Gregory Koukl's Blog, page 11

Links Mentioned on the 6/08/16 Show

The following is a rundown of today's podcast, annotated with links that were either mentioned on the show or inspired by it:

Guest Host: J. Warner Wallace

Guest: Tim Challies ��� The Transgender Conversation You Need to Have with Your Family (0:00)

Tim Challies's blog
The Transgender Conversation You Need to Have with Your Family by Tim Challies
Man undressing in women���s locker room fuels drive to upend Wash. transgender rule by Valerie Richardson
Even in Liberal Communities, Transgender Bathroom Laws Worry Parents by Belinda Luscombe
Visual Theology: Seeing and Understanding the Truth about God (Book) by Tim Challies and Josh Byers
Visual Theology website

Commentary: Bart Ehrman's Top Ten Verses (0:47)

Investigating Bart Ehrman's Top Ten Troublesome Bible Verses by J. Warner Wallace

Questions:

1. Why should a theist believe in the Christian God? (0:36)

Brett Kunkle's apologetics mission trips
I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist by Frank Turek
Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospel by J. Warner Wallace
The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus by Lee Strobel

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

To take part in the Twitter conversation during the live show (Tuesdays 4:00���6:00 p.m. PT), follow @STRtweets and use the hashtag #STRtalk.

Does the Bible Condone Genocide?

This is the final post in a four-part series titled Answering Gosptacles. The last gosptacle���obstacle of the Gospel���I look at is the alleged Canaanite genocide in the Old Testament. How could God command the complete destruction of the Canaanites���every man, woman, and child? This is not an easy question to answer, but I hope that this talk will give you a place to start.

If you missed the first three parts of the Answering Gosptacles series, then click here, here, and here.

Belief as Saving Faith

Yesterday, a Summit student asked me, ���If Christianity is true, why do we need faith?��� Mapping out the distinction between belief-that and belief-in provides a helpful way to answer this question. 

The traditional conception of belief is reflected in the Scriptures by the concept of saving faith. The New Testament uses one particular word group to express the idea of faith. In the Greek, faith is conveyed by the noun pistis and the verb pisteuo. It is important to note that the New Testament writers make no distinction between ���belief��� over against ���faith.��� Indeed, they are both articulated by the pistis word group. Furthermore, when we examine the constructional variety of this Greek term we observe that pistis is used in conjunction with several prepositions (see chart below) that give us the full expression of faith, or what we refer to as saving faith. 

Greek Usage


English Equivalent

pisteuo hoti

���believe that���

pisteuo en / pisteuo eis

���believe in��� / ���believe into���

First, as the chart indicates, pisteuo is constructed with the Greek word hoti to express the phrase ���believe that.��� Hebrews 11:6 states that ���he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is the rewarder of those who seek Him.��� We see this construction again in Romans 10:9, when the apostle Paul instructs ���that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.��� According to these verses, one must (at the least) believe that God exists and that He raised Jesus from the dead for salvation. Additional passages throughout the New Testament (e.g. John 20:31, Acts 8:37 and 15:11, Romans 6:8, I Thessalonians 4:14) lend support to the idea that saving faith includes believing certain propositions to be true, or in other words, having certain beliefs-that. 

Biblical saving faith is more than merely belief-that, however. Even if one believed the necessary true propositions about Christ, it does not follow that this belief would be sufficient for saving faith. The relevant biblical data reveal a second feature. In John 3:16, pisteuo is paired with the preposition eis and literally means ���to believe into���: ���For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.��� 

From these passages, as well as others (e.g. John 3:36 and 14:1, Romans 4:24 and 10:14), we discover that saving faith includes an affirming disposition toward, or trust in, the object (propositional content) of one���s belief. The kind of faith that saves is marked by an attitude of trust in, or belief-in, Christ for all that salvation means. Hebrews 11:1 seems to indicate this pro-attitude associated with saving faith: ���Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.��� 

________________________

It is important to note that one���s believing a certain set of true propositions is logically prior to one���s being disposed affirmingly toward that set of propositions. Thus, the strength of one���s beliefs-that has direct bearing on the strength of one���s correlating beliefs-in.

Where Do Unbelievers Go Prior to the Judgment?

Greg offers some thoughts concerning the afterlife.

How We Should Treat Political Opponents

Mark Galli has a good editorial in the current Christianity Today issue. I disagree with a couple of points. But I appreciate his primary message ��� reminding Christians that we���re to love and care for those who oppose and persecute us.

He makes an important point very succinctly that I took a long blog post to make. Religious conservatives and LGBT activists are arguing from two very different metaphysics and are therefore talking past each other. He writes:

The first group believes that sexual mores are rooted in God-given teaching and the natural order. The second group believes every individual has the right to determine how to live sexually���.

This is a seemingly irreconcilable situation. While the legal issues are significant and worth fighting for, Christians also need to remember we cannot hold hatred and animosity toward others no matter how they revile us for Jesus��� sake. And we are called to a higher ethic than only protecting our rights.

But I disagree with a couple of other points.

Mark writes, ���Yet we also believe that the Lord calls us to look out for the interests of our political opponents. So, we must not seek legislation that protects our freedom if that same legislation denies the rights of people with whom we disagree.���

He���s making a good point here, reminding us of the call to look beyond our own interests. But I���m not sure of the ���rights of people with whom we disagree��� that he���s referring to. Since it���s the discussion in our culture right now, I think he���s referring to the rights of gay people to marry others of the same sex, and transgender people to use bathrooms of the sex they identify with, and generally the demand not to have others disagree with their behavior. If so, I don���t think these are rights they can claim at all. A right is a just claim to something. The U.S. Declaration of Independence states the grounding and source of rights quite succinctly: they are God-given. And we can also find sufficient grounds for rights in natural law. In neither of these can rights be found to force others by law to support what is immoral and unnatural. If there is no right, then I don���t see a responsibility to protect those rights. If Galli is referring to the rights to be safe, not be harassed and harmed, then I certainly agree. But I���m not familiar with any legislation that would take away that right or any other just rights claims made by those we disagree with.

A few paragraphs later Galli expands on his good point about going above and beyond. He equates Jesus instructing His followers to help a Roman soldier carrying his load with a Christian baker baking not just one, but two cakes for a same-sex wedding. I get his general point about the higher ethic Christians are called to, but I don���t think his example is a good parallel. A Roman soldier enlisting a Jew to carry his load may be unjust but it���s not an immoral activity in any way. A modern vendor being involved in a same-sex wedding is, arguably, being involved in an immoral activity, which is why Christians are objecting to being forced by law to do so.

Galli���s overall points are good ones. And his conclusion is wise counsel:

In the meantime, what would happen to us if our liberties were trashed and we were forced to suffer penalties and indignities for our faith? Jesus says that we���ll enjoy a reward, and that our reward will be great. Sounds like a win win to us. Maybe that���s why he also said, ���Fear not.���

Why We Need to Go Back to Basics and Make a Case for Our Worldview

I wrote a brief post a couple of weeks ago making the point that ambassadors are sent to foreign countries. It���s increasingly clear that where we sit in our own country, where we have grown up and lived, is becoming foreign territory. We haven���t moved, but the territory around us is foreign. But that���s exactly where ambassadors belong. God is giving us a clearer mission field without moving us. It���s a fairly obvious point, but one that has more significance week by week. Culture is changing fast, and it���s becoming more of a challenge to speak effectively to others about Christianity, and it���s only going to get more difficult. But that is our job as ambassadors.

We���ve had the luxury for generations of speaking to non-Christians who generally shared much of our worldview, at least on a basic level. We were speaking the same language and could understand each other. Much of the western world has moved far from a worldview that provides us some common ground about specific issues and challenges. Modern culture is marked by radical individualism, practical atheism (if not outright atheism), and new definitions for rights and tolerance that have us speaking past each other much of the time. We talk about rights and respecting one another, but we mean very different things.

As ambassadors, I think we���re going to find it more necessary to engage non-Christians in conversations at a worldview level along with specific challenges and questions. We���ll continue to answer challenges about same-sex marriage, abortion, and why Jesus is the only way to reconcile with God. But I think much of the current conversations going on in the public square demonstrate that we���re talking past each other because the answers we give don���t even make sense to someone with a different worldview. A worldview that elevates personal autonomy and determination above almost everything else. A worldview where humans are merely a more evolved animal. A worldview that sees the world and our place in it as a result of random chance with no meaning other than what we choose to give it. A worldview that has no objective fixed points of truth and morality.

So answering specific questions and objections will often make no sense to the other person. It doesn���t mean we stop conversing about those things, it means we find more effective ways to converse about them. And I think that���ll mean going back to the basics and making a case for a Biblical worldview. Does God exist, and why do we think He exists? Did He create the world and humans with a purpose? Is there objective meaning, truth, and morality in the universe? Are we creations of a good God who has a design for us? Did Jesus exist, and is He God? Is it possible God has revealed Himself in a book we can trust?

To engage a conversation about transgender bathroom access assumes a view of human beings, a view of human purpose and sexuality, the nature of rights and respect for individuals in the public square ��� to say the least. The reason Christians are seen as bigots who want to deny other people their rights (in addition to the fact that name calling is an easy way to dismiss us) is that we���ve got a worldview that has a view of humans, sexuality, and rights that has radically different ideas than the people who disagree with us. We���re essentially talking different languages, and very often we never get back to those fundamental worldview beliefs that help us understand one another. At the very least, it���s our obligation as ambassadors to do our best to make ourselves understood.

It���s very hard to make our case for traditional marriage to people who don���t believe in any fundamental design to being male and female, in sexuality and marriage, who think individual autonomy is the ultimate basis for rights. Appealing to others to submit their lives to God and honor Jesus as their Lord is very odd when they don���t recognize any authority other than their own. The cases we make for these ideas make more sense in the context of a worldview that grounds them. Helping someone understand that God exists and has created us with a purpose gives them a basis for understanding the Gospel. They may want to challenge us on same-sex marriage or evolution, but what they need to understand is a different worldview from their own.

I���m sure this isn���t a newsflash to most of you who read STR���s blog on a regular basis. But I think it���s helpful to get a broader perspective now and then because we���re often engaged in dialog over the issues and can���t see the big picture. As a practical matter, I think we���re going to have to steer the conversation back to these fundamental questions of worldview. Answering specific questions and engaging individual issues may be more effective if we can go back to basics and make a case for our worldview. It may not be the specific question at hand, but answering that question won���t do much good unless we go a little deeper into our views of the world that ground all of those other issues.

This article from Public Discourse is a good example of understanding the very different ideas animating the specific views that are at odds. This is a philosophical analysis of the transgender bathroom disagreement. But it���s a worldview one, too, because the animating philosophies have to do with the nature of man and if God exists. It helps to understand where the other person���s ideas come from so that we can talk about those deeper beliefs. Sometimes it���s just ineffective to engage the individual challenges without going back to that starting point, the views and values that inform our thinking about everything.

We���re foreigners in this land. We speak a different language. We have a different perspective on the most fundamental ideas about the world. We haven���t changed, but the world has changed ��� a lot. And it���s changing faster than ever before. We���re going to have to explain those fundamentals to have any hope of showing the people we���ve been sent to that God exists and humans can only thrive and find true happiness when we are in relationship with Him through Jesus.

Kind of the good news in this is that you don���t always have to have the answers to 100 questions and challenges. You don���t have to feel ineffective when the issues get too wild you can���t even keep up. You can respond by asking someone, Have you thought about this? And move the conversation to one about God���s existence, or whether humans are designed for a purpose. You can master some good arguments for fundamental worldview issues and move the conversation to those. If someone objects that you���re changing the subject, you can tell them that this is really where the disagreement is, so it is relevant.

Challenge Response: God Is Only Forgiving When He Smells Blood?

Here's my response to this week's challenge:

Links Mentioned on the 6/01/16 Show

The following is a rundown of today's podcast, annotated with links that were either mentioned on the show or inspired by it:

Commentary: Trip to Norway (0:00) / Evaluating Different Points of View (0:10) / Jesus Wasn't Transgender (0:45)

Four Views on Hell ��� Edited by Preston Sprinkle
Jesus: The First Transgender Man by Suzanne DeWitt Hall
The Transgender Conversation You Need to Have with Your Family by Tim Challies

Questions:

��� Announcements:

Upcoming events with STR speakers 
STR Cruise to Alaska ��� August 6-13, 2016
CrossExamined Instructor Academy ��� August 18���20 in Costa Mesa, CA

1. Why do you think theistic evolution is self-contradictory? (0:30)

Drifting Towards Darwin by Greg Koukl

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

To take part in the Twitter conversation during the live show (Tuesdays 4:00���6:00 p.m. PT), follow @STRtweets and use the hashtag #STRtalk.

Is One Way the Only Way?

We are continuing our series on Answering Gosptacles with what might be the most pervasive gosptacle that we���ve looked at so far. The exclusivity of Christ as the only way of salvation is deeply offensive to our relativistic and pluralistic culture.

There are three ways that this view���Jesus is the only way���is being challenged. First, there are some who mistakenly think that Jesus can be true for them, but not for others. That is, He is the only way for some. This idea stems from a theological confusion. Simply put, they misunderstand the gospel. Second, there is the explicit teaching that there are many ways to God. This idea is called religious pluralism. Third, there is a view that tries to argue for both one way and many ways. In this view, Jesus is the only way of salvation. However, explicit faith in Christ is not required for salvation. This is referred to as Christian inclusivism.

In this talk, I evaluate each of these challenges and show that each is mistaken. You can watch the entire presentation here. 

If you missed the first two parts of my Answering Gosptacles series, then click here and here.

Challenge: God Is Only Forgiving When He Smells Blood?

Here���s a challenge from a Hindu:

So let me get this straight: the rules are that if people screw up, they have to brutally murder an innocent animal. God is omnipotent, so presumably these are his rules. But it���s been changed. Because a couple thousand years ago humans killed a man in one of the most savage manners imaginable it was enough sacrifice for everyone for all time. What I don���t understand is why a sacrifice was necessary at all. God is only in a forgiving mood when he smells fresh blood?

This is obviously a huge topic���sin, evil, God���s holiness, justice, and more are involved with this one. How would you go about responding to it? Tell us what you would say in the comments below, and Brett will be here on Thursday to respond to this challenge.

[Explore past challenges here and here.]