Gregory Koukl's Blog, page 138

I’m Not a Christian Because It Works for Me

At the age of thirty-five, it seemed like I had everything I could possibly want. I’d graduated at the top of my class in my undergraduate and graduate programs, earned the honor recruit award at the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Academy and was in an incredible job assignment, working as a member of a five man career-criminal surveillance team. I had been with my wife for eighteen years and we had a great family. We just purchased our second home in a community I had admired since childhood. Nothing could have been better. This was the status and condition of my life when I walked into a Christian church for the first time.

I wasn’t looking for answers; I thought I already had all the answers. In fact, most of my friends came to me for advice. I was the guy you came to if you wanted to ask a question about how to work an investigation, how to maintain a good marriage, how to raise your kids. I was happy, content, and full of myself. I definitely wasn’t the kind of person who thought he needed help or needed fixing. My self-confidence had grown into arrogance. I was opinionated, sure of myself and difficult to reason with. I was sure I was right, and my life seemed to confirm this at every turn. I was in control and my decisions seemed to be producing the life I wanted.

That first pastor described Jesus as a wise teacher, the smartest man who ever lived. That intrigued a self-serving, arrogant guy like me. For purely selfish reasons I became interested in what Jesus might have to say about life, family, work, and all the things I thought I had already mastered. So I began my investigation of the gospels, not to find God, but simply to steal from Jesus the wisdom he allegedly possessed. Along the way I became convinced the gospels were reliable eyewitness accounts. I eventually examined the Gospel itself, the message of Salvation offered through Christ alone, and became a Christian. I moved from certainty related to the accounts, to certainty related to my own desperate, fallen nature and need for a Savior.

Life on this side of my decision hasn’t always been easy. It’s been nearly seventeen years since I first trusted Jesus as Lord and Savior. I still struggle to submit my prideful will to what God would call me to do. Christianity is not easy. It doesn’t always “work” for me. There are times when I think it would be easier to do it the old way; easier to cut a corner or take a short cut. There are many times when doing the right thing means doing the most difficult thing possible. There are also times when it seems like non-Christians have it easier, or seem to be “winning”. It’s in times like these that I have to remind myself that I’m not a Christian because it serves my own selfish purposes. I’m not a Christian because it “works” for me. I had a life prior to Christianity that seemed to be working just fine, and my life as a Christian hasn’t always been easy.

I’m a Christian because it is true. I’m a Christian because I want to live in a way that reflects the truth. I’m a Christian because my high regard for the truth leaves me no alternative.

What Counts As Evidence?

You’ve probably heard at least one atheist say, “There’s no
evidence for Christianity.” It may not be that they’ve never looked into the
question and listened to our arguments. The problem may simply be that they’re
illegitimately disqualifying circumstantial evidence from consideration. Jim
explains in Cold-Case Christianity,
from his experience as a detective, why this is a mistake:

It’s not a coincidence that I was a
nonbeliever before I learned anything about the nature of evidence. In those
days, as I was evaluating the claims of Christianity, I demanded a form of
evidence (direct evidence) that simply isn’t available to anyone who is
studying historical events. I failed to see that rejecting (or devaluing)
circumstantial evidence would prevent me from understanding anything about
history (when eyewitnesses of a particular event are unavailable for an
interview). If I continued to reject (or devalue) circumstantial evidence, I
would never have been able to successfully prosecute a single cold-case killer.
All of us need to respect the power and nature of circumstantial evidence in
determining truth so that we can be open to the role that circumstantial
evidence plays in making the case for Christianity….

When discussing evidence with
skeptics, we don’t need to concede that a particular fact related to the
Christian worldview is not a piece of evidence simply because it is not a piece
of direct evidence. Even though a
particular fact may not have the individual power to prove our case in its
entirety, it is no less valid as we assemble the evidence….

When defending our belief in the
existence of God, the resurrection of Jesus, or the validity of the Christian
worldview, we may need to take some time to explain the nature, role, and power
of circumstantial evidence.

The instructions for jurors in California read, “Both direct
and circumstantial evidence are acceptable types of evidence to prove or
disprove the elements of a charge, including intent and mental state and acts
necessary to a conviction, and neither is necessarily more reliable than the
other. Neither is entitled to any greater weight than the other.” That might
come as a surprise to our atheist friends!

How Tim Keller Made Peace with the Wrath of God

“My Father, if it is
possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will”
(Matthew 26:39).

In a sermon titled “The
Dark Garden,” Tim Keller explains how he came to understand that a god
without wrath and Hell is not as loving as the God we find in the Bible:

Because [a cup of poison] was the
method of execution for many people,…the Hebrew prophets came to use the cup as
a metaphor for the wrath of God on human evil…. For example…Isaiah 54: “You
will drink the cup of His fury and stagger.” So the reason why [Christian
martyrs] who died for what they believed in didn’t die the way Jesus is
dying—didn’t fall to the ground, didn’t find this horror coming down—was that
they didn’t face the cup. They didn’t face the justice of God against all human
wickedness and evil, which was just about to come down on [Jesus]….

It was in the Garden of Gethsemane
that I came finally to grips—I made my peace, as it were—with the wrath of God.
Now, it might shock some of you that…a preaching minister was struggling with
the very idea of a God of wrath, a God who sends people to Hell…. And then it
was studying the Garden of Gethsemane when I finally came to peace with it
because I realized this: The reason why people get rid of the idea of Hell and
wrath is because they want a loving God…. They say, “I can’t believe in Hell
and wrath because I want a more loving God.” And I came to realize in the
Garden of Gethsemane that if you get rid of the idea of Hell and wrath, you
have a less loving God.

Because if there is no wrath by God
on sin, and there is no such thing as Hell, not only does that actually make
what happened to Jesus inexplicable—Jesus staggering the way He is, asking God,
“Is there any other way?” [and] sweating blood means that He was wimpier than
hundreds of His followers, if there was nothing like [God’s wrath]—but…the main
thing is, if you don’t believe in the wrath and Hell, it trivializes what He’s
done…. If you get rid of a God who has wrath and Hell, you’ve got a god who
loves us in general, but that’s not as loving as the God of the Bible, the God
of Jesus Christ, who loves us with a costly
love.

Look what it cost. Look what He
did. Look what He was taking. You get rid of wrath and Hell, He’s not taking
anything close to this. And therefore, what you’ve done is you’ve just turned
His incredible act of love into just something very trivial, very small….

And by the way, if the anticipation
of these sufferings—if the very taste of these sufferings—sent the Son of God
into shock, what must it have been to drink them to the bottom?

We see the height of God's costly love in what He did to give us grace, but you can't know the beauty of this grace—the very concept of grace will be meaningless to you—if you reject the rightness of His justice.

The Post Resurrection Behavior of Jesus Eliminates the Possibility of an Imposter

Of the many skeptical, alternative theories of the Resurrection, the imposter theory is sometimes offered in an effort explain the apparent confusion of the disciples. There are a number of places in the Gospels where followers of Jesus seem to be slow to recognize Him. Mary mistakes Jesus for a gardener, the disciples on the road to Emmaus fail to recognize Jesus altogether. Couldn’t an imposter have stepped in and fooled the disciples into thinking he was Jesus?

I’ve learned something important from the fraud investigators who have joined our homicide team over the years. Con artists are successful if, and only if, they know more about the focus of their lie, than the people to whom they are lying. If you’re trying to con someone out of money in a phony investment scheme, you better know more about investment businesses than your victims. You’ll need to sound like you know what you’re doing if you want to convince someone to give you their money, and they better not be able to detect your deception. So if someone wanted to con those closest to Jesus into believing that Jesus had actually risen from the dead, he would need to know Jesus (his mannerisms, figures of speech and behaviors) better than the disciples themselves. Who could know Jesus this well? I think it would have to be someone in the inner circle, and this person would have to begin by stealing the body; a difficult feat for a single person. It’s not long before imposter theories turn into theories that Involve co-conspirators, and I’ve written an entire chapter of Cold-Case Christianity to explain why conspiracies are so difficult to execute successfully.

But I think there’s an even better reason to reject the Resurrection imposter theory. The behavior of Jesus following the Resurrection was simply too remarkable to have been achieved by an imposter. Remember that Jesus spent forty days with the disciples, providing many “convincing proofs” to demonstrate that he was truly raised from the dead (see Acts 1:2-3). His behavior following the Resurrection included miraculous, supernatural deeds:

Jesus Appeared Miraculously
Following his Resurrection, Jesus (or his imposter) appeared to the disciples supernaturally, penetrating the room where they had gathered unlike an ordinary human being (Luke 24:36)

Jesus Performed Miraculously
Following the Resurrection, Jesus (or his imposter) repeatedly performed the same kinds of miracles Jesus accomplished prior to the Crucifixion (John 21:6, Acts 1:3)

Jesus Ascended Miraculously
To make matters even more difficult, Jesus (or his imposter) left the disciples spectacularly by ascending into heaven (Luke 24:51, Acts 1:9)

What kind of imposter could do all this? It’s one thing to speak like Jesus, maybe even look like Jesus or move like Him, but it’s another thing to perform supernaturally like Jesus, especially when it’s time to ascend into heaven. In the forty days that followed the first Easter Sunday, Jesus continued to demonstrate His divinity. The post-Resurrection version of Jesus was just as supernatural and divine as the pre-Resurrection Jesus. For this reason, the imposter theory is just another unreasonable alternative.

How Do We Know the Apostles Died As Martyrs? (Video)

How do we know the Apostles dies as martyrs? Do their deaths offer evidence for Christianity?

Now We Wait for the Ruling

If you’d like a quick primer on what the Supreme Court will
be deciding in the next few months, this New York Times chart
on how the justices could rule on Prop 8 and DOMA is clear and helpful.

Over at First Things, Glenn Stanton comments
on some good questions the Justices asked. I tracked down one of the quotes he
cited from Justice Sotomayor to get more of the context:

SOTOMAYOR: Mr. Olson,
the bottom line that you're being asked—and it is one that I'm interested in
the answer: If you say that marriage is a fundamental right, what state
restrictions could ever exist? Meaning, what state restrictions with respect to
the number of people…the incest laws, the mother and child…I can accept that
the state has probably an overbearing interest on protecting a child until
they're of age to marry, but what's left?

OLSON: Well, you've
said in the cases decided by this court that the polygamy issue, multiple
marriages, raises questions about exploitation, abuse, patriarchy, issues with
respect to taxes, inheritance, child custody, it is an entirely different thing.
And if you—if a state prohibits polygamy, it's prohibiting conduct. If it
prohibits gay and lesbian citizens from getting married, it is prohibiting
their exercise of a right based upon their status.

The first mistake Olson makes here is that he thinks people
are being denied marriage because of their sexual orientation (i.e., “their
status”). This has never happened. There is no test whatsoever for sexual
orientation when a person applies for a marriage license. There is no class of
people being told they’re not eligible for marriage. In fact, the exclusion of
same-sex couples (that’s same-sex couples, not homosexual citizens) from
marriage isn’t about prohibiting something on the basis of bad conduct or the status of a group, it’s about the
definition of marriage.

As Justice Roberts pointed
out:

When the institution of marriage
developed historically, people didn’t get around and say let’s have this
institution, but let’s keep out homosexuals. The institution developed to serve
purposes that, by their nature, didn’t include homosexual couples.

If marriage is a particular thing, then everyone has a right
to take part in that institution as it stands, regardless of their personal
characteristics. But to be part of the institution, they must be part of the institution. They don’t have a right to change
that institution into something different simply because they don’t want to be
part of it the way it is.

Imagine a public park builds a tennis court so that people
can come to play tennis. Nobody should be denied the right to play tennis games
there. Period. It’s a public park, open to all. One day, a group of basketball
players comes to the park, wanting to play a game, but they find they can’t
play basketball on a tennis court. They immediately go to City Hall to
complain: “Everyone has the right to competitive exercise with a ball on that
court! We’re being denied our rights based on our status as basketball players!”
Can you see the problem? The fact that they don’t want to play tennis doesn’t
give them the right to demand that
the government build a different court at the park. Their right isn’t to “competitive
exercise with a ball” (tennis shares that in common with basketball, but it
can’t be reduced to that), their
right is to play tennis on that court, just like everybody else.

Please don’t take that illustration farther than it’s
intended to go. I’m merely trying to show that rights aren’t being denied
simply because a person (or group of people) doesn’t want to take part in
something. The park promises the same thing to all. It doesn’t promise
“competitive exercise with a ball,” it promises tennis. And tennis excludes
basketball—not out of prejudice, but by nature. One could certainly argue over
whether the park ought to change that court into something different, but as things stand, no rights are being
violated. Neither justice nor equality demands
that the park change its court to accommodate the desires of the basketball
players to play a different game in that space. The same is true
for marriage.

Secondly, even if it were legitimate for Olson to make the
argument that homosexuals are being denied the right to marry “based upon their
status,” I don’t see why one couldn’t equally say that polygamists are being
denied their rights based upon their
status as people who prefer to have many marriages. Isn’t that class of
people being denied their right to define marriage for themselves, if Olson’s
way of looking at this is correct?

Another problem: Olson says polygamy is an “entirely
different thing” from same-sex marriage because it “raises questions” about
legal, social, and moral harms, and that’s what prevents it from being a right.
But in making this distinction, he’s merely assuming what he needs to prove. Those
defending traditional marriage also have arguments
explaining the harm that will be caused by removing the core principle of sexual
complementarity from the definition of marriage (including the legal difficulties
resulting from surrogacy, sperm and egg donors, etc.—difficulties that will inevitably result because a third
person outside the family must always be involved in the creation of a child
for same-sex parents).

If Olson is correct that the harm that would result to
society from changing the definition of marriage is grounds for not changing the definition to
accommodate a particular group’s desires, then same-sex marriage can be
disallowed if it causes harm.

But if Olson is correct that same-sex marriage is not merely
a desire, but actually a right that can’t
be disallowed, even if it raises questions of harm, then Sotomayor’s question
stands: If defining marriage for yourself is a fundamental right, what state
restrictions could ever exist?

Olson can’t have it both ways.

You can read more quotes from the proceedings in Stanton's article, “Supreme Court
Finally Asks the Tough Questions on Same-Sex Marriage,” and on the Huffington Post.

Why the Hearsay Rule Shouldn’t Apply to the Gospels

Imagine you are a witness to a homicide. After observing the murder, you are interviewed by a detective and several years later find yourself testifying in court. The prosecutor would certainly question you on the stand, and the defense attorney would also have the opportunity to cross-examine you. Now let’s change the scenario slightly. Imagine instead that you observe the same homicide, tell a friend all about the murder in minute detail but then suffer a heart attack and die. Can the prosecutor call your friend into court to tell the jury about your observations? No. The defense in this case has a right to cross examine the original witness to the crime, and this “second tier” testimony would not allow them access to the original witness. For this reason, the testimony of your friend would be deemed “hearsay” and excluded from the trial. If a witness’ statement can’t be cross-examined by the defense, that statement is not going not to be admitted in an effort to assist the prosecution.

I wrote Cold-Case Christianity in an effort to examine the Gospels using the same standard jurors use when evaluating witnesses in criminal cases. But these witnesses (the Gospel authors) can’t be cross-examined; they’ve been dead for many centuries. How can we consider them to be legitimate if they can’t be cross-examined? Isn’t any effort to evaluate them as eyewitnesses negated by this limitation? I think it’s appropriate to evaluate the reliability of the gospels using the standard typically applied to eyewitnesses, even though I don’t think it’s reasonable to exclude them because they can’t be cross-examined. There’s a big difference between evaluating witnesses for the purpose of a criminal trial and evaluating witnesses for the purpose of establishing a chronological truth:

Eyewitness Reliability Related to Criminal Trials
The standard for criminal trials is exceptionally high related to eyewitnesses and there’s a good reason for this. We would rather release one hundred guilty people than wrongly convict one innocent person. For this reason, we give the defendant the benefit of the doubt, assume his innocence, and give his defense team every possible opportunity to confront and examine accusers and witnesses. That’s appropriate in criminal trials, even though it often limits the ability of the prosecution to establish the truth.

Eyewitness Reliability Related to Chronological Truths
The standard for establishing historical truths must, by necessity, be very different than the standard for criminal trials, unless, of course, we are willing to reject any claim of history for which we don’t have a living eyewitness (to cross-examine). History is established on the written testimony of eyewitnesses or the research of historians who have access to such testimony. If we rejected every claim about the past that couldn’t be supported by living testimony, we’d be forced to live in the present, unsure of anything that precedes us by more than two generations.

Vincent Bugliosi, the celebrated criminal prosecutor who became famous as the prosecutor in the Charles Manson case, wrote a book a called Divinity of Doubt, claiming that the hearsay clause excluded the Gospels as legitimate testimony. If Bugliosi applied this criminal standard to his own history as a prosecutor, he’d have to admit that all of his own experience and work as an Assistant District Attorney will soon be irretrievably lost; as those who lived during the Manson trial begin to die of old age. Why should we believe the court record of this case if there’s no one still alive to testify (and be cross-examined) about its veracity? Why should we even believe that Bugliosi ever lived or worked as a prosecutor? In one hundred years, there won’t be any living eyewitness who can testify about Vincent or his career. It’s reasonable to examine the Gospel authors and ask (1) if they were present during Jesus’ ministry, (2) if they can be corroborated in some way, (3) if their testimony has been altered over time, or (4) if they possessed a bias that should exclude their testimony altogether. But it is unreasonable to reject the apostolic accounts simply because they are dead. If we took that approach with everything from the past, we couldn’t even be certain of our own personal family histories. That’s an unreasonable (an impractical) standard to embrace.

Our Certificate of Debt

On the cross, Jesus fulfilled the Law of Moses by satisfying the demands
of it.  By doing that He paid our certificates of debt we each earned.

The
certificate of debt is a concept that lies behind Paul's comments about
the certificate of debt in Colossians 2:13-14:  And when you were dead
in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you
alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions,
having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees
against us and which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the
way, having nailed it to the cross.

In Roman times, this
certificate was a list of crimes committed against the state that
required "payment," much like an indictment in our legal system today.  
The Romans gave Jesus a certificate of debt when He was sentenced to
die; it was nailed to the cross:  "Jesus the Nazarene, the King of the
Jews" (John 19:19).  When the crimes were paid for, the certificate was
canceled and was stamped with the word tetelestai, meaning "paid in
full."

Paul says that Jesus "canceled out" (paid) our certificate of debt (v14).

Jesus'
last words, His victory cry on the cross was, "It is finished!",
literally in Greek was "tetelestai!" "He said, 'It is finished!' And He
bowed His head and gave up His spirit." (John 19:30).  "Paid in full." 
What was finished?  His work of redemption paying for our certificates
of debt against God.

Challenge Response: How Is Christianity Different from a Hoax Religion?

Here is my answer to this week's challenge: 

 

Can a Non-Physical Being Affect the Physical World?

To accept the existence of miracles, one would have to
accept the idea that a being without material properties (i.e., God) can move
about, change, and otherwise affect objects in the physical world. Is this, in
itself, an absurd proposition? I don’t think so. I can’t show you how the affecting of the physical by the
non-physical is possible—such explanations are beyond my capability, but I can
certainly demonstrate that this is not only possible, but commonplace.

Imagine you’re sitting on a park bench and spot a good
friend approaching. You raise your arm and wave.

Why did you wave? There was nothing in the physical world
that compelled you through the laws of physics, or chemistry, or anything else
to raise your arm. Your action did not begin with a physical process; your
action began with your will. Your will to raise your arm was not a physical
part of your body. Your thought was non-physical—it couldn’t have been measured
because it had no mass and took up no space. Try describing your thoughts and
your will in physical terms—what color are they? How big are they? How much do
they weigh? These questions are meaningless because our wills are not in the
same category as objects in the physical world, which can be described in such terms.

Our wills are non-physical, and yet somehow our non-physical
wills are connected to, and have power over, a part of the material world.
Somehow our non-physical thoughts and wills are able to move physical objects—our
own bodies. 

Our limited minds are only able to move our own bodies, but
is it so outrageous to think that it’s possible for there to be a greater mind
out there who would have access to all
physical objects? It’s difficult to rule out the possibility on principle when
we see the same thing taking place on a smaller scale everyday, every time we
make a move.