Gregory Koukl's Blog, page 100

Did Adam Have Libertarian Free Will?

If Adam and Eve lived in a perfect world before the fall, how could they choose to disobey God?

 

God Is Alive in Academia

In the video below, Dr. Vince Vitale of RZIM’s Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics says the New Atheists are “generally not engaged in current philosophical scholarship.”

If we think that it is our minds that keep us from God, then we may not be dealing with the arguments at the highest level. Here in Oxford, and in Princeton, and in philosophy faculties—top faculties—all around the world, God is not dead. God is as alive as he ever was.

How Do I Share What I Believe? When Evangelism Is Like Baseball

I’ve been doing criminal interviews and interrogations for many years now, and I’ve interviewed a variety of criminal offenders (although most have been murder suspects). I’ve learned an important principle, analogous with baseball, in these repeated efforts to get to the truth: home runs aren’t the only way to score. In fact, there are times when swinging for the fences can be a distinct liability. Baseball games are usually won with singles and doubles; realistic efforts to get on base and let the next guy at bat do his job. I’ve learned not to make the “copout” my singular goal in interrogations. If I can score a home run and get a confession, great; if not, a number of lesser admissions will serve the same purpose when we finally get to trial. If I can get enough singles, I’ll still drive in a run.

This analogous truth is equally applicable to our efforts to share and defend the Christian worldview. In recent months (and years) we’ve seen a number of movies released in an effort to evangelize or make a defense for Christianity. Some are good, some are not so good. Less successful efforts have typically targeted home runs rather than singles. Ten years ago, when Mel Gibson produced the critically successful The Passion of the Christ, he decided to limit the narrative to a very small portion of the Biblical account. As a result, the movie was laser focused and had the time (and creative “space”) to do the narrative justice. It was a well-placed single, causing many people to rethink what they believed about Jesus. It started conversations. It had a deep impact, even though it left many questions unaddressed and omitted the vast majority of the Biblical narrative. The producers reined in their ambition and produced something limited, but powerful. They never preached the Gospel directly, but their movie certainly loaded the bases for many of us who came to the plate later and did our part to drive in a run.

Our private conversations with non-believers are similarly analogous to baseball. In every conversation I have with unbelieving friends, I am ever mindful of the value of singles. I don’t have to “win” every encounter. I don’t necessarily have to offer the Gospel or describe the Christian view of Salvation. If I get the right pitch, I’m happy to swing. But most of the time I’m lucky to get on base at all. With reasonable expectations in mind, I am happy to overcome a single objection or advance someone’s understanding just a base or two. In fact, sometimes the most important thing I can do is reflect the nature of Jesus as I listen and gently respond. I may not even get the chance to offer a defense or make a point, but my character will speak for me as I make the effort to get on base.

When I share the truth with unbelievers, I sometimes act as though I’m playing a singles tennis match. I’m on one side of the net, and my opponent is on the other. I’m all alone out there on the court, it’s hot and the entire world is watching on ESPN. Whatever I do (or don’t do), whatever I say (or don’t say), will all come down to my individual effort. If I’m going to be successful, it’s all on me. But that’s not the reality of my situation. I’m part of a much deeper team called the Church. I’m not alone on the court; I’m just one in a series of batters. I come to the plate, I get a sense of what the pitcher is throwing, and I make an appropriate decision on how to respond. On rare occasions I may swing for the fences, but sometimes the wiser choice will be to make contact with the ball, get on base if possible, or take a “walk” if the pitcher is throwing wildly. It’s not all on me. I don’t have to win the game by myself. Evangelism and Christian Case Making is often just like baseball. Remember your place in the line-up. Drive in a run if you can, or just get on base for the next player at bat. Remember you’re not alone. If each of us can get a single, we’ll eventually succeed as a team.

The Truth about Arizona's Religious Freedom Bill

Now that the dust has settled on the hysteria surrounding SB 1062, Arizona’s failed religious freedom bill (widely dubbed the “anti-gay bill” by the press), Ramesh Ponnuru clarifies the controversy:

Political journalists tend to accept social liberals’ framing of issues, their terminology, and their claims, and to believe the worst about social conservatives. In the Arizona debate, these tendencies manifested in widespread reports that the bill authorized businesses to refuse to serve gay people who wanted to be their customers and in the labeling of the legislation as “anti-gay.”

Headlines in the New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, and many other outlets either used that label or repeated that claim. In their limited defense, the proximate reason for the legislation does have to do with homosexuality: Conservatives were concerned that without the law, business owners who object to same-sex marriage might be forced to take actions they regard as participating in, facilitating, or condoning it. They were moved by cases such as one in neighboring New Mexico, where a wedding photographer was punished for refusing to serve a same-sex commitment ceremony.

The legislation itself, however, did not mention gays, homosexuality, or same-sex marriage, and largely tracked the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA): a law that was enacted by large bipartisan majorities that included many liberals and was signed by President Clinton in 1993 [and was not prompted by a situation dealing with sexual orientation]. It would not have authorized business owners to turn away gay customers—which, by the way, is something Arizona law already allows but that businesses have not been eager to do. It would not even have authorized bakers to refuse to make a cake for a same-sex wedding, which is a scenario both sides of the debate often mentioned. It would have given those bakers a claim in court but not guaranteed their success with it.

It’s a significant point to say that sexual orientation in Arizona is not a protected category. In other words, it’s currently not illegal to discriminate against a person because of his or her sexual orientation. This means that the nightmare picture people were painting of the “Jim Crow” situation this bill would create was ridiculous. As Brandon McGinley put it:

That dystopian Arizona with LGBT folks sitting at different lunch counters and forced out of jobs en masse and booted from retail stores? You know, the one promised by LGBT activists, and then by Marriott and Intel and Yelp, and then, implicitly, by John McCain and Mitt Romney and Laura Ingraham? Under Arizona law, that could exist right now. And yet it doesn’t. Because Arizona isn’t full of hordes of cackling Christians plotting an LGBT apartheid state.

Further, in situations such as that of the photographer mentioned above, people aren’t refusing to serve people because of their sexual orientation, they’re refusing to participate in an event that goes against their conscience (see “Refusing to Photograph a Gay Wedding Isn’t Hateful” in The Atlantic).

So what did the bill actually do?

The Arizona bill differed from the federal law [RFRA], and clarified previous state law, in two ways. It explicitly allowed businesses, not just individuals, to make conscience claims in court, and it explicitly allowed the claims to be used against private litigants. Whether the federal law applies in these cases is disputed.

Neither difference would seem to justify labeling the Arizona bill as “anti-gay,” given that almost nobody labels the federal law that way.

During the height of the controversy, 11 law professors (liberals and conservatives) tried to cut through the “anti-gay” rhetoric to explain the bill to Gov. Jan Brewer, but the pressure from the media’s spin on the bill proved to be too much to overcome, and it was vetoed.

Legislation like SB 1062 will come up again, so hopefully we can learn from this situation and help people think about it more clearly next time.

Protecting Children

Rev. Benjamin Waugh worked to establish protection for children's rights and welfare in 19th century London. He was a Congregationalist pastor working in Greenwich when he became appalled at the deprivation children suffered.

After witnessing the levels of deprivation and child cruelty in Greenwich, London where he lived, Waugh's urgent priority was to draw public and government attention to the plight of children.

He helped to create The London Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in 1884. The name was changed to National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in 1889.

By 1889 the London Society had 32 branches throughout England, Wales and Scotland. Each branch raised funds to support an inspector, who investigated reports of child abuse and neglect....

The first Prevention of Cruelty to Children Act was passed in 1889. This was largely the result of five years' vigorous lobbying by Waugh and his supporters.

The Bruno Martyr Myth

Cosmos (a new version of Carl Sagan’s series) has begun, bringing with it discussions across the Internet about Giordano Bruno, who is often wrongly hailed as a martyr of science.* From Jay Richards:

Many viewers may have been baffled that so much time would be spent [in the opening episode of the series] on Bruno, an Italian Dominican friar born in 1548 who was neither a scientist nor credited with any scientific discovery. Why is that? It's because he's the only one with even a passing association with a scientific controversy to be burned at the stake during this period of history. As a result, since the 19th century, when the mythological warfare between science and Christianity was invented, Bruno has been a leading character.

But there's one problem: Bruno's execution, troubling as it was, had virtually nothing to do with his Copernican views. He was condemned and burned in 1600, but it was not because he speculated that the Earth rotated around the sun along with the other planets. He was condemned because he denied the doctrine of the Trinity, the Virgin Birth, and transubstantiation, claimed that all would be saved, and taught that there was an infinite swarm of eternal worlds of which ours was only one. The latter idea he got from the ancient (materialist) philosopher Lucretius…. Yet a documentary series about science and our knowledge of the universe fritters away valuable airtime on this Dominican mystic and heretic, while scarcely mentioning Copernicus, the Polish guy who actually wrote the book proposing a sun-centered universe.

Humphrey Clarke at Quodlibeta explains the religious views that got Bruno into trouble:

Bruno was a follower of a movement called Hermetism, which was a cult that based its beliefs on documents which were thought to have originated in Egypt at the time of Moses. These writings were linked with the teaching of the Egyptian God Thoth, the God of learning and had arrived in Italy from Macedonia in the 1460s. To followers of this cult, Thoth was known as Hermes Trismegitus, or Hermes the thrice great. The Egyptians worshipped the sun and it is possible Nicolaus Copernicus himself was influenced by Hermetism to put the sun at the centre of the universe. For instance, he wrote in De revolutionibus that:

At rest, however, in the middle of everything is the sun. For in this most beautiful temple, who would place this lamp in another or better position than that from which it can light up the whole thing at the same time? For, the sun is not inappropriately called by some people the lantern of the universe, its mind by others, and its ruler by still others. [Hermes] the Thrice Greatest labels it a visible god, and Sophocles' Electra, the all-seeing.

Subscribers to Hermeticism included such high profile figures as Phillip II of Spain, and the writings were generally tolerated by the Catholic Church. Bruno’s ‘dangerous idea’ was to take the view that the Egyptian religion was the true faith and that the church should return to these old ways; which they were none too pleased about.

Bruno wasn’t a martyr for science:

As the work of Frances Yates in the 1970s showed, far from being a martyr for science, Bruno was a martyr for magic. The full list of charges were as follows:

Holding opinions contrary to the Catholic Faith and speaking against it and its ministers.Holding erroneous opinions about the Trinity, about Christ's divinity and Incarnation.Holding erroneous opinions about Christ.Holding erroneous opinions about Transubstantiation and Mass.Claiming the existence of a plurality of worlds and their eternity.Believing in metempsychosis and in the transmigration of the human soul into brutes.Dealing in magics and divination.Denying the Virginity of Mary. ...

There is no evidence that his support for Copernicanism featured in the trial at all, but Bruno was a keen advocate of the sun centred universe because it fitted so well with the Egyptian view of the world…. The theme of his 'On the Infinite Universe and Worlds' is not Copernicanism, of which he had a rather flawed technical understanding, but pantheism, a theme also developed in his 'On Shadows of Ideas', and which would come to influence Baruch Spinoza.

And here’s the key point:

It was his personal cosmology which informed his espousal of Copernicus, not the other way around. Bruno and his trial made a big splash at the time and all his ideas were tarred with the same brush. It is possible if it hadn’t been for Bruno, Copernicanism would not have made such a splash with the authorities and Galileo might not have been persecuted.

Bruno’s view of the universe was primarily a result of his religious views, as was his conviction and death at the hands of the Inquisition (as Cosmos acknowledged). As the conclusion of the episode’s segments on Bruno tells us:

Bruno was no scientist. His vision of the cosmos [received in a dream, according to the episode] was a lucky guess, because he had no evidence to support it. Like most guesses, it could well have turned out wrong.

The people of Bruno’s time were rejecting his unsubstantiated revelation, not science. Certainly they should not have burned him at the stake, but neither should they have been swayed by his views.

More on Cosmos. More on Bruno (and the alleged “banned books” Cosmos said he “dared to read”), his beliefs, and the origin of the myth. Watch the two segments on Bruno beginning at 16:38 (available until May 4) and read a refutation. And if you’d like to hear how Cosmos’s concern that “expressing an idea that didn’t conform to traditional belief could land you in deep trouble” doesn’t just apply to Bruno’s time, see here.

______________________________

*Cosmos depicts Bruno as more of a hero of free thought than of science (yes, as odd as it seems, they celebrate his religious vision as free thought gloriously challenging the scholars’ understanding of the cosmos), but since the “science martyr” idea is still widespread, this post is intended to address that misconception.

Links Mentioned on the 3/11/14 Show

The following are links that were either mentioned on this week's show or inspired by it, as posted live on the @STRtweets Twitter feed:

Pushing for safe passage – Article from Thousand Oaks Acorn


Abortion protest too 'gruesome' – Letter to Thousand Oaks Acorn


The Ruth Institute – Jennifer Roback Morse's organization


Race, Sex, and Marriage by Amy Hall


C.S. Lewis on Bulverism


If God Is Good: Faith in the Midst of Suffering and Evil by Randy Alcorn


Jesus, the Only Way: 100 Verses by Greg Koukl


Same-Sex Marriage Quick-Reference Guide by Greg Koukl


What's Your Worldview? An Interactive Approach to Life's Big Questions by James Anderson


Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God by J.I. Packer


Does John 3:13 mean that no one went to Heaven before Jesus?  – GotQuestions.org


The Enemy Within: Straight Talk about the Power and Defeat of Sin by Kris Lundgaard

Listen to today's show or download any archived show for free. (Find links from past shows here.)

To follow the Twitter conversation during the live show (Tuesdays 4:00–7:00 p.m. PT), use the hashtag #STRtalk.

Is There a Way to Avoid a Universe with a Beginning?

After examining the evidence, cosmologists and physicists have largely embraced the fact we live in a universe that began to exist at a point in the distant past. At this point of “cosmic singularity” all space, time and matter came into existence abruptly, beginning in an extremely hot and dense state and expanding rapidly. Everything came from nothing. This view of the universe’s origin is called the Standard Cosmological model, and it best explains the evidence we presently observe. Astrophysicist Andrew Liddle and astronomer Jon Loveday affirm this: “The standard cosmological model is a striking success, as a phenomenological description of the cosmological data… The model’s success in explaining high precision observations has led a clear majority of the cosmological community to accept it as a good account of how the universe works” (Oxford Companion to Cosmology, page 8).

If the universe began to exist, however, it’s reasonable to look for a cause sufficient to begin its existence. This cause, by definition, would have to be something non-spatial, a-temporal and immaterial (something other than the universe itself). In addition, the foundational cause of the universe must be uncaused, or it simply isn’t foundational. All of us, regardless of worldview, are looking for the first, uncaused, sufficiently powerful, non-spatial, a-temporal, immaterial cause of the universe. From this description you can see how dangerously close this cause sounds to a theistic description of God. Perhaps this is why many researchers and cosmologists seek to find a cosmological model avoiding a cosmological singularity (a model denying the beginning of space, time and matter). A number of models have been offered, but none have the explanatory ability to supplant the Standard Cosmological Model:

The Steady State Model
This theory was developed in 1949 by Sir Fred Hoyle, Thomas Gold and others, although a number of variations of this idea have been proposed over the years. Steady State (also known as “eternal inflation”) theories acknowledge the expansion of the universe, but explain this as the result of new matter being formed over time. As galaxies move away from one another, new matter appears in the voids created by the expansion. The universe is continually expanding not from a point of beginning but as a continuous process of stretching and “infilling.” The theory removed the need for the universe to have a beginning, but it had several flaws causing scientists to abandon it. The theory violates the laws regulating the conservation of mass, has never been confirmed by a single observation. Most scientists abandoned the theory in the late 1960s when observations affirmed the universe was in fact changing over time: quasars and radio galaxies were observed at large distances (meaning they existed in the past), but not in closer, newer galaxies. In addition to this, the theory fails to explain cosmic background radiation (the Steady State Theory tried to explain this radiation as the result of light from ancient stars scattered by galactic dust, but this is inconsistent with the “smooth” nature of the radiation). Worse yet, there has never been any experimental or evidential verification of the idea, and no one’s been able to offer a reasonable mechanism explaining the appearance of new galaxies.

The Oscillating Universe Model
This model describes the universe as continually expanding and contracting from eternity past. While we may observe the universe to be expanding at this moment, oscillating (also known as “cyclical”) models claim the universe will eventually slow under the gravitational attraction of its own mass, causing it to coalesce, more or less, to a much smaller region of contraction. While the model certainly describes an infinite universe with no beginning, it does not explain the creation of the first matter at all. The theory also suffers from other observational and theoretical problems. Every attempt to demonstrate the existence of enough mass in the universe to cause this kind of gravitational attraction has failed. The mass of the universe is simply insufficient to halt the expansion we observe or reverse it toward contraction. In fact, red shift measurements of distant supernovae reveal the universe is expanding faster now than it was when it was much younger. In addition, the Second Law of Thermodynamics must be considered in these cyclical models. In each successive cycle of expansion and contraction, the useful energy in the universe would decrease, making the cycles larger and longer moving forward in time. As we go back in time, these cycles would be smaller and smaller until, once again, we come to a point of cosmic singularity. Cyclical models fail to provide us with a viable alternative eliminating a beginning of the universe.

Quantum Gravity Models
Discoveries related to sub-atomic “virtual particles” opened up yet another alternative explanation for researchers rejecting a cosmic beginning. Scientists believe “virtual particles” arise due to fluctuations in the energy contained in a vacuum at the quantum level. Cosmologists, working with this information, have proposed Quantum Gravity (also known as “emergent”) models describing a primordial, stationary vacuum pre-existing our universe. Energy fluctuations in this eternal vacuum caused tiny universes to be born the same way virtual particles pop into existence. Under this theory, our universe is just one of an infinite number of universes, all of which came into existence in the primordial environment. Skeptics of these theories have noted the difficulty of such explanations. If the primordial vacuum is eternal (infinitely old), we would expect an infinite number of universes to have popped into existence in an infinite number of locations across the vacuum. We would expect these universes to interact with one another, and given the infinitude in which they have existed, we should see some evidence of these intersections. This is not the case, however. One possible solution to this dilemma is to describe the primordial vacuum as ever-expanding to accommodate the appearance of these universes without interaction, putting each of them out of reach from one another. But this expansion (when rewinding the timeline) would once again infer a point of singularity in the past, this time for the primordial vacuum.

Scientists who postulate the sudden appearance of virtual particles (or universes) from a primordial vacuum still have to account for the primordial vacuum. Theoretical physicists have redefined the notion of nothing by describing a vacuum containing much of what we commonly consider to be something. According to Stanford University theoretical physicist, Leonard Susskind, “The vacuum represents potential for all things that can happen in that background. It means a list of all the elementary particles as well as the constants of nature that would be revealed by experiments in that vacuum. In short, it means an environment in which the Laws of Physics take a particular form.” According to this definition, the primordial vacuum is spatial, filled with particles, charged with energy, and able to change over time. Even Lawrence Krauss, theoretical physicist and author of A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather than Nothing admits the vacuum is really something, rather than nothing: “…it would be disingenuous to suggest that empty space endowed with energy, which drives inflation, is really nothing. In this picture one must assume that space exists and can store energy, and one uses the laws of physics like general relativity to calculate the consequences. So if we stopped here, one might be justified in claiming that modern science is a long way from really addressing how to get something from nothing” (Kindle location 2029). Theories such as these fail to account for the origin of the environment in which universes such as ours could emerge.

Alexander Vilenkin, theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and professor of Physics and Director of the Institute of Cosmology at Tufts University is not a theist, but he rejects eternal inflation, cyclical, and emergent models. In 2012 he authored a scientific paper with Audrey Mithani entitled, “Did the Universe Have a Beginning?” He examined “…three candidate scenarios which seem to allow the possibility that the universe could have existed forever with no initial singularity: eternal inflation, cyclic evolution, and the emergent universe.” Here’s what he concluded: “The first two of these scenarios are geodesically incomplete to the past, and thus cannot describe a universe without a beginning. The third, although it is stable with respect to classical perturbations, can collapse quantum mechanically, and therefore cannot have an eternal past.” Not only does Vilenkin’s work address (and eliminate) all the eternal inflation, cyclical and emergent models, it also excludes any future proposals in which the expansion of the universe is acknowledged. The most reasonable inference from the evidence and the alternatives is simply this: The universe began to exist. It’s reasonable to look now for a first, uncaused, sufficiently powerful, non-spatial, a-temporal, immaterial cause of the universe. Theism offers such a cause, and He remains the most reasonable explanation.

Why Should I Defend My Faith?

What's the point of knowing how to defend your faith? Greg shares four reasons why we should be prepared to give an explanation for the faith we profess. 

 

How the Principle of Causality Points to the Existence of God

All of us, regardless of worldview, are looking for the first, uncaused cause of the universe. As an atheist (and committed philosophical naturalist), I believed science would eventually identify such a cause, and I expected the answer to be something other than “God.” Alexander Vilenkin (professor of Physics and Director of the Institute of Cosmology at Tufts University), for example, believes this cause is an eternal, primordial, quantum vacuum from which our universe (and many, many others) popped into existence. The vacuum, according to Vilenkin, was the first, uncaused cause; making questions like, “Where did the vacuum come from?” irrelevant and meaningless. First, uncaused causes don’t need a cause, after all.

Interestingly, cosmologists have refined their thinking on this issue over the past several decades. Early researchers (like Einstein) initially rejected the idea our universe had a beginning at all. For thinkers like Einstein, our universe was the uncaused environment from which stars and planetary systems evolved. Why is everyone so obsessed with identifying an eternal entity and an uncaused, first cause? Because the nature of this first cause will determine which worldview (atheism or theism) is true. For committed atheists, like Carl Sagan, the desire to identify the eternal is deeply metaphysical:

“The Cosmos is everything that ever was, is and will be.”

That’s a rather theological sounding statement, and Sagan intended it to be. For Sagan, the universe (the “Cosmos”) was worthy of worship. In fact, most of us will direct this kind of reverent awe to the first, uncaused cause in any series of causal events leading to our existence. For Vilenkin, the primordial vacuum merits this sort of awe and inspiration. As a theist and a Christian, I have come to place my awe in the uncreated Creator. All of us are in awe of something, and this something typically lies at the beginning of a causal chain. Why is this true? Because each of us intuitively understands something called the Principle of Causality. If you came into a room and observed a ball rolling across the floor, you would naturally look around to see who kicked it. The ball didn’t start moving on its own without the help of someone (or something) to begin its movement. The ball has no ability to move without an initial cause; an initial mover. Scientists recognize this reality and have developed a list of things requiring a cause:

Every effect has a cause
Everything that begins has a cause
Everything that changes has a cause
Everything that is finite has a cause
Everything that is limited has a cause

Even the famous skeptic, David Hume, when questioned about causal relationships such as these, confirmed the necessity of the Principle of Causality:

“I never asserted so absurd a proposition as that anything might arise without a cause.”

Great thinkers from every worldview must wrestle with the Principle of Causality as it relates to the universe, especially given the evidence the universe is not eternally old (we’ll look at some of this evidence tomorrow). If the universe had a beginning, it cannot be the first, uncaused cause. If this is true, we are warranted in trying to identify such an initial cause, as this first, uncaused cause is an object of awe and worship. When we apply the Principle of Causality to the nature of the universe, a classic argument for the existence of God emerges (the “Cosmological Argument”):

(1) The Universe Began to Exist
(Confirmed by the scientific evidence)

(2) Anything That Has a Beginning Must Be Caused By Something Else
(Affirmed by the Principal of Causality)

(3) Therefore, the Universe Must Have a Cause
(Inferred from the Principal of Causality)

(4) The First Cause Must Be Eternal and Uncaused
(Declared by definition)

(5) The Cause is God
(Offered as the most reasonable uncaused first cause)

The Principle of Causality requires us to look for the cause of our universe based on the finite nature of the Cosmos. The first cause must also be uncaused in order for us to avoid the irrational conclusion of an infinite series of causes (more on that in future posts). All of us then, regardless of worldview, are searching for the uncaused, first cause worthy of insertion in the fifth line of the Cosmological Argument. Is this first cause impersonal (like Vilenkin’s primordial vacuum) or personal (like God)? Like any logical case, the first premise of the Cosmological Argument is critical to its conclusion. Tomorrow on the Cold Case Christianity Blog we’ll examine the evidence related to the beginning of the universe. This evidence is important because it establishes the need for a cosmic first cause, laying the foundation for the first premise of the Cosmological Argument. It all begins, however, with the Principle of Causality, a simple, intuitive series of claims ultimately pointing to the existence of God.