The Absurdity of Unbelief: A Worldview Apologetic of the Christian Faith

by Jeffrey D. Johnson

If God’s Word proves itself faithful over and over, and if it provides us with the only consistent and cohesive system of thought, then it is only rational to trust the God of the Bible.

worldview. Only the Christian worldview can make sense of logic, mathematics, ethical values, and our sensory experiences.

Regardless of what we claim we believe about the laws of math, we cannot live practically without consistently submitting ourselves to them.

Though this may not seem immediately clear, we must realize that the knowledge of God that is implanted in us is not simply a knowledge of an abstract being (which we call God), but it is a knowledge of a personal, moral, and rational being.

ThT leap though. This needs to be demonstrated.

or the tiny flower, these beliefs just arise within us. They are occasioned by the circumstances; they are not conclusions from them.[

Guilt testifies of the fact that our relationship with the Creator is broken. For a God that

is both rational and righteous is not merely a supernatural, impersonal force, but a living, thinking, emotional, and righteous Person – One who has the right and power to tell us how to live.

There’s the bridge between impersonal to personal God.

A worldview is a set of correlating presuppositions that are not derived by sense

experiences but are necessary to interpret sense experiences.

reality, (2.) subjective knowledge, and (3.) practical morality. That is, the three basic and ultimate questions of life are: (1.) What exists outside of our minds? (2.) What exists inside of our minds?, and (3.) How do we feel about it?

there are only three possible answers to the God question – naturalism,

impersonal-

supernaturalism, and personal-supernaturalism. Besides these three options, there are ...

Rationalism is the idea that man is capable of ascertaining true knowledge through unaided (or pure a priori) reason alone, without the assistance of general or special revelation.

“So, is naturalism actually demanded by science? Or is it just conceivable that naturalism is a philosophy that is brought to science, more than something that is entailed by science? Could it even be, dare one ask, more like an expression of faith,

akin to religious belief?”[

Thus, of these three core presuppositions, it does not matter if we presuppose God first or not as we set forth our apologetic argument. All that matters is that we remain logically consistent with the presuppositions that we

have chosen to embrace as our ultimate starting point, because that is what truly matters –consistency. Thus we must always beg the question, do we remain consistent with ourselves?

If a supernatural God is not an option, there are only two possible answers to the origin of the universe. Not three of four, but only two answers can be given – the universe either came into existence out of nothing, or it’s eternal.

be 1 in

1010 123

(expressed as 10 to the power of 10 to the...

The mathematical odds are too great to overcome for the universe to have been caused by mere chance. After knowing the facts, it takes more blind faith to believe that a random universe blindly created itself than it does to accept an Intelligent Designer.

Naturalism has great difficulty dealing with mathematical objects. Mathematical objects are abstract ideas. How can matter ever evolve into ideas? How can ideas exist, other than in some mind? Naturalism alleges that mind evolved from matter. How, then, did mathematics exist before mind evolved? If

the answer is that mathematics did not exist before the appearance of man, how are we to account for the mathematical structure of the laws of physics, which are assumed to have held from the start? If mathematical truths are universal and eternal, this seems to require the existence of a universal, eternal Mind. Yet, if mathematics exists objectively, beyond the human mind and physical world, how can man

gain access to it...

It must be kept in mind that macroevolution cannot

take place without new genetic information being added to an organism’s genetic code. Without an increase of information, it is impossible for the simplest organism to have evolved into something more complex.

The behaviorist may claim that genetics and the environment are the root cause behind adultery, but that does not prevent him from getting mad when his spouse of twenty years is caught in an affair with his best friend.

For some reason, he forgets to take out his anger on the laws of nature but instead places the blame on his wife and friend. “No one,” according to William Lane Craig, professor of philosophy at Talbot School of Theology, “employs postmodern hermeneutics in reading the instructions on a medicine bottle.”[

Eastern religions are not concerned about pinpointing and defining the nature of God, for this is impossible for an Ultimate Being that is ineffable (unknowable). What concerns these religions is how to escape the sufferings,

or pollutions, or finiteness, or individuality of our physical life that is bound to the material and physical world.

The goal is annihilation – to cease to exist as a personal and conscience being by being united to the ultimate

impersonal and unconscious being.

It is not even a force because a force implies power, and power is something that can be experienced and talked about. Even

This leads to a major inconsistency. If we cannot know God, if God cannot even know Himself, and if God cannot

communicate Himself to us, then we cannot know that God is unknowable in the first place.

Moreover, if a guru says that he has experienced this unknowable God, does he not deny the unknowablity of God?

Good point!

for knowledge is restricted to only that which is contained in the visible universe.

In other words, an Ultimate Being that does not exist created all that does exist, and this leads to a host of internal contradictions.

but regardless of which god or concept is the closest to the Ultimate Reality, there remains an infinite gap between

that last step and nirvana.

In addition, if we blend God’s transcendence with His imminence, then this impersonal God becomes the cause

of evil.

it is sufficient to show how Judaism and Islam fail to remain consistent with themselves by showing the logical impossibility

of sinners meriting their salvation before a just and righteous God.

He didn’t seem to prove this point very well.

The Ultimate Being must be both one and many for Him to be a communicable being. For instance, without unity, there would cease to be any one thing that was Ultimate. Without diversity, there would cease to be any formal differentiation within God, which would hinder God from distinguishing between things and communicating accordingly. Thus, only the trinitarian God of the Bible, who is both one and many, meets the necessary preconditions for divine communication.

Not really buying this. I don't see how it is neccessary that God be trinitarian for him to be able to distringruish between himself and creation, and from being able to communicate with his creation. I'm not trinitarian, but I communicate with things and differentiate between self and non-self, why couldn't God?

Another necessary precondition for divine communication is the Creator/creature distinction. This is because when unity is ultimate, as with Islam and Judaism, everything is reducible to pantheism. Because pantheism destroys the possibility of divine communication, as we have seen in chapter 19, Islam and Judaism cannot consistently give an account for divine communication.

This makes a lot more sense. Rather than a LOGICAL argument for God's neccessary unity, I can understand a factual arguement based on the fact that Judaism and Islam believe in a God who is ultimately unified and that does indeed lead to pantheism. Interesting.

Everything, including Adolf Hitler and the terrible crimes of Lenin, Stalin, and Pol Pot, will bring praise to God, or otherwise God would not have allowed such calamities.