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February 13 - March 3, 2025
William Dembski
an “explanatory filter.”
If an object or event (1) cannot be explained by some natural law necessitating its appearance, (2) exists despite the high improbability it could occur as the result of chance, and (3) conforms to an independently existing and recognizable pattern, it is most reasonable to infer it is the product of an intelligent designer. 8
The Teleological Argument:
Perhaps the most important evidence suggesting the involvement of an intelligent designer is the presence of DNA and the guiding role this DNA plays in the formation of biological systems. DNA is a digital code of sorts; it contains specified information. When examined through Dembski’s explanatory filter, DNA is best explained by the creative activity of an intelligent designer.
Stephen C. Meyer argues in his book Signature in the Cell, “Intelligence is the only known cause of complex functionally integrated information-processing systems” (italics original).
in the history of scientific and intellectual research, we can find no example in which information came from anything other than an intelligent source.
If DNA is a form of specified information guiding the complex process of cellular formation and biological structures, “intelligent design stands as the best—most causally adequate—explanation for this feature of the cell, just as it stands as the best expl...
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If biological systems display characteristics of design (in the form of specified complexity), it is reasonable to conclude a d...
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If God exists, He would certainly possess the characteristics and power to accomplish such a thing. The presence of specified information in biological systems is yet another piece of circumstantial evidence pointing to the existence of God.
A UNIVERSE WITH OBJECTIVE MORALITY
Each and every one of us feels a certain obligation to moral duty.
See CS Lewis' Mere Christianity
We have an intuitive sense of moral oughtness; we recognize some things are right and some things are wrong, regardless of culture, time, or location. We understand it’s never morally right to lie, steal, or kill for the mere fun of it.
These moral laws are transcendent and objective: their truth is not a matter...
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We may discover moral truth, but we do not invent it.
we can look across history and culture and make meaningful judgments about the moral rightness or wrongness of any given set of actions.
culture itself cannot be the source of moral law, and there is instead a “law above laws” transcending all of us. So, from where does tra...
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All moral laws come from moral lawmakers. If there exists even one transcendent moral law (e.g., it’s never morally right to kill someone for the mere fun of it), ...
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Darwinian evolution has great difficulty accounting for the existence of objective moral o...
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First, if we live in a purely natural, physical world governed by the “cause and effect” relationships between chemical processes in our brains, “free will” is an illusion, a...
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The Axiological Argument:
addition to this, Darwinian evolution cannot produce truly objective morality.
Objective morality must be rooted in something bigger than the evolutionary development of any one species.
If God exists, He would certainly transcend all species, cultures, locations, and moments in time. For this reason, the existence of transcendent moral truth is best explained by the existence of God as the transcendent source of such truth. Once again, we have an important piece of circumstantial evidence.
the circumstantial evidence in our universe is consistent with God’s existence and involvement as the uncaused first cause, the fine-tuner, the designer, and the moral law giver required to account for all the evidence we observe.
God’s Crime Scene: A Cold-Case Detective Examines the Evidence for a Divinely Created Universe,
In addition to the evidence I’ve offered, investigators and philosophers have proposed many additional arguments (including the Ontological Argument, the Transcendental Argument, the Argument from Religious or Aesthetic Experience, and many more).
The cumulative circumstantial evidence pointing to God’s existence is either incredibly coincidental or a compelling indication of the truth of the matter. At some point, God’s existence is the only reasonable inference considering the evidence, and like our homicide, we can get there without a single piece of direct (or forensic) evidence.
Circumstantial evidence has been unfairly maligned over the years; it’s important to recognize this form of evidence is not inferior in the eyes of the law.
Witnesses, for example, can lie or be mistaken about their observations;
Circumstantial evidence, on the other hand, cannot lie; it is what it is. You and I can assess and make an inference from the circumstantial evidence using our own reasoning power to come to a reasonable inference.
All of us need to respect the power and nature of circumstantial evidence in determining truth so we can be fair when evaluating the role 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 has no evidential value simply because it is not an example of direct evidence.
When we treat circumstantial evidence as though it is not evidence at all, we do ourselves a disservice as ambassadors for the Christian worldview.
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.
Take the time to discover and master the evidence for yourself so you can articulate the deep, rich, and robust evidential support for the claims of Christianity.
how do we come to trust what an eyewitness has to say? How can we evaluate a witness to make sure he or she is someone we can trust in the first place?
consider several factors and ask yourself the following questions:
How well could the witness see, hear, or otherwise perceive the things about which the witness testified? How well was the witness able to remember and describe what happened? What was the witness’s behavior while testifying? Did the witness understand the questions and answer them directly? Was the witness’s testimony influenced by a factor such as bias or prejudice, a personal relationship with someone involved in the case, or a personal interest in how the case is decided? What was the witness’s attitude about the case or about testifying? Did the witness make a statement in the past that
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the end, there are four critical areas of concern when it comes to evaluating an eyewitness:
WERE THEY EVEN THERE?
First, we’ve got to find out if the witness was even present to observe anything in the first place.
HAVE THEY BEEN HONEST AND ACCURATE OVER TIME?
The primary concern most of us have when evaluating witnesses is the issue of credibility.
CAN THEY BE VERIFIED?
DO THEY HAVE AN ULTERIOR MOTIVE?
The apostles saw themselves first and foremost as a group of eyewitnesses, and they understood their shared observations were a powerful testimony to what they claimed to be true.
The ancient Christian author Tertullian
As the apostles began to write out their eyewitness observations, early Christians gave these accounts great authority and respect. As the “canon” of emerging New Testament Scripture was examined by the church fathers (the early leaders of the growing Christian community), the issue of apostolic authority was the first and foremost criteria for whether a particular writing made it into the collection. Was the text written by an apostolic eyewitness (Matthew, John, Peter, Paul, James, Jude, et al.) or by someone who at least had meaningful access to one or more of these eyewitnesses (e.g., Mark
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Before I ever examined the reliability of the gospel accounts, I had a reasonable expectation about what a dependable set of eyewitness statements might look like,
