Why Do You Need to Work so Hard to Defend Christianity if It’s True?

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Why Do You Need to Work so Hard to Defend Christianity if It’s True?

April 27, 2023

Questions from non-believers about why we need to work so hard to defend Christianity if it’s true, whether we’re just pushing the truth we chose on others while keeping them from evaluating it, and how many other gods we ruled out when determining Christ is the one true God.

* Why would you need to put all this work into apologetics if this were really the one truth?

* If Christianity were true, would you have an apologetics website?

* I don’t feel like your material brings me closer to truth; I feel like you’re picking truth without me and then making a profession out of cleverly keeping me from evaluating it.

* In determining Christ is the one true God, how many others did you rule out?

Transcript

(upbeat music) (bell dings) - I'm Amy Hall, I'm here with Greg Cockel, and this is Stand To Reasons, #STRSQPodcast. - It is. - All right, Greg, I have something a little bit different today.

- Okay. - Sometimes, (laughs) sometimes an atheist out there will make a post online or tweet something about us, and a bunch of atheists find us at once, and they send us a bunch of questions. - Okay, fine with me.

- So this happened, I wasn't able to track down where all of these people came from, but we got several questions. - That's true, okay. - Yeah, from atheists all at once.

So I thought, why not take some of those, and we can look at those and respond. - Sounds great. - And see what we find here.

Because these are things that I hear from people. - Okay. - All right, now the first one comes from Shane, and I'm gonna follow it by another one from Deb, because they are very similar.

So Shane asks, "Is apologetics not the opposite "of what one would find in the one truth? "This is a lot of work." And then Deb asks, "Great website, but is it true? "If it was, would you have this website?" - Well, let me respond to Shane first. Because could you just read it one more time? - Sure, is apologetics not the opposite of what one would find in the one truth? This is a lot of work. - Okay.

Why is science necessary to find the one truth about the world because it's a lot of work? So there's a parallel to me. I'm not sure why it seems that, why it's somehow a, I'm trying to think of the best way to characterize this, why it would seem a mark against an effort to find the truth that it's a lot of work. Because there are a lot of aspects of truth that are important, setting aside religious issues that are a lot of work.

The nature of the task is difficult. What we are looking at here, for example, is do we have reason to believe in God? Why would someone think that that truth, if it were true, would be so self-evident that it wouldn't require any work? Now, let me qualify that because actually, I think the vast majority of theists think that it's so obvious it doesn't require much work. Look around you, look at the origin of the universe, look at the, all the order and the design and the teleology, things are seen to be made for purposes.

That even like the atheist Richard Dawkins claims, the biological world is a complex world that seems to be designed for a purpose or appears to be designed for a purpose. He'll even acknowledge that. So the question of God, I don't think is that hard.

Well, then why are you apologists working so hard today? Because atheists deny what seems to be obvious and raise a lot of kinds of challenges in everything that then require an answer. I don't think the conclusion that God exists is a hard one to come to. This is why atheism is extremely rare in the world.

And it's not, I think, a matter of massive indoctrination. We have all kinds of different variations of religious views, but virtually all of them entail the belief in an extra material realm and many of them entail a belief that someone is in charge of both material and extra material realm. This is so completely obvious to everybody that they think it's foolish to deny it.

Now, that doesn't mean that the atheists are wrong and all religious people are right in some measure. It just means that that doesn't seem hard to most people to believe in an extra material realm and a God who runs it. That seems to be easy.

And there are reasons for that that are obvious and at hand. The origin of the universe, big bang needs a big banger. That doesn't take a master's degree in anything.

That you take a bachelor's degree, it's common sense. Now, that may not be true, but it is a common sense notion. A design needs a designer, okay? Moral law needs a moral law giver, okay? Well, these are pretty straightforward notions.

All I'm appealing to is the common sensibility of it that's accessible to the average person. Now, if somebody wants to say, not necessarily, I got it, here's how we can explain how you could have morality without God. Okay, fine, I'll listen.

Now, what we have is a very complicated and counterintuitive explanation from Darwinian evolution. That's what's complicated or, you know, design. Well, the reason it looks designed is we just happen to be the universe of an infinite numbers that looks the way it is that produced us and now we're there to be able to wonder why it looks so unique, the multiverse kind of or the weak anthropic principle kind of answer.

Well, that's what's complicated, seems to me. And so if we're gonna answer that challenge to the common sense notion, then it's going to take more complication. And I don't think coming to the truth about most things, many things, let's put it that way, is that hard.

But if one is going to kind of disqualify the discipline because it's hard, well, then you're gonna have to disqualify science and philosophy and a whole range of other things that are means of knowing truth that are complex, complicated, hard. That's exactly what I was gonna say. Knowledge is work.

You have to think hard, you have to think carefully. You have people making a case for all sorts of things. You have different philosophers and people making the case for the philosophy, they think is true.

The science they think is true. Richard Dawkins has written many books. Does that mean what he believes is false? It doesn't follow, but I think there's something going on here where they're putting religion in a different category from all these other areas of knowledge.

And it's just not a fair move. We all understand that people argue for what they think is true and that you have to work to understand and respond to people who object to what you believe. That's just a simple thing that we see all the time.

- I think it is easy not to believe in God if you don't look too closely at the nature of reality. It's easy not to believe in God. Oh, I don't see him so he's not there.

It's a very, very simple, straightforward, epistemic approach. I don't see him so he's not there. I'm not belittling that.

I'm just saying that seems to be the way a lot of people who are atheists approach it. Some are much more sophisticated, I acknowledge that. But a lot of times when you talk with somebody who's an atheist, they say, "Well, where is he? "I don't see him." That's what they responded.

So that's easy to say that, but it's not easy to say that if you look closely at the nature of reality. Any even a marginally closer look is convinces you that effects have causes that are adequate to the effect. Big bang needs a big banger.

And I don't know, like I said. So tell me what Deb had to say. The reason I paused was because Shane's was more clear to me how to respond.

I need to think about Deb's. - So Deb's was great website, but is it true? If it was, would you have this website? - I don't understand that. - I think it's just similar of this idea that why do you need a website if it's true? You're obviously just trying to convince us of something false.

I think it's just the same kind of principle that it shouldn't be hard work to-- - Well, the counter examples are atheist websites. There are all kinds of atheist websites. There are all kinds of Jesus mythicist websites.

There are all kinds of websites about all kinds of things that purport to give information that's true. Some on the religious issue side, like atheism would be addressing that question, or other issues. It doesn't make any sense to me to suggest that if you have a website trying to show that something is true, this is evidence that the something you're trying to show is true is actually not true.

I don't know how else to take that. And I'm not trying to be uncharitable to Deb, but I just don't know how to take that. - All right, let's go on to a question from Sarah.

- Okay. - When I hear and read your material, I don't feel like I've gotten closer to any truth, but like I've heard somebody pick it without me, then make a profession out of cleverly keeping me from evaluating it. - I guess you're gonna have to read that one again.

I'm sorry. - And then I'll give you kind of what I think she's-- - Cleverly keeping me from evaluating it, okay. - When I hear and read your material, I don't feel like I've gotten closer to any truth, but like I've heard somebody pick it, I think pick that truth without me, then make a profession out of cleverly keeping me from evaluating it.

So I think what she's saying is, I feel like you have come up with this whole system, and now your whole profession is to keep me from evaluating that system to try and protect it. - Well, what's so curious about this, and she's speaking of our website, our organization is stand to reason. So what we do is make a case regarding what we think is true.

We are always making a case. We are saying A, B, C, D, E, F, whatever, therefore G. And if it turns out that Tasera, it doesn't bring her any closer to the truth, she must be concluding that we haven't done a good job of linking the evidence to the conclusion, which is okay for her to decide that, but all she's saying is our arguments have not been persuasive. However, we do give arguments.

We always give arguments. If we're talking about, from an external non-biblical view about some biblical truth about God or whatever, or morality, we give reasons rationale. We trade on human intuition.

We look at the facts of the matter, whatever, the biological facts, if those are appropriate for the question, legal facts, whatever. And then we draw our conclusion, and therefore this is our conclusion. If it's a biblical issue, then we're looking what does scripture say? You don't have to believe in scripture as God ordained or God breathed in order to be able to agree.

Well, that writing does teach this, like there's a God, scripture is pretty safe, even though we don't believe it's, there is a God. And so we are arguing then based on the words of scripture to a conclusion that scripture seems to teach. Okay, so there's another line of evidence.

Now, if she's not getting any closer to the truth, then, okay, I don't know what I could say. We've done our best to give a rationale. But the other part doesn't make sense to me at all because she's saying, then whatever we've kind of put this thing together so that it doesn't allow her to evaluate it.

But what we've done is laid out our thinking and reasoning from top to bottom about it. Why can't she evaluate the reasons? What's keeping her from evaluating? Actually, she must be evaluating it because she says, I'm not getting any closer to the truth. She's an atheist, presumably.

This is a group of atheists that have responded. So she has read our stuff and found it wanting. So it strikes me that she is evaluating it, which is why she holds a contrary view.

And by the way, notice that in my response here, I'm laying out all the reasons for the conclusion of making regarding these questions. This is what we do all the time. - What's interesting to me in this question is this idea that she feels like I've heard somebody pick it, pick the truth without me.

Now, that is really interesting to me because what I'm hearing when she says that is this idea that, and I have gotten this idea from atheists before, they don't like the idea that you have to submit to some system of, I've had them tell me before, they don't like the idea of me saying that they have a worldview because they want to have this sense that they are choosing every piece on their own. - That feels good at the moment. Right, yeah, well, how does she feel about gravity? Or insulin, she might say, well, gravity, I can see the effects of it right away.

But what about insulin? - I mean, somebody else chose that as a truth regarding controlling diabetes, so is that offensive too? - Well, I wonder if, I mean, this speaks to this kind of radically individualistic, relativistic society that we have. They don't want to be forced to accept certain ideas because we want to choose every little thing that we believe we want to create our own reality. - So this might be an opportunity to just say, you know, we're not picking anything without you, we're actually trying to determine what the objective truth is and then make a case for it.

We don't get to pick what objective truth is with or without anyone else. - You know what really annoyed me when I went to my doctor and they took an MRI and he told me I needed a hip. I said, I didn't pick that.

- Why did you pick that without me, Doc? - Why did you pick that without me? - I'm going to have to go through a lot of pain because of what you picked. And the point we're both making here is reality has a way of intruding into our lives without our permission because reality is what is. It's not what we choose or make for ourselves.

It's what is. And that applies to all aspects of reality, whether physical or non-physical. Now one might say there is no non-physical reality.

Well, that's a conclusion that you may have drawn, but the appeal that there is is based on evidences. It isn't something I picked. It isn't something Amy picked.

Frankly, if I were going to pick something, I'd pick Eastern religion or something like that 'cause it's high-end individual freedom and low-end personal responsibility. Anyway, if I get it wrong this life, I got a couple billion more I can try it out on. That's, I'll pick that.

- So what we're coming down to again is this idea that, you know, this idea that there is, you know, we get to make up our own reality. I mean, ultimately, I think a lot of people see religion as being in a different category than anything else because we wouldn't apply any of these things to any other discipline. Same with the other questions.

We just wouldn't apply this view. So there's something going on here with the way they're viewing religion in particular. So if you get a question like this from someone, that's something you have to point out.

What is the nature of the claim that we're making? We're making a claim about objective reality. We're trying to discover that. We're not trying to pick something and force it on other people.

We're trying to find the truth and help other people to also understand the truth. - It reminds me a little bit of a person says, "Well, I didn't ask to be born." Yeah, you're right. You didn't.

I didn't get a say about whether I have a life that I have to make all these decisions about. So it's not fair to hold me responsible for my belief in God because I didn't ask God to make me. Anyway, that's what it reminds me of a little bit.

- All right, let's squeeze one more in here. This one comes from Ali. Short, simple question for both of you.

In determining Christ is the one true God. How many others did you rule out? - Well, first of all, there's not many others to choose from unless you want to take all these different pantheons. What I don't think is required.

There are a number of people who have actually done this. But what I don't think is required is that you have a multiple choice and you find the best choice. I think what is required is that you look at the nature of reality and you ask what best explains the way the world actually is.

So it's not so much individual deities as it is the worldviews that they represent. So take the Greek pantheon or the Roman pantheon. It's very clear when you look at these different options that these are finite creatures.

These are people that are meant to control different kinds of things. Okay? And so you've got Thor, the Thunder God. Well, we happen to know there.

Thunder is a result of something else. It's not the result of Thor. So a lot of these options and whether it's Greek mythology or Roman mythology or ancient Near Eastern or Egyptian or Norse mythology, they were all finite gods that seem to be put in place to explain certain phenomena that we have other adequate explanations for.

And limited gods. And limited gods, right. And in many cases, immoral gods, when you look at the details.

So I don't feel a compulsion to, look at, well, wait a minute, let's talk about this. No, let's talk about who's the guy with the Trident, the Sea God, 'cause I like fishing, you know. Poseidon? Poseidon, you know.

Let me just check to see if I have no reason to believe he's real, but I have very good reason to believe that there is a God over the entire A God transcendent, transcending the physical universe that is responsible for the physical universe. Why? Cosmological arguments. There's a number of them and all of them are meritorious.

They are better than the options, the alternative. You know, that everything came from nothing, maybe possible. Is it the best explanation for the way things are? Not hardly.

That some self-existed being created, everything else, that makes more sense. So now I'm stuck with a, now I reason to a transcendent self-existed being. None of these other gods in the pantheons or anything like that.

So they're not, they're not, they're not. They're not the running, yeah. They're not candidates, okay.

So then, so now we're talking about monotheism. Well, there are not too many monotheistic religions. There are three major ones, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, and Christianity, Judaism are kin in a very vital way in a way that Islam is not.

So you really have two options. Now there are a couple of other monotheistic religions, but they're very small religions. Doesn't mean they're wrong, but that really trims down the options.

And then I look at something like, of Jesus of Nazareth, who claims to be this one, and we have historical records that are reliable about his life, and we can look at those records and see what he said and what he did. Now if this person claimed to be the god of the universe, the one that we're looking for, and then he was brutally executed and three days later raised himself from the dead, I would say he's in pretty good candidate for the real McCoy, or the real thing, for those who don't remember the real McCoy's. So that's the way I'm reasoning.

There is no reason whatsoever that I have to take every possible religion in the world and weigh it in the balance with Christianity when I have really good evidence for this. Now here's a good parallel. Okay, so you have a crime that's committed.

You have a dead body. Somebody in the evidence is clear that it was fall means. So what best explains the dead body? Okay, you don't have to interview every human being in the state or in the city.

You look at the evidence that's there and find out which human beings match the evidence that's there. That's the smart way to do it. And the same thing applies here, which is kind of what I just described.

So what I'm describing is not somehow self-serving or unusual, well, you don't look at every single religion. I had no reason to believe that. What I have here with Christianity, given first of all, theism as a disqualifier of a whole bunch of other things based on the evidence.

And then I look at the theisms that are in question and I see the evidence in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, for example, as really compelling, then I have made a reasonable choice. And I'm not, it can't be somehow faulted because I didn't put the trident guy through the ringer. What's his name? Poseidon.

Poseidon through the ringer. I love that analogy of the detective looking into... I'm sorry. Yeah, so let's say you knew for a fact that it was a male.

You don't have to go to every female and rule her out. If you already know it's a male. Yeah, so that's a great analogy, Greg.

I like that. All right, well, I think we're out of time, but that was interesting. So thank you for sending in those questions.

Yes, I appreciate all, Allie and Shane and Deb and... Sarah. Is that it? Sarah, yeah. Sarah, okay, yeah.

Well, if you have a question, you can send that on Twitter with the hashtag #STRAsk or go through our website, just find our hashtag #STRAskPodcast page and you'll find a link there where you can send us your question. We look forward to hearing from you. This is Amy Hall and Greg Cocle for Stand to Reason.

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