The
usual “objections” or questions people raise about the Christian Faith are
these … with variants! Here I’ve tried to summarise why these objections don’t
hold water.
How do you know God exists? How do you know my
mother existed? Logic tells you that I must have had a mother, but logic tells
you nothing at all about her; who she was, what she did. Some of you reading
this may have met her occasionally, or seen a photo of her. But to my sisters and
I she was a “real person” – we lived with her, and knew how she thought about
people and things.
So you may be able to
reason that God exists, for example from the beauty of creation (indeed, we
read in Romans that creation is sufficient argument for God’s existence – no
one has an excuse). But you really know someone by meeting them, spending time with
them. So the question is the wrong way round … I know God, therefore I know He
exists!
Where did we come from? To my mind, the vast
amount of money being spent on the search for extra-terrestrial life, is an
obscenity. The argument is along the lines “we weren’t created, therefore life
must have been spontaneous, therefore there must be life on suitable other planets,
therefore we ought to search for it”. As you’d expect, I have issues with every
step of that argument. The Bible has nothing to say about life elsewhere in the
Universe (apart from heaven, which may or may not be in the Universe)) –
there may just be a very good reason why it is silent. Another excuse is that
we “need to know where we came from”; the Bible has already answered it – we
come from God.
Hasn’t science disproven God? Science is incapable of
either proving or disproving God; science tries to answer the questions “what”
and “how”, but faith is far more concerned with “who” and “why”. Having said
that, the answer is still No! So many things in science illuminate the Bible
teaching and confirm it. In the past a “classic” argument went on the lines of
“the Bible says there was a town B between A and C, but it’s not there, so the
Bible is wrong”; ten years later, archeologists discovered the remains of town
B, slap between A and C.
When I was young, I had a
mental problem with the idea that Jesus was both human and divine; after all,
something cannot be two contradictory things at once, could it? Then at
University I learnt of the dual nature of light – that light is not physical (particles)
nor abstract (wave energy), but both at the same time; it will seem to be one
or the other according to the experiment being done. So Jesus (the light of the
world!) is both human and divine, and the Bible accounts show both of His
natures at different times. That’s just one example of what I meant when I said
that “science illuminates the Bible”.
Jesus, if he existed, was just a good bloke, right? He can’t be! If He was a “good bloke” He
would not mislead people, surely – but Jesus (i)
claimed to be God Himself, (ii) spoke of His mission as salvation – saving the
lost, and (iii) spoke in no uncertain terms of the reality of eternal life
after death for all … to be spent either in heaven or in hell (our choice!). As
C S Lewis pointed out (paraphrased), He doesn’t leave us the option of being
“just a good bloke” … He has to be mad, or bad, or God.
The Bible – unreliable,
out of date and full of contradictions? OK, let’s take those one
at a time.
Reliability .. the original manuscripts
are almost entirely lost, so it is translated from copies. Rather a lot of
copies, in fact, far more than many “accepted” historic documents. And all
these copied agree with each other to a remarkable extent, compared with other
documents of that age. Historians, whether they believe or not, agree that from
the many copies we can be almost 100% sure that we now have an accurate Bible,
in its original languages [but of course there are many paraphrases around,
usually to make the language simple – some of these have traded in accuracy for
readability].
Out of date .. certainly “old”,
2000 years old; but there are many things these days that are derided as “out
of date”, like gentleness, courtesy and honesty – but they are right! “2+2=4”
is old, but that doesn’t mean it’s out of date.
Full of Contradictions … no doubt people
who claim this are thinking of one of three things
·
Differences between the Old and New Testament in “rules for living” …
but differences are to be expected, because in the New Testament God’s spirit
now lives in the hearts of believers, to guide them; in Old Testament times it
was a matter of rules.
·
Context … different contexts require different approaches.
·
There are a few seeming contradictions that really aren’t; for example,
the genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke differ, but that doesn’t mean that
either of them is false, as families do inter-marry.
Religion is the cause of all trouble, isn’t it? It can seem so on the
face of things, but probe a bit below the surface and you’ll find it’s not
quite as simple as that. For example, “the troubles” in Northern Ireland were
said to be Protestant vv Catholic, but were really
Republican vv Unionist. In many such conflicts, from
the Crusades onwards, you’ll find that it’s usually a political power bid,
trying to invoke faith-loyalty to its cause.
How can Christianity be the ONLY way? I distinctly
remember my father preaching, and he said “Christianity is not a religion”; a
religion, he explained, is about what humans can/must do to approach God; but
Christianity is a Faith, because it is about what God has already done to approach
man. That by itself sets it apart. Other aspects of the “only way” claim;-
·
Certainty – Christianity holds that a living faith in Jesus Christ is a
guarantee of salvation; every other religion works on the basis that “you can
never be really sure”, and prescribe ways of “earning merit”.
·
Historicity – Christianity is based on historical events (the death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ), fulfilling ancient prophecies. Other religions
are based on the teachings of someone or other (teachings not always followed
in the life of the leader).
·
Divinity – Christianity comes from someone who claimed to be God
Himself; that is unique.
·
Sheer gratitude – if, through Jesus Christ, God offers free salvation,
why look away?
Christian morals – a bit
restrictive, eh? The first thing to say here is
“yes” – they are restrictive, to a libertarian. Any “rules” God gives us are
there for our benefit, and to keep us from harm to ourselves and others. It’s
up to us to choose whether to follow them (and trust that God knows what He’s
doing), or reject them (and face the consequences, now or hereafter). But the
follow-up question is, do I have the right (if I ignore God’s rule for myself)
to cause potential harm to someone else?
How can a ‘loving’ God send people to hell? Because God is far more loving
than you realise, when you ask that question! I used to be involved with a drug/alcohol
rehabilitation centre in Berkshire, and there a
frequent question asked was “do you love me enough to tell me I’m wrong?”. A
cheap sort of love will agree to “keep the peace”; a deeper love will take the
risk of provoking short-term hurt to achieve long-term health.
According to the Bible, God
doesn’t “send” people to hell; people choose that destiny for themselves,
despite God pleading with them to choose the way of eternal life by submission
to Jesus Christ. And God, who gave humans the gift of free choice, permits it …
in part because he loves us so much that he wants heaven to be perfect for us
(Jesus spoke about wheat and tares being separated at harvest time – this is
because any tares stored with the grain would rot the grain).
What about suffering and evil? The Bible pictures
the original creation as near perfect (“God saw that it was very good”); it was given
to humankind to look after, and almost immediately everything was spoilt by sin
(remember, sin is failure to meet the standard of perfection in every way, at
any time). From then on, everything we observe is affected, or infected, by
sin; we see this in the 21st Century most strikingly in climate
change (the result on the environment of our collective greed and
carelessness), but the Bible tells us that everything in the earth is affected
– the very rocks groan and cry out for God to re-establish His rule.
This is incidentally the
answer to Stephen Fry’s famous question – how could a God of love have created
a type of worm that infects children’s eyes; simply, it wasn’t like that, but
it has sadly become like that.
So the response to this
question is (a) suffering is temporary, and (b) evil will be defeated. We do
not know when – God is giving us every opportunity to repent and turn to Him;
but He won’t wait forever.
You believe God exists, but I don’t, so your faith is
not for me! This is actually the most illogical position. If God exists, that has to
be irrespective of our personal beliefs … how can one person’s belief or
otherwise make a scrap of difference to God’s existence or otherwise? God is
God of all, whether we believe in Him or not. If this is your position, could
it be that you don’t care enough to explore the possibility of His existence? A
much more logical basis would be to say “if there is even a remote possibility
that God exists, then I need to investigate that possibility to my fullest
extent”. You may find this decision table helpful … it is admittedly
simplistic, but sometimes we need the simple breakdown to sort through complex
arguments in our minds.
|
Is the Christian faith
true or not? |
Do you believe in Jesus
or not? |
|
|
Believe |
Not believe |
|
|
Yes |
WIN – eternal life! WIN – during this life
you have been motivated “even more” to help others |
DISASTER |
|
No |
WIN – at least you have
been motivated to live for others |
It seems like it doesn’t
matter … but do you want to take the risk? |
And finally – the “real” objections to faith …
a) isn’t Christianity costly? Yes and no! No, it is totally free – eternal
life is offered free of charge! Yes it is … it costs us our independence (we
have to give up the notion that we’re self-sufficient!), our pride, and our
time and money. We will need to stop pleasing ourselves, to please God. But
it’s the best investment we can make – the return is guaranteed!
b) doesn’t Christianity want to change me? Again, yes and no! No, it is not the church
or faith that wants to change you – only God. Yes, God will want to change you,
but only for the better; He loves you, as you are, unconditionally and totally
… and He loves you too much to want you not to change. So after you accept
Jesus as your Saviour, God’s Spirit will start the process, gently and bit by bit. So don’t think you
have to change first – faith first, change later.
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