I would like to note at the outset that these answers of necessity are brief. They are not meant to be exhaustive or even comprehensive regarding the literal reams upon reams of literature on the subjects these questions encompass. It is certain that follow up questions of certainly a legitimate nature will be left unanswered. This is simply a function of the format and it should not be construed that such questions do not have answers. Space and time merely do not permit an exhaustive treatment for which I humbly apologize.
However, that does
not mean these answers are without merit.
Far from it. For what these
answers are intended to achieve is to give the questioner a start on pursuing
further answers. They are intended to
demonstrate that logical, reasonable answers supported by evidence are
available to the diligent student who genuinely wants to find answers.
So, without further
ado, answers (brief though they may be) to the top 10 questions asked about
Christianity:
10. Where did Cain get his wife?
This has to be the most famous challenge to the Christian faith now
known since Clarence Darrow used it in the Scopes-Monkey Trial in 1925. Darrow had put the prosecuting lawyer,
William Jennings Bryan, on the stand as an expert. This unusual step was agreed to with the
understanding that Bryan could put Darrow on the stand the next day as an
expert on evolution. Darrow agreed,
Bryan took the stand, answered all Darrow’s questions, but when the next day
came, Darrow rested his case and welched on his promise to testify and support
his own case. One can only suppose that
his refusal was a response to a survival instinct based upon his own case,
which he ended up losing (a fact most people do not remember about the trial).
One of the reasons Darrow’s loss in the case is not remembered is
because in his cross-examination of Bryan, he asked such questions as, “Where
did Cain get his wife?” and Bryan either could not or would not answer. Whichever was the case, Darrow very
skillfully and successfully painted Fundamentalist beliefs as vacuous and
unreasonable. Therefore, to this day,
anti-theists still use it as a “killer question” to which they think Christians
have no answer and, unfortunately, in many cases, they are right.
9. Why would a loving God send people to hell?
This seems like a pointed contradiction, that an all loving God would
even contemplate intentionally sending anyone to such a place as hell. It is, however, a non-secquitor. I would ask the non-believer to check out
his/her Bible. God never sends anyone to
hell. In fact, He sent His own Son to
atone for the sin that would otherwise condemn people to hell in order to atone
for the evil that men do. People choose
to go to hell by rejecting His kind offer of heaven. This, at first, seems nonsensical, for who in
their right mind would choose to go to hell.
However, consider, who, when asked by their first grade teacher, ever
said, “I want to grow up to be a drug addict,” or “I want to be a prostitute
when I get older?” And yet, so many,
unfortunately, do. Sin is a dream
shattering, life destroying proposition with all kinds of unintended
consequences, hell being just one.
Further, I submit the testimony of atheists themselves on this
point. I have heard just such admissions
from their own mouths. In a debate, the
well-known atheist and lecturer, the late Christopher Hitchens was asked by his
theist opponent, “If I could prove tonight, 100% conclusively, that Jesus
Christ was in fact the God the created us and our universe, would you get down
on your knees and worship Him with me tonight?”
Hitchens, with great honesty and candor, replied, “No, absolutely
not.” He went on to state that he wanted
nothing whatsoever to do with God and like Milton’s Lucifer, he would rather
rule in hell than serve in heaven a being that he characterized as “wicked
beyond all measure.”
Thus, we ask, who would actually choose to go hell? Apparently, a lot of people.
8. Since dead men do not come back to life, how can we believe Jesus did?
It is agreed and stipulated that dead men do not normally and naturally
rise from the dead and if this were the Christian claim, then, yes, this would
be a defeating proposition. However, the
fact is, this is not the Christian claim.
Christian’s claim, without any hesitation, is that Christ’s resurrection
was first and last a supernatural event.
That, in fact, is the whole point.
There is no natural way to defeat death. If we are ever to be triumphant over this
final specter that awaits us all, we must rely to the supernatural power only
found in God. There can be no naturally
based objection to such a supernatural event.
This said, what the non-believer usually is actually asking here is,
“How can we know that Jesus rose from the dead?” This is, substantively, a different question
as it is evidential, not merely philosophical.
As CS Lewis pointed out, the only supernatural aspect of any miracle is
the miracle itself; all consequences flowing from it take place in the natural
world and therefore are subject to investigation on the basis of the evidence
they leave behind in that natural world.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is no exception.
This is one of those questions that brevity does a supreme injustice
to. I would point the interested reader
to the works of such noted scholars on this subject as Gary Habermas who has
made the historical study of the resurrection his life’s work. Habermas, I feel, is a good scholar to start
with as he is acknowledged by scholars of all walks as perhaps the world’s most
noted expert on the subject. I shall try
here to provide a summary, however inadequate, of the works of these scholars.
1.
The
resurrection is a preposterous claim, admittedly, but it is one that has formed
the core of Christianity since its inception.
There was a fashion in early 20th century scholarship to
claim that the resurrection was a later addition to Christianity, coming in
with the penning of the Gospels which scholars of the time dated much, much
later than archaeology and manuscript evidence now shows; sometimes 2 centuries
or more later. Since then, we have now
found fragments of Mark and Matthew that date to the mid-1st century
AD, where scholars used to think these works were not extant until the late 2nd
or early 3rd centuries. This
puts the resurrection accounts at the very heels of the events which they
describe. But, there is more and even
better evidence to be found in Paul’s writings.
No one disputes the authenticity of the Corinthian and Galatian letters
as being anything but genuine early 1st century writings. In I Cor 15, Paul clearly describes the
resurrection as being core to the Christian gospel. Further, in that text he tells us that he got
the resurrection account from his visit to Jerusalem where he talked to Peter and
James, the “brother of the Lord.” It is
in Galatians 3:1 that he tells us this visit was two years after his conversion
which is estimated to have occurred 2-3 years after the crucifixion. This means that the resurrection was being
preached in the town where the events occurred (i.e. there would have been
eyewitnesses in the crowds) less than 5 years after these events took
place. Now, one has to ask, how could
such an outlandish story survive, indeed thrive, in an environment where every
citizen and slave would be able to provide eyewitness testimony to the
falsehood of such claims if they were untrue?
I dare say, it couldn’t.
Therefore, by the impossibility of the contrary, we must acknowledge
there is a strong possibility that they were telling the truth.
2.
Women found the empty tomb. No first century Jewish male in his right
mind would ask anyone to believe a story told by three women witnesses. In 1st century society, women were
not even allowed to give testimony in court because they were considered to be
so hysterical and unreliable as to be totally useless for evidentiary
purposes. Yet, for 2000 years,
Christians have asserted, even in the earliest days, that women were the first
witnesses to these events. One can only
assume that the writers of the New Testament said this was so was because they
knew it to be the truth. Thus, despite
the embarrassment of the truth, we must acknowledge that this story is told as
it is told because it is the truth.
3.
The hostile witness to the empty tomb. Again, from the earliest days, even in the
writing of hostile witnesses such as the Jewish authorities of the time, no one
has ever denied that the tomb of Christ was empty. The most common claim was that the disciples
stole the body. Whether or not this is
true (see #4 next), the fact is that no one has ever found Christ’s body (the
laughable “Tomb of Jesus” Discovery channel special notwithstanding; most
participants in that episode are still trying to hide from their
colleagues!) If opponents wanted to
smother Christianity in its cradle, all they had to do was produce a body and
game over. But, they never did
this. Instead, they formulated theories
to explain the empty tomb, meaning we can be quite sure the tomb was, in fact,
empty.
4.
Lastly, for this brief summary of the topic, it
is impossible to account for the rise of early Christianity without a genuine
resurrection. This lays to rest many a
theory from the so-called “Swoon Theory” to the theft of the body by the
disciples. If, in fact, Jesus had merely
fainted on the cross (a laughable proposition on the face of it for a man who
has been beaten unmercifully, nailed, not merely tied, but nailed to a cross,
hanged there for hours then stuck in the side to his heart by a professional
executioner!), if indeed he revived in the coolness of the tomb, managed to
roll the stone weighing tons away with broken, pierced hands, managed to slip
past the guard at the tomb without being seen, then limped in agony the mile or
so back to town, does anyone think that when he knocked on the disciples door
and presented himself, “See, I told you I’d come back!” that the disciples
looked at him and said “Wow, He is risen! I can’t wait to have a resurrection
body just like His!”? Honestly? As Habermas says, if this is in fact how it
happened, what you have is a resuscitation of miraculous proportions, but resuscitation
pure and simple. The disciples might
call a doctor but they wouldn’t call Him “Lord, Conqueror of Death!” Resuscitation, yes; Resurrection? No.
Further, if the disciples stole the body, how is it that almost to a man,
they all died, certainly all suffered horribly, for what they knew to be a
lie. Yes, it is possible to get people
to die for their beliefs, but pre-requisite to that, they must believe it! If the disciples stole the body, they would
not be limited to mere belief; they would be in a position to know that what
they were saying was a lie. And yet
none, not a single one, even in the face of horrible torture and death, not a
one recanted and admitted a lie. You are
not going to find 10 or more individuals who would die for a lie. Again, for a belief, yes; but for what they
would know to be a lie, never, not a chance.
Maybe one or two, but not 10 or 11.
And yet, without a resurrection, there is no gospel; no gospel, no
Christianity. Thus, as it is impossible
to provide an adequate explanation for the rise of early Christianity by any
other way, we are reasonably justified in believing the story these men and
women told was in fact the truth.
Lastly,
we must consider that any natural explanation must cover all the improbable,
indeed, impossible events described and known from history. I give a lecture specifically on this subject
in my introductory course on apologetics.
There truly is so much more to this subject than can be discussed
here. However, this should give the
reader a flavor for the overwhelming testimony Christian’s have on this
topic. As one former atheist scholar
once commented, “If the resurrection of Christ is not deemed true on the basis
of the evidence, then nothing that we think we know of the ancient world is
true.”
7. Aren't there a bunch of contradictions in the Bible?
There are numerous sites on the internet that deal with specific claims
to contradictions on the Bible, so I will not take the readers time to rehearse
the many such attempts to disprove the Bible in this way. Suffice to say, though thousands have been
proposed, to my knowledge not a single, verifiable contradiction either in
external fact or internal narrative or logic has ever been found in the
Bible. That said, though there are
reasonable answers to all such claims, if the reader is determined to see a
contradiction, then a contradiction will be seen. This says more about the reader than the text
however. I would ask such a reader to
examine their motives closely before rendering a final judgment. Are you seeing a contradiction because the
facts will not really admit a reasonable explanation, or are you seeing it
because, for your own reasons, you have to see it? Just something else to think about.
6. How can we know the Bible is God's word?
This is a good and perfectly
reasonable question since we ask Christians to accept this proposition by faith
and faith should always be reasonable, never blind. Classically, there are two major lines of
argument for this case, those being from the perfection of the Bible’s
composition and the other being the perfection of the prophecy it contains.
Regarding the Bible’s composition,
it is a fact that the Bible is actually a collection of 66 books which are
authored by 40 different authors over the course of several thousand years, and
yet, despite the wide range of age of these authors, the wide range of cultural
background (some were slaves, others aristocrats), and the wide range of
occupations (some were simple farmers and fishermen, some were the greatest
monarchs of the ancient world), they consistently tell only one story without
contradiction either in external fact or internal logic. Many have tried over thousands of years to
prove otherwise (the Bible is the most read and most critically analyzed book
in all of human history), all to no avail.
As a French philosopher once observed, “The Bible is an anvil that has
worn out many a hammer.” As one
familiarizes oneself with literature, religious and secular, over the ages, one
begins to appreciate how incredible such a feat is. For instance, though there are surely hundreds
of thousands to choose from, one could not find 66 books written in America
that could be matched to the Bible. Even
in relatively close circles, this becomes an impossibility. The example I like to use in my lectures is
the world of Star Trek. I have always
been a Star Trek fan, and know every episode and most all of the books written
and I know for a fact, that even within this closed, tight and controlled
writing environment, contradictions creep in.
I do not know of any collection of 66 episodes that could be seen as
perfectly consistent on one story. This
being the case, one must consider the claim by Christians to the Bible’s
supernatural authorship as being at least credible as a possibility warranting
further investigation.
Secondly is what I consider,
however, to be an even stronger argument, that being one from fulfilled
prophecy. No other religious book will
stake its reputation on fulfilled prophecy in the way that the Bible does. Many books claim to have prophecy’s of such
things as the end of the world, but while we’re all waiting for the end of the
world to see if those “prophecies” pan out, the Bible actually gives us what no
other book of prophecy gives…prophetic glimpses that have already come to
pass. There are numerous examples from
the conquest of Babylon 150 years before it happened exactly as foretold by
Isaiah to the fate of Tyre precisely and in detail as given to us by
Ezekiel. One of my favorites (to which I
am indebted to Sir Robert Anderson’s classic The Coming Prince) is Dan 9:25 and 26 where the angel Gabriel gives
us a mathematically precise date for the arrival of the Messiah:
Know therefore and understand,
that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem
unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks:
the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. And after threescore and two weeks shall
Messiah be cut off, but not for himself
So, here we are given a definite
starting date (the date of the decree to rebuild Jerusalem, not the Temple, but
the city, after the Babylonian captivity), a definite period of time (69
“weeks” of years; “week” was used in ancient times to mean 7 in the way we
would use “dozen” to mean 12), and a definite event to occur on that date (the
presentation of the Messiah). We can
find the date of this decree, not just from the Bible, but from an ancient
artifact now held in the British Museum known as the cylinder of Cyrus. That cylinder confirms that the Jews were
given permission to rebuild their city on March 4, 445BC. We can figure the number of days Gabriel
gives us by multiplying the 69 times the “week” of 7 to get the number of
years, then multiply by 360 days (the Jews reckoned their calendar on a lunar
calendar comprised of 12 nominal 30 day months, yielding a standard 360 day
year). That works out to 69 x 7 x 360 =
173,860 days. Now, transferring that to
our calendar, accounting for leap years, we come to April 6, AD32,
precisely. So what happened on April 6,
AD32? That just happens to be the day
which Christians call Palm Sunday, when Jesus entered Jerusalem riding a donkey
and was proclaimed by the people waving palm fronds as the Messiah.
Now, I’ll place that kind of
accuracy up against anybody’s record. Nostradamus,
Edgar Casey, you name anyone; no one has a pinpoint prophecy like that. What’s more, we know that this was not made
up after the fact since Daniel and this prophecy were in black and white in the
Septuagint translation of the Old Testament 250 years before Jesus was even
born! Did Daniel just grab this date out
of a hat and just happen to get it right?
And, remember, this is just one of literally hundreds of prophecies in
the Bible that are verifiably accurate and verifiably precognitiant. Did they all just happen to get it
right? Every one? This is one that is really not explainable
outside of God’s intervention. Hundreds
have tried to disprove the accuracy of these prophecies over the centuries and,
ironically, instead have furthered their verification and often converting to
Christianity as a result. So, I would
gladly invite any non-believer to just try to prove the Bible wrong here,
because I know, chances are, you’ll end up being my Christian brother, just as
so many of those who have tried before.
5. Who created God?
I know Richard Dawkins just wrote a
best seller called The God Delusion based precisely on the premise of “Who
created the Creator?” but, frankly, I’m embarrassed at having to respond to
such a sophomoric question from someone who should know better. It is not an unreasonable question for a 3rd
grader, as virtually all kids, if they're thinking at all, eventually ask this
question in one form or another. But,
any sophomore philosophy student knows the answer. So here it is…
If all things are created, then you
could ask, “Who created the Creator?”
The problem is, once you’ve answered that, then you could ask, “Who
created the Creator’s Creator?” and again, “Who created the Creator’s Creator’s
Creator?” This can go on to infinity and
is, in fact, called an Infinite Regress, because it never ends. At some point in time, you must get back to
an Uncreated Creator, a being whose origin is subsumed within His own nature and
existence. He is neither created nor
destroyed. This is God. He is the answer, not the question!
It is important to understand that
Christianity has never claimed that God was ever created. In fact, quite the opposite. The god that would be an answer to Dawkin’s
question would not be the God that Christian’s worship. What astounds me is that Jews and Christians
have known this for more than 2000 years.
How come Dawkins doesn’t know? I
suspect there can only be one of two reasons:
1) he is simply plumb ignorant of his chosen field of contest or 2) he
does know and simply turns a blind eye to the answer because he does not want
to know. I’m not sure which would be
more charitable…to say he’s ignorant or lying, but I really don’t see a third
option.
4. Where did Cain get his wife?
Yep, we get this one a lot! However, it is true, I never actually
answered it last time. OK, let’s take a
look at the text first. We find this
seemingly all consuming passage in Genesis Chapter 4:
And Cain went out from the
presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived,
and bare Enoch
- (Gen 4:16 and
17)
That’s it. That’s all the Bible has to say on the
subject. Note that the passage DOES NOT
say that Cain MET his wife in Nod, merely that he procreated with her there. The non-believer asking this question usually
seems to be under the false impression that the Bible says Cain married someone
from a distant land that came from somewhere else other than from Adam and
Eve. The fact is, the Bible explicitly
states:
And the days of Adam after he had
begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters
-
(Gen 5:4 emphasis mine)
It is a fact that in all ancient
cultures, including Biblical culture up until the giving of the law at Sinai,
that brothers married sisters. Now, we
definitely see genetic injuries result from incest, but then, for instance when
Pharaoh married a sister, which was very frequently the case, there does not
seem to have any harm from it. Further,
realistically, what other choice did Cain have?
Yes, Cain married his sister (or possibly a niece), moved to Nod and had
kids. If indeed, the Bible claimed that
there was this whole other group of people living over in Nod that had not been
born to Adam and Eve, yes, then there would be a problem, I agree. But the Bible nowhere, at no time, ever has
made such a claim. Cain married his
sister, moved to Nod, then had kids.
That’s it. No big mystery.
3. Why is there evil?
This is perhaps the most serious and fair questions in this list. As Christians, we claim that God is an omnipotent
(all powerful), all loving God. It is a
fair observation that an all powerful God could conquer evil and an all loving
God would want to conquer evil.
Therefore, why does God allow evil?
This is a most difficult question because, existentially, evil disrupts
and destroys so many real lives. This is
not merely a matter of philosophy or pointing out a particular text. Real people really hurt. So why would God allow such episodes as the
Holocaust?
Well, there are three levels on which we must answer this
challenge. One is the logical or
deductive argument from evil; the second is the probable or inductive argument
from evil; lastly is the existential reality of evil.
Logically, to make his case, the atheist would have to prove that in no
possible universe would God have a reason to permit evil. In other words, is there any real logical
contraction between the existence of evil and the existence of God? Frankly, most philosophers have ceased to
make this argument and gone to the probalistic argument because even they have
realized that there may be many reasons as to why, though He could eliminate
evil and (according to the Bible) one day will, for the present, God would
permit evil in the world. Allowing man
to see the real consequences of his own actions might just be one. Now, one can disagree with God’s reasoning (a
wary proposition at best), but one cannot logically claim that evil exists and
therefore God is without reason. This is
a non-sequitor.
Regarding the inductive argument, this is the one that most
philosophers now propose. The argument
usually takes a form thus: “There is too
much evil in the world, so much so that it is improbable that there is an all
powerful, all loving God.” Note, this
hinges on the probability of God and is therefore not a logical proposition,
but a probalistic one. Alvin Plantiga
has recently given, what I feel, is the most rational treatment of this
argument. He assesses the questioners assessment
of “too much evil,” by asking “how much can one possibly say is too much?” In other words, in a world where nothing went
wrong, but I stubbed my toe, wouldn’t I feel, relative to the carefree
existence of my fellows, that I had somehow had “too much evil” heaped upon me? There can be no objective assessment of what
constitutes “too much evil,” and therefore the probability is impossible to
assess. Thus, the argument fails.
Lastly, we must deal with evil on the level of every day
existence. The mother who is watching
her child slowly die from some frightful malady does not want to hear a logical
or probalistic argument about God and evil.
She just wants her child to be healed and, tragically, so many never
are. There is no argument to be made
here. In fact, words all too often fall
tragically short of such moments and we are all probably better off simply
being with her in her hour of need, silently sharing her grief with her. Maybe later, when she needs to talk, the
truth of evil’s existence as the result of man’s choices can be explored, but
neither I nor anybody else can make the hurt that evil visits upon us all at
one time or another go away. Perhaps, at
such times, there can only be the comfort that, despite all else, God does love
and will respond to our love.
2. How did Noah get all those animals into that ark?
Many remain in unbelief because they are sure Noah could not have
carried 2 of most, 7 of some of all animals on the ark despite the fact that
they do not know how many kinds he would have had to take or how big his boat
was. When one runs the numbers, however,
one finds that he would have needed space for less than 5,000 pairs of animals
the average size of a sheep, for which the dimensions of his ark were perfect,
including appropriate provisions for all including the 8 humans on board for
the year or more they would have to be on it.
In my presentation on the Flood of Noah, I go into more detail, giving
the figures and their sources, which are a bit much to get into here. What I recommend to the interested reader is
that he/she search out the facts of this matter on a reputable website such as
AnswersInGenesis.org. When I have
appropriate video of my presentation, I will post it as well, and as always, I
remain willing to answer all e-mail inquiries which are submitted respectfully.
1. Where did Cain get his wife?
Oh, my goodness! We have had to listen to this one for 90
years! Enough already! Why didn’t Mr. Bryan just give the right
answer when he had the chance? I don’t
know. Perhaps, given his time, he felt
uncomfortable saying someone in the Bible committed incest (which should be no
surprise; a lot of them did! Abraham
included!). Maybe he felt Darrow would
make worse hay out of the truth, twisting his words into something salacious. All I know is I’d rather defend a truthful,
honest, logical answer than a weak platitude of ignorance. But really, is the answer or lack thereof
what’s really keeping you from coming to faith in God? As Christians, we should never shy away from
a challenge, but neither should the non-believer. Is it possible there are answers and that you
simply do not like the implications those answers carry? We all should have our presumptions
challenged. I hope that if you were
convinced that these questions had no logical answers that you can see that
such a presumption is in error. You may
not like the answers; you may disagree with them. Fair enough.
But if the lack of any answer has kept you from at least investigating
the truth claims of the Bible and the saving grace to be found in the cross of
Jesus Christ, I sincerely hope you will reconsider that position. Our ministry always welcomes honest inquiries
and responses. Why? Because Christianity is not a set of dry
rules of “do’s” and “don’t’s.” That’s
another widely held misconception. It’s
not a “path of enlightenment” or any other such thing. Christianity is a relationship and in
relationships we build trust, we learn about each other, and, most importantly,
we talk. God is willingly to dialogue
with you, but only if you’re prepared to listen. Are you?
Talk to Him and find out.
