Octavian as the first Caesar. So the proponents of this view do not s ee the rise of the
Roman Empire in Daniel; instead, they list the empires in order the Babylonian, Median, Persian, and Grecian Empire.
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the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet
Daniel . . .” Suffice it to say a lot is at stake.
4. Now at this point, delving into detailed discussions on textual criticism done by Ehrman and
Pagels seems apt, but it will need to wait (to be covered in a future course) because the lower
criticism in particular is always complex to explain.
As a substitute, blatant mishandling of a biblical text by a liberal critic of the Bible is
presented here to show how it can be undone as long as we know where to look for help.
a. Now meet Michael Baigent, one of the authors of the book Holy Blood
and the Holy Grail (1982) that Dan Brown used as a source for his
bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code. After losing the copyright
infringement suit against the publisher of Brown’s book in 2006,
Baigent published another book entitled The Jesus Papers, which was a
reworking of themes from his previous work.
(1) He in no way is a professional textual critic, for he lacks the proper academic
training to be one (having studied psychology for his BA, and mysticism and religious
experience for an MA).
(2) But, what he lacks as a qualified Bible critic, he sure makes up for it by summarily
rejecting the credibility of the entire NT, saying: “Certainly the New Testament is bad
history. This is impossible to deny. The texts are inconsistent, incomplete, garbled,
and biased.”94
b. In speaking of Baigent’s books, his main claim, which Brown used as the central motif of
his novel, is that Jesus survived the crucifixion then escaped to Egypt with his wife Mary
Magdalene.
(1) Therefore, he somehow has to prove that Jesus did not die on the cross.
(2) So Baigent presents several not-so-convincing evidences to justify his central thesis.
Here I introduce one of the alleged evidences, which he claims is staring right at us
directly from the Bible.
c. Baigent starts off by saying that Jesus seemed to have died on the cross, but in reality he
was merely drugged to appear that way.
94
Michael Baigent, The Jesus Papers: Exposing the Greatest Cover-Up in History (New York: HarperCollins Publishers,
2006), p. 123.
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(1) He wrote: “The sponge was soaked not in vinegar, a substance that would have revived
Jesus, but rather in something that would have caused him to lose consciousness —
some sort of drug, for example.”95
(2) Everyone was in on this scam, including Pilot and Joseph of Arimathea. Said Baigent:
“Pilate took steps to ensure that Jesus would survive. He spoke with a member of the
Sanhedrin friend of Jesus, the wealthy Joseph of Arimathea.”96
(3) According to him, in Mark 15 when Joseph came to claim the body of Jesus
from Pilot, he used a Greek word that clearly indicated that Jesus was still alive.
d. So what is this Greek word that caught the attention of Baigent? Mark 15:43-45
reads as follows: “Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council,
who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and
asked for Jesus' body. [44] Pilate was surprised to hear that he was already
dead. Summoning the centurion, he asked him if Jesus had already died. [45]
When he learned from the centurion that it was so, he gave the body to Joseph.”
(1) In this text, the word “body” in verse 43 comes from the Greek word sōma (σῶμα)
while the same English in the verse 45 derives from another Greek word ptōma
(πτῶμα).
(2) In light of this, he reasoned that in Greek sōma refers to a living body while ptōma to a
“fallen body, a corpse or carcass.”
(a) Baigent wrote: “In other words, the Greek text of Mark's Gospel is making it clear
that while Joseph is asking for the living body of Jesus, Pilate grants him what he
believes to be the corpse. . . . Jesus’ survival is revealed right there in the actual
gospel account.”97
(b) How did all of us manage to miss that one, for 2,000 years?
e. Let’s analyze his contention that invalidates the most central event in God’s redemptive
plan: the death of Jesus.
(1) First of all, Baigent’s method of argument is a logical fallacy because his affirmative
usage of the NT to validate his thesis follows his thorough rejection of it as a reliable
source of information.
95
Ibid., p. 128.
Ibid., p. 126.
97 Ibid., p. 130.
96
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(a)Remember what he said? “Certainly the NT is bad history. This is impossible to
deny. The texts are inconsistent,
incomplete, garbled, and biased.”
(b) So it seems that whenever Baigent
believes that the NT can help his cause,
NT
all of sudden it becomes a credible
source. How convenient!
(c)This is akin to a prosecutor declaring a potential
witness to be a liar, and then uses his very words
against the defendant.
(2) Second, his assertion that the Greek sōma refers to a
living body is rather easy to debunk. It is a simple
matter of looking into (using a simple computer
Bible or interlineal Bible) whether or not this word
is used to refer to a clearly dead person in the NT.
In my quick perusing, I found three verses that do
just that.
(a) In reference to a dead Tabitha, the word sōma
(σῶμα) is used in Acts 9:40 (KJV): “But Peter
put them all forth, and kneeled down, and prayed;
and turning him to the body (σῶμα) said,
Tabitha, arise. And she opened her eyes: and
when she saw Peter, she sat up.
(b)In Jude 1:9, in reference to Moses who had been
dead for 1,500 years by then, sōma (sōmatos) is
used: “Even the archangel Michael, when he was
Let’s Discuss24
Not wanting to enrich the likes of
Baigent & Brown, I read their
books in Barnes & Nobles in El
Paso whenever I came up there
or to Juarez ( about 250 miles
from Chihuahua where I served
as missionary for 10+ years) for
ministry or to buy supplies. Suffice it to say it took several trips
to finish reading them. Hearing
about their works through the
biased media, one can feel
intimidated, but after reading
them, at least my reaction has
been anywhere from “You got to
be kidding” to “Is that all?”
So what’s keeping you from taking on these not-so-fine-tuned
arguments? Maybe you need to
meet people who have been bloodied by these arguments to take
this matter seriously? Well, meet
me, for I almost lost my faith
studying in a liberal seminary in
the mid 1980s. I hope it won’t
take something like that to
motivate you to get going on this.
disputing with the devil about the body
(σώματος) of Moses, did not dare to bring a slanderous accusation againsthim.”
(c) Even more tellingly, sōma (sōmata) is used to point to the dead body of Jesus along
with that of the two robbers in Jn 19:31b: “Because the Jews did not want the
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bodies (σώματα) left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the
legs broken and the bodies taken down.”
(3) The result of this brief study is that the Greek word sōma is used to refer to both alive
and dead persons, just like in English and Spanish. If anything, Baigent’s claim is the
result of a shoddy research and a tortured logic!
5. As it was said about the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ gratuitous translation of John 1:1, the same can
be said about the argument of Baigent; it has no merits due to the incorrect understanding
of Greek.
*Let’s think about the issue addressed in “Let’s Discuss 24 ” in page 71.
D. Now the third approach to be examined is one that attempts to undercut the fundamental
biblical worldview that God created man and the universe.
1. So what’s so new about that? Isn’t it true that there have always been
critics, such as Bertrand Russell and Carl Sagan, who rejected the
creation account of the Scripture on account of science?
a. Yes, but the new breed of doubters in the 21st century has separated
themselves from their predecessors with their aggressive and militant
Sagan
brand of atheism.
b. Certainly aforementioned Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris are key members of it, as is
Christopher Hitchens who wrote a book, the title of which leaves no doubt as to how he
feels about God: God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (2007).
c. On the contrary, Sagan, until in his dying breath, claimed to be an agnostic, as did Russell,
who, in his last TV interview done at the of 94, told the interrogator that he is an agnostic,
that he had never said God did not exist.98
2. So what do the members of the New Atheism agree on?
a. As for the beginning of man, they agree that the Genesis 1 account or the watchmaker
theory99 of the 18th century theologian William Paley
should be obliterated by the irrefutable facts of
evolution guided by non-random mutation and blind
98
Walter Martin, Seven Campus Curses. Cassette tape recording. San Juan Capistrano: Christian Research Institute, 1980.
“Just as a watch is too complicated and too functional to have s prung into existence by accident, so too must all living
things, with their far greater complexity, be purposefully designed” (The Blind Watchmaker).
99
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natural selection.
b. As for the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life,
they agree that attributing it to a designer, like God,
should be categorically rejected.
(1) Dawkins, in his The God Delusion, prefers
speculative cosmological theories, such as
multiverse, oscillatory universe, and daughter
universes generated from parent universe through
black holes as portals to these universes.100
So are these theories convincing? Again, while a
detailed discussion must wait until later, we do need
to know something about these theories now.
(2) First, what is multiverse? According to the
philosopher William Lane Craig, it posits the
following: “Out of an infinite number of
randomly ordered parallel universes, one will
bound to be fine-tuned by chance alone and that
one happens to be our universe.”101
(a) Dawkins, trying to work himself into believing
this improbable theory: “The multiverse may
seem extravagant in sheer number of universe.
But if each one of these universes is simple in its
fundamental laws, we’re still not postulating
anything highly improbable.”102
(b) Craig retorted, saying: “Each universe in the
multiverse is not simple; each one is characterized
by multiplicity of constants and quantities. If
Let’s Discuss25
1. The adherents of the New
Atheism have a definite agenda
to push: make the church look
absolutely BAD! For them, it is
all or nothing. The church cannot be credited with any good,
only the bad. From what’s discussed here, we see two of their
strategies. Did you notice them?
One-sided portrayal of the
church: they only talk about the
bad things; they won’t talk about
anything good lest it jeopardizes
their argument. I mentioned
three Christians who did a lot of
public good. Can you think of
anyone else?
Any non-Christians who were
really bad must be turned into
quasi-religious figures! Thus,
atheists like Mao or Stalin,
murderers of millions people,
including believers, are
presented as the head of a
religious entity. How can you
carry on an intellectual dialogue
with people who think like that?
2. What do Dawkins & the Genesis believing Christians have in
common? What separates them?
They both exercise a lot of faith
in what they believe. What
separates them is that while
Christians recognize this, Dawkins won’t! He doesn’t believe
in God as the designer of this
universe since someone must
have made him. But how come
he accepts the multiverse hypothesis without ever raising the
question of who designed that.
each universe were simple, then why did Dawkins
100
Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (Boston: A Mariner Book, 2008), pp. 173-175.
Richard Dawkins and the Teleological Argument [Video]. (2011). Retrieved September 16, 2011 from
http//www.youtube.com/watch?v=
102 Dawkins (2008), p. 176.
101
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feel the need to recur to multiverse in the first place?
Just say that our world is simple and therefore it does not need a designer.”
(3) Another theory that Dawkins likes is what amounts to be an oscillatory universe.
(a) It posits “a universe going through an infinite series of expansions and contractions,
and each time the constants and quantities taking on new values” until such a
moment that the fine-tuning of the universe is formed.103
(b) Dawkins probably likes this theory because it avoids having a definitive beginning
of our universe.
(4) So is this (i.e., multiverse, oscillatory universe, and the black holes as portals) science?
(a) Hardly! It is more like science fiction, which is what Hawking said regarding the
theory of blacks holes as portals through which daughter universes are generated.
(b) The oscillatory universe is rejected because no one
really understand this alleged cosmic condition and
no one knows where it came from.
(c) While Dawkins is not a physicist, there are a number
of physicists, such as Roger Penrose of Oxford and
John Polkinghorne, formerly of Cambridge, who
object to this sort of speculative cosmology on account of bad physics.
c. As alluded earlier, another dimension to the New Atheism was added by Harris and
Hitchens, who set a very aggressive and combative tone to it by slamming religion as the
source of all evil.
(1) To both, any belief in God is irrational, and as such, is quite harmful to the extent that
it becomes “the explicit cause of literally millions of death [just] in the last ten
years.”104
(a) It seems like for every hundred cases of violence and cruelty inflicted on humanity
allegedly due to religion, they can hardly think of one positive thing the church has
done for the world, at least not without qualifying it.
(b) For instance, in a book of 300+ pages, Harris devotes 5 lines to mention some
positive contributions made by Christian missionaries around the world only to say
103
104
Ibid.
Harris p. 26.
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that this “does not suggest that faith is itself (or even a good) motivation for
goodness.”105
(2) Any one-sided slamming always leaves many holes; as such, their one-sided slamming
against Christian faith is no exception, which means it is not too difficult to defuse it.
(a) First, we are not defending the church as having been an impeccable representation
of Christ throughout the history, but she has had many moments of brilliance
(meaning, doing much good in the world).
(b) At the very least, Harris and Hitchens should be lauded for not faking fair and
balanced journalism, because if objectivity held any value to them, they would have
recognized what faith in God accomplished for tens of millions people living in
tyranny.
(c) For instance, if you take faith in God out of William Wilberforce, an evangelical
parliamentarian responsible for abolishing the slave trade in the British Empire in
1807, or the Baptist pastor Martin Luther King, then, the freedom for the
oppressed would not have materialized for who knows how many more years.
(3) Then there is an utterly ludicrous interpretation of history to concede nothing. Now,
the New Atheists have to somehow explain away the bad
deeds of some notable atheists, such as Stalin and Mao who
A religious leader?
killed millions of people, which they do it in two ways.
(a) First, they make them out to be a head of religious entity.
Harris wrote: “Although these tyrants paid lip service to
rationality, communism was little more than a political
religion.”106 Hitchens agrees saying that “the Soviet Union was a religious state,
which explains why it was so immoral and violent. Communism became a
religion—and that’s when things turned nasty.”107
(b) Second, they argue like the following: “Maybe Stalin was a vicious atheist
thug, but he was a vicious thug who just happened to an atheist.”108
*Let’s review the questions raised in “Let’s Discuss 25 ” in page 73.
105
Ibid., p. 78.
Ibid., p. 79.
107 Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great (New York: Twelve Hachette Book Group USA, 2007), pp. 243-247.
108 Alister McGrath, Why God Won’t Go Away (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2010), p. 74.
106
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3. So how do we go about defending our faith against these arguments?
a. Well, as long as Christians prefer easy and light reading (which usually means books on
Christian living or inspiration), they will continue to be helpless to fend for themselves or
help others when are confronted by these.
b. Or, we can be pro-active either by reading their books cautiously to look for flaws in their
arguments, or read good secondary sources about them provided by scholars such as,
William Lane Craig or Alister McGrath, or do both.
4. Now I present several flaws in the evolutionary scheme of Dawkins, namely, self-serving
illustration and special pleading fraught with inconsistent logic and absence of evidence.
Again, the objective is to know what to look for in opposing arguments in order to pull them
down.109
a. A case for cumulative selection: First, Dawkins noted that, to demonstrate the
improbability of a sustained series of favorable mutations and natural selection toward
producing life on earth, the illustration of a monkey with a typewriter is often used.
So he wondered, “How long would it take for a monkey randomly typing away at a
typewriter to produce something like, “ME THINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL?”
(1) He figured that the odds of that randomly
happening is “about 1 in 10,000 million
million million million million million.”
(2) This illustration, Dawkins said, represents
“single-step selection,” where everything needed
to generate a living organism must come together at once or nothing will happen.
(3) Noting the astronomical odds of that happening, he admitted rather tellingly, “If
evolutionary progress had had to rely on single-step selection, it would never
have got anywhere. “”110
b. To fully appreciate Dawkins’ objection against single-step selection,
it would be helpful to know what this really entails.
Let’s begin with a question that biochemist Michael J.
109
Darwinian evolution appears to occur at micro level (such as physical change that occurs within a specie s
or drug resistance in bacteria), but it certainly is not true on larger scales (e.g., splitting a species into two or a
species changing into another over time).
110 Dawkins (1986), p. 49.
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Behe at Lehigh University raises in his book Darwin’s
Blackbox (1998).
(1) What does it take to produce an eye (i.e., vision)?
Certainly, it would require components such as, the
retina, ocular muscle, lens, tear duct, cornea, pupil, e
tc.
(2) Missing any of these components would diminish one’s vision or cause blindness.
(a) Why? The ability of the human eye to “see” is dependent on all of its parts.
(b) That is to say, the function of vision is not produced by any particular part; rather, it
is produced when these parts are put together in a single-step (thus, simultaneously).
(3) Calling this irreducible complexity, Behe stated: “By [this] I mean a single system
composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic
function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively
cease function”111
(4) “An irreducibly complex system cannot be produced . . . by continuously improving
the initial function,. . . by slight, successive modifications of a precursor system,
because any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by
definition nonfunctional.”112
(a) For instance, a mousetrap has no ability to squash a mouse until several separate
parts such as, the wooden platform, spring and metal piece, are all assembled
simultaneously; if one part is removed, the mousetrap is no longer functional.
(b) Regarding the eye, the lens without the retina or cornea is not capable of seeing even
slightly; rather, it cannot see at all, meaning, nonfunctional.
(5) For the sake of argument, imagine an organism with a lens but nothing else that is
needed to produce vision. Would natural selection choose this part (keep it around, if
you will), knowing that once other parts of the eye are formed in millions of years, the
lens will be useful?
(a) The answer is no for two reasons. First, as Dawkins himself said, “evolution has no
long-term goal. There is no long-distance target, no final perfection to serve as a
111
112
Michael J. Behe, Darwin’s Blackbox (New York: A Touchstone Book 1998), p. 39.
Ibid.
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criterion for selection.”113 In other words, natural selection has no idea what the lens
is for except that at the present moment it serves no function.
(b) What would natural selection do in such a situation? It would eliminate the lens by
not choosing it because “natural selection can only choose systems that are already
working”114 (i.e., function, not parts).
(c) Henceforth, by the time a functional retina is
finally developed, no lens or cornea is
waiting for its arrival since natural selection,
which chooses a function, would’ve
eliminated any part that is useless by itself.
c. But for Darwinian evolutionist Dawkins, that’s not the
manner in which favorable mutations were chosen by
nature; the real process is called cumulative selection.
What is that? Dawkins explained it in the following
manner:115
(1) First you start with a random sequence of 28 letters
(counting ‘space’ as one letter):
WDLDMNLT DTJBKWIRZREZLMQCO P
(a) Then he said, “It now ‘breeds from’ this random
phrase. It duplicates it repeatedly, but with a
certain chance of random error—‘mutation’—in
the copying.”
(b) What does that mean? The computer attempts to
Let’s Discuss26
1. Did Dawkins prove what he
called cumulative selection?
He himself admitted that he
didn’t. While evolution has no
long-term goal and no criterion
for selection, this experiment
did: reaching the target of
METHINKS line, with each letter
serving as the criterion.
2. What do you think about the
fact that even after the “I misled”
admission, he continued to use
cumulative selection until the
very end of the book as the key
component to his evolutionary
scheme?
His theory became a damaged
good when he said, “Life isn’t
like that,” referring to his
“rigged” experiment. Then he
should have stopped using it as
the basis for his evolutionary
argument. Of course, he
couldn’t do that since he had a
book to write and hopefully
make some money with it.
rewrite this sequence of letters over and over,
and every now and then an error would occur, which means a letter is changed to a
different alphabet.
(c) Going back to Dawkins’ experiment, after 10 generations of copying, the phrase
chosen for ‘breeding’ was: MDLDMNLS ITJISWHRZREZ MECS P
(d) After 20 generations it was: MELDINLS IT ISWPRKE Z WECSEL
113
Dawkins (1986), p. 50.
Behe., p. 39.
115 Dawkins (1986), pp. 47-49.
114
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(e) After 30 generations, he said, “There can be no doubt” since it closely resembled the
target phrase: METHINKS IT ISWLIKE B WECSEL.
(f) Generation 40 was one letter away from reaching the target:
METHINKS IT IS LIKE I WEASEL.
(g) Then it took 3 more tries of recopying this phrase before reaching the target
completely.
(2) So what is the major asset of cumulative selection?
(a) According to Dawkins, “each improvement, however slight, is used as a basis for
future building whereas in single-step selection, each new try is a fresh one.”
(b) This is why Dawkins freely admitted that “if evolutionary progress had had to rely
solely on single-step selection, it would have never gone anywhere.”
c. However, there are several aspects to this experiment that simply do not correspond to the
title of the book: The Blind-Watchmaker as in blind natural selection. These doubts are
presented in the form of questions:
(1) First, once a target letter has been placed in the right place, why is it that this letter
never moves or changes again in ensuing generations of duplication?
(a) For instance, why is it that the first letter M, correctly selected at the 10th generation
of duplication, does not change even once in the next 33 duplications?
(b)Who or what decides that the correct letter never changes once it is placed in the
right place? It sure looks like the eye of natural selection is not blind.
(2) Second, you started out with 28 letters in the first generation, but why does the pool
of letters always stay at 28 in every generation that represents millions of years in
Darwinian evolution? For instance, why do several letters of D continue to survive
when they are useless to the target phrase?
(a) Here, Dawkins attempts to show that mutation is the result of miscopying the digital
codes (represented by letters A, C, T, and G, which are formed in pairs) in DNA
from one generation to the next.116
(b)Now, since natural selection reduces genetic information, shouldn’t all mutant letters
that have no part in the target phrase be eliminated by natural selection?
(c) Ironically, Dawkins gives a very graphic illustration of what the nature does to the
116
Mutation happens very rarely and usually is harmful.
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mutant genes: “Maybe lots more mistakes in copying gene[s] occurred, but the
mutant organisms did not survive. . . . [They are] summarily shot. . . . The gun gives
a more realistic picture of natural selection.”117
(3) Third, you are saying that given time, your computer can generate these words from
Shakespeare through cumulative selection; but you have not said anything about
whether cumulative selection can manufacture the computer.
(a) This is an easy problem to solve!
(b) Just admit that there is an intelligent designer somewhere who put together all the
parts to produce this machine so you can conduct an experiment.
d. Perhaps this is why he sheepishly admitted the following later in the chapter:
(1) “Although the monkey/Shakespeare model is useful for explaining the distinction
between single-step selection (illustrated by the monkey at the typewriter) and
cumulative selection, it is misleading in important ways.”
(2) “One of these is that, in each generation of selective ‘breeding’, the mutant ‘progeny’
phrases were judged according to the criterion of resemblance to a distant ideal target,
the phrase METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL.”
(3) “Life isn’t like that. Evolution has no long-term goal. There is no long-distance
target, no final perfection to serve as a criterion for selection,. . . 118
e. I would respond to that admission in the following manner:
(1) “What your theory proves is that the so-called cumulative selection is really done by a
watchmaker who sees; the blind natural selection cannot do that!”
(2) “But since the watchmaker sees, why go through the hassle of rolling the dice of letters
43 times to finally reach the target phrase, spending many hours?
(3) “Simply place the right letters all at once to reach the target phrase right then and there;
by the way, this would make you a designer!”
5. One reason Dawkins cannot fathom single-step selection (all the needed parts coming
together at once) can be found in Darwin’s The Origin of Species (1859).
a. Darwin wrote:
(1) “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly
117
118
Dawkins (1986), p. 124.
Ibid., p. 50.
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have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would
absolutely break down. But I can find no such case.”
(2) “The geological record is extremely imperfect and this fact will, to a large extent,
explain why we do not find interminable varieties, connecting together all the extinct
and existing forms of life by the finest graduated steps. He who rejects these views on
the nature of the geological record, will rightly reject my whole theory.”
b. The fact is that the geological record is stacked up against Darwinian evolution now
more than ever. For instance, Darwinian evolution does not have a good answer for the
Cambrian Explosion, a period of sudden diversification in the fossil record.
(1) Dawkins, aware of this, admitted the following: “The Cambrian strata of rocks, vintage
about 600 million years, are the oldest ones in which we find most of the major
invertebrate groups. And we find many of them already in an advanced state of
evolution, the first time they appear. It is as though they were just planted there,
without any evolutionary history.”119
(2) But in his later publication, Dawkins laments how this statement was “gleefully
quoted out of context”120 by creationists even though he provided a “full” and “patient”
explanation. I read his explanation (1986:230-252), which can be summed up like this:
in his attempt to put out one fire, he began another one.
(a) For instance, in trying to come up with a plausible explanation for the sudden
appearance of fully-developed invertebrates, Dawkins says: “It is conceivable that
some of the apparent ‘gap’ in the fossil record really do reflect sudden change in a
single generation. It is conceivable that there really never were any intermediates;
conceivable that large evolutionary changes took place in a single generation”121
(a.k.a., saltation theories).
(b) What? What happened to his step-by-step, gradual cumulative selection? Didn’t he
say that if evolutionary progress had had to rely solely on single-step selection, it
would have never gone anywhere?
(c) Perhaps realizing this, he later commented: “There are very good reasons for
rejecting all such saltationist theories of evolution.” So he was back to square one!
119
120
121
Dawkins (1986), p. 229.
Dawkins (2008), p. 153.
Dawkins (1986), p. 230.
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c. Anyways, this is just one of several inconsistencies that are found in Dawkins’ The Blind
Watchmaker. We will examine the rest of the flaws in this book as well as one in The God
Delusion in a future course.
*Let’s review the questions raised in “Let’s Discuss 26 ” in page 77.
E. Now we come to the fourth and the most effective way in which the Christian faith is
greatly undermined in postmodernity: religious pluralism.
1. So what is this about?
a. Religious pluralism simply posits that any religious assertion that is not inclusive and
tolerant toward the claims of other religions is sheer arrogance.
b. Therefore, it necessarily means that there are diverse paths to God and no single religion
can adequately show the way to the truth and salvation.
2. As for its line of attack, religious pluralism has little to do the aforementioned 3 approaches.
a. While the cults give lip service to respecting the Bible (to a point), religious pluralism
simply relegates it as one of several sacred books in the world.
b. Its advocates may deconstruct the biblical text to promote their sociopolitical agendas, but
they do use the text (really badly), unlike the liberals who summarily dismiss it.
(1) A good example of this is the usage of biblical figures to promote homosexuality.
(2) Taking for granted that the following people in the Bible really existed (unlike some
liberals who would deny that they ever did), several from this community have said that
Jesus, Paul, David, Jonathan, Naomi and Ruth were all homosexuals.
c. While religious pluralists may or may not believe the creation story of Genesis—unlike
the New Atheists who absolutely do not—they will certainly tolerate the creation story of
other cultures.
3. Now the two main approaches utilized to justify religious pluralism have been the philosophy
of cultural relativism and historical revisionism (alluded earlier in Dan Brown’s distortion of
history in his book).
a. First, cultural relativism posits that all cultures are equal, that each culture is sovereign in
and of itself.
(1) Since this is so, no outsider has the right to judge the beliefs and behaviors of a given
culture nor does he have the right to introduce changes that would disrupt the cultural
pattern.
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(2) This belief is held so strongly among some cultural relativists that even the positive
changes initiated from the outside—like stopping the practice of wife beating or
cannibalism—are met with strong disapproval.
(a) An American anthropologist working nearby a Peruvian tribe where Christian
husbands no longer beat their wives, as was the way of life before, said to a Christian
visitor: “I’ll bet if you ask any one of those old women if they thought wives ought
to be beaten, they’d say yes.122 ”
(b) He then added: “Any influence, redemptive or not, is not ‘good.’ The tribes are
better off ‘left alone’ rather than corrupted by ‘Western imperialism’ and worse, the
Bible.”
*Let’s addressed the questions in “Let’s Discuss27 in page 78.
(3) So how does this way of thinking affect religion? Since
each religion is perceived as the ultimate cultural
expression, a given religion must be accepted as legitimate
and valid as any other religions of the world under the rubric
of cultural relativism.
b. At this point, historical revisionism is utilized to make
the church—presented as a main cog of the Eurocentricwhite-heterosexual-male-hegemony—appear as
appalling as possible for treating
very badly many minority groups in the past.
(1) The most frequently mentioned groups are, women in
the early church period dominated by men, the Jews
and Moors in the Spanish Inquisition (as seen
earlier), and the colonized natives during the
Imperialism era by Protestant as well as Catholic
Church.
(2) As seen in earlier examples from The Da Vinci Code,
a plethora of historic revisionism is found in this and
Let’s Discuss27
1. What are some effective
arguments to pull out the rug
from under cultural relativism?
The argument that everything is
relative itself is relative, thus, I
don’t have to accept it as the
absolute truth; all languages
share similar structure (e.g.,
subject, object, verb & indirect
object); some type (even
truncated one) of conventional
morality exists in all cultures
(e.g., torturing baby is not good).
2. What do you suppose this
American anthropologist would
say to his cannibalistic captors
who want to have him for lunch?
He should say, “I’ve no right to
interfere with what is
acceptable in your culture;
please eat me.” But more than
likely he will beg for mercy,
even telling them how wrong it
is to kill! In other words, he is
likely sing a different tune if it is
his life that is at stake.
other novels written to discredit
122
Christianity Today, October 27, 1997, p. 24.
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the church under the pretext of entertainment.
(a) Brown has the royal historian Teabing say:
“Powerful men in the early church ‘conned’ the world by propagating lies that
devalued the female and tipped the scales in favor of the masculine.”123
(b) In the popular novel Hawaii (1958), the author James Michener presents the western
missionary Abner Hale as a bigot who sees nothing good in the
people of Hawaii because they are all pagans: He forbids the
Hawaiian midwives from helping his wife during her labor; he
rejects his son because he marries woman of Hawaiian heritage.
(c) Another novel involving a missionary, called Poisonwood Bible (1998), the author
Barbara Kingsolver presents the Baptist missionary to Congo Nathan Price as a bigot,
child beater, and ignoramus. Having learned only one phrase in the language of this
African tribe, he botches the pronunciation of it, saying, “Jesus is a poisonous wood”
instead of “of Jesus is glorious.”
c. So why is the church targeted like this?
(1) There is only one reason: it is done to strengthen the case that, in view of the damage,
spiritual or otherwise, that minority groups have suffered at the hands of the church,
she should now remain silent and take a backseat to other religions.
(2) With respect to women, it is telling the church to accept a feminized Christian faith,
like calling God as Sophia, a feminine noun in Greek meaning wisdom.
(3) All this is carried out to devalue the exclusive claim of conservative Christianity, thereby, relegating it as one of several religions whose collective visions are necessary to
truly know God.
4. As an example of what to look for in arguments in favor religious pluralism, let’s examine
perhaps the most widely used story to capture its essence:
123
Brown, p. 124. This is yet another example of blatant misinformation by the novelist. Sociologist Rodney Stark (then
of the University of Washington), in “The Rise of Christianity,” a book described by the Newsweek (August 19, 1996) as
brilliant, responded to this type of accusation by saying, “They are all wrong.” He noted that Christianity “promoted
liberating social relations between the sexes and within the family, giving women more status than they enjoyed in the
Roman society, where they remained the property of men.” Moreover, “women benefited from the church’s sanctification
of marriage and opposition to divorce because Roman men held marriage in low state.” Of course, women have it much
better today than in those days, but we should be measured in judging the past in light of current standard. The fact is tha t
the Christian movement set the liberation of women in motion!
SC
10 blind men and an elephant.
a. One day, ten blind men who had never seen an
elephant were given an opportunity to touch it for a few
minutes. This is what they said after each man touched
the various parts of the elephant’s body.
(1) One blind man, after touching just the thigh
proclaimed: "Ah, the elephant is like a tree.
It's big and round. "
(2) Another, only after touching the nose, said, “Ah, the
elephant is like a hose. It is thin and flexible.”
85
Let’s Discuss28
Matthews 5:44-5: “But I tell you,
love your enemies and pray for
those who persecute you, that
you may be children of your
Father in heaven. He causes his
sun to rise on the evil and the
good, and sends rain on the
righteous and the unrighteous.”
Acts 14:17: “Yet he has not left
himself without testimony: He
has shown kindness by giving you
[pagans in Lystra] rain from
heaven and crops in their
seasons; he provides you with
plenty of food and fills your
hearts with joy.”
(3) The third, after having touched only the tusk, said,
“Ah, elephant is like a spear. It is long and
pointed.”
b. Based on that illustration, a typical religious pluralist
would declare:
(1) “God is so big but our vision is so limited and
ambiguous; therefore, we cannot know God only
through one single religion, especially Christianity.”
(2) “When all the religions, represented by the blind
men in the story, are combined, then we have a
complete vision and perspective about God.”
(3) “In reality, Christianity is like other religions in its
limitations.”
1. What conclusion can you draw
from these passages regarding
God’s heart toward the people of
other faiths? In short, he is concerned about their socioeconomic welfare. He cares that they
have food to eat and be happy.
2. Is this blessing of God toward
the people of other faiths
predicated upon their eventual
“change of religion?”
No, because the sun & the rain
from heaven do not discriminate
in terms of who believes what.
If this is so, we should love them
in the same way. We ought to
share the gospel with them, but
their acceptance of it should not
determine whether or not we
continue to love them.
5. Sounds pretty convincing, right? But there is a major flaw
to the premise of this story, which Leslie Newbigin, British scholar and
missionary to India for 40 years, pointed out. He wrote:
a. “In the famous story of the blind men and the elephant,. . .
the story is constantly told in order to neutralize the affirmation of the
great religions, to suggest that they learn humility and recognize that
none of them can have more than one aspect of the truth.”
b. “[Thus] the real point of the story is constantly overlooked. The story is told from the
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point of view of the king and his courtiers, who are not blind but can see that the blind
men are unable to grasp the full reality of the elephant and are only able to get hold of
part of the truth.”
c. “But, of course, the real point of the story is exactly the opposite. If the king were also
blind there would be no story. The story is told by the king, and it is the immensely
arrogant claim of one who sees the full truth (“We see only in part”) which all the world’s
religions are only groping after.”124
6. So what are we claiming through this story?
a. In essence, Christians are saying that the Bible (represented by the king who saw the
whole scene) captures the spiritual reality (elephant) more clearly than the sacred books of
other religions (represented by the blind men).
b. The difficult task is showing the superiority of the Scripture over the sacred books of
other religions, a task that is both taxing and sensitive; thus it needs to be done skillfully
but the goal remains the same: neutralizing the arguments of religious pluralism.
7. Facing the end of this course, this is no place to start this rather complicated discussion, but I
will approach it in three ways in a future course:
a. First, does the Scripture present a God who is genuinely concerned about the spiritual as
well as the socioeconomic welfare of those who adhere to other religions?
(1) Discovering that the Christian God is also concerned about their socioeconomic
welfare may surprise many adherents of other religions.
(2) In this way, we may be building a bridge between us and them.
b. Second, does the Scripture offer any implicit validation of other religions, not for
salvation of course, but for providing social order and stability? (This is taking into
account the functional view of religion.)
(1) First of all, does God want us to live in a society where peaceful and quiet lives can be
had? (1 Tim. 2:2125 )
(2) If the answer is no, then, this point is irrelevant. However, if the answer is yes and it
can be shown that ethical teachings of other religions, when adhered to by their
124
Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1989),
pp. 9-10.
125 “I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone — 2 for kings and all
those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.”
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87
followers, can aid its establishment, then, we don’t need to bash other religions.
c. Having demonstrated the positive aspects of other religions, we now should illustrate, in
what sense Christian faith captures the spiritual reality more clearly than other religions.
(1) I would posit that this matter really comes down to the merit of the sacred books—
Bible, Koran, Tripitaka, Vedas— upon which each religion is founded.
(2) After establishing this, I would proceed to compare the reliability of alleged revelations
contained in each sacred book. The question is, “Is what we read in these books an
accurate transmission of its original?
(3) Then I would attempt to substantiate supernatural claims made in these books to see
which sacred text, each claiming to be divinely originated, is more credible for
understanding the spiritual reality (which obviously extends into supernatural
dimensions).
(4) Having already done this research, I would say the Scripture sees it more clearly than
other books. Again, this will be addressed in a later course.
*Let’s addressed the questions in “Let’s Discuss28 ” in page 85.
F. Final words
This course was designed to lay down necessary theological, philosophical, and historical
groundwork for apologetics before imparting a series of courses that attempt to demolish
contemporary arguments that have risen against the knowledge of God. Why?
Because in all that AMI does, we want to be grounded both to intellectual and spiritual
traditions of our historic faith, instead of being just fashionable and glib in our responses.
We have just seen the four types of arguments against Christian faith and their typical
strategies. In future courses, this matter will be amplified through detailing and analyzing
their strategies (i.e., arguments) as well as cogently explaining our responses to them.
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Introduction to Apologetics

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