Apologetics – Page 11

Habakkuk Bible Study – Problem of Evil

This is a Bible Study that I wrote for group discussion reading the book Habakkuk. I think we all ask questions about why God allows suffering, pain, and evil. Our questions are nothing new, as you’ll see from this study of Habakkuk.

Read Habakkuk 1:1-4.

Can you relate to Habakkuk’s complaint to God? How do you see his complaint as a modern day problem or a question that you have concerning God’s action, or apparent lack of action?

Read Habakkuk 1:5.

What type of work would you expect God to be doing in response to such a complaint?

Read Habakkuk 1:6-11 to see the type of work God is claiming he will do.

Read Habakkuk’s response to God in Habakkuk 1:12-2:1.

Is that how you would respond to God?

Vs. 13 – It’s good to see that we are not the first people to have questioned the existence of an all-powerful, loving God and the existence of evil.

Vs. 2:1 – When you pray to God, especially about troubles, do you stand at the watchtower?

Read or skim through Daniel 10:1-14. How long did Daniel pray to God before he heard the answer to his prayers? What can we learn about Daniel and Habakkuk when it comes to prayer and waiting for God’s reply?

Read Habakkuk 2:2-4.

God will end the suffering but it will seem slow to us.

What does 2 Peter 3:1-13 say about God’s slowness? Why is he being “slow” in ending our suffering and fulfilling all of his promises? What promise awaits us?

Vs. 4 – The righteous shall live by faith! What is the object of our faith? How does the object of our faith relate to our righteousness and how does the object of our faith provide an answer to the problem of evil in the world?

Read Habakkuk 2:18-20.

Do we turn to our inventions for safety, help, and prosperity?

Habakkuk 3:1-16 – Habakkuk reflects on a terrifying manifestation of God’s glory and power, he prays for mercy, and is confident in God’s ultimate deliverance. Much in our lives brings anguish, fear, and feelings of helplessness to our hearts. God humbles us under his mighty hand, but he does so in order to exalt us in him.

Read Habakkuk 3:17-19 to see Habakkuk’s final response in his dialog and struggle with the Lord.

May 24, 2013September 15, 2019

Andy Wrasman2 Comments

What do you think about Science and Darwinian Evolution?

I periodically get asked the question, “What do you think about Science and Evolution?”

I am being asked this because the person thinks that “Evolution” beliefs and “Christianity” beliefs based on God’s divinely revealed Word contradict one another. I like to clarify that I believe the question is not asking simply about “evolution,” change over a period time, which I believe is evident in nature, but the question is asking what I think about the “Darwinian Model of Evolution,” which is quite different.

What about Science and Darwinian Evolution?

Validation:

I know that the scientific enterprise has greatly blessed us with knowledge that has improved our lives in so many aspects that to enumerate all the ways science has benefited mankind to date would be a life-long endeavor. I know that the Darwinian model of Evolution is often presented as possessing a plethora of irrefutable proof, and since the existence of God doesn’t gel with the naturalistic worldview that accompanies Darwin’s theory it appears as if Christians are living on blind faith, ignoring the evidence, and derailing the advancement of scientific discovery!

Answer:

Option 1 – Science and Christianity are not at Odds Answer – In the Jack Black movie, Nacho Libre, there is a scene where his wrestling monk character wants to pray with his partner before a tag-team match and his partner refuses, on the grounds that he “believes in science.” I think this is a common sentiment that if a person believes in God, he or she must then discard Science, and vice versa, that if a person embraces Science, subsequently he or she must reject God. This simply is not the case! The process of experimentation that is the hallmark of Science sprang to life, took root, and flourished within the Christian cradle of Europe in the Seventeenth century. Early founding fathers of Science such as Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Blaise Pascal, and Isaac Newton were Christians and their study of the Bible and their faith in its teachings of the world and God propelled their research and ideas, and since Darwin, there have still been many Christian scientists who have offered much in scientific theory, philosophy, and discovery, such as Charles Townes, who invented lasers and won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1964. A simple search on-line will reveal large lists of reputable, accomplished scientists who hold position in academia. Science and Christianity are only at odds, if certain scientists claim that God has no place in Science whatsoever.

Option 2 – Science Depends on God Answer – It might appear as though God and Science clash, and that Christianity and Science are irreconcilable due to theories of Evolution, but in fact, Science depends on God to even function. Science emerged out of a society dominated by the Christian worldview and it arose there instead of elsewhere because of specific beliefs that accompany the Christian worldview, namely that God created the world to be good and orderly and that he preserves his creation in such a way that there is uniformity and consistency across all the universe. These beliefs are essential to the Scientific Enterprise that depends on the ability to repeat tests in the exact same manner again and again. This can only happen if we can trust that the laws of nature are the same today as they were yesterday and that they’ll be the same tomorrow and forever, not just where we are at where we are conducting the test, but anywhere in the universe. Other worldviews didn’t provide the basis for believing there are consistent, unchanging laws of nature.

Option 3 – Naturalism Provides no Basis for Science Answer – If there is no God and nothing supernatural resides in the universe; all that exists would have to be natural, purely physical material. This naturalistic model of the world reduces all things to constantly progressing, shifting, evolving matter. There is no purpose or design behind the universe or our lives, and any indication towards this is solely coincidental. Such a worldview cannot provide any basis for the uniform laws of nature that are necessary for the Scientific Method of repeatable testability. If our sensory organs are the product of chance, can their relayed observations and data be trusted? Such a worldview provides no reason to explore and pursue a deeper understanding of the world; we already know that the cosmos is purposeless and in constant flux; we’re here today and gone tomorrow; what is now will no longer be; we might as well eat, drink, and be merry; enjoy our material possessions and freedom, drinking deep of the well of hedonism for as long as we have the means to do so. Naturalism must borrow from Christian theology to obtain the required presuppositions necessary to practice Science.

Option 4 – Show Me Answer –Darwin’s theory, although labeled, “The Origin of Species,” is used to provide a model for the “Origin of Life,” and even the “Origin of the Universe.” Such hypothetical models can never be proven via Science, since none of them can be submitted to the necessary modes of testing required under the Scientific Method to verify a hypothesis. We have to admit that we can observe evolution today, people are gradually getting taller and stronger, just look at the rise of concussions in American Football! I can see that people who have ancestry closer to the equator are darker skinned, and that people with ancestry from Asia have dark hair and dark eyes. Such visible signs today support evolution within the human race, but there is no evidence that we are evolving into something more than human, such as the mutants of Marvel’s X-Men or mutants with telekinetic abilities as displayed in the Bruce Willis movie, Looper. As of yet, such degrees of evolution, one species changing into a new, different species, isn’t observable except in the realm of Science-Fiction.

Other problems also emerge with the model of Darwinian Evolution and Science. Has it ever once been observed that organic material can come from non-organic material? In other words, can life come from non-life? Has it ever been observed that a random pile of scrap material can explode and form a city of skyscrapers with an infrastructure of roads and utilities complete with humans, pets, birds, and insects to populate it, and function? In other words, can the Big Bang produce the world we see now? Has it ever been observed that material can come from the immaterial? In other words, can the primordial soup that exploded in the Big Bang have popped into existence from nothing? If you can show me any observable evidence to fit any of these questions, then there might be some credibility to your worldview. Since there is none, I want you to consider the Christian worldview to such answers instead as they fit with what we have observed as being possible: the universe was created by a Creator, not nothing, life came from the highest form of Life, God, not non-life, universal order, design, and laws of nature came from a divine Orderer, not mindless chaos!

Option 5 – Game On Answer – If you are correct, and there is no God, that everything is the product of purposeless, mindless, random chance, that there is no objective basis for morality, that when I die I’m good and gone, and that survival of the fittest is truly what makes the world go round, then Game On – Viking Status! I’d take whatever I want and do whatever I want and the only way to stop me would be to kill me, at which point, I would no longer exist to know my past or to have a cognitive future. I’d be worm-food, nothing else, nothing more. However, I’ve believed in God and I’ve worshipped him since my earliest memories, and I like to think that he saved me at such a young age, because he knew what I would do if I had a worldview like yours. You ought to be very thankful that I have a relationship with Jesus, because if I truly believed what you confess to believe concerning Darwinian Evolution, I’d be the world’s worst nightmare.

Back to the Gospel:

The Darwinian worldview provides no purpose for life besides survival and it offers no hope after death, besides escape from pain and suffering, at the cost of annihilation. The Bible shows that God created humanity in his image, which sets us apart from the animal kingdom. It’s the reason Scripture provides for why we are not to harm, curse, or murder our fellow humanity. Being made in his image, we had eternal life, perfection, intellectual abilities for decision moral decision making, discovery, and creativity that the rest of creation lacked. We also had relational capabilities for intimate relationship with God that the animal kingdom was missing. When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, the image of God was tarnished; we became sinful, subject to death, and cut-off from God. We retained aspects of the image of God however, which is evident through our creation and use of the Scientific Enterprise. It is through Jesus, that a way back to God has been established and in him that the Image of God is being restored within us. Repent comes from a Greek word that actually means to change one’s mind. Repent – turn from your evil ways and turn to Jesus for the cleansing of your sins and the renewal of your mind.

May 21, 2013May 21, 2013

Andy Wrasman5 Comments

Did Jesus Die on the Cross?

I met a student at Saddleback Community College yesterday who asked, “How can we be sure that Jesus died?” I shared the following information with her, but I didn’t have the quotes at the time. I gave her the website address http://www.contradictmovement.org and told her that there were links to a blog and Facebook and that I would post this for her. I pray that she finds this and that others who need this information will find it too. The important part is not just that he died, but that he was buried, and then raised!

Did Jesus die on a cross?

The Gospel accounts record that darkness fell over all the land for a three hour time span as Jesus hung on the cross. (Matthew 27:45, Mark 15:33, and Luke 23:44,45) This darkness covering the land is confirmed by the words of Thallus, a Samaratin historian who wrote about twenty years after Jesus’ death, as well as by the Greek historian Phlegon. Their accounts of the darkness are preserved by the 2^nd and 3^rd century historian, Julius Africanus, who records both Thallus and Phlegon to confirm the same year and time of the darkness as the Gospels. Julius records that Thallus tried to explain the darkness as an eclipse of the sun, yet Julius doesn’t buy this argument because:

The Jews celebrate their Passover on the 14th day according to the moon, and the death of our Savior falls on the day before the Passover. But an eclipse of the sun can only take place when the moon comes under the sun, how then could an eclipse have occurred when the moon is directly opposite the sun?¹

Concerning Phlegon’s account, Julius records, “It is evident that he did not know of any such events in previous years.”²This darkness is even recorded in Chinese history:

Summer, fourth month, on the day of Ren Wu, the imperial edict reads, “Yen and Yang have mistakenly switched, and the sun and moon were eclipsed. The sins of all the people are now on one man. [The emperor] proclaims pardon to all under heaven.³

The time of this eclipse recorded during the Han Dynasty is placed at 31 A.D., and if the darkening of the sun occurred from noon to three P.M. in Jerusalem that would correspond to be from five to eight P.M. at the current capital of China at the time, Luo Yang, explaining why the Chinese records claim not just a darkening of the sun, but also the moon!⁴

With such internal and external evidence connecting an unprecedented and unexplainable extinguishing of the sun to the time of Jesus’ crucifixion, coupled with accounts of subsequent bodily resurrection; it’s likely that such news reached even the ears of the Roman emperor, who could have sent an investigator who would have had the authority to access all pertinent parties to verify if Jesus was in fact crucified. Many other investigators of lesser political or wealthy status could have made inquiries about his death. It wasn’t as if Pontius Pilate was completely inaccessible. The Jewish Sanhedrin clearly had no problem bringing Jesus before Pilate and Herod to be tried for insurrection. (Luke 23:1-25) Without a doubt, many Jews and Romans in the region would have wanted to investigate Jesus’ death and would have had the means of verifying if Jesus did die by crucifixion under Pontius Pilate. Even if they couldn’t speak with Pilate in person, there were plenty of witnesses who saw him sentenced to death, since a riotous crowd shouting for Jesus to be crucified forced Pilate to condemn Jesus to the cross. (Matthew 27:15-24, Mark 15:9-15, Luke 23:20-25) Surely, an eyewitness from this scene could be found rather easily in the months to years following Jesus’ sentence.

Both Matthew and Mark record that after Jesus’ death sentence, that he was taken to the Praetorium, the governor’s residence, where the entire company of soldiers stationed there stripped him, put a scarlet robe on him, gave him a crown of thorns, mocked him, spit on him, beat him, and had him flogged! (Matthew 27:27-31 and Mark 15:16-20) After this treatment, the Gospels record that the soldiers led Jesus away to his crucifixion. Many of these men would be able to serve as witnesses to Jesus’ death, or if they didn’t see execution through until the end, they would be able to point you to centurion and his soldiers who oversaw his final hours.

Another witness that could likely be found was a man from Cyrene, named Simon. The Synoptic Gospels record that the soldiers forced him to carry Jesus’ cross. Mark records that this man was the father of Alexander and Rufus. (Mark 15:21) He writes these names as if his audience would have known who they were. Surely, a man named Simon, from Cyrene, who has two sons named Alexander and Rufus, could have been found and interrogated in the early first century. He should be able to answer the following questions with ease: Were you forced to carry a cross at the time of the Passover? Was the man whose cross you carried, Jesus of Nazareth? Did he say anything to you? What was his condition like when you carried his cross? Was he crucified at Golgotha, The Place of the Skull, as Jesus’ disciples claim? Is it true that a sign was placed over his head that said, “THIS IS JESUS, THE KING OF THE JEWS.”? Did you see Jesus nailed to the cross? What about his death? Did you stay to witness it? Could you tell if any of his followers or family was there for his execution? What did you think about the sky going dark at his crucifixion? Or the earthquake at his death? Do you think they are linked?

The Gospels make mention that many women followers of Jesus were watching his crucifixion: Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joses, the mother of Zebedee’s sons, Salome, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Jesus’ mother and her sister. Any of these women could have been interrogated to confirm the death of Jesus, as well as the apostle John, who claims in his Gospel to have witnessed the crucifixion, even receiving instructions from Jesus to take care of his mother, Mary, while his rabbi hung on the cross. Already, a large list of supposed witnesses could be located and examined to verify the Gospel accounts that Jesus did in fact die. The greatest witness of them all though, would be the centurion who oversaw the crucifixion, and the soldier who stuck Jesus in the side with a spear (possibly the centurion). The following is what John records of the death that he witnessed:

Now it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath. Because the Jews did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down. The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with Jesus, and then those of the other. But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water. (John 19:31-35)

If Jesus was not sentenced to death by Pontius Pilate, surely Pontius would publically squelch that rumor, or Herod or the Sanhedrin. If someone other than Jesus was nailed to the cross, the mob who demanded his crucifixion, the women disciples who stayed to his final breaths, his closest disciple, John, should have been able to confirm that Jesus did not die on a cross. If anyone questioned if Jesus could have survived the crucifixion as a possible explanation for how his tomb was empty and people saw him alive post-mortem, the executioners would certainly be able to affirm if he was dead or not. The man who thrust the spear into Jesus’ breathless body would be able to confirm if Jesus died on the cross. The Gospels record that the centurion in charge of Jesus’ execution, after seeing how Jesus died, said, “Surely this man was the Son of God” (Mark 15:39). The first century inquirer would seek the centurion for confirmation of Jesus’ death and would learn if he truly did believe Jesus was the Son of God based on the way he died. If any of the Gospel accounts were false on how Jesus died, these witnesses would deny them. Living in the 21^st century we have no record that they ever did.

1. “Historical Evidence for Crucifixion Darkness” retrieved from http://www.biblehistory.net/newsletter/crucifixion_darkness.htm on March 21st, 2013

2. Ibd.

3. Chan, Kei Thong. Faith of Our Fathers: God in Ancient China. Shanghai, China, 345 Xianxialu, 2006. p. 318.

4. Ibd. p. 318.

Click here to order my book, Contradict – They Can’t All Be True.

May 17, 2013February 16, 2014

Andy Wrasman1 Comment

How do religions contradict each other?

If someone says that all religions have the same teachings, and same basic principles, and you share that this is not the case; religions contradict each other in ways that are irreconcilable to anyone who is an orthodox adherent to their religion of choice. To be able to back up your assertion, simply have memorized a few doctrinal categories and several of the world’s religions’ positions for each of those categories. Spitting out a few examples of what different religions teach, say, in the categories of who God is, what the source and focus of revelation is, and what lies after this life, should be enough to demonstrate some very stark contrasts in beliefs. Clearly, all religions don’t teach the same views on life, God, and the destiny of mankind, but can you quickly demonstrate it?

The following image is a photo I took of a student’s test that asked this basic question. Check out how he answered the question (click the image to enlarge):

May 15, 2013February 23, 2015

Andy Wrasman7 Comments

John Lennon’s “Imagine”

I found a bumper sticker for John Lennon’s song, “Imagine.” Have you ever listened to the lyrics of Lennon’s popular song and considered the reality of his imaginary world? What would the consequences be if there was no God, no hell below, just sky above? How would morality and justice be affected? Is this a world that you really want to imagine? If so, then in the words of Aerosmith, “Dream On.”

May 9, 2013May 9, 2013

Andy Wrasman2 Comments