Cold-Case Christianity (Updated & Expanded Edition): A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels

by J. Warner Wallace

There are many reasons why people may deny (or “shun”) the truth.

Sometimes jurors have rational doubts based on the evidence.

Sometimes jurors have purely emotional doubts.

Sometimes jurors deny the truth for volitional reasons. They are willfully resistant and refuse to accept any position offered by the group.

When making a decision based on evidence, it’s important for us to understand the “shuns” we’ve described and limit our doubts to those that are rational and reasonable.

When assessing the case, we simply need to examine our doubts and separate those based on evidence (rational doubts) from those that are not (emotional or volitional doubts). If the doubts we still possess fall into the second category, we can be comfortable with our decision. Once we realize our doubts are not reasonable, we can deliver a verdict, even though we may still have unanswered questions.

truth can be known even when some of the facts are missing.

None of us has ever made a decision with complete knowledge of all the possible facts. There are always unanswered questions.

the idea of making a decision while there are still unanswered questions seems premature and even dangerous. What if there are outstanding facts yet unknown to us? What if new, additional information comes to light in a few years contradicting the evidence we have in front of us today?

Epicurus and the “Problem of Evil”

The problem of evil is perhaps the most difficult issue to address because it is emotionally loaded.

When someone complains there is evil in the world, they are not simply offering their opinion. They are instead claiming true, objective evil exists. They are complaining about evil behavior as though this behavior ought to be recognized by all of us, regardless of our personal likes, dislikes, or opinions about human conduct.

People who complain about evil behavior must accept the premise that true objective “right” and “wrong” exists in the first place. They must accept some things are morally virtuous and some things are morally repulsive, no matter who you are, where you are located, or when you live in history. This kind of moral evil transcends all of us; if it doesn’t, why complain in the first place?

for true evil to exist

there must be a true barometer of right and wrong.

For an act to be objectively “bad,” there must be some standard of objective “good” by which to measure it. What m...

Can the standard ...

cultural ...

If so, morals are simply a matter of opinion (albeit a largely held opinion), and there is nothing objec...

For true evil to exist, there must be a source of true good transcending any and all groups who might make a claim about the existence of evil. In other words, the existence of true evil necessitates the presence of God as a standard of true virtue. It turns out the existence of evil is another evidence for God’s existence; another piece of the puzzle revealing God’s image.

Ask yourself the question: Which is more loving, a God who creates a world in which love is possible or a God who creates a world in which love is impossible?

It seems reasonable a loving God would create a world where love is possible and can be experienced by creatures designed “in His image.” But a world in which love is possible can be a dangerous place. Love requires freedom.

True love requires humans to freely choose; love cannot be forced if it is to be heartfelt and real. The problem, of course, is people who have the freedom to love often choose to hat...

A world in which people have the freedom to love and perform great acts of kindness is also a world in which people have the freedom to hate and commit great acts of...

we are all eternal creatures who will live beyond the grave. If this is true, then questions about why God might not stop evil are a bit premature. At best, we can only say God hasn’t stopped evil yet.

If there are good reasons why God might permit evil in this life (such as the preservation of free will and the ability to love genuinely), concerns about His failure to act are simply unreasonable.

Doubts about God’s existence based on the problem of evil may have emotional appeal, but they lack rational foundation because reasonable explanations do, in fact, exist.

We make decisions every day with less than perfect knowledge and less than complete information. We act with certainty even though we don’t know everything that could be known.

Criminal cases require the highest legal standard; they require jurors to come to a decision “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Jurors render verdicts beyond a reasonable doubt, even though there are still some unanswered questions. They do this because the reasonable evidence they possess is greater than the unanswered questions.

Those of us who are interested in making a rational, evidential case for our Christian worldview sometimes find our efforts completely unfruitful. Try as we might, even when we make a cogent, articulate, reasonable case for our view, our efforts seem to have no impact on our listeners.

Many of the people we are trying to reach are willing to deny the truth of God’s existence based on an emotional or volitional response, rather than good evidence.

When they are resisting based on evidence, let’s examine the facts together and assess which explanations are the most reasonable. When they are resisting for other reasons, let’s be sensitive enough to ask questions so we can understand where they are coming from before we overwhelm them with the evidence we are so eager to share. Don’t expect someone to respond to your reasoned arguments when the evidence wasn’t important to him or her in the first place.

following the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001. A new era in atheistic rhetoric began following that dreadful day, as prominent atheists responded to what they saw as evidence of the evil of “religious fundamentalism.”

The attack from atheists and skeptics grew and took on a new form of immediacy, aggression, and sarcasm.

Many Christians, especially those who had been believers for most of their lives, were caught off guard by the confidence and articulate opposition of these authors and those who shared their negative view of Christianity.

It wasn’t as though these skeptics were offering anything new. Instead, they were presenting old arguments with new vigor, humor, cynicism, and urgency.

The fact that there is a defender on the opposite side of the issue who is arguing vociferously against us is no reason to believe the defender possesses the truth.

The existence of a well-articulated defensive argument alone is no reason to surrender our position, but it ought to encourage us to know our case better than anyone else.

several general strategies lawyers have taken when trying to defeat my cold-case investigations. By examining these defensive strategies and comparing them to the approach often taken by those who oppose Christianity, we can assess the validity of these tactics.

DEFENSE ATTORNEYS CHALLENGE THE NATURE OF TRUTH

If all truth is simply a matter of perspective and subjective opinion, it’s virtually impossible to convict someone of a crime.

Many of our young adults have...

that objective truth does not exist or simply cannot be known. As a result, relativism is a common feat...

People are less and less comfortable accepting the notion one particular version of the tr...

The erosion of the classic view of objective truth and tolerance is also taking its toll on those who hold a Christian worldview. The notion there might be only one way to God (or only one truth about the identity and nature of God) is offensive and intolerant to many skeptics and nonbelievers.

Christians may

have to expose the logical problems inherent to the new cultural definitions. While some may argue all religions are basically the same, this is simply untrue. The world’s religions pro...

All

claims about God and Jesus may be false, but they cannot all be true; they contradict one another by definition.