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apologetics.PDF
Apologetics
Question
Assumptions
Explanation
1. How can there be a good
Think about it: is that what makes for the best literature, the best movies. Suffering in
· No good God would want suffering.
God with so much obvious
proportion to pleasure--when we never know pain, disappointment, delay or unfulfilled
· Any all-powerful God who allows
suffering in the world?
desire we never will know pleasure or joy. CS. Lewis: "God whispers to us in our
suffering is not a good guy.
If God is good, he is not
pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: in is his megaphone to
· Suffering never produces good.
God. If God is God, he is
rouse a deaf world." Ultimately: Jesus Christ as the God who suffers: his death doesn't
· The best world would be one without
not good.
take suffering away, but it is made purposeful, redemptive.
any suffering of any kind.
2. How can Christianity say
Religions differ widely re: monotheism vs. poly-, nature of God, nature of humanity,
· All religions say basically the same
that Jesus is the only way?
nature of sin/alienation, nature of heaven/afterlife, history (cyclical vs. linear).
things, especially in ethics, which is
Fundamentally, religions differ on what it takes to approach God. A works approach is
what is most crucial.
common in religions, but Christianity teaches faith apart from any works. Is 64:4:
· What matters most is intensity or
"From ages past no one has heard ... [of] any God besides you, who works for those who
sincerity of faith, not its object.
wait for him."
3. How can God send good
Fails to recognize that even "good" life lived independent of God is the cosmic
· Most people are basically good and
people who don't believe in
equivalent of shaking our fists at God and declaring our independence from our maker.
deserve the reward of heaven.
Jesus to Hell?
We tend to think to highly of our own capacity for good and much to casually of the
insult to God's glory that rejection of him actually is.
4. Hasn't science
Science can explain the mechanism of creation but not its purpose. Evolution-theory
· Evolution and the Big Bang shows that
(Evolution) disproven much
based atheism is as much a position of faith as is Christian theism, though with much
God wasn't involved in creation.
of the Bible and
less evidence to support it.
· Genesis is meant to be literal account of
Christianity?
creation from Christian perspective:
Science has disproven this account.
5. Why are Christians so
Distinguish between truth and values. "This building is beautiful" or "Chocolate chip
· Truth is relative. What is true and
arrogant? Why do
ice cream is great." These are statements of value, and are relative. "Jesus Christ is
works for you may not be what is true or
Christians insist on forcing
God" is either true or it is false--for everyone.
what works for me.
their way of thinking on
others?
6. Isn't Christianity a
Everyone has and needs crutches in this sense: unproven assumptions about life that
· People shouldn't or don't need crutches.
crutch?
makes it possible to make sense of choices, actions, tragedy and disappointment.
· Only Christians have crutches.
7. How can you believe in
It is a much more rigorous statement of faith to believe that no miracles ever occur,
· Miracles don't happen because God
miracles?
than to believe that at least some of the countless events people claim as miracles
doesn't exist. All that exists is the
actually were God's intervention in human life.
material world.
Fundamentally, we must talk about the resurrection as the one miracle which is the
· God may (or may not) exist, but he
make/break test for all miracles.
doesn't intervene in human affairs.
Apologetics
Question
Assumptions
Explanation
8. How can you believe that
Why would the disciples have written the gospels in the way they did: they testify to the
· The disciples so wanted Jesus to come
Jesus rose from the dead?
fact that they looked like fools during the crucifixion and even after the resurrection. If
back that they made it up/hallucinated it
they were making it up, why not just tell it so it seemed that they expected him to rise
from the dead (if indeed, that was true)? No, they were not so brilliantly clever as to
perpetrate this deception in this way. They didn't expect the resurrection, they were
resistant when told of it before Jesus' death, and they didn't believe it when told
afterwards. So they couldn't have perpetrated the hoax in this way, or even have mass
hallucinations.
9. How can Christians
Jesus himself claimed to be equal to God, to be able to forgive sins (committed against
· Jesus was a good moral teacher.
believe that Jesus--a good
God or others). He said, "Before that Abraham was, I am." (Incorrect grammar or a
· Jesus' disciples advanced the claim that
moral teacher--was God?
claim of divinity--as it was understood.) Furthermore, this never would have entered his
he was God, Jesus' didn't.
disciples' minds if he hadn't taught them--they were raised as strict Yahwists and
would never have ascribed divinity to any human. Jesus claimed to be God, and He was
killed because of these claims. No good teacher can claim to be God but be lying.
Therefore, Jesus left us with only three conclusions: 1) he was a liar, 2) he was a
lunatic, or 3) he was who he said he was, the LORD.
10. What about those who
We will not be judged on the basis of what we do not know. Paul says in Romans, `They
· Ignorance of Jesus implies lack of
have never heard about
are without excuse": they see the wonder of creation, and have the advantage of a
responsibility for rejecting God.
Jesus?
conscience. They see that a creator made the world and that creator has ethical
standards, by which no one lives.
11. How can you believe the
The manuscript evidence for the NT (back to within a single generation of Jesus' life) is
· The ancient documents are too
Bible?
much stronger than that of most of the rest of Greek and Roman history. We are not
unreliable to base my life's beliefs on.
working off of copies that were hundreds of years after the original writers, but were
· The bible is full of errors and
just decades later than the original writers.
contradictions.
Apparent inconsistencies in the gospel records, for example, are evidence that they
indeed are different eye-witness accounts. If they agreed down to the minutest detail,
one might question their overall historicity. Yet the Bible does not contradict its core
teachings: themes run all through scripture in tact--the holiness of God, God's
involvement in human history, faith as the response God desires for people who come
to him.
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