OK. for all those interested in more than a few answered questions . . .
http://www.johnankerberg.org/Articles/archives-rc.htm
http://www.johnankerberg.org/Articles/archives-ap.htm
Solid Evidence About Christ for a Skeptical World
by Dr. John Ankerberg
Were talking about solid evidence about Jesus Christ for a skeptical world. And if youre reading this and you want to know what the evidence is, let me just take a five-minute paragraph and then Im going to get right to it. Id like to clear up a couple of other matters.
When you start talking about Jesus Christ or religion, there are some people that say, "I dont care. Im an atheist. Im an agnostic." And I have to address those of you that might be in that category. And Id like to try to get your attention, at least try to entice you, to motivate you, to come on over and look at the evidence. And I believe theres a lot of evidence that Im going to present to you in just a moment.
What do you say to the person that says, "John, I dont want to listen. I dont want to even look at stuff about religion or Jesus Christ because Im an atheist."
Very frankly, heres what I would say to you. Please prove to me your point of view. Whats the evidence for being an atheist? I dont think that you can be smart enough to be an atheist. Einstein said he had an I.Q. score probably of 204 or 206 and he thought there was a God. Why do I say that you cant be smart enough to be an atheist? Well, what would you have to have in terms of evidence to be an atheist? An atheist says there is no God by definition. What do you need to know in order to prove there is no God? Youd have to have all knowledge. What is having all knowledge? Let me show you how little knowledge we have.
Right now, if I were to say to you, "You know what? You dont know whats happening behind you." In other words, the person behind you, can you tell me what theyre thinking? They might be looking at the back of your head and thinking what kind of a hairdo youve got. You dont know what theyre thinking or the person ten rows in back of you or the person thats in the building across the street. Or how about people that are over in Hong Kong or in Britain right now?
Put that in terms of God. What if God is behind you? What if Gods in the next building? What if Gods somewhere where youre not? Do you have the information to say that Hes not there? Do you have all knowledge? If you say, "I dont think Hes on planet Earth." How about outside of planet Earth? How about our galaxy? Maybe God is hiding behind some planet. Do you have information that Hes not there? And then scientists tell us that, in our galaxy right now, traveling at the speed that our astronauts do, if you go about 16 to 20 thousand miles per second, thats not fast enough. You would not be able to get out of our galaxy in a space ship traveling that fast if you were born at zero and you went all the way to 90 years of age, theres not enough time for you to get out of our galaxy. Its too far. So the galaxy is big. Do you know if God is out there? No, you havent got that information.
And then scientists tell me this, that outside of our galaxy there are trillions and trillions of other galaxies in this thing called the universe. And do you know, maybe God might be out there. Do you have the information about that? No. You dont have that kind of information. You dont have all knowledge so you cant say there is no God. And most of the intellectuals on campus today realize that.
When a person says to me, "Im an atheist, " usually I think of them in terms of a village atheist. You dont know enough to come from that position someplace else. But then, after a person says hes an atheist and he says, "Well, I dont have enough knowledge, " the best you can be is you can be an agnostic.
Now, what is an agnostic? An agnostic is a person that is brilliant in the area of not knowing anything. Thomas Huxley coined the term. It simply means you dont know. You dont know if there is a God. And thats where the intellectuals are at. They say, "We dont have enough information to say were an atheist but the fact is, we dont know if there is a God. If theres the evidence, we havent seen it yet."
Now, theres two kinds of agnostics that Ive met on campus. There is the ordinary agnostic. The ordinary agnostic says, "I dont know if there is a God, but if youve got the evidence, Im open to seeing it." I love those kind of people. I just love them. If you are an agnostic and you are an ordinary agnostic that says, "I just havent seen the evidence yet, but Im open to it, " youve come to the right place.
But theres the second kind of agnostic and thats the ornery agnostic. Now, whats an ornery agnostic? The ornery agnostic is the one who says, "Look, I dont know if there is a God but I know that you dont know theres a God."
And I say, "How do you know?"
He says, "I know." Thats the ornery agnostic. In other words, this is the person that says, "Whatever evidence you show me, my mind is already made up. You cant persuade me." Thats the ornery agnostic. Now, Ive got a little story for you if youre like that.
Did you hear about the man that thought he was dead? There was this young fellow that went around saying to everybody, "Hi, my name is" and then he would say, "By the way, Im dead." Of course, that bothered his parents a little bit, you know. And so they took him to a psychiatrist.
The guy gave his name and then he went on to say, "Well, doctor, I want you to know this. By the way, Im dead."
The doctor said, "I see what the problem is."
And so he thought this fellow had this world view, namely that he was dead. And he thought, I need to have one fact from the real world thatll burst that false world view. So he thought, "I wonder what it could be?" He came up with the fact that dead men do not bleed. And he thought, "Ive got to persuade this young fellow who thinks hes dead that dead men dont bleed and then I can do a little experiment with him and show him that hes not dead."
So he gave him pathology textbooks. He took him down to morgue and cut dead bodies and showed him that they didnt bleed. And after months and months of research, finally the young fellow said to the doctor, "Okay, doctor, you have persuaded me of the fact that dead men do not bleed."
And the doctor thought, "Ive got him, Ive got him, Ive got him." He said, "Stick out your hand." The kid stuck out his hand. The doctor took one of those little deals that you have in the doctors office, pricked his finger, and out spurted the blood.
The kid looked at that and he says, "Well, doctor, dead men bleed after all."
Now, thats just to show you that if you hold on to something, a view, strong enough that facts do not bother you, nobody can help you. Nobody can help you but youre in kind of a silly position. Youre the ornery agnostic. Now, I hope that if you are an agnostic, if you have not put your faith in Jesus Christ, that you would be open to the evidence. That you would be like the ordinary agnostic that says, "Hey, if youve got something, show me."
All right, so lets get down to the evidence. What is the case for Jesus? Why do you believe in Him? Lets define terms first of all.
What is Christianity? Christianity is not a philosophy, although it can be made into one. Christianity is not a system of ethics, although it certainly talks about what is right and wrong. Christianity is a relationship with a person that actually lived and Christianity stands or falls on whether this person did live, whether He said the things that He said, and did the things that He claimed. That person is Jesus Christ.
Now, if I was to give you the conclusion of where Im going, where I think the evidence will take you, it would go something like this: This is who I think Jesus Christ is and how the evidence supports Him. If I was to say to you, "Ladies and gentlemen, backstage is Jesus Christ. In a moment Hes going to come out here and Hes going to talk to you. But I want you to beware. When He comes out here, what Hes going to do is Hes going to look at you and Hes going to snap His fingers and this building is going to disappear. Hes going to look at you and smile and say, Dont worry, snap His fingers and the world will disappear. Hell snap His fingers and the sun will go dark and the stars will quit shining and you and He will be standing in outer space together and Jesus Christ could smile, snap His fingers, and bring it all back together again." Now, thats who I think Jesus Christ is and thats where were going.
You say, "Well, thats not the Jesus that I know." Thats the problem. Its like the old TV show: "Will the real Jesus stand up." Weve got so many Jesuses being touted in America today, people dont know which one to believe in or how to get to the bottom line. Thats why we have an issue of Newsweek magazine with a picture of Jesus on the cover. Time and Newsweek usually run about two of these a year and the question is, "what can we know about Jesus?" Can we know anything about Jesus? Their idea is that we can know very, very little. I think theyre dead wrong and I intend to prove that to you beginning in the next article of this series. We will look at "how do we find out about Jesus, " and "how do we come to any conclusions about Him."
Apologetics Authors
Dr. James Bjornstad
Mrs. Lorri MacGregor
Mr. Marvin Cowan
Dr. John Ankerberg
Dr. John Weldon
http://www.johnankerberg.org/Articles/apologetics/AP0102W4.htm
The Christian Faith -- Why It's True, Part Two
by Dr. John Ankerberg and Dr. John Weldon
A further reason that those of other religious persuasions, secularists too, should be receptive to Christianity is because we live in an increasingly poisonous age experientially. In our pluralistic and pagan culture, almost anyone is a viable target for conversion to any of a wide variety of false beliefs and their consequencesfrom various cults and New Age occultism to solipsism and nihilism. Philosophies of despair and potent occult experiences can convert even those who think they are the least vulnerable. "There is a great deal of research that shows that all people, but especially highly intelligent people, are easily taken in by all kinds of illusions, hallucinations, self-deceptions, and out-right bamboozlesall the more so when they have a high investment in the illusion being true." 11 In other words, even in this life the personal welfare of the non-Christian may be at risk.
When one examines the arguments and attacks made against Christianity for 2, 000 years, by some of the greatest minds ever, guess what one finds? Not one is valid. Not one, individually or collectively, disproves Christianity. Even with the most difficult problems, such as the problem of evil, Christianity has the best answer of any religion or philosophy; the best solution to the problem.
If the leading minds of the world have been unable to disprove Christianity, this may explain why many of the other leading minds in the world have accepted it As James Sire correctly points out in Why Should Anyone Believe Anything At All? an argument for belief, religious or other, must be secured on the best evidence, validly argued and able to refute the strongest objections that can be mustered against it. 12 The Christian faith fits these criteria.
Obviously, if the God of the universe has revealed Himself and is the only true God, and if Christ is the only true way of salvation, then we would expect convincing evidence to substantiate this. Not just some evidence, or inferior evidenceso that a person has a dozen equally valid options in the choice of their religionbut superior evidence. Dr. John Warwick Montgomery asks:
What if a revelational truth-claim did not turn on questions of theology and religious philosophyon any kind of esoteric, fideistic method available only to those who are already "true believers"but on the very reasoning employed in the law to determine questions of fact?... Eastern faiths and Islam, to take familiar examples, ask the uncommitted seeker to discover their truth experientially: the faith-experience will be self-validating.... Christianity, on the other hand, declares that the truth of its absolute claims rests squarely on certain historical facts, open to ordinary investigation.... The advantage of a jurisprudential approach lies in the difficulty of jettisoning it: legal standards of evidence developed as essential means of resolving the most intractable disputes in society ... Thus one cannot very well throw out legal reasoning merely because its application to Christianity results in a verdict for the Christian faith. 13
So, lets assume that a God of truth is dedicated to truth and that He desires that people find Him. Indeed, "From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us" (Acts 17:26-27). What is the most logical place to begin our search for divine revelation? Wouldnt it be the one religion that God has made stand out from all the rest? Logically, the best and only practical way to see if one religion is absolutely true is to start with the largest, most unique, influential and evidentiary religion in the world. "In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead" (Acts 17:30-31). It seems more reasonable to determine whether or not this religion is true than to seek another approach such as examining, one by one, all religions from A to Z, or picking one randomly by personal preference, or by accepting a religion as a result of subjective experience.
The problem is that, not being grounded in objective, historical evidence, all non-Christian religions are experientially based. As such, they prove nothing because of their inherent subjectivism. Thus, having even profound religious experiences, alone, cannot prove ones religion is true. And, obviously, to attempt to examine all religions (whether the sequence is random, preferential or alphabetical) would be a daunting, confusing and in the end an impossible task.
If there is only one God, and if only one religion is fully true, then one should not expect to discover sustainable evidence in any other religion. And indeed, no other religion, anywhere, large or small, has sustainable evidence in its favor. If no credible evidence exists for any other religion, and if only Christianity has compelling evidence on its behalf; why should time be spent examining religions that have no basis to substantiate their claims, especially when there may be significant negative consequences for trusting in them, not only in this life but the next life as well?
It is much easier, and more logical, to start by examining the probabilities of truth on the highest end of the scale. We examined some of these in our book Ready with an Answer (Harvest House, 1997). In "The Value of an Evidential Approach, " William J. Cairney (Ph.D., Cornell) discusses some of the possibilities that constitute genuine evidence for the fact God has inspired the Bible and the Christianity based on it:
History Written in Advance. We can all write history in retrospect, but an almighty, omnipotent, Creator would not be bound by our notions of space and time, and would thus be able to write history before it occurs. Suppose that we encountered a sourcebook that contained page after page of history written in advance with such accuracy and in such detail that good guessing would be completely ruled out.
Prescience. Suppose that in this same sourcebook, we were able to find accurate statements written ages ago demonstrating scientific knowledge and concepts far before mankind had developed the technological base necessary for discovering that knowledge or those concepts....
Historical Evidence. Suppose that in this same sourcebook, we were to find historical assertions that time after time were verified as true as historical scholarship continued....
Archeological Evidence. Suppose that in this same sourcebook, statements that are difficult to verify are made about people and places, but as archeology "unearths" more knowledge of the past, time after time the sourcebook is seen to be true in its assertions.
Philosophical and Logical Coherence. Suppose that this same sourcebook, even though written piecemeal over thousands of years, contains well-developed common themes and is internally consistent.
And suppose all of these evidences hang together without internal contradiction or literary stress within the same anthology. Collectively, we could not take these evidences lightly. 14
Indeed, and this is why, overall, the evidence strongly asserts that Christianity is true, whether or not anyone agrees. The evidence for Christianity remains powerful whether it is internal (the documents), philosophical, moral, historical, scientific, archeological or when compared with the evidence found in other religions. For example, "The competence of the New Testament documents would be established in any court of law, " and, "Modern archeological research has confirmed again and again the reliability of New Testament geography, chronology, and general history." 15 (This is especially true in the biased, liberal biblical studies cited by the cults to reject biblical faith, where we find the paradox of those being closest to the truth often snubbing their noses at it. As the noted classical scholar Professor E. M. Blaiklock points out, "Recent archeology has destroyed much nonsense and will destroy more. And I use the word nonsense deliberately, for theories and speculations find currency in biblical scholarship that would not be tolerated for a moment in any other branch of literary or historical criticism." 16)
In conclusion, no one can successfully argue that Christianity and its origins have not been thoroughly investigatedas if some unrecognized aspect of it might yet prove its downfall. As the fifth edition of Mans Religions by John B. Noss points out, "The first Christian century has had more books written about it than any other comparable period of history. The chief sources bearing on its history are the gospels and epistles of the New Testament, and theseagain we must make a comparative statementhave been more thoroughly searched by inquiring minds than any other books ever written." 17 In essence, only Christianity meets the burden of proof necessary to say, "This religion alone is fully true." When the cults claim otherwise, they are mistaken.
Notes
11. Maureen OHara, "Science, Pseudo-Science, and Myth Mongering, " Robert Basil (ed.), Not Necessarily the New Age: Critical Essays (New York: Prometheus, 1988), p. 148.
12. James Sire, Why Should Anyone Believe Anything at All? (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1994), p. 10.
13. John Warwick Montgomery, "The Jury Returns: A Juridical Defense of Christianity, " in John Warwick Montgomery (ed.), Evidence for Faith: Deciding the God Question (Dallas: Probe Books, 1991), pp. 319-20.
14. William J. Cairney, "The Value of an Evidential Approach, " in Montgomery (ed.), Evidence for Faith, p. 21.
15. Montgomery, The Jury Returns: A Juridical Defense of Christianity, " in Montgomery (ed.), Evidence for Faith, pp. 322, 326.
16. EM. Blaiklock, Christianity Today, Sept. 28, 1975, p. 13.
17. John B. Noss, Mans Religions, 5th ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1974), p. 417.
Recommended Reading
John Ankerberg, John Weldon, Ready with an Answer;
_________, Knowing the Truth about Salvation;
C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity;
Francis Schaeffer, He Is There and He Is Not Silent;
Norman Geisler, Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics.
