As always happens, you’ll want to listen to this as I don’t stick to the following as a “script.” Just listen.
Does believing the Bible mean checking our brains at the door?
Buckle up, friends, because today’s a class.
Our time together has evolved over the years, and if there’s one thing I like a little less with this year’s plan to read the Bible in five days a week is that we don’t have time during the week to add those extra little bits that help us have confidence and competence in the truth claims of Christianity.
And what’s at the center of those? The existence of God, the trustworthiness of the Bible, and the reality of the resurrection.
One big challenge I’ve noted, particularly on the Bible part, is that if we don’t know Jesus through the Bible, we’ll form a Jesus in our image. And when you have a false Jesus, you have a false gospel.
So this week I started reading one of the books I need to read for my class this fall, Dr. Jonathan Morrow’s Questioning the Bible: 11 Major Challenges to the Bible’s Authority. And we’ll see what the future holds, but today’s going to be summary of chapter one – Is the Bible Anti-Intellectual?
Note this: what follows from here is all attributed to Dr. Morrow. I’ve interjected a few of my own bits, but this is a summary of his work. Which, by the way, you should just buy.
***
Morrow begins with describing the current cultural climate:
One of the prevailing currents today is an overemphasis on emotion and a devaluing of reason. Our culture worships at the altar of sound bites, slogans, and quick updates. This makes sustained thought and critical reflection challenging, to say the least. Couple this with the fact that our lives are overscheduled and hurried, and that is a recipe for superficiality. (p17)
Claims are never made or heard in a cultural vacuum. The conversation about the Bible today is heard in a cultural backdrop that includes a lot of misunderstanding of religion in general and Christianity in particular. The goal in this chapter is modest but important. We need to expose some of these misperceptions about how to find spiritual truth, and then allow the Bible itself to inform our understanding of key words like faith, truth, and reason. (18)
Three logic mistakes people make when thinking about the Bible
We’ve talked about every one of these objections before on this show, but it’s worth going over them again.
“People are free to believe whatever they want about God” (18)
True tolerance is where we extend to each other the right to be wrong. False tolerance, on the other hand, naïvely asserts that all ideas are created equal and this must be rejected. Not only is this obviously false, it’s unlivable.
“The ideal of religious tolerance has morphed into the straitjacket of religious agreement.” Contrary to what is commonly believed, the height of intolerance is not disagreement, but rather removing the public space and opportunity for people to disagree. (19)
Our believing something is true doesn’t make it true.
The bottom line is that we discover truth; we don’t create it.
“All religions basically teach the same thing”
It is out of a sense of false tolerance that we think we are actually loving one another if we never challenge ideas that we believe to be false. (20)
(and) we often lack the courage to (respectfully) say what needs to be said.
Dialogue:
“That’s interesting; in what specific ways are all religions basically the same?”
Wait for a response (Fight the temptation to answer for them).
“No one argues that different economic systems or political regimes are one and the same. Capitalism and socialism are so obviously at odds that their differences hardly bear mentioning. The same goes for democracy and monarchy. Yet scholars continue to claim that religious rivals such as Hinduism and Islam, Judaism and Christianity are, by some miracle of the imagination, essentially the same, and this view resounds in the echo chamber of popular culture.” ~ Stephen Prothero, Boston University professor, author of God is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World—and Why Their Differences Matter[1]
You may recall that one of our weekend editions earlier this year asked, “Does Jesus claim to be the only way to God? Don’t all roads lead to the top of the mountain? I’ve put a link to that show in today’s show notes or you can find the search function on the website at forthehope.org.
Finally, the fact that the religions of the world make exclusive and mutually contradictory claims means they can’t be the same. Take Jesus of Nazareth as an example: either Jesus was not the Messiah (Judaism), was the Messiah (Christianity), or was a great prophet (Islam)—but not all three (cf. John 14:6).
“God is a psychological crutch humans invent to feel better”
First, it begs the question against God.
A logical fallacy that requires the desired conclusion to be true.
Freud’s argument is, essentially, since we know that God doesn’t exist, what are the most compelling psychological explanations of this belief? His argument assumes from the outset that no object of belief—namely God—exists.
And second, the projection theory logic cuts both ways.
If it can be argued that humans created God out of a need for security or a father figure, then it can just as easily be argued that atheism is a response to the human desire for the freedom to do whatever one wants without moral constraints or obligations. (21-22)
“Since both believers and nonbelievers in God have psychological reasons for their positions, one important conclusion is that in any debate as to the truth of the existence of God, psychology should be irrelevant. A genuine search for evidence supporting or opposing the existence of God should be based on the evidence and arguments found in philosophy, theology, science, history, and other relevant disciplines.” Paul Vitz, NY University professor, author of Paul C. Vitz, Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism[2]
Three things about Christianity that may surprise you
Assume people are using the word “Christianity” incorrectly. Why? Because there’s so much misinformation. ROGER: Even inside the church — research bears this out.
Christianity Rises to the Level of True or False
In a culture that relativizes (everybody has their own truth) and then privatizes (my spiritual truth is personal and therefore off-limits) religious belief, we must reintroduce Christianity to our culture with its very public truth claims and let the best ideas win. (23)
When Christians are willing to reduce religion to non-cognitive categories, unconnected to questions of truth or evidence, then we have already lost the battle.” ~ Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity[3]
When it comes to Christianity, the most important question we need to help people ask is not will it work for them or help them feel better, but rather is it true?
Truth
That which accords with reality.
Say it’s raining, look outside, is or isn’t.
Objective truth: not dependent on anyone to agree to it to be true
Subjective truth: depends on what someone thinks
Example: Preferred ice cream versus “it’s wrong to torture babies for fun.”
To put it simply, truth matters because ideas have consequences for people. What you think is true is the map you will use to try to navigate reality—spiritually, morally, relationally, and intellectually. (24)
Biblical Faith Is Not Blind Faith
Problem:
Former Newsweek religion editor Lisa Miller put it this way: “Reason defines one kind of reality (what we know); faith defines another (what we don’t know).” (25)
Prominent Harvard cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker says essentially the same thing but mixes in some disdain for effect. “Universities are about reason, pure and simple. Faith—believing something without good reasons to do so—has no place in anything but a religious institution, and our society has no shortage of these.” (25)
Bible:
Moses in Exodus 4:
4 The Lord told Moses, “Stretch out your hand and grab it by the tail.” So he stretched out his hand and caught it, and it became a staff in his hand. 5 “This will take place,” he continued, “so that they will believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.” [4]
31 When Israel saw the great power that the Lord used against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and believed in him and in his servant Moses. [5]
Jesus in Matthew 5:
2 Now when John heard in prison what the Christ was doing, he sent a message through his disciples 3 and asked him, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” 4 Jesus replied to them, “Go and report to John what you hear and see: 5 The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, those with leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor are told the good news…[6]
Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:
17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. 18 Those, then, who have fallen asleep in Christ have also perished. 19 If we have put our hope in Christ for this life only, we should be pitied more than anyone. [7]
In this passage, Paul clearly established the historical nature of Christianity. This distinguishes Christianity from every other world religion by making its central claim testable. (25)
As a historical claim, the resurrection can be investigated with eyes wide open.
As Gordon Lewis put it, “Spirituality without understanding is not faith; it is superstition.” (26)
…faith is active trust in what you have good reason to believe is true. Sincerity is not enough; faith is only as good as the object in which it is placed. Biblical faith just narrows the focus. In the everyday circumstances of life, biblical faith is active trust that God is who he says he is and will do all that he has promised to do (see Psalm 9:10; cf. Hebrews 10:19–23; 11:1).
Christians Are Commanded to Defend the Faith
Peter: 1 Peter 3:15
Paul: Philippians 1:7
Three common objections to apologetics
First, people claim that apologetics is not practical. (27)
Isn’t apologetics only for academics and intellectuals? No, because everyone has questions.
Second, you should just preach the simple gospel and not worry about all of that intellectual stuff
“The ultimate goal is to preach the gospel. But the gospel is not simple to those whose background prevents them from understanding it. Today’s global secular culture has erected a maze of mental barriers against even considering the biblical message.” Nancy Pearcey, Saving Leonardo
Too much knowledge leads to arrogance.
The remedy for arrogance is not ignorance, but humility.
Engaging our minds as Christians is an act of worship and part of loving God with all of our minds (Matthew 22:37).
The bottom line
Fairy tales may provide personal significance or meaning…but not knowledge (28)
If, however, people are invited to rationally consider the claims of Christianity as a knowledge tradition, then chances are good that they might come to know the living God and live life according to the knowledge provided in His Word.
Moses, Jesus, and Paul each demonstrate that biblical faith is not blind faith.
Faith is active trust in what you have good reason to believe is true.
Moreover, while people are entitled to their own beliefs, they are not entitled to their own truth.
Simply believing something doesn’t make it true.
True tolerance occurs when we extend to each other the right to be wrong. False tolerance happens when we naïvely assert that all ideas are created equal; and this must be rejected.
Not only is this obviously false, it’s unlivable.
Defending the faith is not optional.
Apologetics—based on 1 Peter 3:15—involves responding to objections (defense), making a case (offense), and giving hope (being Christ-centered).
This gives Christians confidence and offers nonbelievers something to think about.
ForTheHope is a daily audio Bible + apologetics podcast and blog. We’ve got a passion for just keepin’ it real, having conversations like normal people, and living out the love of Jesus better every single day.
Roger Courville, CSP is a globally-recognized expert in digitally-extended communication and connection, an award-winning speaker, award-winning author, and a passionately bad guitarist. Follow him on Twitter -- @RogerCourville and @JoinForTheHope – or his blog: www.forthehope.org.
Sources and resources:
[1] Cited from Morrow, Questioning the Bible, Stephen R. Prothero, God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World—and Why Their Differences Matter (New York: HarperOne, 2010), 4.
[2] Paul C. Vitz, Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism (Dallas: Spence Pub. Co., 1999), 145. (Buy this book…I own it, it’s quite interesting)
[3] Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2005), 178. (Buy this book…I own it, it’s quite interesting, too)
[4] Christian Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2017), Ex 4:4–5.
[5] Christian Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2017), Ex 14:31.
[6] Christian Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2017), Mt 11:1–6.
[7] Christian Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2017), 1 Co 15:17–19.