Tag: apologetics

Does Science Show The Bible To Be A Myth?

If we have science, does this mean the Bible is false? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

A friend messaged me wondering what I’d say to someone who says the Bible can be relegated to the category of myth because of science. Now for this, I am going to be assuming that the person means a false tale, although myth does entail a wide genre of categories and would not necessitate something false. That is not a discussion I’m going to be entering into at this point. For now, I simply want to address the objection. It is a common one in our day and age where it looks like science has become the new priesthood and many people think the only way something can be demonstrated is scientifically.

To begin with, when we look at this question, we are not going to be arguing that the Bible is true. We are just going to be arguing that the Bible has not been shown to be false. Of course, it’s up to the apologist to still make the positive case. Therefore, if someone thinks I have not demonstrated Christianity is true by this, yes. I have not, at least not in this post. I have simply made it my aim to remove a defeater.

A stance a Christian should not take in this is to denigrate science. Science is a wonderful tool and it is our ally. If we think that Christianity is true, then that means we should be able to accept everything that can be demonstrated scientifically. I also want to advise Christians that if you have not read up on a scientific topic, do not debate it. When you meet someone who knows it better than you do, you will be embarrassed and even worse, Christianity will be embarrassed by what you say. This is one of those times it pays to know people in the field of scientific apologetics who can help you.

One of the first steps with how science supposedly disproves Christianity is to look to the creation accounts. As readers of this blog and listeners of the podcast know, I am not persuaded this is a creation account per se. I think John Walton has made a powerful case. You can listen to my interviews with him here and here. Does this mean I subscribe to the idea of macroevolution? No. It doesn’t even mean Walton does. It just means I do not see it as a defeater for Christianity. Keep in mind that even if I was incorrect, the worst case scenario would be we’d lose Inerrancy. We would not lose the resurrection.

Miracles are a more common objection, but it’s hard to see how this is an objection. A miracle is a being outside of our space-time world in some fashion acting on that world. The only way you could recognize a miracle would be if you had at least some rudimentary science. You only know a virgin birth (Which I of course affirm) is a miracle because you know what it normally takes for a birth. You only know walking on water is a miracle if people don’t normally walk on water. It’s quite bizarre to hear so many atheists say that dead people stay dead, as if this is a new discovery of science. Ancient people also knew that. That’s why they did something called burial.

Can an outside force interfere? The only way to really establish that would be to say that there is no outside force. Of course, saying that there is one does not mean that a miracle will necessarily take place, but it opens the door. In that case, we just look at a historical event and decide what we think the best explanation is. There’s nothing wrong with wanting an explanation that falls within known causes first, but if we find nothing, then we should be open to an unknown cause and if we have evidence that there is a cause beyond us, then that makes it all the more likely.

It’s also important to bring up an idea of God of the Gaps here, where we have this idea that there have been all these gaps and that theists plugged in “God did it” throughout history. This simply isn’t the case. The medieval period, often called the Dark Ages, was actually a great time of scientific advancement. It doesn’t mean that we have the rapid advancement we have now, but the preliminary steps were taken then, such as first off bettering agriculture so that people would have more free time for scientific pursuits since food was more readily available.

We should also state that contrary to what people might think, science cannot answer every question. It can answer a lot, but not all of them. Most of our day to day decisions are not made based on science. When we make a major decision like choosing a spouse, we do not do a scientific experiment to find out if the other person loves us or if we love them. We have other ways of knowing. When it comes to the God question, philosophy is a much better route to take. When it comes to the question of understanding Scripture, history and anthropology and literary studies are much better routes to take.

Overall, it’s the kind of position I do not find convincing, but in our day and age, science has become the new priesthood and it is one that we must answer.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Changes At Deeper Waters

What has happened and what is going to be happening? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

This post is not going to be one to necessarily get you apologetically equipped, but I do hope in the long run you will find that it does help you with apologetics. I’m sure many of you have noticed that there have been changes here at Deeper Waters. We are no longer on the traditional blog at WordPress.com and are rather using our own site. We also have a sidebar now that has a number of debates that I have done. The podcasts page as well has a listing that is much more easily accessible than the other page was. All of this is done to make Deeper Waters more easily accessible to the public and provide the best information that we can format wise. As far as content goes, it’s still on me, but I am fortunate some people have volunteered to make the web site what it is.

And we want to go further.

Now some suggestions have been made to me such as perhaps setting up a sort of disqus where I’m guessing that means a forum where there can be more communication here, but while I am the one who does the content for this site, this is essentially your site. You are the public that is out there that I am trying to serve. Now when it comes to the content, I don’t really plan on changing much. I have no desire to write on something outside of my expertise so if you want me to write on something like creation vs. evolution or something of that sort, then I will not really be interested. There are plenty more who can speak on those topics. I plan to stick to historical and philosophical questions that I have studied.

So now I leave this post open to you readers and fans of Deeper Waters. What is it that you would like to see at the web site that you think would be much more appealing? Is there anything you would like to not see? I can’t guarantee that we can do everything, but I do plan in taking it into serious consideration and discussing it with the ones who do the work on the site. Of course, we are donor-based and so if the donations are not coming in, then we cannot do as much.

That having been said, I’d like to remind you all of how you can be a further part of Deeper Waters. For one thing, you can come and like us on our Facebook page. You can also be a part of our mailing list for the monthly newsletter. There are two ways to do that. The first is to go to the Facebook page and request to sign up. The second is to email me and ask me to include you in the newsletter. Also, I would really encourage you to be part of our donor support group. We really need your support to keep things going. If you do get benefit out of what goes on here, please really consider it. If you want to do that, there is a link on the side to help you do that. What you will do is click on it and it will take you to Risen Jesus ministries. They take the donations for us. These are then tax-deductible. Once a donation is made, email me or email Debbie Licona and say that you want the donation to be made to Nick Peters or Deeper Waters. If you want to be a monthly donor, let us know and we can set that up. If you’re not in a position to donate financially, please be praying for us.

We want to be a ministry that better serves you. Please let us know what you’d like to see and then please consider taking part in supporting us.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Why Inerrancy Should Not Be Your Focus

Is your worldview centered on the wrong thing? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

As many of you know, Inerrancy is a topic that is an important one for discussion with me as it has had a great impact on my family. I describe myself as someone who upholds Biblical Inerrancy, but by this, I simply mean that I believe that in the end, when we find what the Bible teaches, that it will be true. Inerrancy is something that we should talk about and I think we should be clear what we mean by it, but at the same time, I think that if you make Inerrancy your focus, then you are playing a very dangerous game and jeopardizing your own faith as well as the faith of others.

I say this because recently i have seen some discussions of Inerrancy. I get concerned when people marry their faith to Inerrancy or when people think that if you disprove Inerrancy, then you disprove Christianity. I reviewed David McAfee’s book awhile back and found it to be extremely lacking, and the biggest weakness really is that McAfee makes no arguments against the resurrection but merely makes arguments about contradictions in the Bible as if when you find these contradictions, then Christianity is disproven. I could grant every one of his contradictions is a legitimate contradiction and still keep Christianity. Would I have to change my doctrine of Scripture? Absolutely. That does not mean I would throw out Christianity.

But if you don’t have Inerrancy, how will you know what’s true in the Bible and what isn’t? We’d use historiography. We’d treat the Bible the way we treat any other ancient document. This is normally the charge we always make to our opponents. We tell them that if you treat the Bible the way you treat any other ancient document, that you will find that it passes the test. We cannot do that if we are not willing to accept the standards ourselves. Too often it sounds like we’re saying we believe in the resurrection because we believe in the Bible. Instead, it should be that we believe in the Bible because we believe in the resurrection.

If your Christianity is built on anything other than the resurrection of Jesus Christ, then your worldview will have a weak foundation. We could add many other doctrines to this. One of the greatest ones today to consider for that is young-earth creationism. The danger with each of these is that if you disprove young-earth creationism, then that will mean that you will be convinced Jesus did not rise from the dead. If you do this with Inerrancy, then that will mean that if anyone shows you any contradiction that you cannot answer, then you will have to believe Jesus did not rise. I often wonder how far this will go. Mythicism for instance is an absolute foolish position, but will a lot of these people become mythicists when they see contradictions in the Bible? The sad reality is that many of them do.

The Bible is a complex book whether you think it is or not and too many of us expect it to be simple. One of the greatest claims I receive from non-Christians is that the Bible should be clear. Clear to whom? This is always a difficulty. We are in a narcissist culture if we live in the modern west and assume that it must be us and our time. It does not have to be. The Bible requires a lot of study and people who want to ignore the scholarship on the issue are frankly not really worth wasting time on. People who are sure of their position are not afraid to read the best the other side has to offer and interact with it.

If you make Inerrancy your focus, you will have it that you have to be able to give an answer to every contradiction at every moment. That is a ridiculous standard to have. I happen to think I have a good memory when it comes to Biblical matters, which makes it really fun for my friends when they play Bible trivia against me as it gives them a real challenge, but I would not dare attempt to be able to say I will keep in my mind every answer to every Biblical contradiction that is out there. It is far too difficult. Do you really want your faith to hang on that? Sure, it takes a lot to defend the resurrection and that requires effort, but the differences are vast.

There are times I think it is important to address contradictions and those are only two. The first is if you are dealing with a Christian who is wrestling with doubt. You can deal with the contradiction they present at that point. If it does not help them, then you know the real focus of the problem is elsewhere. The same applies to the person who is a non-Christian and you think is seriously considering Christianity. If the person is not there, I do not do it. Otherwise, a person can go to a website and get a list of 101 Bible Contradictions and post them all in a thread. Let’s suppose you answer all of them which will require much time and effort. What will be the response? It will not be “Wow. I hadn’t considered these. Thanks!” It will be going to another web site and getting 101 more Bible contradictions. You don’t need to play “Stump the Bible Scholar.”

Keep in mind I am not saying any of this to downplay Scripture. I have a robust and deep doctrine of Scripture and I’m quite conservative, but I will not bow down at the altar of Inerrancy. Jesus is the greatest revelation of God. The Bible is the greatest revelation we have of who He was and what He did and I hold to it being Inerrant, but that is not the focus. The only question I really want to know is if Jesus walked out of that tomb or not. If He did, then I have Christianity. If He did not, then all we are talking about is indeed nothing but trivia.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

You Can’t Master It All

Are there some subjects you just shouldn’t debate about? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

As one who argues against mythicists, I often find that they are quite uneducated on the ways of history. The sad part is this doesn’t really stop them from speaking on it. While I am sure many Christians are applauding a statement like that and thinking “Yep. It’s just nigh impossible to reason with a mythicist”, I write this post not to speak so much about mythicists, but to speak about my fellow Christians. My concern is that while we would say mythicists who don’t know history (The overwhelming majority) should not be talking about it, too many times Christians talk about things they know nothing about.

Years ago in Seminary, I chose to write a research paper on Richard Dawkins who was quite popular at the time which meant reading through several of his books. My main interest was when it came to books that were not just supporting evolution but going after theism. Most noted in this category would be The God Delusion. Later on, I also wrote a research paper on the relationship between science and Christianity. In that paper, I decided that I wanted my apologetic to be more metaphysically based, hence I came to abandon the Kalam argument as formulated by Craig and went with my own formulation based on the property of existence. In my argument, even if the universe was eternal, there would still need to be a God.

I came to the conclusion that I did not want my theology to be married to the science of the time and that there were better arguments for God to be found in metaphysics. This does not mean that I am opposed to scientific apologetics. It just means that that is not the field I choose to work in. I am happy to state that the topic of evolution is not my area. When the new atheists write that Christians who are not skilled in science should stay out of the scientific debate, I actually agree. The difference is I think new atheists who are not skilled in history, philosophy, metaphysics, Scriptural interpretation, etc. should stay out of that debate as well. Sadly, they haven’t.

Too often in Christian apologetics, we have this idea that we have to be able to answer every question that there is. Unfortunately, you can’t. I have read through all the Mormon Scriptures for instance, but I realize Mormonism is not my specialty area. I can make a few claims, but I’m not going to go in-depth on the BOM and the D&C. I will leave that more for my friends who specialize in Mormonism, like Lynn Wilder. When it comes to the New Age movement, I’m happy to defer to someone like Marcia Montenegro. Now of course this doesn’t mean I agree with these people on everything, but I do know in the areas I defer to them on, I will give them the benefit of the doubt.

Now when those areas do come up, if you have to, you can give an opinion and state it is only an opinion and then point people to these other ministries that have better resources. Something else you can do is try to turn the topic to something you do know. Let’s suppose I encounter a Muslim. I have read the Koran, but I am not an authority on it. What can I do? We both agree that Jesus is someone really important so I can discuss the New Testament instead and I can deal with the objections that are given against Jesus, including especially the ones that come from the Bart Ehrman fan club in Islam.

If you speak about what you don’t know about, you’re going to get in over your head soon and pretty much relying on what you see in a Google search. Those you argue against who know the field will know that you’re blowing smoke and not to take you seriously. (This happens with me regularly with mythicists who think they’ve made a really powerful point when I’m instead giving a massive facepalm.) If they don’t take you seriously, they won’t take Christianity seriously. My advice on this front is to really pick a few areas that you want to specialize in and go with those. When some other area comes along, defer to another. That’s also a great way to build up others and realize that you have limitations.

While many Christians say we should have an answer for the hope that lies within us, that does not entail having an answer to everything. You can’t. You won’t. Accept it and move on.

(btw, for those wondering about the absence of posts lately, I came down with the flu and I’m trying to get in touch with my scheduled guest for this Saturday and so that will be when I write a post about the podcast.)

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Tips For Apologetics

If you want to learn apologetics, what are some tips you should follow? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Recently, a friend messaged me wanting my tips on apologetics. There’s a whole big world out there of things to learn. It looks so big and you look so small. How can you go out there and grasp it all? What are you to do if you want to be good in the world of apologetics? I gave my reply and I’d like to expound on it here.

First off, choose the area that interests you. At most, I recommend specializing in two areas. There are many that these could be. You might choose another religion or New Testament or Philosophy or social issues or dealing with cults. Any of these can work, but choose the areas that you are most interested in. Let those be focus areas for you. If you try to take on too much, you will find yourself being a jack-of-all-trades and a master of none. Okay. So what happens when those areas come up? What happens if you’re a New Testament guy and a question comes up on evolution?

Simple. You defer to a friend and say they can answer the question. That’s the benefit of having other friends in the field. You all can rely on each other. If you’re at a place where you can’t go to a friend, you can say that it’s not your area so your opinion isn’t authoritative, but if you had to say something you’d say whatever it is you say. This kind of thing shouldn’t happen too often. If you’re invited to speak somewhere on the topic of the New Testament, you really shouldn’t be in the Q&A given a question on if you think homosexuals should be allowed to marry each other or not.

Second, once you have your area, read, and read the best that you can. Look for the scholars in the field. Look for books published by academic presses and try to read those. Try to read the best scholars on both sides of the issue so that you can know the side of the opposition just as well as you know your own. Also, when you’re not reading, try listening to podcasts. Naturally, I happen to favor my own, the Deeper Waters Podcast, but also consider shows like Unbelievable? or go to ITunes U and listen to a Seminary course. You can also go and get something at your library like Portable Professor or Modern Scholar. These are courses on CD that you can listen to and do so while doing something else, like driving.

Third, find a good mentor. This is someone you can look up to who will guide you on your journey and is willing to invest in you. You can have several mentors, but I really recommend having one that is your main mentor. Let this be a person who will hold you accountable.

Fourth, don’t neglect your personal life. Apologetics is not all just intellectual. Be a person of prayer and Bible study. If you’re married or a parent, be sure to not neglect your marriage or your children. Be a part of the local body of believers and seek to do what you can to help them out. If you neglect your own spiritual health and only treat yourself like an intellectual, you will crash.

Finally, don’t be afraid to fail. You will. Everyone flubs in the service of the Kingdom. It’s tempting to try to look at someone like William Lane Craig and compare yourself, but Bill Craig got where he was after decades of training. It’s not realistic for you to expect that you should be at the same level when you start. No one starts off as a professional. Everyone starts off as an amateur.

These are all tips I’d give someone starting out and wanting to learn. You’re entering into a noble affair and don’t lose sight of why you do it, for the glory of God in Christ Jesus.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Simplistic Answers

Are we just not thinking enough about deep issues? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

One great hazard of doing apologetics today is our culture has been trained to think in soundbites. We often hope we can have that one great line of wisdom that we see in the movies that will just leave us spellbound. Unfortunately, real life is rarely like that. Usually if you are struggling through a hard time, there is no one thing anyone can say that will suddenly make you see the light. It is often a long process of healing and thinking and in the case of Christians, prayer and Bible study. Those who wants simple answers are often just going to turn out to be simplistic thinkers.

One great culprit today of this is the meme. Now don’t get me wrong here. I love memes. Memes are hilarious if you want to just make a joke. Memes can be effective also if you have made an argument and are wanting to make a visual impact with how wrong the other side is with what you’ve already demonstrated. In that regard, I have no problem with memes. Too often however, memes are seen as the start of the argument. Memes are sound bite arguments and they come loaded with beliefs that are supposedly already seen as correct and before you can deal with what the meme itself says, you have to deal with all the back issues and that can be extremely taxing and time-consuming.

That’s a problem for a culture with a short attention span that now just posts tl;dr. (If you’re not up on internet slang, it simply means “Too long. Didn’t read.”)

Religion is a difficult topic and unfortunately people think the answers should be simple. Why does God allow evil? How do you know that He exists? What about the relationship between science and religion? What does the Bible say about slavery or homosexuality or any other topic? Why should I believe that Jesus rose from the dead? Any religious system will have the hard questions that comes its way and when a religion has a strong intellectual culture to it, as Christianity does, those answers are not going to be simplistic. If you think you’re going to topple Christianity or any other worldview by just using a meme, you are a simplistic anti-intellectual.

The sadness is that many people who take this kind of approach consider themselves intellectual. From the atheist side, I call this atheistic presuppositionalism. Too many internet atheists have the idea that if you’re an atheist, you are rational. No need to read the other side because, hey, those are indoctrinated fundies there. You can just easily spread all the information you find through those great sources of knowledge, Google and Wikipedia. When you set the standards for what the other side must do, they are impossible to meet, such as people that demand that God do a miracle for them or say “Well if it was true, everyone would believe it.” (As if God just wants your intellectual assent.)

And let’s be fair. We Christians aren’t much better. If you want to topple an idea like evolution, you might have to do something like, I don’t know, study evolution? (Yeah. I know that’s really far out there to suggest doing that, but hey, I think it could work.) How can you call yourself someone who is able to critique evolution if you are never willing to go out and actually read what the evolutionists themselves write? I in fact think that if you want to argue against a viewpoint, you need to know the best arguments that exist against that viewpoint well enough that you could argue it yourself.

In our day and age, this simplistic thinking is going on and what we need to do is move past it more and more. There will always be people on both sides who only hear what their itching ears want to hear. It’s one reason in debates I’ve been asking “When was the last time you read a work of scholarship that disagreed with you.” If someone doesn’t answer the question, I find it incredibly revealing.

While we cannot change what happens on the other side, we who are Christians can do better. It’s why we need to start serious discipleship in our churches with learning how to work through and think through issues. I consider it wrong when a non-Christian engages in simplistic thinking, but it is a direct contradiction of the commands of Christ to us when we who are Christians do the same thing. No, we’re not all going to be great intellectuals. But still, what we do have, we are commanded to love Christ with it. We are commanded to think about the things of Christ. This is not optional.

If we are complaining about those outside the fold, let’s make sure our own house is in order.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

The Implosion of Richard Carrier

Has the breakdown come? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

A little over a week ago, I wrote on Carrier’s decision to come out as polyamorous. You see, Richard Carrier, who is the go-to guy practically for atheists in their apologetic defense, has announced that he is divorcing his wife. Alone, this would be a tragedy and nothing that we should celebrate. Divorce is a sad breaking of a union that was meant to last until death do the lovers part. When it is even something that could be necessary, it is a tragedy that it has come to that point.

What made it worse was Carrier working to justify himself and say “I’m polyamorous.” He had been cheating on his wife and just decided that this had to be his orientation. He was a man who wanted to have sex with many other women, including ones he isn’t married to. With this, Carrier falls into the small category of every single married man on the planet. Most of us just learn to control our desires because we care more about loving our wives properly than we do about women fulfilling our own desires.

In my critique, I was told I should later write on what ethics of Carrier that Carrier was violating. As I was doing some checking for that both in his book and online, I found that some had already been doing that. What was most amusing is it looks like the atheist community has been doing the policing. Let me say first then that it’s wonderful to see the atheist community calling out their own, something we Christians need to do too when one of ours steps out of bounds with a major moral failing.

Now keep in mind that in these blogs we’re not dealing with Christians so the language will be that which we do not normally care for, but in these blog pieces, you can see Carrier being demolished. What makes it more amusing is that when Carrier shows up himself, he actually makes it worse. We could have it said “Better to have people think you’re a polyamorous narcissist than to use your keyboard and remove all doubt.”

Our first posting will come from The Yeti’s Roar. Here, the writer has compiled a number of statements of Carrier and even pointed out how some of them have been edited. It has also been pointed out that he has condemned Michael Shermer, but yet he falls at the same level as Shermer and does not seem to see it. His narcissism has also been pointed out and having him like one of his own comments on the blog page did not really help matters.

I invite the reader to simply read the posts and then read all the replies and yes, I’m in that mix as well if you see a familiar name. I happen to share the question of a recent comment on how Carrier will support himself now. After all, since he’s endorsed the Christ-myth idea, he has pretty much killed any chance of getting a job teaching at an accredited university. If he doesn’t wind up speaking constantly at atheist conferences, what then? Will other women be willing to offer the support when how he treats them, especially his own wife who I make it a point to pray for regularly and I hope you will too?

Another blogger who has been blogging about this is Shermertron over at Orwellian Garbage. He has several posts on the prominent internet blogger Dr. Richard Carrier Ph.D. The first one that I ever read was comic gold. What is fascinating about watching this whole affair is that it’s kind of like watching a disgraced televangelist. Carrier is trying to deflect the criticism that he’s receiving and yet, it’s not working. It also reminds me that indeed, marriage is something that is seen as sacred today. You just don’t cheat on your wife.

On that point also, I have made it even more of a vow to honor Mrs. Peters over here. You see, I have long told men in apologetics, and the same counterpart would apply to women in the field, that if you are able to debate every atheist and answer every question in the field, yet you end up not being a loving husband to your wife, then I count you as a failure in ministry. There are plenty of people in the field who can answer the questions that are out there. Of course, do your part, but you are not the only one. Yet when it comes to loving your wife as Christ loved the church, there is only one person who can do that. If you are an apologist who is married, you cannot be both a good apologist and a bad husband. (This is also why I set up a group on Facebook for Christian men who are married, engaged, dating, or hoping to date, so we could learn to love our wives better and encourage one another. My wife has the counterpart for women.)

To get back to this whole spectacle, it will be interesting to see what the future holds. We in the Christian community should celebrate atheists that are willing to call out their own and remember that we need to be doing the same thing. What will happen to all the atheists who put all their eggs in the Carrier basket meanwhile? Will this damage Carrier’s reputation? Will atheist fathers not want their atheist daughters at his talks? Will atheist husbands not want to go to them with their wives not wanting to get near the guy?

Has Carrier by his actions ended his fifteen minutes of fame? Only time will tell, but we can remember to pray in this situation and see what could happen with that. Who knows? Until then, we have a reminder that ultimately, no one is above criticism in this area and we all know that if you’re married, you are to honor your spouse and to say you’re polyamorous is a way of saying “You’re not enough for me.”

Along those lines, it’s worth pointing out who Carrier dedicated Sense and Goodness Without God to.

For Jen…

My buxom brunette
My wellspring of joy
My north star of sanity.

Sure seems real now. She is certainly getting an example of the sense and goodness without God. Apparently, it’s sensible to admit you’re polyamorous, which means living with the unique desire as a married man to have sex with other women, and it’s good to go out in that and try to live as an ethical human being the best you can, despite cheating on your wife.

Again, I do not know what the future holds here, but I am certainly watching. It will be interesting to see where Carrier is twenty years from now and see if it was worth it. I personally do not doubt that Jen will be much better off and will be much happier.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Do We Really Know More?

In the age of the Internet, it’s easy to say we have more access to knowledge than anyone else today, but does that mean we’re smarter?

I’d like you to imagine you live in the ancient world. In fact, you live next to a great bastion of learning, the Library of Alexandria. Within walking distance from where you are is a great collection of knowledge from all over that you can read when you want to. Here is the question then. Does that mean that you automatically know better than anyone else out there?

No. No you don’t. You might have more access to information than the average person, but it doesn’t mean you know better. One person who could make it to the library perhaps once a year, but knows how better to sift through information, will be more informed on topics than you will be. This person will know what books they need to read, how to read them, and how best to process new information when they get it in.

Today, we live in the age of the Internet. Most everyone can have access to the knowledge of the world immediately. It is sitting right at our fingertips. (Though often we miss it while looking at pictures of cats and debating what color a dress is.) There is no doubt that the Internet is a vast reservoir of knowledge overflowing and that a person can give themselves a decent education on a topic by doing some good looking on the net.

And yet, therein lies the danger.

Many of us remember seeing this commercial:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_CgPsGY5Mw

Funny? Indeed. We all laugh at the gullibility of the girl. How could someone possibly believe anything that they read on the Internet? We laugh, but don’t realize that too often, that describes many of us. In the age of the net, it’s easy to have anyone set up a blog or a web site or a podcast or anything of that sort and be seen as an authority. Many of us can self-publish EBooks and have us look like people who know what they’re talking about.

At this point, an obvious rejoinder comes up. “Well you’re not a scholar in the field and you have a blog and web site and podcast! Why should we listen to you? Couldn’t you be wrong?”

I absolutely could be wrong. I would hope you would listen because I do think I read profusely and seek to find out whatever I can in my field. Plus, when I interview someone, they are usually a scholar in the field and that means they are definitely worth listening to. When it comes to my own opinions on here, I will admit it’s really awesome to have so many people respecting and liking what I have to say, but I am not Scripture. I am not infallible at all. I would not want you to believe something just because I say it. Please feel free to research what I say. Even N.T. Wright has said that he can be sure 1/3 of the stuff he teaches is wrong. I would be quite the anomaly if I had everything that I taught be correct.

Too often on the net, people just hear what they want to hear and there is always a voice speaking loud enough on this. Recently for instance, I reviewed David McAfee’s Disproving Christianity. Quite simply, this is a terrible book, but if you go to his Facebook page, his followers, and it looks like there’s a lot of them for some strange reason, are just so impressed by what is being said. All I conclude is that people hear what they want to hear. The claims are not questioned. Rarely can you expect the other side to be read.

Christ mythicism is another example of this. While this position is a joke in the world of NT scholarship, it is seen as if it’s a hotly debated theory on the Internet. See for instance this quote by McAfee as well concerning John 14:6.

“This verse is, however, only one of the many indicating the necessity not of moral behavior to be saved, but of accepting Jesus Christ—who, according to doctrine, is supposed to have lived thousands of years ago and for whose existence we have little to evidence, neither as a man nor as part of the divine Christian God-head”

The tragedy in the atheist community is that this is fallen for hook, line, and sinker. It’s quite interesting that so many people who claim to be freethinkers tend to think exactly alike. Of course, there are exceptions to this. Many of you out there know who you are. For too many atheists, it is as if anything in the Bible is shown to be true, then at this point, one must commit ritual suicide. It cannot be allowed that a worldview like Christianity got anything historically accurate.

Okay. Someone might say I’m picking on the atheists. Christians do the same thing.

Yes. The sad thing is that too many atheists who tend to be all about the evidence will often believe something despite the evidence for it being flimsy and the scholars in the field rejecting it. Too many Christians meanwhile who claim to follow the one who said He is the way, the truth, and the life, and who are told to be on their guard against false doctrine, will too often not bother to do any of the research either. They will believe something just because it already fits in with what they already believe.

To an extent, that does make sense. The problem is our worldview is just often not informed enough to see if we have any reason to believe what we come to the data believing. So you’re a Christian who has grown up all your life believing Jesus is the Son of God and the Bible is God’s infallible and inerrant word. You have not really looked at the evidence, but you believe it. So you have someone email you a story about how NASA scientists had their calculations wrong until someone on a team told a story about Joshua’s missing day. Wow! How incredible! This just confirms what you believe! Unfortunately, that story if you believed it, is bogus.

If you don’t know how to process the information you have already, then any discovery that comes along that fits in with what you already believe will be believed by you. On the Internet, this is especially so if it comes in a nice-looking package, such as a well-designed web site. It can also happen if a speaker knows how to speak persuasively even if his points are nonsense. This is in fact one reason I consider debate helpful. If both participants are well-informed, you can get to hear the views all critiqued. It’s also way counterpoint books can be so fascinating to read.

If what I’m saying is accurate, then having knowledge there to us will not helpful to us if we don’t know how to process it and question it. This is one reason especially churches need to be encouraging their members to ask questions and they need to discuss those questions openly. People who are not questioning what they believe and asking about it quite frankly are not growing as disciples of Christ.

For my non-Christian readers, while you might deplore Christians sitting and just believing everything their pastor says, something I also deplore, make sure you’re not doing the same thing. Have you set your own authorities up as people who are going to be correct on whatever they say? Too often from our perspective, it looks like that is exactly what is happening. There’s a great danger I see, especially in the atheist community, where it is assumed that if you are an atheist, you are a person of reason and evidence. If someone is a Christian, they are a person of faith. Why should anyone listen to faith and why should anyone go against reason and evidence? Therefore, anyone who is rational will be an atheist. I refer to this as presuppositional atheism.

The best antidote to this is to learn how to interact with the opposite viewpoints and check up on the claims. You read something on the net? Go and check and see if it is true first. Don’t just believe something. In all honesty, if my own wife tells me about a story she’s read, I always ask what the source of that story is first.  When I have seen people post interesting stories on the Internet, I have often been the bearer of bad news by saying “It’s a good story. Unfortunately, it’s false.”

For Christians, this is especially the case. We claim to be followers of Christ. If people cannot trust what we say on mundane ordinary matters that could be shown to be false by five minutes of research, why should they trust us on ultimate life-changing issues that five minutes worth of research would not be sufficient for?

(btw, along those lines, Christian issues such as the resurrection are deep issues. I do not trust anyone who thinks that a major decision like this can be decided after a brief time of research. There are Ph.D.’s who study these subject in depth and simplistic answers will just not work. This is also why I oppose using memes as arguments. Memes can be humorous illustrations of arguments, but they should not be the arguments themselves.)

It’s easy to pride ourselves as thinking we possess knowledge in the age of the Internet, but let’s be careful about it. We could very well fulfill the Scripture where it says that proclaiming ourselves to be wise, we became fools. Rest assured, every side does have fine and intelligent minds on it, but every side also has their share of fools. Be sure to investigate what you believe. We should not desire to be fools.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Fact Vs. Value

What do I think of John Lepp’s self-published book? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

factvsvalue

John Lepp was looking for people to read this book. A friend recommended me so I figured I’d give it a look. I am someone who is not really interested in science as science, but I am interested in the philosophy of science and the supposed history of the warfare between science and religion. Because of that, I figured I would give this one a look and see what I could find out as I am always interested in learning more about this area.

Now my position on this is unusual to some. I am not one who can say yet that I support the movement of Intelligent Design. I think it still ends up with a too mechanistic universe and I do think there are better arguments out there, arguments that hinge on final causality which I consider much more important. When I use the Kalam, I do not use the version of Bill Craig. Frankly, I don’t care if the universe had a beginning or not, though it is my understanding that scientific evidence today does lean that way.

I can’t say I really found what I was looking for here. I found some arguments against Dawkins and Harris and Hawking and others, but these are also found in several other places. I also would have liked to have seen more emphasis on the real enemy here and why there is no real conflict between Christianity and science. The real enemy is not science. Science is to be our friend and ally. The main enemy is scientism, which shows up quite frankly everywhere on the internet.

You see, it’s believed that in medieval times, the priesthood controlled everything and theology was seen as having all the answers. This is simply false. When explanations were given for natural phenomena, natural explanations were preferred. It could be that those answers were wrong many times, and in fact they were, but this was before advanced means of research was around to answer such questions. The point is that attempts were made and these did not run to “God did it!”

In fact, the medievals were people who were looking constantly for scientific explanations and when it was found, it was not like God was less out of a job. In fact, God was held in greater awe. It was the way of saying “I never would have thought of doing it that way.” The medievals expected to find explanations for the phenomena. That is why it was that they were looking in the first place.

Despite this, it is believed that the priesthood was seen as the group that could answer every question. Today, there is a new priesthood and that consists of science. Now not all of the scientists today hold to what is thought to be the classical priestly vows of the scientist. Not all of them believe that science is the answer to everything. Some do believe that there are questions that science cannot answer.

Unfortunately, the group that speaks the loudest often gets the most attention, and that is the group that holds to scientism, the belief that either all questions must be answered scientifically, or else that the only way to know something for certain is through science. Both of these of course are self-refuting positions, but they are still the real enemy that is around today.

Today then, science has become a new priesthood and the scientists are the bearers of all knowledge. Keep in mind this is not saying anything about science. This is saying something about some views of science. An example of this kind of scientism is found in JT, an opponent that John Lepp has a debate with at the end of the book. An example of this is a statement like this JT makes in the debate:

“The bible makes numerous claims that conflict with the way science has revealed the universe to work over a long list of different disciplines. For instance, the idea of somebody rising from the dead could not be more offensive to our understanding of biology and medicine. We have established this so completely that virtually nobody opposes interring the deceased, regardless of how loved they were in real life, for fear that they will reanimate”

This kind of statement is so incredibly hysterical. Does JT really think that ancient people didn’t know this? Does he really think that people were hesitant to bury the dead because they thought the dead would return to life? The Jews were the ones that had sects that believed in resurrection and even they buried their dead. That the dead don’t naturally come back to life is not a discovery of modern science. It has been a well-known fact for ages before.

resurrectionmostinteresting

JT goes further with this kind of statement saying that walking on water is offensive to physics. It is as if JT does not know that ancient people built boats. Why did they do this? It’s really quite simple. They knew that people don’t naturally walk on water. This is not a discovery of modern science. This is something that those stupid ancient people who did not have modern science already believed. Contrary to what might be thought, ancient people were not stupid.

Yet people like JT believe that we can no longer believe in miracles because, hey, we live in an age of science. It is in fact because of basic rudimentary science that people could believe in miracles if they happened. Why? Because in order to recognize something outside of the normal realm of nature, you have to know what the normal realm is. You won’t consider a virgin birth a miracle unless you know people don’t get naturally pregnant on their own. You won’t consider walking on water a miracle unless people naturally don’t walk on water. You don’t consider a resurrection a miracle unless you know that dead people stay dead.

Unfortunately, I think Lepp on his end of the debate focused too much on science and not enough on scientism, the real problem, not just for religion but also for science. I did not see in the debate with JT an argument made for the existence of God or the reliability of Scripture or the resurrection of Jesus. JT’s problem was not really bad science, and I am not to say if he had it or not, but bad metaphysics, a metaphysics that holds to scientism and does not then answer basic questions on our existing.

So in the end, I found the book to be an okay read, but not what I was expecting. I will say that the book does end on a happy note, and one that I was pleased to read, and also one that I will not share on this blog. It is not part of the main thesis of the book, but it is a story that should be heartwarming still.

If the author wrote a second edition or a sequel, I would like to see more on scientism. I would look to see more on showing why the claim about the Dark Ages is frankly a myth. I would also like to see more quotations from leading scientists on how they are not opposed to religion to show that the viewpoint that says they are at war is a loud and ignorant mythology.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 2/21/2015: Tawa Anderson

What’s coming up this Saturday on the Deeper Waters Podcast? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

When I was in New Orleans for the Defend the Faith conference, I met many great speakers there. I met many fine and wonderful minds that are highly skilled in apologetics. I met many that are great inspirations for us all and are simply remarkable with the way that their brilliant intellects work.

I also met Tawa Anderson.

Just having some fun there. 🙂

When we were deciding which breakout sessions to go to, I figured I knew a lot of the material already, so I’d let Allie choose. Allie wanted to go see Tawa speak because she has an interest in worldview thinking and that happened to be the topic that Tawa was speaking on. For many in apologetics, it can be a basic topic, but it’s really quite in-depth and quite central to everything we do, so why not have him discuss it on my show? This Saturday, we’ll see that happen. So who is Tawa Anderson?

Tawa profile pic

According to his bio:

Tawa Anderson is Chair of the Philosophy Department and Assistant Professor of Philosophy & Apologetics at Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee, OK.  Tawa presents papers regularly at professional philosophical society meetings, has written a number of journal and magazine articles, and is the co-author of a worldview textbook used at OBU (and hopefully soon to be published and accessible to the broader public).

A native of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, Tawa earned his B.A. (Political Science) at the University of Alberta, and an M.Div. (Pastoral Ministry) from Edmonton Baptist Seminary (now Taylor Seminary).  Tawa served as English Pastor of Edmonton Chinese Baptist Church for seven years before returning to school to earn his Ph.D. in Philosophy, Apologetics & Worldview from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.  A husband and father of three, Tawa is passionate about equipping the church to understand, explain, and defend the truth of the Christian faith.  He has led apologetic workshops, seminars, and conferences at churches throughout western Canada, Kentucky, Colorado, Texas, and Oklahoma.

Tawa enjoys speaking on a broad range of apologetic topics, with particular passion for matters regarding: (1) Truth, Relativism, and Postmodernism; (2) The Textual Integrity and Historical Reliability of the New Testament; (3) The Historical Jesus; (4) The Resurrection of Christ; (5) Worldview; (6) The Need for Apologetic and Worldview Training in Contemporary Christian Churches; and (7) The Question/Problem of Evil/Pain.  Tawa blogs (with intermittent dedication) at www.tawapologetics.blogspot.com

Allie and i got to know Tawa very well at the conference and at some meals got to see him interacting with visitors on very deep levels. Also amusing was getting to see him do a mock debate with Gary Habermas on if Jesus rose from the dead where he played the role of Bart Ehrman. We suspect he won’t want to do that again. That was not recorded and/or streamed by the conference so if you regret missing it, just make sure to come next year!

Tawa did a great job of taking the serious topic of worldview thinking and making it accessible to everyone in the room and we’re sure to see the same on the Deeper Waters Podcast. Be looking for the next episode in your podcast feed soon.

In Christ,
Nick Peters