Atheism vs. Christianity, A Response to Unanswered Questions
Gospel
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On June 27, 1993, atheist Frank Zindler and Christian Dr. William Lane
Craig debated "Atheism or Christianity: Where Does the Evidence Lead?"
(Video and audio copies of the debate are available from Zondervan
Publishing House. The debate was held before 8,000 people in Illinois at
Willow Creek Community Church. During that debate, Zindler raised a
number of questions that had nothing to do with the existence of God,
but only with his opinion of Christianity and the Bible.
One key to effective debating is the ability to discern which points of
contention within a debate constitute major issues that must be dealt
with in the limited time available and which points are minor or
secondary and so, given the time constraints, safely may be left aside.
In this debate there is a welter of such minor points which do not deal
directly with the existence of God, usually in the form of unsupported
assertions made by Mr. Zindler and quite properly left unanswered by Dr.
Craig. This addendum to the debate is designed as a supplement to assist
those who may be interested in knowing how a Christian might respond to
such assertions. While Mr. Zindler did not articulate all these points
clearly, they are spelled out here in their most commonly presented
forms, along with a brief refutation and suggestions for further
reading. The points are dealt with in the order in which they were
raised by Mr. Zindler in the course of the debate.
1. Today's Christians have narrowed the definition of "Christian" so
much that it excludes everything and everyone embarrassing to
Christianity. Hitler was baptized a Christian and said he was promoting
"Positive Christianity." David Koresh and Jim Jones were Christians. You
Christians try to avoid responsibility for all these evil Christians by
arbitrarily excluding them by definition.
A: This is an equivocation fallacy. While atheists often accuse
Christians of limiting the definition of Christianity, they expand it to
the extent that it is meaningless - such as calling Hitler a Christian
when his definition of "Positive Christianity" was "Positive
Christianity is National Socialism . . . . The Fuehrer is the herald of
a new revelation" [William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
(NY: Fawcett Crest, 1960, p. 330)]. To indict Christianity because of
evil people who attempt to identify themselves as Christians, the
atheist must first establish that the leader of Christianity (Jesus
Christ) and his teachings (as found in the New Testament) condone,
command, or encourage such evil. They don't. This is reviewed succinctly
in Wilbur M. Smith's classic Therefore Stand: Christian Apologetics
(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1934, 1974, 24-32).
2. Jesus was a man and needed to breathe to live. How, for example,
according to Acts, could he have "ascended" into space, which has too
little oxygen to support human life?
A: Atheists who attempt to ridicule the Bible by ignoring normal rules
of literary interpretation and usage end up ridiculing themselves.
Abundant general literary precedent, as well as specific Hebrew and
Greek literary techniques, affirm that phrases including geographical
references to non-geographical states such as heaven, hell, death, and
despair are not meant to refer to actual geographic or spatial
locations. Jesus didn't need to find oxygen to breathe in space because
he didn't go into space. Heaven is a different dimension, not some place
past the galaxy! A contemporary example would be the common phrase,
"You're driving me crazy," which no one should interpret to mean that
you are physically restraining me in your vehicle as you transport me to
the geographical location of lunacy (probably California!). For further
information on literary interpretation and the Bible, see Leland Ryken's
Words of Delight: A Literary Introduction to the Bible (Grand Rapids,
MI: Baker Book House, 1987, second edition 1992).
3. The Bible teaches that there is a flat earth. For example, Satan
couldn't have shown Jesus all the kingdoms of the world at once if the
world weren't flat. Also, if "every eye shall see him" refers to Jesus'
Second Coming, the Bible must assume the earth is flat.
A: Neither passage cited can be used to infer a flat earth assumption on
the part of the Bible. Even if the earth were flat, the distances
involved would preclude both Jesus' human eyes seeing far enough to see
all kingdoms and also each human seeing far enough to see Jesus at His
Second Coming. The verses have nothing to do with any assumptions about
the shape of the earth. Additionally, neither passage says how either
all the kingdoms could be seen at once, or Jesus could be seen by
everyone at once. If man, in the relative infancy of his technological
creativity, can "show" a football game in Florida to an audience in
Oregon via satellite, surely it wouldn't be hard to believe that an evil
angel in the one example, or God Himself in the second example, could
reveal either the kingdoms of the world to one person, or one person to
the entire world. Again, the atheist must accord the same literary
sophistication to the Bible as he would to any other literary work,
including the figurative "four corners of the earth" (a Greek idiom) in
Revelation 20:8 and the "circle of the earth" in Isaiah 40:22. Frankly,
if the atheist is willing to believe Satan and Jesus talked, and that
Jesus is coming again, he doesn't have far to go to believe that one can
see either the kingdoms of the world or the Son of God. Information on
the erroneous view that Christianity and/or the Bible teaches a flat
earth is in Jeffrey Burton Russell's Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus
and Modern Historians (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1991), and
information about the Bible and the earth in general is in Bernard
Ramm's The Christian View of Science and Scripture (Grand Rapids, MI:
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1954).
4. The Greek word for "breath" is pneuma, and is used to refer to the
Holy Spirit and/or the human spirit or life force. The Bible compounds
its ignorance by ascribing physical breath to God, who is allegedly
non-physical, and then calling that physical breath the third person of
the Trinity, the Holy Spirit!
A: Atheists who dogmatically assert that biblical words such as "spirit"
can have only one meaning (are univocal) betray their ignorance of
common word usage. Any good biblical language aid recognizes the variety
of terms used to refer to the immaterial part of man (his spirit) and
the variety of uses for the one word pneuma. For example, generally when
pneuma refers to the third person of the Trinity, it is used with the
definite article (a definite article is like "the"). Good information
about how words are used in the New Testament is in Moisés Silva's
Biblical Words and Their Meaning (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing
House, 1983), and in W. E. Vine's Expository Dictionary of Greek New
Testament Words (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. J Revell, Inc., 1966).
5. The Bible is not only internally inconsistent, but also medically
ridiculous. The Old Testament says "the life is in the blood" (Lev.
17:11), and New Testament verses ascribe life to "breath." Neither
ignorant biblical view recognizes the facts of modern medical science,
which understands animal life as ending with brain death and/or heart
failure.
A: Both "blood" and "breath" are used metaphorically to refer to one's
life. This is common in many other cultural traditions and ages as well
as in the biblical world. In this kind of metaphor, called synechdoche,
"the whole is named by the part," as in the common nautical designation
of "the fleet is in" when we mean to include the personnel as well as
the vessels. Use of various kinds of metaphors is in Ryken's Words of
Delight. Additionally, the plain sense of the passage is an indisputable
"medical" observation - those with no blood or no breath do not live.
6. We know that man evolved and therefore Adam and Eve are fictional
characters. All mankind is not descended from one human couple. If the
story of Adam and Eve is fiction, then so is the universality of the
Fall. If the Fall is fiction, then there is no need for atonement to be
provided by Jesus Christ. If there is no need for atonement, then Jesus
is out of a job and has joined the ranks of the unemployed.
A: There are several different approaches to this question that show it
is not a valid objection to the existence of the Christian God. First,
whether or not the biblical account of creation is accurate or Jesus is
"unemployed," God could still exist and the Bible could be flawed.
Second, it does not follow logically that the theory of macro or general
evolution contradicts the idea of a historical Adam and Eve. Some people
who believe the Bible speculate that man could have developed through
primate evolution until a specific point when the first fully human pair
were infused with "the image of God," including moral responsibility.
Third, evolutionary science is not nearly so monolithic or universally
trouble free as Zindler believes. As a matter of fact, serious
non-Christian scientists have called into question not only particular
details of common evolutionary theory, but have also raised serious
challenges to the foundation of evolutionary theory. Further information
on this is available in Hoimar V. Ditfurth's The Origins of Life (New
York: Harper and Row, 1982), Michael Denton's Evolution: A Theory in
Crisis (Bethesda, MD: Adler & Adler, Publishers, Inc., 1985), Philip E.
Johnson's Darwin on Trial (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1991),
Charles B. Thaxton, Walter L. Bradley, and Roger L. Olsen's The Mystery
of Life's Origin: Reassessing Current Theories (New York: Philosophical
Library, 1984), and Robert Shapiro's Origins: A Skeptic's Guide to the
Creation of Life on Earth(New York: Bantam Books, 1986). Fourth, that
every human being commits sin (moral transgression) is self-evident and
socially documented, regardless of the explanation (such as the Adam and
Eve account) for that propensity to sin. Since every human being commits
sin, we are in need of a remedy, which the Bible says is provided
through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ on our
behalf according to the scriptures - so Jesus Christ would not be
"unemployed" even if the Adam and Eve account were not true. In
conclusion, the Adam and Eve account is not conclusively disproved by
the theory of evolution, which itself has scientific problems, and even
if it were, every human being's sinfulness still needs atonement.
7. The Bible has a primitive idea of humanity and without any evidence
assumes that man has an independent, immaterial soul. Because science
has shown us evidence of the validity of evolution, we know the idea of
some sort of immaterial soul is foolish.
A: This is a variation on question number six. This atheist argument
contains two false assumptions. First, that science has proved
evolution; and second, that scientific testing, designed to test
physical things, can adequately disprove nonphysical things such as the
soul. The atheist's unwarranted naturalistic bias makes him think his
argument is valid. A good summary of the scientific inadequacies of
evolution is in Michael Denton's Evolution: A Theory in Crisis; see also
Philip E. Johnson's Darwin on Trial. A good critique of physicalism is
in J. P. Moreland's Scaling the Secular City (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker
Book House, 1987). An excellent argument demonstrating the plausability
of psycho-physical dualism can be found in Richard Swinburne's The
Evolution of the Soul (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986).
8. The Bible arrogantly describes man as a special creation of God,
qualitatively different from any other life form. However, modern
science has proved that genetically we are 98% similar to apes - we are
only separated by a 2% genetic difference.
A: The atheist who broaches this argument has made no argument at all.
Percentages prove nothing. After all, we're mostly water, but Zindler
would not claim we are close cousins to lettuce. When the Bible
describes humans as qualitatively different from any other created
thing, including other animals, it refers to man in the image of God,
that is, with attributes relating to the immaterial part of his nature,
not to his physical body. What distinguishes humans from animals are
attributes such as personality, will, self-determination,
self-cognizance, creativity, and rational discourse. None of these
attributes are physical. In fact, since both humans and animals are
created by the one God, it should not surprise us that both share many
physical similarities. Far from disproving the Bible, such similarities
can point to a common Designer. Interesting information about the
creation of humanity is in John W. Klotz's Genes, Genesis, and Evolution
(St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1955).
9. Another example of the Bible's scientific foolishness is the claim
made in 2 Peter 3:5 that the earth was made out of water!
A: The atheist who seeks to ridicule the Bible for its purported
scientific sophistry should not by his very ridicule reveal his own
biblical and literary sophistry. A careful reading of this verse and its
meaning in a good commentary shows that it is not saying that the earth
is composed or made out of water at all. Simon J. Kistemaker says, for
example, "The land itself, then, comes forth out of the water. This
interpretation relates more to origin than to substance; that is, the
text explains how the earth was formed, and does not disclose the source
of matter" [Peter and Jude: New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids:
Baker Book House, 1987) 328)]. Scientific evidence and the Bible do not
disagree as to the prevalence of water and the molten state of the
ancient earth.
10. Every scholar knows that the book of Daniel is a forgery, composed
centuries after its purported date of the 500's B.C. It was actually a
late composition, reflecting recent Jewish history as prophecy, as
though it had not yet happened, when in fact it had happened. It was
probably composed one or two hundred years before Christ, and it also
contains numerous historical mistakes, such as (1) misnaming the last
king of Judah, (2) misnaming the liberator of the Jews from Babylon and
(3) misnaming the last king of Babylon.
A: Careful historical, geographical, lexical (word usage), and
etymological (origin of words) study points to the composition of Daniel
in its final form during the beginning of the Persian reign over Babylon
(during the sixth century B.C.). Gleason Archer, for instance, in A
Survey of Old Testament Introduction (Chicago: Moody Press, 1974) shows
how the literary, linguistic, and grammatical evidence of the text
points to an early date for the book of Daniel. He says, "The most
likely date for the final edition of the book, therefore, would be about
530 B.C." (379). Archaeology has amply demonstrated the historicity of
the Babylonian captivity of Judah. Daniel does not say that Jehoiakim
was the last king of Judah. Jehoiakim's son was not permitted to remain
on the throne (a fulfillment of Jeremiah 36:30's prophecy). Instead, the
son's uncle, Zedekiah, was made a vassal king under Babylon. Regarding
the Jews' liberation from Babylon, it is important to note that while
Cyrus allowed them to return and begin building the second temple, the
work was suspended until the second year of Darius the Great, about 520
or 519 B.C. Darius ordered the temple to be completed and it was
finished in 516 B.C., the sixth year of his reign. Concerning the issue
of the last king of Babylon, several points of reconciliation prevent
this from becoming a problem that stands against the trustworthiness of
Daniel. king of Babylon problem prevent this argument from standing
against the trustworthiness of Daniel. Belshazzar was named co-regent by
his natural father, Nabonidus, who lived in retirement in North Arabia.
Also, on the night of the fatal feast (Daniel 5), Nabonidus had been in
the hands of the Medo-Persians for four months; therefore, Belshazzar
was the last king in actual fact. Problems such as this are discussed
not only in Archer's Old Testament book, but also in his Encyclopedia of
Bible Difficulties (Chicago: Moody Press, 1982).
11. The book of Acts is filled with historical errors. For example, Acts
quotes Gamaliel referring to two false messiahs, Theudas and Judas the
Galilean. The quote mistakenly dates Theudas before Judas, who is linked
to the "time of the census" (around A.D. 7). The Jewish historian
Josephus correctly dates Theudus to an uprising against the Romans in
A.D. 44. Obviously, Acts is a late composition of the Church purporting
to be an "eyewitness" account.
A: The atheist has made the mistake of assuming that there could only
have been one rebel messiah named Theudas. However, there was also a
Theudas who revolted in A.D. 6, the year Herod Archelaus was deposed
from the throne. In this case, the revolt of Judas against the legate of
Syria, P. Sulpicius Quirinius, would have occurred one year later. Two
books which address this problem are Gleason Archer's Encyclopedia of
Bible Difficulties and Norman Geisler and Thomas Howe's When Critics Ask
(Wheaton, IL: SP Publications, 1992). The book of Acts is one of the
most reliable ancient historical documents and abundant evidence has
been presented in books such as I. Howard Marshall's Luke: Historian and
Theologian (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1970), William M.
Ramsay's St. Paul: The Traveller and the Roman Citizen (Grand Rapids:
Baker Book House, 1962), Colin Hemer's The Book of Acts in the Setting
of Hellenistic History (Tübingen, Germany: J. C. B. Mohr, 1989), and
Darrell L. Bock's two volume Luke: Baker Exegetical Commentary on the
New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1994, 1996).
12. The Old Testament conquest stories regarding the Jews' various
conquests in Palestine have been disproved by current archeological
investigation.
A: This bold statement makes two mistakes about archeology. First, it
assumes that archeological evidence is not open to interpretation or
bias. Second, it assumes that the evidence is overwhelming against the
Old Testament record. Neither assumption is true. In fact, while we have
a wealth of archeological evidence, we have unearthed only a small
fraction of the remains that exist in the Middle East, and what we have
unearthed is open to interpretation not only about the identity of the
sites, but also about the significance of the remains. For example, the
noted archeologist Kathleen Kenyon's work at Jericho is frequently cited
against the historicity of the Old Testament's account of the Jews'
conquest of Jericho. However, more recent independent examination of
Kenyon's evidence has turned up discrepancies in some of her opinions
and instead affirms the reliability of the biblical account.
Archaeologist Bryant Wood concludes, "When the final Bronze Age city at
Jericho is properly dated, it is seen that there is a remarkable
correlation between the biblical narrative and archaeological findings"
["Uncovering the Truth at Jericho" by Bryant Wood in Archaeology and
Biblical Research (Autumn 1987), 16]. See also Edwin Yamauchi's The
Stones and the Scriptures (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company,
1972), and Kenneth Kitchen's Ancient Orient and the Old Testament
(Chicago: InterVarsity Press, 1966).
13. Many of the blatant historical errors of the New Testament are
evidence that the New Testament books were composed long after the
supposed events they record by a Church that invented its own mythology.
For example, Bethany, Bethphage, Nazareth, and Capernaum, all towns that
were listed in the gospels as important towns in Jesus' life and
ministry, did not even exist at the time of Christ.
A: Historical and archeological investigation has disproved skeptics'
suppositions and affirmed the historical reliability of the New
Testament. The particular examples of Bethany, Bethphage, Capernaum, and
Nazareth illustrate the problems atheists invent regarding New Testament
accuracy.
BETHANY: This suburb of Jerusalem (less than two miles away on the
southeast slopes of the Mt. of Olives) is not mentioned in the Old
Testament, except possibly with a variation on its name in Nehemiah
11:32. In addition, its precise location and extent has not been
pinpointed since it has grown and shrunk over the centuries. However,
archeological work provides us with lamps, vessels, and coinage from the
first century, and continuous occupancy of the area from about the sixth
century B.C. to the fourteenth century A.D., certainly covering the time
period of Jesus. Today Bethany is called el-'Azariyeh, a corrupted form
of "Lazarus," because it was here that Jesus raised his friend Lazarus
from the dead (John 11). Definitive excavations have not been done
because many significant historical buildings, including churches and
memorials to the raising of Lazarus, occupy the area and cannot be
destroyed to discover the ruins beneath them.
BETHPHAGE: Bethphage is between Bethany and Jerusalem on the southeast
slopes of the Mt. of Olives. Archeological evidence from this settlement
includes caves, coins, cisterns, pools, and tombs ranging from the
second century B.C. to about the eighth century A.D., again covering
Jesus' time. Bethphage is also not mentioned in the Old Testament, but
this argument from silence ignores the archeological evidence.
CAPERNAUM: For many years historians and archaeologists argued about the
precise location of Capernaum, but the area of Tell Hum is now widely
and certainly accepted. The name of Capernaum was confirmed in an
Aramaic inscription found in an ancient synagogue ruin. Capernaum is not
mentioned in the Old Testament, but is mentioned by the Jewish historian
Josephus and is in the Jewish Talmud, and was evidently settled and grew
after the Jewish return from captivity (after the Old Testament was
completed). The area of the ancient town itself, on the northwest shore
of Galilee, has not been excavated to any great extent for its first
century ruins since those lie below still-standing structures from
succeeding centuries, including an important fourth century A.D.
synagogue. The remains of a first century house, which has been
identified as Peter's, as well as the ruins of a first century
synagogue, have been uncovered.
NAZARETH: Nazareth today, with its traditional churches, shrines, and
memorials is not on the same exact site as Nazareth in Jesus' day.
However, both towns were anchored by the same well, the only one in the
area, today called "Mary's Well." During Jesus' day it was a small
village of about 400, four miles from the prospering Roman city of
Sepphoris. Archeological evidence shows it was inhabited continually
from a thousand years before and during the Roman period, including the
time of Christ. Artifacts found in area tombs date from the first to the
fourth centuries A.D. Contrary to Mr. Zindler, Nazareth was not merely a
necropolis; the pottery remains give evidence of the small vase-making
industry located there, which produced vessels widely used for
agricultural purposes. Moreover, beneath the convent of the Dames de
Nazareth the remains of a first century house have been discovered.
First century A.D. Nazareth is identified in an inscription in Hebrew
found in Caesarea. The "Nazareth Decree" is a response from the Emperor
Claudius, probably composed between A.D. 44 and 50, commanding that no
one disturb a grave or tomb, violate its seals, or remove its body,
under penalty of death. Nazareth is not mentioned in the Old Testament
or by the Jewish historian Josephus, no doubt due to its insignificance.
Mr. Zindler's dismissal of these towns' historicity is based on a faulty
understanding of archeology and history which is so faulty as to border
on wilful ignorance. It ignores the long gap between the completion of
the Old Testament and the birth of Christ, when many towns were newly
settled. Its arguments from the silence of the Old Testament, the
Talmud, and/or Josephus are inconclusive. Its ignorance of archeology is
inexcusable. The archeological evidence we have is, as scholar Edwin
Yamauchi says, "but a fraction of a fraction of the possible evidence"
The Stones and the Scriptures, 146. Only a fraction of what was built or
written has survived, only a fraction of what survived has been
surveyed, only a fraction of what has been surveyed has been excavated,
only a fraction of what has been excavated has been examined, and only a
fraction of what has been examined has been published (Yamauchi,
146-160). To dismiss the historicity of scripture based on absence of
data is academically irresponsible and has been overturned time after
time by new discoveries. Yamauchi notes, for example, Homer constantly
refers to the bronze greaves and cors-lets (breastplates) of his heroes.
H. L. Lorimer in 1950 wished to delete the lines that mentioned bronze
corslets as late interpolations, because no known corslets of an early
date had been dis-covered. In 1960 at Dendra in Greece the first known
metal cor-slet of the Bronze Age was dis-covered. Then three years later
a second bronze corslet was found (161).
Many books provide abundant historical and archeological evidence of
biblical reliability, including J. A. Thompson's The Bible and
Archaeology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982) and E. M. Blaiklock and R. K.
Harrison's Dictionary of Biblical Archaeology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
1983). For a good discussion of the gospel sites, see Rainer Riesner's
article "Archaeology and Geography" in Dictionary of Jesus and the
Gospels (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1992).
14. The Bible is so internally inconsistent it can't even settle on if
anyone other than God is eternal. Hebrews 7:3 says Melchizedek, like
God, is eternal. He must be older than the universe!
A: Hebrews 7:3 does not say that Melchizedek is eternal. It simply says
that his ancestry is not recorded in scripture, so "without father or
mother, without genealogy," in that sense he is "without [recorded]
beginning of days or end of life." The Greek preserves a literary
device, alliteration (multiple words beginning with the same sound) at
this point: apat?r, am?t?r, agenealog?tos (without father, without
mother, without recorded genealogy). Noted Greek scholar A. T. Robertson
says, "He is not to be understood as a miraculous being without birth or
death. Melchizedek has been made more mysterious than he is by reading
into this interpretation what is not there" [Word Pictures in the New
Testament (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1932), Vol. V, 381]. As a type of
Christ, Melchizedek, like Jesus, is given all the honors of the most
high priest and yet demonstrates no ancestral ties to the priestly
class. Yet, the Bible does not call Melchizedek eternal, because the end
of the verse in the Greek says he "has been made" like the Son of God.
[See R. C. H. Lenski's The Interpretation of the Epistle to the Hebrews
and the Epistle of James (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1966),
213.]
15. The Old Testament God is cruel and arbitrary in his orders to the
Israelites to savagely murder and carry out ethnic cleansing on the
original inhabitants of Canaan. Of course, this is also the God who
sends people to hell for eternity for only exercising the free will he
gave them!
A: First, even if this kind of argument were valid, the atheist could
only prove God was mean, not that he did not exist. Second, the atheist
who charges God with immorality must have some absolute, universal, and
invariant system of morality by which he can judge God. Christians get
their system of justice and morality from God's revelation, but from
where does the atheist's sense of morality come? From his own subjective
opinion? Then he has no right to criticize anyone else's system. From
society? Then in Hitler's society ethnic cleansing is "good." From the
innate survival mechanisms of nature? Then whatever humans (part of
nature) do must be "good" because their actions are products of their
natures and thus "good." From some moral agent beyond this material
universe who has the authority to impose morality on this material
universe and its inhabitants? And so we come back to the idea of a
transcendent moral God, exactly what the Christian affirms to exist.
Now, the Christian deals with this problem further by arguing that the
God who created, gives life to, and sustains people has the proprietary
"right" to extinguish people according to his own will, even if it
appears to us to be "immoral." As Jeremiah says, the potter has the
right to make one clay pot beautiful and to destroy another (Jeremiah
18:1-10). God, the author and sustainer of life and the source of
morality and justice, as a being categorically different than we are,
has rights we do not have. Just as a father has the right to tell his
child to go to bed but the father can stay up late, so God has the right
to take a human life while we do not. Third, if one agrees to adopt the
morality of the God of the Bible and to believe the historical
narratives of the Bible (concerning the conquest of Canaan, etc.), one
must also agree to accept the Bible's consistent and logical answers to
this paradox. The Bible gives answers to this problem, including the
very important notes that God repeatedly warned the Canaanites, who had
already received multiple opportunities to repent of their idolatry and
immorality (which included a religion involving cultic sex acts and
perhaps even human sacrifice); and that hell, or eternal separation from
the presence of God, is the just place for people who hate God, want
nothing to do with him, and desire to be away from him at any cost
(Matthew 25:46). Two books that deal with this subject are Peter C.
Craigie's The Problem of War in the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI:
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1978) and John H. Wenham's The
Goodness of God (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1974). See also
question number eighteen.
16. Christians claim the Bible is a book of love, and that Jesus always
preached love. But in Luke 14:26 Jesus said, "If anyone comes to me and
does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers
and sisters . . . he cannot be my disciple." And in Matthew 10:35 and
Luke 12:53 he says he came to divide families (father against son,
daughter against mothers, etc.). In Matthew 12:47-50, Mark 3:32-35, and
Luke 8:21, Jesus rejects his mother and brothers and says his followers
have become his new "mother and brothers." Finally, in Romans 9:13, Paul
carries on the tradition by quoting God as saying, "Jacob I loved, but
Esau I hated." What happened to the Jesus of "family values" and love?
A: Atheists, especially those like Zindler who claim a facility in
linguistics, should be able to understand common forms of literary
expression such as the hyperbole Jesus uses in Luke 14:26. English
professor Leland Ryken notes concerning this passage:
Such overstatements are of course not intended to be taken
literally. Jesus was not stating a reasoned ethical position when he
said that "if any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and
mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his
own life, he cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:26). He was using hyperbole
to assert the priority that a person must give to God over other
relationships (Words of Life, 103).
This interpretation is supported by the parallel passage in Matthew
10:37, which states the same theme, but without hyperbole: "Anyone who
loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who
loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me."
In Luke 12:53, Jesus merely notes what happens when he comes to bring
the peace of reconciliation to God: family members become divided
between those who follow God and those who do not (see also Matthew
10:35). Norman Geisler and Thomas Howe comment: "We must distinguish
between the purpose of Christ's coming to earth and the result of it.
His design was to bring peace . . . . However, the immediate consequence
of Christ's coming was to divide those who were for Him and those who
were against Him - the children of God from the children of this world"
(When Critics Ask, 340).
The parallel gospel passages regarding Jesus' supposed rejection of his
natural mother and brothers in favor of his "spiritual" family use a
subtle form of hyperbole to emphasis a spiritual truth: the family of
God is rooted, nurtured, and developed by faith, not genetic linkage. In
fact, the same gospels that the atheist here misinterprets to denigrate
"family values" contain numerous passages about how much Jesus did love
and care for his family, including his obedience to Mary and Joseph in
the temple at age 12, his indulgence of his mother's request to make
wine at the wedding of Cana, and his charge to the disciple John to care
for his mother after his death.
Romans 9:13 also uses hyperbole and evidently couples it with another
literary technique already discussed, synecdoche, or naming the whole by
the part. Romans 9-11 concerns God's actions toward the nation of Israel
and here Esau and Jacob stand for their respective descendants - the
non-Jews descended from Esau, and the Jews descended from Jacob. In a
hyperbolic way, Paul is saying that the sovereign God has the authority
to act specially toward one group of people (those descended from
Jacob), and not toward another group of people (those descended from
Esau). In other words, although Esau himself, and his descendants after
him, received many blessings from God, the covenant was established only
with Jacob and his descendants.
None of these passages or any similar ones give the atheist reason to
reject the claim that the Bible teaches that God is love.
17. If Adam and Eve were ordered not to eat of the tree of knowledge of
good and evil, because then they would know good and evil, they must not
have known good and evil before. If they didn't, then it hardly would
have been fair for God to judge them for doing something "evil." How
could they sin without the knowledge of good and evil?
A: It is not true that in all cases one must experience something to
know it. There are many different ways to know things, including by
intuition (or foundational mental categories), analogy, and apposition
[see Stuart Hackett's The Reconstruction of the Christian Revelation
Claim (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1984)]. For example, one does
not have to experience hitting the ground after jumping from a ten story
building to know it would hurt; or to experience inheriting a million
dollars to know it would change his lifestyle. Most atheists believe
that they don't have to experience being "born-again" to know it is a
foolish delusion, even though in this case their "knowledge" is false!
Much theoretical science is based on the belief that one can know new
things by analogy or apposition to what is known, and this
presupposition has allowed scientific experimentation and knowledge to
grow by leaps and bounds. For example, if we did not believe we could
know about weightlessness by analogy (the relative lightness of bodies
in water as opposed to air, for example), we could not have developed
our space program. While it is true that our knowledge may be imperfect
or limited if it is not experiential, that does not mean that we can
know nothing or that we cannot be responsible for what we do know. In
the same way, God's command to Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree of
knowledge of good and evil must have had some analogous or appositive
significance or the command would have been totally meaningless. When
Genesis 2:17 records God's command to Adam and Eve, it does not assume
that they "knew" good and evil experientially, but rationally; after
all, they were created "in God's image," which included the ability to
reason.
In this limited sense, as God "knows" evil perfectly or fully without
ever participating in evil, so Adam and Eve were able to "know" evil,
although not as fully, without having yet participated in it. The
atheist who will argue against the goodness of God on the basis of the
text must also accept the context of the text and its rational
assumptions. A more lengthy discussion of this kind of problem is in
Norman L. Geisler and Winfried Corduan's Philosophy of Religion (Grand
Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, second edition 1988) and Norman L. Geisler
and Paul D. Feinberg's Introduction to Philosophy: A Christian
Perspective (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1980).
18. The Old Testament is a blood-thirsty, primitive religious writing,
including instructions for acceptable human sacrifices (Leviticus).
Jeptha was admired for sacrificing his daughter to the cruel Old
Testament God (Judges 11), and God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his
only son, Isaac (Genesis 22).
A: The God of the Bible does not condone human sacrifice, and in fact,
one of the features that distinguishes Old Testament Judaism from its
religious contemporaries is its prohibition of human sacrifice (Lev.
18:21; 20:2). Leviticus discusses different kinds of sacrifices within
the Hebrew religion, and condemns all other sacrifices, including human,
of other religions.
The story of Jeptha in Judges 11 does not provide sufficient detail to
know exactly what happened. Jeptha vowed that if he won an important
battle against Ammon, he would dedicate "whatever comes out of the doors
of my house to meet me, when I return peace . . . I will offer it up as
a burnt offering" (Judges 11:31). Unfortunately, the first to come out
was his only child, his daughter. The passage completes the story by
relating that Jeptha was sorrowful and his daughter "mourned her
virginity" for two months before he father fulfilled his vow. Either of
two plausible interpretations have been proposed by scholars: (1) Jeptha
made a rash vow apart from God's will, and then mistakenly followed
through with sacrificing the life of his daughter anyway, out of a
misguided sense of duty to his vow; or (2) Jeptha dedicated his only
child, his daughter, to a lifetime of service to God in the temple,
sealing their dedication with a burnt offering, with both of them
sorrowful because her obligation to the temple would preclude her ever
marrying and having children, and consequently Jeptha's family line died
out. For detailed discussion of these alternatives, see Geisler and
Howe's When Critics Ask, Archer's Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties.
John W. Haley's Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible (Springdale, PA:
Whitaker House, n.d.), 238-241, gives seven good reasons why he believes
Jeptha did not kill his daughter, but instead consecrated her to the temple.
The focus of the story of Abraham offering up his only son Isaac, of
whom God prophesied that the world would be blessed through his
descendant, Jesus, is on Abraham's willingness to lose everything, even
his son, for God. Haley remarks, "God's design was not to secure a
certain outward act, but a certain state of mind, a willingness to give
up the beloved object to Jehovah" (238). The accuracy of this
interpretation is supported by the fact that God did provide an animal
for Abraham to offer instead of Isaac, and so Abraham did not become
guilty of human sacrifice. Archer explains, "It is a mistake to
interpret Genesis 22:2 as a command by God for Abraham to sacrifice his
son Isaac on the altar. On the contrary, God actually (through his
angel, at least) restrained Abraham's hand just as he was about to
plunge the knife into his son's body" (96). (Geisler and Howe also
discuss this passage.)
19. It is not true that "nothing comes from nothing." In fact, science
has observed the emergence of something from nothing in the quantum
physic process involving virtual particle pairs. The emergence of the
universe itself could be analogous to this quantum fluctuation of
something coming from nothing.
A: First, if the atheist can believe that something (e.g., the universe,
the material world) can come from nothing, it certainly shouldn't be
difficult for him to believe that the universe came about materially
from nothing by the agency of an intelligent, purposeful creator, God.
Second, so-called virtual particles do not, in fact, come from nothing.
Rather they borrow energy from fluctuations in the sub-atomic vacuum in
order to form, and then they quickly re-convert to energy again. The
quantum vacuum, unlike the popular notion of a vacuum, is definitely not
"nothing," but is a sea of fluctuating energy. Third, it is far from
clear that virtual particles even really exist. They are the theoretical
constructs useful for making scientific predictions (and not even
necessary for that), but no one knows whether there really are such
things. Fourth, in any case, attempts to explain the origin of the
universe as a vacuum fluctuation are now widely recognized to have
failed. See especially the debate between William Lane Craig and Quentin
Smith, Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1993), 125-129 and 148-157; also the revised article by Craig, "The
Caused Beginning of the Universe," British Journal for the Philosophy of
Science 44 (1993). See also Stanley L. Jaki's The Absolute Beneath the
Relative (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1990).
In general, atheists make a false dichotomy between science and
religion, regarding the former as a matter of fact and the latter as a
matter of faith. However, science has "faith" in its basic assumptions,
postulates, and interpretive frameworks, and religion that is rational,
coherent, and corresponding to reality does not contradict any
scientific truth, although it may contradict a favorite unproven
scientific theory or "faith" proposition. For further discussion see J.
P. Morelend's Christianity and the Nature of Science (Grand Rapids, MI:
Baker Book House, 1989) and Nicholas Herbert's Quantum Reality (New
York: Ancho/Doubleday, 1985).
20. Josephus, the first century Jewish historian, lived after Jesus but
did not mention him. Christians who point to Josephus' supposed
reference to Christ are actually referring to Christian interpolations
or forgery additions to Josephus.
A: Although Josephus was not a New Testament writer and consequently
disputes with him are not disputes with the Bible, atheists often
misrepresent Josephus and the Christian use of Josephus to underscore
their rejection of the historicity of the New Testament documents and
claims, and so it is addressed in concluding our discussion of Mr.
Zindler's biblical objections to God.
The passage of Josephus about Christianity most disputed reads as follows:
About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one should
call him a man. For he was a performer of astonishing deeds, a teacher
of men who are happy to accept the truth. He won over many Jews, and
indeed also many Greeks. He was the Messiah. In response to a charge
presented by the leading men among us, Pilatus condemned him to the
cross; but those who had loved him at first did not give up, for he
appeared to them on the third day alive again, as the prophets of God
had spoken this and thousands of other wonders about him. And still to
this day the tribe of Christians, named after him, has not disap-peared
[Antiquities XVIII. 63-64, quoted in R. T. France's The Evidence for
Jesus (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1986), 28-29].
The importance of this quote lies in Josephus' credibility as an ancient
historian, the fact that his history was of the Jews from creation to
A.D. 66, and in his close historical and geographical proximity to the
time of Christ (he wrote toward the end of the first century, or within
sixty or so years of Christ's ministry, death, and resurrection).
However, we should also remember that he was only one historian, writing
as a conquered religious minority to please his Roman rulers, and
Christianity was not yet a significant, highly visible movement.
Those who argue against the authenticity of this and one other, less
disputed, reference to Christ (Antiquities XX.200), argue that (1)
Josephus, a Jew and not a Christian, would be unlikely to express faith
in Jesus; (2) Josephus' works were preserved largely by the Church and
so subject to alteration without much chance of detection; (3) this
passage does not fit the chronology of his written history; and (4) we
have no early copies of Josephus' works.
In response (1) Josephus may have been recording the beliefs of the
Christians about Jesus without necessarily endorsing them himself (but
his record still attests to the historicity of Jesus as a religious
leader, martyr, and founder of a new movement); (2) simply because the
Church preserved Josephus' work doesn't prove the Church changed them
(especially when the Church claims to follow the teachings of the One
who called Himself "Truth"); (3) several other out-of-sequence stories
appear in this larger section of Josephus, a technique his uses
elsewhere as well; and (4) this passage is quoted from Josephus in early
Church writers such as Origen in the first half of the third century,
Eusebius in the early fourth century, and additionally we have a similar
text in an early tenth century Arabic manuscript. Despite the
conjectures regarding the particulars of the passage, scholars like Dr.
Gary Habermas conclude their examination of the evidence positively:
Josephus presented an important account of several major facts
about Jesus and the origins of Christianity. In spite of some question
as to the exact wording of his original writing, we can view his
statements as providing probably attestation, in particular, to the
death of Jesus by crucifixion, the disciples' report of his resurrection
and their subsequent teaching of Jesus' message [Ancient Evidence for
the Life of Jesus (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1984), 93].
In conclusion, Mr. Zindler's sideswipes against the Bible in the midst
of a debate on the existence of God are not legitimate protestations
either to the existence of the God described in the Bible nor to the
reliability of the sixty-six books that collectively form the Christian
Bible.
raven1
wrote:
>On June 27, 1993, atheist Frank Zindler and Christian Dr. William Lane
>Craig debated "Atheism or Christianity: Where Does the Evidence Lead?"
Bifurcation fallacy. The question debated should be "Atheism or
theism: where does the evidence lead?". You first have to establish
that some kind of "god" exists before you can examine the question of
which of the thousands postulated throughout the history of mankind it
might be.
zambon...@knowshpamatyahoo.com
wrote:
>Copyright 1993 by Bob and Gretchen Passantino
>***********************************************************************
>On June 27, 1993, atheist Frank Zindler and Christian Dr. William Lane
>Craig debated "Atheism or Christianity: Where Does the Evidence Lead?"
>(Video and audio copies of the debate are available from Zondervan
>Publishing House. The debate was held before 8,000 people in Illinois at
>Willow Creek Community Church. During that debate, Zindler raised a
>number of questions that had nothing to do with the existence of God,
>but only with his opinion of Christianity and the Bible.
>
Swell! What does any of this have to do with the fact that there is
not, never has been, nor is there ever likely to be proof of any god
or gods? Or with the fact that anything that you might conjure up and
present as "proof" does nothing to exclusively "prove" only *your*
god, and exclude any or all of the thousands which have been
manufactured by mankind. The Bible, of course, doesn't count. Every
religion ever conceived by mankind has had stories made up believers.
That is was written down generations later, heavily edited by
"believers" with an agenda then bound in dead cow, in the case of
christianity, is immaterial.
--
zamboni
#2139
I am Zamboni, and I approved this message.
Malcolm
> Smith, Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
See also Simon Signh's latest book:
Eric Gill
@newssvr30.news.prodigy.com:
> During that debate, Zindler raised a
> number of questions that had nothing to do with the existence of God,
> but only with his opinion of Christianity and the Bible.
On the contrary - since Christianity claims that the religion was
established by this alleged supreme being, examining the institute for
signs of super-human influence is entirely logical.
Though after reading the rest of this tripe, it is unlikely that the
authors would know 'logical' if they were beat over the head with a copy of
Organon, and furthermore couldn't care less.