I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist

[pherwxristos]

I'm going to vote for this book by Turek and Geisler as the best all-around apologetics book available today.

http://impactapologetics.com/product.as ... 1&P_ID=264

I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist
by Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek

It strikes a really good balance between being simple and thorough. It is comprehensive in a way that it could possibly be used to help anyone regardless of their philosophical and religious assumptions. It's got a great logical flow from truth to God to Jesus to Bible in twelve points.

Very similar to ...
http://impactapologetics.com/product.as ... 1&P_ID=455
12 Points That Show Christianity Is True
by Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek

[M.C.Nige]

I'm going to vote for this book by Turek and Geisler as the best all-around apologetics book available today.

Yes, the book is brilliant and I would recommend it for anyone involved in evangelism or intercession.

I initially used it in my studies of evolution from the science side, but it also helped me to understand the atheist's (unwitting) precommitment to a naturalistic philosophy. That has been invaluable for prayer, because it helps for a deeper appreciation for how satan has blinded the minds of those who don't believe (2 Corinthians 4 v 4)

Another side benefit was the understanding of how powerful truth is, in the context that anything that contradicts it is error. An example occurs in the creation vs evolution debate. Genesis 2 says that God created man from the dust of the ground. Evolutionary theories say that man evolved from apes. Both cannot be correct. The danger for the Christian is that they can be seduced into accepting conclusions coming from the scientific community, and then revise the Bible (as some do by saying that the early chapters of Genesis is allegory / myth)

[Ian]

M. C. Nige wrote:

Genesis 2 says that God created man from the dust of the ground. Evolutionary theories say that man evolved from apes. Both cannot be correct.

This remark set me thinking about other facts and events that have both a scientific explanation and a Biblical explanation.

In Job 38 and in Proverbs 8, God is said to have set the measures of the earth and the boundaries of the oceans. Isaiah 40 says God has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out the heavens with his span, and grasped the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in a balance, and the hills in scales. Psalm 104 says that the mountains rose, the valleys sank, unto the place which God had founded for them. Amos 4:13 says that God forms the mountains, and creates the wind. Job 28 says God measures out the waters and appoints a statute for the rain, and a way for the thunder's flash.

Job 9 says that God removes and overturns mountains, and makes the earth shake. Psalm 18 and Isaiah 5 says the earth shook and quaked, and the foundations of the mountains trembled and shook, because God was angry.

In Genesis 7 it rains because the windows of heaven are opened. In Malachi 3:10 it is God who opens the windows of heaven and pours out a blessing. In 1 Samuel 12, 1 Kings 18, Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 11 and 28, 1 Kings 18, Job 5, Psalm 147, Jeremiah 5, Joel 2, Matthew 5, and Acts 14, God sends rain; in 2 Chronicles 6 and 7 and Isaiah 5 he threatens to send no rain, but sends a pestilence. In Exodus 9 and Psalm 105 he sends hail and thunder and fire. In Jeremiah 10 and 51 he sends tumult, lightning, rain and wind. In Ezekiel 38 God threatens to send rain, hail, fire, brimstone, pestilence and blood.

In Exodus 9, Numbers 11, Numbers 16, Numbers 25, 2 Samuel 24, Psalm 106, and Zechariah 14, plagues and pestilences are sent by God, and sometimes stayed by prayer and sacrifices.

In 2 Samuel 22 and in Job 36 and 37 and Zechariah 10 it is God who causes lightning to flash, and commands it where to strike.

In Jeremiah 31 he stirs up the sea and makes it roar.

In Genesis 1 God makes the stars; in Psalm 147 he counts them and gives them all names.

On the other hand, we also have scientific explanations for events of these kinds. We know that the plague and many other pestilences are caused by micro-organisms and viruses, and can be prevented by hygienic practices and can be controlled by antibiotics. We have a fair understanding of the physical mechanisms that produce rain, wind, hail, thunder and lightning, enough to let us make reasonably useful weather forecasts.

We also understand to a large extent how the physical shape of the earth came about. Tectonic plates move around, driven by convection currents in the earth’s mantle, creating oceans where the plates move apart, and mountains and earthquakes where they collide. Volcanoes also make mountains, glaciers scoop out valley floors, and erosion brings mountains down again, slowly.

Astrophysics also provides us with convincing explanations for the size distributions of stars and the relative abundance of different chemical elements.

The main point I want to make is that although these biblical explanations and scientific explanations look superficially contradictory, most Christians have no difficulty in accepting both. Many of our ancestors thought they couldn’t both be true, but to most of us today the two sorts of explanation are not as incompatible as they seemed to be at first sight.

In much the same way, I expect that in time the scientific account of evolution will come to be accepted by almost everyone, including those who consider themselves to be fundamentalist Christians. At the same time, they will not lose respect for the biblical account of creation. Indeed, they may gain a deeper understanding of it.

As with weather, oceans, mountains, valleys, stars, pestilences, earthquakes and floods, the emergence of life is now seen by many Christians as something that can be described in two non-contradictory ways: the Bible tells us God did it, and science tells us how.

[RAP]

Get this video. It's amazing

http://www.illustramedia.com/tppinfo.htm

"By faith we apprehend that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that that which is seen should not take its origin from things which appear."

I am interested particularly in the last half of this verse in reference to this discussion. What do folks understand from "...that which is seen should not take its origin from things which appear."? Might it be saying: just because we see something and form a theory about how it came into existence does not mean that that was precisely what happened. Our theories are merely that and nothing more. It takes faith (a gift of God) to apprehend God's framing of the universe.

The presupposition of approach is the bifurcation based on Genesis 1:1. The Christian, by faith, accepts "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." The natural man, starts with the premise: In the beginning no god created the heavens and the earth.

Newton said that he was merely thinking God's thoughts after Him. He was looking for God's handiwork based on that presupposition. Did it make his science any less valid? Of course not! It enhanced it!

Maranatha!

[Ian]

In addition to these aspects of our planet that appear to be exceptionally well suited to intelligent life, as referred to by RAP, there are some very similar, and I think more striking, aspects of the universe as a whole that look exceptionally lucky or else deliberately engineered. You can find lots of discussions about it, mostly under the heading of the Goldilocks paradox.

In brief, there are several fundamental constants of nature that determine the properties of our universe. These include constants such as the speed of light, the relative strengths of the gravitational, electromagnetic and nuclear forces, the masses of the various fundamental particles such as the proton and electron, the size of the electric charge on the electron, the value of Planck’s constant, and several others. The values of these constants cannot be predicted or explained by any scientific theories. We know of no reason why they have the particular values that they have. They appear to be built-in as part of the structure of the Universe.

Now, the really startling thing about them is that several of these constants, or the ratios between them, lie within the very narrow limits necessary to make atomic matter and large molecules and solid structures possible, and hence to make life possible. Several of them have the striking property that if their values had been only very slightly different, life could not have existed. In some of the possible universes, the only matter possible would have been a sort of gas of fundamental particles, with no means of sticking together to make any complex structures.

When these several remarkable coincidences are considered together, numerous cosmologists, including those with no religious convictions, find it very hard to explain why the universe looks as if it had been finely tuned to make life possible.

I am not suggesting that anyone should base his faith on this phenomenon, but I do find it rather interesting.

[M.C.Nige]

M. C. Nige wrote:

Genesis 2 says that God created man from the dust of the ground. Evolutionary theories say that man evolved from apes. Both cannot be correct.

This remark set me thinking about other facts and events that have both a scientific explanation and a Biblical explanation.

...

But you have not addressed the contradiction I have highlighted. If God created man from the dust of the ground, that means that man could not have evolved in the way that evolutionary theories suggest. This is the sort of thing I've come to appreciate from reading the book, as it shows the importance of truth. When truth is understood, anything that contradicts it is false. What the enemy is becoming increasingly successful at doing is getting Christians to place their trust in the conclusions coming from the scientific community, and then going back at revising what the Bible says.

the emergence of life is now seen by many Christians as something that can be described in two non-contradictory ways: the Bible tells us God did it, and science tells us how.

May I suggest then that your confidence is in science, not the truth of the Bible. There are how's explained in the Bible. I'll give a couple of illustrations, and I'll also illustrate the contrasts, to show how deceptive the enemy is at getting Christians to fall for statements such as the one highlighted in bold in your quote.

• The bible tells us how God created man (out of the dust of the ground)
  The bible does not tell us how God created man out of the dust of the ground
  
  
• The bible tells us how God created woman (a rib from Adam's side)
  The Bible does not tell us how God created woman from a rib from Adam's side

Has anyone on this forum heard of / seen any research investigating how God could have created a human being from the dust of the ground? Ask yourselves why this approach is not being taken? Could it be because it assumes God's existence? What does that then say about the nature of the foundation on which conclusions (such as evolutionary theories) are based?

[Ian]

M. C. Nige,

I agree with you that we were made from the dust of the ground, but I think the dust went through intermediate stages, including apes.

The apparent contradiction between Genesis and Evolution is rather similar to the apparent contradiction between meteorology, the science of weather, and the rather poetic Biblical picture of rain falling because the windows of Heaven were opened. When it occurs to us that these windows are not exactly the sort of physical windows that builders use, then the contradiction sort of fizzles out. The contradiction only arises if we take a poetic expression, or an allegorical picture, and interpret it too literally.

Centuries ago, some Christians got into a fierce, bitter, damaging dispute because the Bible says that the earth cannot be moved (Psalm 93:1; 1 Chronicles 16:30) and that the Sun moves round the Earth (Ecclesiastes 1:5), whereas Copernicus and Galileo said the Earth moves round the Sun. We have all grown up a lot since then, and we no longer see this as a real contradiction. That contradiction, like many others, arose merely because some people took the Bible too literally, and perhaps because they arrogantly thought of themselves as the centre of the universe, as distinct from tiny specks on a relatively tiny planet, far away from the centre of anything physical.

The flat-earthers once made the same mistake. There are scriptures which, if taken too literally, imply a flat Earth with four corners, surmounted by a solid dome, the firmament of Genesis 1.

And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.

And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, . . .

We have all put that dispute far behind us, and I think in time we will all do the same with the evolution-creation dispute.

There are bound to be disagreements, of course, about where to draw the line between literal statements on the one hand and figurative, poetic and allegorical statements on the other hand. There is no completely certain way of deciding. But the whole book of Genesis contains many hallmarks of symbolism and allegory, so I don’t think anyone can reasonably draw the line in a completely dogmatic way.

As someone else on this web site has said, Eve did not come from Adam’s head, to be above him, or from his feet to be beneath him. She came from his side to be equal to him, from under his arm to be protected by him, from close to his heart to be loved by him.

[RAP]

Atheistic science has a dilemma that has become increasingly more difficult for them to counter. Intelligent design is a euphemism for creationism but intelligent design is becoming more obvious even to the most virulent of them. I watched a program on the subject of fractal geometry the other night and the words that came out of the mouth of one of them was astounding. He said that "natural selection had come up with a wonderful design" in his description of how fractal geometry applied in nature. Natural selection, randomness, designs nothing. Christians creationists have know this all along just by reading their Bibles. They know that all that exists is not merely matter and energy -- everything also contains information -- DNA, fractals, calculus, etc. That is expressed best by John 1 -- "In the beginning was the Word... All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made." Absolutely nothing exists without the Word Who through His creative act has defined everything. Such beauty and harmony only comes from God!

Maranatha!

[Keith Sherwood]

The 'church fathers' were very explicit about the diety of Christ

Not created out of nothing as all creation was

But begotten of the unbegotten Father - that is from the Father of the same substance of the Father

On eternal sonship comments such as when was the Father without the 'word' or without 'wisdom' ?etc

Quite heart warming to read them on the deity of Christ

Keith

[pherwxristos]

Getting back to the original topic of christian apologetics, I think I'd also recommend these as introductory texts:



New Evidence That Demands a Verdict
By: Josh McDowell


Why I Am a Christian, revised and expanded edition
Edited By: Norman L. Geisler, Paul K. Hoffman


The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
Lee Strobel

The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God
Lee Strobel

The Case for the Real Jesus: A Journalist Investigates Current Attacks on the Identity of Christ
Lee Strobel

[Keith Sherwood]

I think you are quite wrong - believers in the open brethren are very effective in the gospel and on the mission field. But this is usualy through the the efforts of individuals whose obedience to the lord has to be commended

In the UK the amount of effective gospel work done is huge but it is not always effective in bringing those who are saved to the meetings - very often those doing the work do not even recommend that the new convert goes to the meeting they go to

For we treat converts badly because of the introspective nature of gatherings and archaic and unjustified rules over minutem not justified from scripture and the refusal to consider others views.

So very often there is more to commend in a denomination where the teaching is good and there is more to promote growth

However the other point is that in many other countries the growth through getting people saved is huge and the brethren movement is the fastest growing. Often those countries have resolved those areas where problems always occur, that we refuse to face up to e.g Ethiopia, some Eastern Europen countries

In Ethiopia there is effective bible training and the system of 'elders' is such that they have to stand down after four years, thus eliminating the problems of men treating the gathering as thiers not the Lords and putting spirituality and gift to the forefront. The growth as a result of good training, bible colledges, dedication and care for the saints without the desire 'to Lord it over is huge'

The world is bigger than the UK and North America and true faithfulness within the gatherings is a more common fact in other countries



Keith

[Rob]

There have been several TV programs shown on the History & National Geographic channels here as they probably have around the world at this time. They have claimed inconsistencies in the gospel accounts particularly of the crucifixion and resurrection. They have also continued to claim a late date for the writing of the gospels.
Both of these issues are dealt with in ‘Reason Science and Faith’ by Roger Forster and Paul Marston. Roger produces a harmonization of the gospel accounts in answering these long standing criticisms.
The book also covers various other areas of apologetics. Worth reading.

[Elizabeth]

I think you are quite wrong - believers in the open brethren are very effective in the gospel and on the mission field. But this is usualy through the the efforts of individuals whose obedience to the lord has to be
Keith

Dear Bro. Keith,

I think Bro. IHA might be referring to the gathering he attends and not to all Open Brethren.

My Brother and Sister-in-law who live in Middlesbrough and attend the NT meetings, have spent a great deal of their time in India where there are many people getting saved, baptized and being added to the church there. Many young people are becoming Christians.

Another Brother Andy McIlree spends a great deal of time in Burma where they are regularly making disciples. The NT meetings in Canada, however, are lacking in outreach.

Just some information.

Elizasbeth

[Rob]

M.C.Nige wrote
"But you have not addressed the contradiction I have highlighted. If God created man from the dust of the ground, that means that man could not have evolved in the way that evolutionary theories suggest. This is the sort of thing I've come to appreciate from reading the book, as it shows the importance of truth. When truth is understood, anything that contradicts it is false. What the enemy is becoming increasingly successful at doing is getting Christians to place their trust in the conclusions coming from the scientific community, and then going back at revising what the Bible says".

We may have to revise our interpretation of what we have thought the Bible says as we had to over the issue of an imovable earth. This is not the same as actually revising 'what the Bible says'. All truth is God's truth and we have to assess the evidence from all branches of knowledge in considering the acuracy of our theology. it would take too long for me to explain all I mean by this. However at risk of repetition I recommend 'Reason and Faith' by Roger Forster and Paul Marston. I Re-read the book today half of it covers the issues of 'creationism' from theological and scientific perspectives. You may not agree with the authors conclusions but may come to realise that a revision of your theology may be necessary on the basis of deeper consideration of scripture and its historic understanding by Bible Believing Christians apart from any consideration of scientific evidence.

[anne]

I agree with Nige on his thoughts concerning creation, maybe I should re phrase and instead say ''what God says''
I find it unimaginable that a Christian would believe this

I agree with you that we were made from the dust of the ground, but I think the dust went through intermediate stages, including apes.

where on earth did this scripture come from (quoted above)
Also if man evolved and apes died and there was shedding of blood + DEATH + millions of years to evolve before creation this would make 'perfection' taught in Genesis (eg, a sinless Adam and Eve having sinned brought forth death) a lie.