Christian Apologetics - If God Exists, Why Would He Care?

Christian Apologetics is about creating a 'defence' of the Christian faith. How would you respond to the following statement (posed to me about 12 months ago):

"Even if a creator God does exist, the chance that He has any interest in us is highly unlikely. We are the human inhabitants of a speck of dust, revolving around a tiny star which is one of hundreds of billions in an insignificant galaxy, which is one of hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe."

Christopher Hitchens once said Christians were ‘self-centered’ and that there was an ‘extraordinary arrogance’ to say all of this creation was for us. 

The start of the universe, and the development of consciousness,  according to Richard Dawkins is a ‘one-off’ event triggered by an ‘initial stroke of luck’.

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Let us start by looking at what some of the Scriptures say:

Psalm 139:1-4  O LORD, you have searched me and you know. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD.

James 4:8 – Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.
1 John 4:9-10  This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Christians could all probably share stories of what they believe wholeheartedly God has done in their lives. The experience I have had in relation to experiencing the immanence of God, through the work of the Spirit, could be enough for me to offer a valid argument towards the overall question at hand. Though, again, knowing the sceptics a little, this would not be enough to convince them, that there is a God who not only created us, but loves us and cares for us.

Now, to simply quote scripture as above is not enough, as any unbeliever would question the validity of the Scriptures and so this would not be an argument in itself.

In the ‘Five views on Apologetics’ one of the five views is the Reformed Epistemology Method, and ‘they argue that belief in God does not require the support of evidence or argument in order for it to be rational’ (: 20). Calvin said that we have an innate sensus divinatis (a sense of the divine), so, a God that loves us, may seem to be irrational, but we have a deep sense, that the idea of a God loving us is true, based not so much on evidence or argument but on experience.

William Lane Craig says that, ‘the proper ground of our knowing Christianity to be true is the inner work of the Holy Spirit in our individual selves...’ (: 28).

And as William Lane Craig says, we can have a self-authenticating religious experience. Robert Oakes defines a self-authenticating religious experience, as a ‘veridical experience of God which is sufficient to guarantee that the person having that veridical experience could never in principle have any justification for questioning its validity’. Now this self-authenticating religious experience, is not necessarily proved by reason, but rather through our own experience. 

William Lane Craig explains, ‘that such a person does not need supplementary arguments or evidence in order to know and to know with confidence that he is in fact experiencing the Spirit of God’ (Five views on Apologetics, : 29). Well William Lane Craig goes on to say that in certain contexts the experience of the Holy Spirit will imply the apprehension of certain truths of the Christian religion, like the biblical quotes mentioned before, e.g. ‘you have searched me and you know me’. So, we know that through the inner working of the Holy Spirit, that the truth that God loves me, and that he sent his son Jesus into the world, so that I might be saved, and that such a God cares for me, is a truth that I can claim for myself, because of the inner working of the Holy Spirit.

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Christian Apologetics - Developing a defence for the Christian Faith. 

Other posts on Christian Apologetics:

• The Teleological Argument for the Existence of God
• The Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God

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SOMETHING TOTALLY DIFFERENT:

• The Differences between Leaders and Managers

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Richard Dawkins Vs Cardinal George Pell - Q&A

Committed to their beliefs, one a staunch Atheist, the other a staunch Catholic, ABC Network's QandA, hosted by Tony Jones, delivered some entertaining discussion on all things faith on their most recent show (Monday 9th April, 2012).

Richard Dawkins holds his atheist card high, while Cardinal George Pell is unmoveable on his Christian beliefs. It's a verbal battle that sees no winners. In a one hour program, Dawkins or Pell cannot particularly shake the other from their deeply held views, but it is entertaining nonetheless.

The questions and answers are somewhat predictable though. Cardinal George Pell's views on gay marriage, and the Catholic's stance of being negatively disposed towards it. Richard Dawkin's whinge about how ridiculous Christians are to believe in an intelligent being that created the Universe. Pell's passion for communion and confession and Dawkin's evolutionary bandwagon.

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Book Review on Richard Dawkins here: The God Delusion
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It's like a recipe for scones, where you know you must add flour and milk, but you just don't know how much you are going to add, and what it will all turn out like in the end.

Cardinal George Pell in clap-worthy fashion at one point says to Richard Dawkins that he'd rather believe in what Jesus has to say, than him.  Can't remember what in particular, but that's not the point. All Tony Jones can do is slump back in the chair and just grin.

The QandA debate stretches my mind, and challenges me to consider the answers to the tough questions in life. Now, at this point, many crack a joke about Atheism and Christianity. I tell you, I think that's done, because confronting questions like, 'How were we created?' 'What is the meaning of life?' 'Where does morality come from?' are difficult to answer! We'd rather brush it under the carpet, and hope it goes away, that way we don't have to confront the reality of the nature of the question.

I am not a postmodernist who claims we cannot really find truth, as everything is relative. I don't think truth is that easy to push to the side. I think we can find the truth to many of these questions, and many people over the years have become peaceful in themselves on the truth they have discovered.

As a Christian, I believe IN Christ there is truth. A vague statement to many, no doubt, but one that holds true for me. The answers to the deep questions of purpose and meaning, seem to find such amazing clarity to me, as I discover more about the point of my life in Jesus. A journey I am still on, and one I will continue to travel.

Let's be challeged to not just do the cultural thing that merely 'laughs off' all the tough questions, but begin to engage them, and seek out the truth.

All the best on the journey of life...

A Contagious Boil on the Face of Religion: Book Review - The God Delusion (2006) - Richard Dawkins

Book Review - Dawkins, Richard (2006). The God Delusion. London: Transworld Publishers.

Dawkins is the contagious boil on the face of religion. Religion tries to squeeze him out to get rid of him, but he spreads his ideas and influence all the more. He holds back no punches as he releases, what seems to be, his apologetic against religion. While controversial religious ideas and practices are at the forefront, interestingly, some of the book seems to be an advertisement for natural selection and scientific endeavor, rather than what the title exclaims.While you expect a book all about faith and theology; at times you find yourself delving into the intricate insides of evolutionary biology and are left wondering whether he forgot the title of his own book.

Ebbs and flows exist between the highlighting of why Christians (not to mention Muslims and Buddhists), are naïve in their belief systems, to that of scientific progress. The issue then is really whether this is a book about science or religion? If it is the former, then the book should be called something like The Origins of Life and Natural Selection, but if it is really The God Delusion, then the author should not wander off into justifying scientific process (unless it is closely relevant to the argument).

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For more, check out another of Pete's Blogs - Richard Dawkins & Alister McGrath - "The Delusions!"
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Some argue that a scientist should avoid attempting an exposition on religion; that the two do not mix, and they should not cross paths. This is really Stephen Jay Gould’s brainchild regarding, what he calls, NOMA (non-overlapping magisteria). The thesis is that science and religion exist in two different planes, one that is about empiricism and one about ultimate meaning and morality (: 77-85). Science still has much to say within the realms of religion, for example, the scientific progress in cosmology, or the debates about evolution/creation and the origins of life and even in the scientific rationality behind miracles and seemingly ‘super-human’ feats (like rising from the grave). While Gould may be right in saying that science says little about how we are to live, and eternal life and such, science still offers much to inform and sharpen theological thinking. McGrath highlights the idea of POMA (partially overlapping magesteria) which is helpful in understanding that there is a ‘crossfertilization of science and religion (McGrath, 2007: 19). The point being, Dawkins has just as much freedom to speak out and discuss religion as does a professor of protestant theology. While his ideas are forthright and at times offensive to people of faith, he is nonetheless entitled to an opinion, and for those opinions to be challenged. Admittedly, when he is discussing scientific progress and ideas though, it is more refreshing than having to stomach the continual mockery of religious fundamentalism.

The question begs asking - is Dawkins too offensive towards religious followers? He mentions he is ‘tame’ compared with other literature (: 16), and that religious followers are just overly cautious about religious material. Unquestionably, to the person of faith, he is, at times, rude and offensive. Take the following statements:

• ‘A popular deity on the Internet at present – and as undisprovable as Yahweh or any other – is the Flying Spaghetti Monster, who, many claim, has touched them with his noodly appendage’ (: 76).


• ‘…visionary religious experiences are related to temporal lobe epilepsy’ (:196).

While arguments regarding the existence of God are appreciated, the occasional sarcasm and humour detracts from any intellectual pursuit. Epistemologically speaking, what matters, is whether there is any substance underneath the rhetoric of ‘religious naivety and stupidity’ which is worthy of his readership?

Amongst the pages of The God Delusion, Dawkins occasionally provides some rigorous apologetics against religion that are difficult for even the most intelligent theologians. In relation to morality he questions the Christian who asks, ‘If there is no God, then why be good?’ He fires back at the questioner, arguing that this question presupposes that the only reason the Christian is good is because they believe in their God. Then if the Christian says, ‘No, wait a minute, I am not good just because of God in my life,’ the response is that there is no need for a God then.

Dawkins though, falls short earlier on when he describes the idea that every human has a sense of morality. He falls short, not because of the interesting, abbreviated monologue and reasoning from biologist Marc Hauser (: 254-258), but because he simply makes the assumption that because of this universal sense of morality, there is no need for a God (: 258). He says this sense comes from our evolutionary heritage. The counter argument is clear:What if God placed in human hearts a sense of morality?What if this sense of good and evil did not merely evolve from natural selection but was conveniently designed that way from a deity?

Another persuasive apologetic Dawkins offers is his scathing attack on Scripture (: 117-123). It is not so much that he is right in his assertions, but that his comments are hard to respond to in affirmation of the importance of Scripture. Take for example, the comments that the Scriptures about Jesus were recorded well after Jesus’ death and thus are erroneous (: 118). One must enter into detailed analysis of the effectiveness of oral communication in the first and second centuries to refute the argument. This apologetic about the validity of the Scriptures can disturb any Christian who is not well versed with oral tradition, exegesis and the Synoptic Gospels. Dawkins mentions that Luke ‘screws up’ his dating of events, that the Christmas story is recorded incorrectly and that the recorders of the gospels were fallible and had hidden agendas (:118-119). His presuppositions about Scripture begin to become weak though, when he says, ‘The four gospels that made it into the official canon were chosen, more or less arbitrarily, out of a larger sample of at least a dozen…’ (: 121). The canon was never ‘arbitrarily’ chosen, like some lucky dip competition. The canon was divinely orchestrated by the self-revelation of God, through the use of fallible human beings. The canon (Scriptures) will undoubtedly and continually be debated by scientists and the like, in relation to providing evidence to substantiate the claims of its authenticity.

One of the techniques Dawkins uses in The God Delusion is the discrediting of religion, predominantly Christianity, through the use of stories, analogies and witty comments. While the stories he tells are no doubt empirically true, most stories he uses are so far beyond what any Christian would call orthodox faith. His arguments are thus diminished, because what he is parading around as orthodox responses to faith and reason are in fact emanating from people not upheld and respected by orthodox religion. He quotes angry letters written to him from so called Christians (: 242-243), as if this is the common letter writing technique from Christians. He tells of the agonizing sexual abuse of a seven year old by a Catholic Priest, as if this action is common practice amongst believers (: 357). He speak of the murders caused by religious fanatics, like 9/11, or suicide bombers, or the persecution of the Jews inWorld War II (: 23-24), as if that is the common way that religion is expressed within society today. His stories may be entertaining for some, but they fail terribly at offering readers a clear, balanced picture of religion today.

There are some comments Dawkins makes, that could apply to either side of the science/religion debate. Take for instance, ‘…perhaps you need to be steeped in natural selection, immersed in it, swim about in it, before you can truly appreciate its power’ (: 143). A theist would argue that perhaps Dawkins needs to swim about in the pool of theological ideas before he can truly appreciate God and faith. He also says, ‘It is utterly illogical to demand complete documentation of every step of any narrative…’ (: 153), which of course is only meant to refer to science, but surely it could also refer to the realms of spirituality? Is it not just as illogical to demand theologians to explain every step of their theological presuppositions? As McGrath says, Dawkins makes the transition, ‘from a scientist with a passionate concern for truth to a crude anti-religious propagandist who shows a disregard for evidence’ (2007: 27).

McGrath’s The Dawkins Delusion is a helpful rebuttal to the work of Dawkins. While questioning your own belief system at times, havingMcGrath touch on the exact aspect of Dawkins ‘theology’ and then show you why it is skewed from the truth is pleasing. Take for example the role of science and religion. When reading Dawkins, the thought rises about whether everything should be scientifically proven. Then McGrath writes, ‘Scientific theories cannot be said to ‘explain the world’ – only to explain the phenomena which are observed within the world’ (2007: 16). McGrath shows you how to bring stability and intellectual dialogue to a heated debate, and how to engage the ideas of Dawkins in ways that are not written for entertainment sake, but for the sake of discovering the truth.

If the aim of The God Delusion was to sell numerous copies while increasing the financial coffers of scientific research there is success. If the aim was to write a persuasive, rationalistic, intellectual exposition about why following God was delusional, he missed the mark. He nonetheless produced a provocative account of religion melded with science that raises the eyebrows of people of religion and provides entertainment to the religious cynics and the atheists. It seems Dawkins never intended to write an apologetic against religion, but rather to offer readers a frank, passionate bleat about religion and a convicting plea for the embracing of evolutionary biology. All in all, it seems that the contagious boil on the face of the religious community is not going into hiding anytime soon.

• For more, check out another of Pete's Blogs - Richard Dawkins & Alister McGrath - "The Delusions!"

- Book Review of The God Delusion by Pete Brookshaw (Aug 2011).

Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath - The Delusions!

A couple of books I have been reading parts of recently are both the popular atheist Richard Dawkins' book, 'The God Delusion' and theologian Alister McGrath's book, 'The Dawkins Delusion', which is really a rebuttal to the atheistic, anti-religious rants of Dawkins.
Dawkins goes off track often from the title and purpose of his book. The book seeks to show/prove to people that the belief in a God is a delusion - an intellectual absurdity that has no scientific evidential proof. What frustrates me about this book, is not so much the intent on presenting intellectual arguments regarding the nonexistence of God, but rather the tactics/strategies that Dawkins uses to present his material. I'm left with the feeling that Dawkins is deep-down more concerned with selling books than presenting logical, rational atheistic arguments. He often relays stories of religious people who have either abused people, or made damning comments to others, or about others, etc. Now, if the book is really about showing people that there is no such thing as a 'God' who is supernatural, the stories are seemingly irrelevant. I mean, is the purpose of the book merely to denegrade religion? Or is it actually about having an intellectual discussion about theism and antitheism? If it is the latter, then why all the stories about the abuse of religion? If we are presenting balanced arguments, then why not present some stories about groups that are atheists that have murdered and abused others? The proving or disproving a deities existence is mutually exclusive to the way people have or have not represented that religion's belief. The truth of a religion is not necessarily based on how people have represented it. Of course, in a simplistic world, if Christianity believes that God is a God of love, and people should love their neighbour as they love themselves, then every believer of that religion would express this in their life. Though, we don't live in this simplistic world, so to use dramatic, emotionally laden rhetoric of people hurting others in the name of 'religion' neithers disproves or proves the existence of God, and so falls short of what seems to be the purpose of Richard Dawkins, 'The God Delusion'.
Alister McGrath's book, 'The Dawkins Delusion' seeks to present his arguments in a more concise manner, and remove himself from unnecessary emotional language, that takes away from his primary objective of discussing and critically working through Dawkin's writings.

There's so much more to write. But, all the best as you critically engage with the search for truth.

For a Book Review on Dawkin's, The God Delusion, 'A contagious boil on the face of Religion' click here.

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The New Atheism - Should Christians be concerned?

The New Athiesm - Should Christians be concerned? What is it?

Since 2004 there has apparently been a resurgence of Atheism; well that's according to David Steele writing in Philosophy Now - May 2010. This is what some would call, The New Atheism. The debates between Atheists and Christians have been around for years, but the discussions have hit the ears of many in the last few years, especially with the vocal advocacy and authorship of people like Christopher Hitchens (God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything) and Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion).

So firstly what is an 'atheist'? Or what is atheism? Much seemingly pedantic discussion is made about what the true definitions of these terms are, but firstly the narrow view of atheism is this: a-theism (a - from the greek meaning  'without' and theism/theos from the greek meaning 'deity'). The narrow view is thus labelled as without a deity, or rather, a belief that there is no God. This definition is saying that Atheists do not believe there is one God; one who supremely cares for this creation. They do not believe in what is called monotheism. Ernest Nagel (1901 - 1985) says in relation to atheism, 'I shall understand by 'atheism' a critique and a denial of the major claims of all varieties of theism' (cited in Philosophy Now - May 2010, p.6). The reason this is labelled a narrow view of atheism, is because this labels those that are polytheists (many gods) as atheists. A hindu would be far from labelling him/herself an atheist! So the definition of atheism has broadened over the years. In the broad sense atheism, according to Michael Martin, standardly refers to the denial of the existence of any god or gods and this therefore encapsulates the Christian monotheism and also polytheism. This type of definition of atheism tends to be the one that the general public hold to.

Michael Martin says, 'In Western society the term atheism has most frequently been used to refer to the denial of theism, in particular Judeo-Christian theism. This [theism] is the position that a being that is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good exists who is the creator of the universe, and who takes an active interest in human concerns, and guides his creatures by revelation' - and all the Christians read this and say, 'Yep! Amen!'

Exhaustive empirical evidence does not exist to prove the existence of such a wonderful God - only faith. Faith that comes by hearing the Word of God, and a relationship that forms because of someone acting on that faith/trust and believing that Jesus is who he says he is, and does what he says he does.

Christians know there are questions that are unanswerable and discussions that are hard to 'win'. The fact is though, that failure to respond adequately to an intellectual argument about faith does not render the faith inadequate; it merely means someone is unable to respond with theological prowess that dumfounds the other! The questions exist, no Christian doubts that:
* If God knows the future, how can we have free will? (Cicero)
* What was God doing before He created the world? (Augustine)
* Must God, if he exists in the mind, also exist in reality? (Anselm)
* Can an omnipotent being be constrained by justice and goodness? (Al-Ghazali).
* Why does a loving God allow suffering to good people (the general public ask this one!)

So this new atheism, or the old, same atheism revamped in the eyes of some... Tim Madigan says this apparent resurgence in atheism is due to a variety of reasons and some of these being, the collapse of the Soviet Union, revulsion against religious fundamentalism, a concern over collusion between church and state, and the growth of the internet and the dissemination of ideas and 'free' thought that this enhances (Philosophy Now - May 2010, p. 4). Whatever the reasons, the good news about Jesus remains the same. God sent his one and only son [Jesus] into the world, not to condemn the world, but to save it, through him.

Turn to Jesus today. 

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