St. John Studies

How do unbelievers doubt the divinity of Jesus?

Paul Little says they call him a liar, a lunatic or some legend.

Today we will address these doubts.

First of all the idea that Jesus was a liar…

Inherent in this doubt is the idea that Jesus knew He was not God when He told everyone that He was. Not only was He a liar but in the process of lying, He was a hypocrite.  He told everyone else to speak the truth and He did not.  The condemnation can get even more serious.  Jesus told everyone that He should be trusted because their eternal destiny was in His hands.  For some, this is pure evil to dupe people into that type of belief.

Secondly, some regard Jesus as an insane person. He was just like other people who claim to be Jesus or The Messiah.  They think they are…but only in their own minds; not the minds of others.  Christian philosopher Peter Kreeft says that there are different levels of insanity that may be placed on Jesus: the first is that He was an egomaniac, expressing that He was a person who was greater than others.  Another layer of insanity is taking on a personality that is not yours [kinda like me telling everyone that I am Napoleon].  A further layer is taking on the characteristics of something that would be impossible [me declaring that I am a butterfly].  The most bizarre claim would be that a man would say “I am God.”

Thirdly is the idea that Jesus was a legend. We all know how this works.  People who achieve some degree of fame can become legendary, which means that their actions take on superhuman status as time goes by and as stories get passed from one person to another.  Some of our founding fathers may have legendary status today.  For example, did George Washington really chop down the cherry tree and say to his father “I cannot tell a lie” when questioned about it?  Did he really throw a silver dollar all the way across the Potomac River?  Those stories were probably myths or legends born out of the desire to make the man larger than life.

Let’s look at Jesus as liar. Josh McDowell in his book The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict states that it is “incredulous that Jesus was a liar due to the fact that He left us with “the most profound moral instruction and powerful moral example that anyone has left…could a deceiver…teach such unselfish ethical truths?”  McDowell cites church historian Phillip Schaff who says “How in the name of logic, common sense and experience could an imposter—that is deceitful, selfish and depraved…have invented, and consistently maintained from the beginning to the end, the purest and noblest character known to man”.  Let’s look at Jesus’ end.  This is where a true character would be revealed.  He is facing sure death and all He has to do is weave a new web of lies and He will go free.  He did not have to say “I and the Father are One” but He did.

Let’s look at Jesus as insane. One can go to the trial scene again.  Jesus stands before Pilate, knowing His life was in danger.  Being Jesus, He knew the human suffering He was going to have to endure. Yet it is reported in the Bible that He was very composed under this huge pressure.  Would an ordinary man react this way?  Would an insane man act this way?  Knowing what Jesus knew, one might argue that it would be insane to be composed but He was.  Psychiatrist J.T. Fisher looks beyond Jesus’ behavior at the trial.  He judges all of the body of work that Jesus left us in all His words and His behaviors and he states: “that the Christian world has been holding in its hands the complete answer to its [humankind’s] restless and fruitless yearning.  Here…rests the blueprint for successful human life with optimism, mental health and contentment.”  Think of the message of Jesus and you will come to the same conclusion as Dr. Fisher.  Jesus’ message is one of sanity, not insanity.

Jesus as legend may be the most plausible. After all, His actions were passed along largely by word of mouth.  His miracles were attention-grabbing and you know what can happen as events get passed from person to person: the legend grows.

What flies in the face of legend are the Gospels. Four biographies of Christ were written within the lifetime of contemporaries of Christ.  Mr. Little cites Dr. William Albright, a famous archaeologist, who posits that none of the Gospels were written later than A.D. 70 and it is amazing the agreement between the Gospel writers.

What causes a legend to grow? One factor is time.  Another factor is the fact that someone has not written down what has happened close to the event itself.  A third factor is distance from the event or person who is written about.

Not much time elapsed between Jesus’ life and the record of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The fact that they wrote their accounts is wonderful and the agreement between these four men is astounding.  Finally, two of the gospel writers were Disciples and two were close to people who were disciples.  Mark was a follower of Peter who was a Disciple.  Luke was a close friend of Paul, one of the greatest Apostles of Christianity [by the way, he had a well-recorded conversation with Jesus].

Liar, Lunatic, Legend or Truthteller?

The unbeliever will call Jesus the first three of these.

I don’t know about you, but I believe the latter word is the one that applies…Truthteller.

Well I guess it naturally follows our first question “Is there a God?” but it is just as difficult to answer for the nonbeliever.

Is Jesus Christ God?

For a Christian raised on the idea of God and Jesus, the question is preposterous but for others, it may be a major stumbling block.

The famous philosopher Bertrand Russell states “Historically, it is quite doubtful whether Christ ever existed at all, and if He did we do not know anything about Him.”

If you have ever read your Bible or even attended a good Sunday School class, you know the information. The child born in the stable over 2000 years ago.  He lived in relative obscurity in Nazareth and astounded his parents and rabbis and scholars in the temple by going there and claiming he was “about My Father’s business.”   Nothing much is known about Him until his thirtieth birthday when He began his three year ministry, a ministry that changed the world.

He began to make shocking statements about His connection to God, in fact that He was God. At the time, this challenged the status quo.  Now we know what He meant as we have the New Testament to help us and more astute readers of the Old Testament can see the life and death of Jesus forecast in that part of the Bible and can understand Biblical explanations of His Divinity.

But what about the unbeliever who questions those statements made by Jesus? The Jews of Jesus’ day certainly did not believe Jesus as many of them wanted Him put to death for proclaiming His blasphemy–that He was God.

One can turn to the miracles of Jesus for support. The miracle of the water into wine is minor but have you tried to do that lately?   What a wonderful trick to have up your sleeve for the person who runs out of wine at the party.  What of the Roman official’s son?  Jesus healed that sick son “long distance”, while He was in the presence of the official.  He said “He is healed” and when the father returned to the son, Jesus had already done what He said, at the time that He said it.  Jesus made the lame man walk after he had been on his mat at the healing waters for many, many years.  He got in trouble because He did the healing on the Sabbath but the man got up and walked.  Jesus fed the masses on very few fishes and very few loaves of bread [with leftovers!].  After that He walked on the water to His disciples in the middle of the storm and He calmed the stormy waters.  Of course Jesus healed Lazarus, a friend who had been dead for four days.

This laundry list of miracles began to turn doubters into believers in Jesus’ time and they became part of God’s plan.

He said to His disciples these miracles are “for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.”

What is this reasoning? How would a list like this make a doubter become a believer.  It is called inductive reasoning.  Fact after fact is thrown at the unbeliever until the unbeliever takes what is called an “inductive leap.”  How many miracles does it take for a nonbeliever to become a believer.

It took an earthquake at Golgotha for the centurion to say what he said but he finally said it:   “When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, ‘Surely He was the Son of God!’” [Matthew 27:54].

What does the Divinity of Jesus depend upon? It depends upon the claims of Jesus, the miracles of Jesus and the reporting of Jesus in the Gospels.

For some that is enough.

For others, the labels liar, lunatic and legend seem to apply.

That person needs more.

In tomorrow’s post we will discuss that more dedicated unbeliever, the one who questions the veracity of Jesus’ claims, the mental stability of our Lord and the historicity of Jesus.

Was the life of Jesus real or was it just fiction?

Maybe for people who say things like this, nothing will help.

Look at these strong words from this unbeliever>

“Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.”

Bertrand Russell

Man can save himself. Some people believe that.

And people can freely choose to obey or disobey moral standards.

Really?

Most people choose to obey moral standards, especially those standards that are more public. We hear of the breaking of laws because immoral behavior is news and the news media is all about getting our attention.  By and far, most people obey moral standards.

Why?   Because man sets the moral standards.

Yet where does man get the idea about right and wrong?

The famous British author C.S. Lewis calls our conception of “right and wrong as a clue to the meaning of the universe.” In other words, our conception of right and wrong is a direct link to God.

In our moral standards is a behavioral expectation that people are supposed to meet and for those moral standards to work, people have to agree on some limitations on their behavior. For a simple example, I know it is rude to push another person as I have a discussion with them.  My discussion partner knows that it is rude to push me.  Together we can have a discussion without pushing because that behavior does not facilitate discussion; it impedes discussion.  This is a basic unspoken rule, a moral standard.

Of course moral standards are much more complex than that simple example and much more important. One need only to turn to the ten commandments for examples.

As in yesterday’s post, the notion of God seems to tie cultures together; the notion of cultural moral standards seems to apply across civilizations also.

I did not live through it but I have studied the history of World War Two. The nation of Germany is a good example of a culture that went “off the rails” as they tried to exterminate Jews [and other “undesirables”] from their culture.  When it became clear that Germany would lose the war, allied forces began to liberate concentration camps, the world was outraged.

The Nazi influence on German culture has been long-lasting and this stain may never disappear. It happened.  It was heinous.  It was an outrage.

It violated human moral standards.

One must ask, what is the source of the outrage? Some would point to God and God’s desire to see a world where people are treated fairly, where people are unselfish, where people have honest relations with one another and where people tell the truth.

Some people see God as meting out judgments on man but for me the New Testament God [His Son Jesus] is not like that. The OT God did try to educate the Israelites about behavior for many years but His methods did not seem to take.  He laid down the law, the people chafed, they rebelled, they were punished, then repented.  He laid down the law again etc. [you get the picture].  For me that is the story of the Old Testament [too simple I am sure].

Paul Little says that the insertion of Jesus into man’s history is God’s different tack in behavior modification.   “If you wanted to communicate your love for a colony of ants, how could you most effectively do it?  Clearly it would be best to become an ant.”  The insertion of Jesus into our world showed God as a more understanding and forgiving God.

If moral standards exist and they seem to exist across cultures and the root of our conception of right and wrong comes from a God that laid down laws to a special group of people and the Son of God who spent time on earth with us, how can man affect history in a positive way?

The simple answer is by following moral standards [aka God’s laws].

God has a plan for man and it involves knowing, accepting and following Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. This is the most important thing that we can do.  It is the most important choice we can make.

Following moral standards give us a chance to make a positive impact on this world.

Man can save himself.  Some people do believe that.

And people can freely choose to obey or disobey moral standards.

Of course they can.

Will disobedience benefit man? Will it benefit our world?

You know the answer to that question.

Not really…

“Christianity is one beggar telling another beggar where he found bread.” D.T. Niles

That’s how I feel when it comes to explaining my thoughts on “Is There a God?”

I am no theologian, I am no pastor, I am no philosopher.

However, I am a curious learner, a curious Christian learner, searching for that bread.

What do you say to someone who has such a question as “Is There a God?”

Most non-believers, agnostics, atheists, and doubters I have encountered want to have a thoughtful answer. They want you to argue them into believing in God.  They want to think their way to their belief in God.

Emphasize the word think.

For them it is usually all about their mind.

What I am going to do in this post is dissect three examples of reasoning that Paul Little uses in his book Know Why You Believe. Maybe you will find them helpful.

First, Mr. Little uses what I call the “everybody’s doing it” argument. Some people think this is not valid* but let’s put that aside for a while.  Say an unbeliever just needs a reason for believing in God.  How does a Christian begin to supply that?  He could turn to anthropologists, academics who study humans, past and present. They attempt to understand the full sweep and complexity of cultures across all of human history.  One thing that anthropologists tell us is that all cultures have a terrific interest in god [the little g denotes an overall concept, not the Christian God].  Little reports that in the last fifty years, anthropological research has uncovered the cultural need for one god as opposed to multiple gods.  Of course just because the vast majority of humanity has an interest in god, does not mean that the vast majority of humanity is correct but it makes one think about man’s need for a supreme being who has control.  Why is this common need so strong?

Next is the idea of the scientific method applied to the idea of God. For the intelligent doubter, the scientific method is the “gold standard.”  The scientific method is based on repeating factual occurrences.  The more a factual thing repeats, the more the scientist will accept that it is real and normal. How does God hold up under that?  Not well, truth be told.  God came to earth one time, in the person of Jesus Christ.  Jesus has not returned to date.  For the intelligent doubter to believe in God, he is going to have to accept the one time that Jesus was with us.  The doubter will not believe in the reality of the Holy Spirit for he would have to be a believer to accept that.  The doubter will question the occurrence of God in miracles that happen today.  The doubter would be like Thomas, who had to touch Jesus’ hands and Jesus’ side to see that it indeed was Jesus.   He would have to see Jesus many times and touch Jesus’ hands many times because after multiple times of fact gathering the doubter would believe.

Lastly, we have the law of cause and effect. People want to know the causes of things.  How did human beings come about?  How did the world come about?  We want to know.  Rational thinkers, scientists want to know.  How do we come to know the cause of everything?

For the Christian the answer is simple. God is the cause of everything. For the unbeliever, they need a lot more.

We could get in a discussion of the steady state model of galaxy formation, the oscillating model of galaxy formation or the big bang theory but those theories search for something that is not there—the ultimate cause. Scientists cling to those because they are the best they have but science cannot explain that first cause. Paul Little quotes Dr. Robert Jastrow, an agnostic scientist, astronomer, physicist and cosmologist; a leading NASA scientist, populist author and futurist “The scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream.  He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

In short, the most knowledgeable scientist cannot explain the first cause, the power that got it all started.

As a Christian, it is God, the same God who said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.'” This present tense means more than just God saying “I am present.”  It means I am, I was and I will be.

This is your first cause.

The unbeliever will not like this because the Bible uses language to explain origins that is for some people more poetic than scientific. The explanation of the Creation in Genesis won’t be enough for the unbeliever.

What can we do?

One of the best things is to point to intelligent design, which will be questioned too.  Intelligent design is the idea that God was the designer of the world as we know it, not some natural selection process.  Pastor Mark Batterson has spent quite a lot of time in his book, The Grave Robber using the idea of visual generation in the human eye to explain intelligent design.  Instead of looking outward, all man has to do is look inward to see the miracles of God at work.

“At birth a baby will have an estimated eighty-six billion brain cells. As a newborn experiences new sights and sound, the brain begins to form neuronal connections called synapses.  Almost like telephone wires that crisscross a city…by the time a baby is just six months old, each brain cell has about eighteen thousand connections….At birth [a baby’s] vision is no better than 20/200 and they cannot focus on anything further than twelve inches away….During this developmental process, windows of opportunity open and close like clockwork.  Vision, for example is primarily wired between birth and eighteen months, a synaptogenesis in the visual cortex peaks at about three months.”

Turn inward and see the design of God.

Will the idea of the need for God in the mind of man throughout the world sway the unbeliever? Will the idea of the appearance of God on this earth in the form of Jesus Christ sway the unbeliever?  Will the idea of God as the cause and intelligent design sway the unbeliever?

Maybe not.

The man born blind in the book of John…

Maybe the allegory of what happened to the man is what must happen to the unbeliever.

“I have been blind but now I see” John 9:25.

*in fact this “everybody’s doing” it example is referred by logicians as the bandwagon fallacy. Everybody is doing it so it must be right.  That is not necessarily so.  Popularity does not equal correctness.

Paul Little states “More consequences for thought and action follow the affirmation or denial of God than from answering any other basic question.”

The two beginning consequences reside in how man or woman thinks about himself or herself.

Here they are:

Does man reign over this world as supreme being? Does man have the ability to understand all and explain all?

Does God reign over this world as Supreme Being? Does God have the ability to understand all and explain all?

Can we point to God as the Deity who has revealed Himself naturally and supernaturally? Do we believe God has guided and directed the nation of Israel throughout time?  Can we pinpoint God in the history of the Christian Church?  Can we find God in the pages of the Bible?  Did God send his Son Jesus to earth to instruct us how to live, forgive us and show us that if we believe in Him, death will have no power over us?  Do we believe that God resides in the heart of man and the God-believing man and woman can experience God in a relationship that connects man and woman to the Supreme Being through the Holy Spirit?

For me, I would affirm all the above.

But not everybody can do this.

If a person can’t affirm God as their Supreme Being, what happens?

1.The world is not a home for man and woman. The universe becomes a machine that has no pity on man.  Man just appeared here by accident.  We may have our desires and hopes but the universe will crush them because the universe does not care about us.

2.Science is our sole explanatory tool. If we cannot see repeated behaviors or repeated actions, we don’t think we can understand the world.  We look for causes and if we can’t find any, we don’t know how to explain.  However, science is obsessed with finding causes.  When an airplane crashes, we become obsessed with explaining why.  When a gunman opens fire in a movie theater, we become obsessed with coming up with a motive.   When power goes down, we search for the cause of the power interruption.  We are not satisfied until we have the cause.  John Ortberg states this about our obsession about knowing:  “Our problem is not that science has taught us our world has no meaning.  Our problem is that we have decided that what cannot be answered by science cannot be answered at all” [from his book Faith and Doubt]

What is the result of denying that God exists?

We get too wrapped up in the world, that world that does not care for us; that world where we are just accidents, creatures that have evolved over a long time by natural selection. The world can be a dark place that threatens us.  No one is in control.  Certainly not God.

But for me, the world is where God is working out His plan for man. Do I get obsessed with concerns of this world?  Not really because I know it is not my home.  My home is really somewhere else.  Jesus said in John 14:1-2 “Trust in God; trust also in Me.  In My Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you.  I am going there to prepare a place for you.”

For the person who denies God, the world is all they have, that world that does not care for us, that world where we seek to explain and if we can’t explain, it is not real.

Does man reign over this world as supreme being? Does man have the ability to understand all and explain all?

The implications of the question “Is there a God?” are very real. Man becomes the center of the universe.  Man becomes the supreme being. Man has the only intelligence in this world.

For me, that’s too much to give man.

Man does not deserve this position.

Man does not deserve that supreme title.

Man is just not that smart.

[“This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.”]

“Bob” has reached the point in life where he wants to start trying out churches. He wants to sample a spectrum and he picks out three to attend.

Church # 1…

This church is beautiful. When walking in the door Bob is struck by the ornate decorative items in the sanctuary.  Many things are painted gold and there is a sense of tradition in the images and carvings throughout the church.  The service is a ritual.  The emphasis is on a perfect performance by all who participate.  The preacher is kind and seems loving but there is a distance too as he dons ornate clothing to conduct the service, clothing that sets him apart from the congregation.  After the service is over, Bob does not know what to think but the service seems a bit cold and the feeling is that there are people in charge and they know what they are doing but he is not sure about the people in the pews.

Church # 2…

This church is less ornate. It is warm and “open.”  The people are welcoming and the pastor is super friendly.  As the worship service begins, someone makes announcements and this church has a long list of things it is involved with, feeding hungry people, working with Habitat, supporting an anti-racism rally, promoting aid to struggling third-world countries.  Wow, there is a lot going on and lots of places to pitch in.  The pastor preaches a sermon of social injustice and Bob leaves the church after several very friendly church members and the pastor tell him to come back.  Bob has a definite feeling that to be here, he has to work to make the world a better place.

Church # 3

This church is warm and friendly too. The church members greet Bob and seem to care about him being there.  The pastor is nice and friendly too.  The church is not ornate.  It is functional.  The music is upbeat and the people are really “getting into it.”   They all seem to know the words and don’t really have to use hymnbooks.  The worship music repeats a lot until everyone seems to feel “connected”.  The pastor takes the pulpit and immediately leaves it, opting for a more personal presentation out and among the congregation.  He is preaching “God’s word” and he is doing it with gusto.  Encouraging words are erupting from several church members as they punctuate his sermons with “amen” and “all right brother”.  As the long service draws to a close the pastor calls for people who need prayer to step forward.  Several do and church members gather round the people who have stepped forward and the church prays over the people.  Unusual sounds are emitted from the church members as their prayers begin to move away from English.  The service ends and Bob leaves the church with more admonitions to come back: “We would love for you to worship here.”

Let’s stop and let me be clear. A critique of worship style is not where this little story is going.  Let’s say Bob is looking for real reasons to worship at a church, reasons beyond the warm, fuzzy feelings the church members are giving him.

What he wants to know is why the three churches are the way they are.

Church # 1…Why do they have a sanctuary like they have? Why is the worship experience like it is?  Maybe church members could not say but where is the leadership in the church?  Is it with the congregation?  Not at all.  It is centered on the church itself and the pastor.  The pastor knows best and the congregation is just to follow the ritual.  What is the danger of this?  The ritual is too ritualistic.  The church can be too distant.  Bob may be feeling that there is not much intelligent worship in this context especially if ritual is overemphasized.

Church # 2 Why are they trying to change the world so much?  Digging around a bit, Bob learns that this church has not been very happy with “theological discussion.”  The intellectual pursuit of God has been very boring in the past and they have had too many preachers who did not want to do anything; they just wanted to talk about doing things.  In a revolt against inactivity, this church is out in the world, making the world better.  Why are they doing this?  Bob is not sure that they should be bypassing their learning about God entirely.  Activity for the sake of activity, with no mental guidance seems a bit counterproductive.

Church # 3 This church is all about a feeling worship experience.  The focus is on emotional response above the intellectual pursuit of God.  Why has this come about?  The leaders in this church have stated that the end of the worship experience is not doctrine but experience.  Remember those unusual sounds?  Bob finds out that this church believes that God is causing them to talk like that so they can bypass their intellect and express their feeling directly to God.  What does Bob think about the third church?  Excitement is great but where does it lead?  Do these people mentally process their feelings about God?

In this little allegory, Bob is confused. He is an intelligent seeker and he wants a mix of feeling and mind.  He takes the scripture from Matthew 22:37 seriously when “Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’”  He is looking for a mix in his worship experience.

Don’t get Bob wrong, he is not a “hyper-intellectual” seeking out some dry, humorless, academic environment to worship in.   But he is also not looking for a ritual that can be thoughtless, a non-stop action oriented church that does not pause and ask “why” or some emotion-laden church that wants to bypass the mind in order to go directly to some subjective experience of God.

Bob wants what John Stott calls a “warm devotion set on fire by truth.”  He wants a balance and an avoidance of extremes.  Stott says the “remedy for an exaggerated view of the intellect is neither to disparage it, nor to neglect if, but to keep it in its God-appointed role.”

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”

Keep seeking Bob…you have not found what you want yet…

“Many Christians are overwhelmed by a mountain of material which they erroneously think they must master if they are ever to answer the questions of thinking Christians and non-Christians.”

This past Sunday, in Sunday School, I taught a lesson based on John 11, the familiar story of Jesus raising Lazarus. Instead of using a video of Mark Batterson’s “Grave Robber,” we turned to the Scripture itself and we worked through the story line by line.  Everyone said they knew the story but did they really?

We examined the words of the Scripture and then someone said, “I have never looked at this closely because I thought I knew it.” Someone else added that they did not study the Bible because it was so intimidating; they felt they could not understand all that complex material.

These are common reasons why people don’t embark on the study of their faith.

How can we correct this?

Part of the answer is found in a person’s attitude. Many of us have jobs that are overwhelming.  How about those fifty pounds we need to lose?  How about that garage that needs to be organized and it looks now like it should be featured on the “Hoarders” show?  Life if full of big jobs that we put off because we hate to start.  The task will take too long and we don’t think we have what it takes for a long-term project.

Don’t get me wrong when I say this. The Bible is a book that we can approach with ease if we have a more relaxed attitude.  Don’t get hung up in a plan that will discipline you to read a certain number of pages every day.  Some of you may have embarked on that “I am going to read the Bible through this year” resolution and that is wonderful if you know you have the discipline.  But the main thing we need to do is just read the Bible.   It does not matter if you have a plan;  just read it.  Be systematic if that works but be regular in doing it.  Along with reading, think about what you are reading.  Some recommend that you memorize it but I am not a big memorizer.  I am a regular reader and I have noticed that regular reading leads to the ability to recall important passages, almost as good as memorizing.

Let’s get one thing straight. The mountain of material is really only one book, intimidating as it is.  The Bible is God’s training manual and it is the mountain that you need to start climbing.  The Bible contains the words of God, a living message that is direct to you.  It contains everything that you need to live and grow as a Christian.

But you have to open it systematically and regularly.

Will the questions that you get from non-believers be that complex? Paul Little says they are not and they are of the nature like the ones he discusses in Chapters 2 through 12 in his book.

I know someone asking you “Is There a God?” can be scary but how will you have the answer?   First of all, you have to think through why God is real for you.  We’ll examine many reasons why people believe in future posts but start now coming up with your own answer.  Can you articulate an answer?   Get into scripture and find the answer.  A great place to start is the Gospel of John.  John tells about what Jesus said and who Jesus was. In John are some of the simplest and clearest passages, but also some of the deepest and most profound passages.  Don’t let the deep and profound passages stop you, just do some thinking about them.  Come up with your own answer to give someone who asks “Is there a God?”

Recognize that you have a Holy Spirit that can come in handy in two ways.   One, your Holy Spirit can reveal God’s message to you through His word and the Holy Spirit can guide you to the best things to say to an inquiring non-Christian.

Like Moses in Exodus, we can rely on God’s word “I, will be with your mouth, and teach you what you are to say.”

Lastly, we need to realize that God is the one who will do the work. We not only fret about the mountain of material we have to master and the words we have to express, but we also worry about “saving” the non-Christian.

We don’t do that. It’s the power of the Holy Spirit—and not merely your words—that will ultimately lead someone to receive the message of the Gospel.  Remember, your job is to proclaim the Good News.  It’s up to the Holy Spirit to convict and convince.

I know about the mountain. I have looked up at it too.  I have thought, I can’t climb this, I don’t know where to start my climb, the task is too overwhelming.

Remember, two people will benefit from our efforts to know why we believe. The non-believer questioner can benefit as you serve God with your answers to his or her questions.  You will benefit as you develop your own needed foundation for your own faith.

This is a simple question…deceptively simple.

How do you answer it?

Here are some scenarios.

You had a traumatic event and as you worked through it, you saw the hand of God working with you through the event? God was in the drama.  You think you felt His presence.

You are a church-going person who was always taken to church by your parents. You got baptized as a baby or when you became old enough [depends on your denomination].  You always were told that you have to go to Sunday School and you did.   You became a regular church attender and you are taking your family to church now.

You are a successful person and you know that “certain” people attend a “certain” church. You know it helps your business prospects to “rub shoulders” with others who are important people in the community so you go to church to help your business.  That seems ok; God does not frown on success.

You started going to church because it was expected by the group of people you were running with. All your friends attend and they all volunteer in the church.  In fact, your group is the “cool” group in the church, always pitching in, especially with youth activities.  It makes you feel good to be a part of something good like this.  Surely God likes this.

Ok, you have been identified by others as being a Christian but here’s that question again, “How did you get your faith in God?” Do you realize that an unbeliever may ask you that because they think you know the answer to that question.

What would these four people mentioned above say?

I feel God worked in my life as I had a horrible upset.  He exists because I felt Him.

I was told God existed all along by my church– going parents.  I am just doing what I was told to do.

Everyone else who is important in my community goes to church so God must be there.  They get something out of it.  I want to get something out of going to church too [they won’t admit that they are there for getting business contacts].

God is in the service we do at Church. I enjoy being with my friends and we enjoy helping others, especially the youth.  It is in service to God that I feel God exists.  [And being with my friends is nice too.]

“Ok, ok but how did you get your faith in God?”

Are you in the same boat with these four people? Are you having a hard time articulating a really good answer to the “faith” question?

Josh McDowell is a Christian writer who thinks like our author, that a question like “how did you get your faith in God?” requires a good answer. McDowell believes that the “Christian needs to have truth on his side; that just acceptance of the Christian faith on authority is not enough. The heart alone is not enough to convince a person to really believe; the intelligent use of evidence is necessary for a person to make a meaningful commitment.”

Do you have evidence that is convincing?

Can you articulate that evidence?

Bruce Bickel and Stan Jantz have written a user-friendly little book called Sharing Your Faith.   In the book they say that it is important to take what you have been given and share it with others.   For some, there needs to be an honest examination of what they have been given before it can be shared.  Whether it is through some personal drama, parents taking you to church, your personal success plan or just trying to be in the cool group, ask yourself what being a Christian means?

For some, it means God has saved you from your sin because you believe. We are in need of “saving” because we have this penchant to sin that goes back to the Garden of Eden.  Ephesians 2:8  “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.”

When you find yourself being a believer, this is the gift that you get. You can’t take credit for it.  It is God’s gift and as a Christian, we are supposed to be able to share the gift.  Bickel and Jantz say that a gift always has its benefits, it suggests a personal connection between the recipient of the gift and the giver, and when you get a gift, you should want to share it with others.

“How did you get your faith in God?”

What would you say?

I guess I have faith.

I must have it; I have felt it.

I have been in church all my life; I must have it.

Everyone important goes to church; that must mean that we have faith somewhere in that church.

Helping others shows faith; we do that. We have faith.

How about, I know I sin. I know I need something to help me with this sin problem or I am going to experience a physical and spiritual death. I need a Savior.  Jesus actually came to earth to show me that living a life devoted to God is the best thing I can do to help with this sin problem.  Jesus showed me that there is life after death and I want to follow Him to heaven.  I have accepted Him as my Savior.

“Occasionally I ask myself, as I walk down the street, how do you know you haven’t been taken in by a colossal propaganda program? After all, you can’t see God, touch Him, or feel Him.”

Who wrote this?

A doubter?

An agnostic?

An atheist?

No…your author, Paul Little.

He is experiencing doubt.

“I have spent my life studying and thinking and reading and teaching about God. I grew up in the church.  I went to a faith-based college and then seminary.  I walked the straight and narrow.  I never sewed any wild oats.  And I have doubts” [John Ortberg from his book Faith and Doubt].  By the way John is pastor of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church.

What is the point of this?

We all have doubts…

The main thing about doubt is how you handle it. Another thing about doubt is how you respond to it when others are experiencing it.

What is doubt? Is it an earthquake in your faith?  It may be.  Are you going to walk away from God permanently?  Probably not.  To be honest, all of us have to “work things out” in our lives and the main thing about doubt is to be honest in the admission of your doubts and make an effort to seek answers.

Humans are thinkers and despite Paul Little’s admonition in Chapter 1 that Christians are not the most intellectual bunch, we do have thoughts from time to time.

Here’s an example of a common faith-shaking experience.

Have you ever been around someone who has unexpectedly lost a loved one to some violent, surprising death?

They may have several doubt-filled questions. How can God allow this to happen?  Is God cruel?  I have always heard that God loves me; is this how He shows it?

In short, they may experience some of the worst doubts in their lives. Citing  verses like 1 Peter 1:6-7 may not help:  “At present you may be temporarily harassed by all kinds of trials.  This is no accident. It happens to prove your faith which is infinitely more valuable than gold”. These types of verses try to get us to realize that God can make good things out of the worst situations.

But they probably will not help a person who is grieving and having doubt.

What is the best thing to do? Let them work through it.  What can happen is that time will pass and the sufferer can gain some very needed perspective.  They will recover from their period of doubt.

That does not mean the doubt lasts forever.

On a personal note, I was a very weak believer for many years and before those years, I ambled away from God [notice I did not say the word walked or the word ran]. I dabbled in Hinduism for a few years.  I did not make the fatal flaw of telling my parents as I was going through my period of exploration.  I wonder how they would have handled me.

Many people speak about the “good Christian” not having doubts. They say that the problem is the doubter is thinking too much.  “Why are you slipping in your Christian life?” is not a good question to ask a doubter.   What many people do is just “go underground” and mouth the party line.  What does that do?  It gets their questioners off their back.  But the doubt continues.

What is a better alternative?

Let the doubter express his or her doubts. Let them get their concerns out in the open.  That is the opportunity to discuss things with them.  That is the opportunity to share your own experiences with them.  Revealing that you have doubts is not a bad idea.  It can actually open up avenues of discussion with them and you won’t appear to be so self-righteous and “perfect.”

The worst thing in the world is to make a doubter feel guilty. The next worst thing is to tell them to quit thinking so much.  “Just believe, have faith and stop with all the questions.  They are not doing you any good.”  Our author says “A doubter needs to see that he must come to a decision after having been given an answer.  To make no decision is to decide against the Christian position.  Continued doubt in the face of adequate information may indicate an unwillingness to believe, and this may be a result of the questioner’s will having been set against God.”

What is our job as believers?

Know why we believe.

What do we need to know to answer the most common questions that doubters have?

Well Little does not say we need to know everything but as we head into Chapter 2, we are faced with the most basic and common question that we need to have an answer for: “Is There a God?”

Ok, we have complained or rather our author has complained.

We don’t know enough. We are slow of speech.  Life is too busy to study God’s word and on and on…all reasons why we just don’t have what we need to explain our faith.

We admit that we have a religion that is more centered on the heart than the head. That makes it hard for skeptical non-Christians to accept.

But what do we have going for us as Christians? Is there anything that makes our religion rational?  How can we explain it to the doubter, to the unbeliever, to the person intent on attacking our beliefs?

Little quotes the garden story. The shortened version of the story goes like this.  A garden is amazingly beautiful and one day, explorers come upon it; they are dumbfounded that no one seems to be tending it.  They can’t believe that it is growing on its own.   They are skeptical, setting up barbed wire, electrifying it, getting bloodhounds to patrol it.  But no one comes to tend the garden.  The skeptics state the gardener must be “invisible, intangible, eternally elusive” or maybe there is no gardener at all.

It is obvious that the gardener in the story is God.   He is the originator of the beauty that exists in the garden spot but we cannot see Him.  But wait, for the person who does not know God, we can explain that we did see Him.  He came to earth in the form of Jesus Christ.    Unlike other Gods that other religions worship, our God is not invisible.  He existed with us on earth for a while and as He left, He promised we would be with Him again.

The next thing we have is the Holy Spirit. This is tricky to explain to a non-believer, skeptic, atheist or agnostic.  What makes it tricky is that these types of people are not experiencing the Holy Spirt because they are full-time Holy- Spirit deniers.  A believer knows the Holy Spirit is a direct God-connection.  I live every day and as I do, I pray to God to direct me.  He does [I believe] through my Holy Spirit.  Is it measurable?  Can I prove it with some physical response that one is able to record?  The answer is no.   Does it exist?  I know it does.

The unbeliever thinks my Holy Spirit is silly. Little states “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned”

Obviously this is an impossible situation for the skeptic. I know I have a Holy Spirit and for me it is real.  The skeptic will not accept the Holy Spirit and their denial makes it impossible for them to experience it.  We are at cross-purposes and neither will budge from their position.

Lastly, we have to acknowledge that we will know the truth of our God if we are willing to ask Him for help to understand.  There is the catch for the skeptic.   They don’t want to believe in God so God will not make them believe.  God is perfectly capable of ignoring the stiff-backed human.  This spirit of rebellion keeps many from coming to the Lord.

For many years in my life, I felt that belief in God meant that I would miss out on the “joys” of life. I refused to believe whole-heartedly in God because I felt God was asking too much of me.

I rebelled.

What did I think I would give up?

Fun.

Really? What fun was I having that would overpower the peace that I feel as a believer?    Anyone who knows Christ knows that peace is a large idea that represents a fruitful life with God as our guide.  Tranquility in spite of our circumstances.  Quietness in the face of negative situations.  Contentment can occur in the face of our materialistic society.   Empathy for those who have less than us which can result in service to others.  Trust in the love that God has for us, trust that He has our best interest in His plan, trust that a better future can occur no matter what our circumstances.  Forgiveness of our sins and acceptance despite the fact that we don’t deserve it.   Hope that the future is a much better place.

Was the fun I was having something I would trade for all that?

No, I was just being a rebel.

I did not want to believe because I did not want to make the commitment I needed to make to God.

Paul Little calls this a “moral problem”, not an intellectual problem. The intellectual simply does not want to believe.

For me, it was a matter of lack of will and also a stubborn will, the stubborn will of the person who thinks he is too smart to give his life to Christ.

We have something when we believe in God.

We have a Savior, a Savior who cared so much for you and me that He came to earth to teach us how to live, to give us direction about how to get to The Father.

Will the skeptics ever understand?

Yes they will, if they admit that Jesus exists, if they let God into their hearts, and most of all if they let God into their minds.