Sunday Sermons
Prove All Things
Prove All Things
There are a number of voices in our world insisting that Christianity and the Bible are at odds with a logical approach to reality.
- Sam Harris writes, “Religious faith represents so uncompromising a misuse of the power of our minds that it forms a kind of perverse, cultural singularity—a vanishing point beyond which rational discourse proves impossible” (The End of Faith, p. 25).
- Richard Dawkins says, “Religious faith is an especially potent silencer of rational calculation, which usually seems to trump all others” (The God Delusion, p. 346).
- Christopher Hitchens adds, "All attempts to reconcile faith with science and reason are consigned to failure and ridicule” (god Is not Great, p. 64).
What is Illogical
Christianity is not against reason, but a lot of what exists both in the religious, as well as the non-religious world, is illogical — which adds even more confusion as they falsely represent Christianity.
- People who claim they can work miracles when everyone else can see otherwise.
- People who claim that God is talking through them—although what they are saying contradicts what God has already revealed in His written word.
- Religious people who hide behind subjective, non- Biblically based arguments, spouting “But that is what I believe”, and yet offer no evidence to back up that conviction.
- Equally self-defeating is the posture assumed by many churches that truth is elusive, that no one should “judge” what they believe, and that no one should be so dogmatic as to claim that only one path to God exists, or that only one point of view is the right view.
This last point contradicts both Scripture and reason. The Bible is clear that only one path to God does exist (John 14:6), that His word is truth (John 17:17), and that this path of truth is narrow (Matthew 7:13-14). Here is how one writer but it, “Every single day that we live, we interpret thousands of messages accurately. We read the newspaper or watch television news, fully expecting to understand what we read, hear, and see. We read bills, books, and text messages with the same expectation. We go to the mailbox, get our mail, and browse through it, fully expecting to interpret properly the messages being conveyed. The fact that misunderstanding sometimes occurs does not negate the fact that more information can be examined in order to draw the right conclusions and arrive at correct interpretations. We go through this process constantly—every waking hour of the day, day in and day out, year after year…..Yet, a host of religious people turn right around and imply that the God of heaven, the One Who created our minds and our thinking capacity, the One Who is infinitely wiser and more capable than humans, is incapable of making His will known to humanity in a clear and understandable fashion. When some people who profess to be Christians come to the Bible, they suddenly do an about-face and insist that we cannot be sure what God’s will is, we cannot be dogmatic on doctrine, and we must allow differing opinions on what is spiritually right or wrong” (Reason and Revelation, June 2011, 31(6):51).
What people need to realize is that such uncritical tolerance in religion only fuels unbelief. In addition, when unbelievers attack “Christianity” they are often attacking an apostate Christianity (2 Timothy 4:3-4), which is, of course, easily ridiculed. Unbelievers need to be shown the difference between the man-made denominations and real, authentic New Testament teaching, which can stand up to any logical scrutiny.
God—The Starting Point
Instead of God or belief in God getting in the way of thinking clearly, I would argue that faith in God is actually the starting point of wisdom. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7). Why?
- If God does not exist and if our brains simply evolved by chance, then there isn’t any guarantee that such minds evolved correctly. The fact that God made me a rational being gives me confidence that I can actually “think”.
- If God does not exist, then nothing really matters, for there is no final accountability, no judgment, no reward or punishment. As a result, no right and wrong, no final truth or error. The worse person who ever lived is equal in every way to the most holy person who ever lived. There is no such thing as justice or fairness. And love is nothing but physics.
- People who do not believe in God claim that they only believe the facts. Think again. The atheist believes that God does not exist, and yet no fact or group of facts establishes this point of view. Thus, the central and major conviction of an atheist is not based on the evidence or the facts. If God does not exist, then it does not matter what you believe, anyway—all information is meaningless.
- The Bible claims that the existence of God is so evident that all men are without excuse for not believing in Him (Psalm 19:1-2; Romans 1:20). The unbeliever who sees the wonders of nature each and every day is like a person standing in the Redwoods and shouting, “I do not believe in Trees”.
The Bible and Reason
The Bible consistently admonishes the reader to use the reasoning abilities that God gave them. God invented logic and critical thinking long before the popular thinkers of our time:
- Solomon warned, “The naïve believes everything, but the sensible man considers his steps” (Proverbs 14:15).
- We are warned repeatedly against trusting in our feelings (Proverbs 3:4; 16:25; 28:26).
- We are warned against believing something or someone after we have only heard half of the story, “The first to plead his case seems just, until another comes and examines him” (Proverbs 18:17).
- God pleaded with Isaiah’s generation, “Come now, and let us reason together” (Isaiah 1:18).
- Luke wrote his gospel account so that Theophilus and other readers might know the “exact truth” concerning what they have believed (Luke 1:4)
- In writing about Jesus and His resurrection, Luke noted how this resurrection was verified by many “convincing proofs” (Acts 1:3).
- Men like Paul when they preached offered “evidence” and “reasoned from the Scriptures” (Acts 17:2-3).
Luke commended the Bereans saying that they were more noble-minded because they received the word with great eagerness examining the Scriptures daily, to see whether these things were so (Acts 17:11). The Bereans listened to what Paul preached and then compared that information with the Scriptural evidence, before drawing any conclusions one way or another. Here the Bible commends the truly open-minded person who is willing to allow the truth to determine the direction of their lives.
- When Festus accused Paul of being crazy, Paul coolly countered: “I am not mad, most noble Festus; but speak the words of truth and reason” (Acts 26:25).
- Peter exhorted Christians to be “ready” to give an answer for the hope that is in us (1 Peter 3:15). The Greek term that Peter uses here is a technical, legal term that was used in the Greek law courts. It connotes rational activity, mustering arguments that prove the case. Thus the verse calls for an intelligent grasp of what we believe and skill in presenting it. Clearly, the verse argues that Christians have a faith based on reason and one that can be defended by every member.
- The Apostle John stated, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1).
Remember, when John wrote there were already many false religions that existed, and yet this is not presented as an excuse for why we cannot find the truth. The First Century world was filled with erroneous ideas, and yet Christians were expected to be able to filter all of this. Clearly, God is not going to accept the excuse that it was simply "too hard to find the truth" among all the various claims, rather, He expects us to find it, for it isn’t that far away from anyone (Acts 17:27).
An Example: The Origin of Mankind
- The Bible states that God miraculously created man and woman (Genesis 1:26-28). When I examine this claim, everything begins to make sense, especially in light of what I see. 1. It is clear that both men and women are created in God’s image, for they both have rational, moral and religious natures. 2. It is clear that man needs a helpmeet (Genesis 2:18) and that males and females were created to be together. 3. It is obvious that the family is the best environment in which to raise children and prepare them for marriage (Genesis 2:24). 4. It is evident that marriage works best when a couple first leaves the parents and then cleaves to each other (2:24).
- The scenario offered by Evolutionary Theory is far different. First, matter came from nothing, then life arose from non-life—all by chance and accident. Then by chance and accident life forms emerged, evolved, survived and eventually a human male arrived on the scene. But—a human female had to evolve during the same exact period of time. Yet far more is required. She has to evolve and survive in the exact same place on the planet that the man evolved. And they had to find one another. Which means for all practical purposes they had to evolve within relatively close proximity on this huge planet. Then there is more. Just because another human being is near you does not mean that you will be attracted to them. There must be an attraction, or the whole thing is a dead end. Then, the mother and baby had to survive the birth process. Yet there is more. For this to lead to the human race there has to be someone for the baby as she or he grows up to procreate with one day.
This is just one example in which faith and reason are seen to be far superior to unbelief. Jesus gave us good advice when He said, “And be not unbelieving, but believing” (John 20:27).