God's Not Dead: Evidence for God in an Age of Uncertainty (30 page)

He has given us enough evidence to know He exists but waits for us to seek Him. Why wouldn’t we? Scientists seek answers, philosophers seek wisdom, doctors seek cures, businessmen and businesswomen seek profit and opportunity. Believers should seek God. Because God is indeed alive, that knowledge should inspire us to press through the obstacles and seek Him with all our hearts. That’s what we do as people when we are told we have an opportunity to meet someone rich, famous, or influential.

If we were told the president of the United States or queen of England had issued an invitation for us to meet him or her, wouldn’t that be an honor not to be disregarded? Even tickets to a U2 concert with an all-access pass backstage to meet
Bono
would be a highlight in some people’s lives. You could substitute any example you like, but the point should be clear: you have been given an open invitation to meet the Creator of the universe and even become His friend, which is without question the highest possible honor imaginable. It is from that kind of relationship with God that the blessings of compassion,
wisdom, and knowledge flow into your life. He wants to make you an outlet of that grace to the world.

S
TART THE
C
ONVERSATION

If you are able to grasp the basic nine proofs for God’s existence, then you are more than ready and capable to engage unbelievers and believers confidently in a dialogue on the critical areas of faith, skepticism, and the
meaning of life
. Sure, there are some sophisticated arguments skeptics use that may be beyond your ability to answer. I face this all the time. Many times, though, those who default to the highly technical language
of science
and philosophy have found an easy place to hide from the implications of an intelligent Creator and the expectations He has for us as human beings.

Sooner or later everyone has to seriously ponder the questions “What is the meaning of life?” and “Does God exist?” These are the great questions of our time. The answers to these questions will define and direct your life like no others. They are not questions that can be ignored forever. As you simply open your eyes to the people around you, you will find there is an enormous openness to start conversations that will have eternal significance.

NOTES

I
NTRODUCTION

1
. William Wilberforce,
Real Christianity
, ed. Beb Beltz, rev. ed. (Ventura, CA: Regal, 2006), 20.

2
. Greg Graffin and Steve Olson,
Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God
(New York: HarperCollins, 2010), 61.

3
. Richard Dawkins,
The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design
(1986; New York: Norton, 1996), 5.

4
. Stephen Hawking,
A Brief History of Time: The Updated and Expanded Tenth Anniversary Edition
(New York: Bantam, 1996), 146.

5
. “Partisan Polarization Surges in Bush, Obama Years,” Pew Research Center, June 4, 2012, http://www.people-press.org/2012/06/04/section-6-religion-and-social-values (accessed October 30, 2012).

6
. “Most Twentysomethings Put Christianity on the Shelf Following Spiritually Active Teen Years,” Barna Group, September 11, 2006, http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/16-teensnext-gen/147-most-twentysomethings-put-christianity-on-the-shelf-following-spiritually-active-teen-years (accessed September 18, 2012).

7
. Sam Harris,
The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason
(New York: W. W. Norton, 2004), 221.

C
HAPTER
1: G
OD
’
S
N
OT
D
EAD

1
.
Richard Dawkins vs. John Lennox: The God Delusion Debate
, University of Alabama at Birmingham, October 3, 2007 (Birmingham: New Day Entertainment, 2007), DVD.

2
. Although often attributed to G. K. Chesterton, the exact
provenance of this quotation is unknown. See “When Man Ceases to Worship God,” The American Chesterton Society, http://www.chesterton.org/discover-chesterton/frequently-asked-questions/cease-to-worship (accessed September 18, 2012).

3
. “Is God Dead?”
Time
, April 8, 1966.

4
. Karl Marx, “A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right,”
Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher
[German-French Annals], February 1844.

5
. “God: After a Lengthy Career, the Almighty Recently Passed into History. Or Did He?”
The Economist
, December 23, 1999.

6
. John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge,
God Is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith Is Changing the World
(New York: Penguin Press HC, 2009).

7
. C. S. Lewis,
Mere Christianity
(1952; New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 35.

8
. Ibid., 16.

9
. Andrew Sullivan, “Christianity in Crisis,”
Newsweek
, April 2, 2012.

10
. Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow,
The Grand Design
(New York: Bantam, 2010), 5.

11
. Daniel C. Dennett,
Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life
(New York: Touchstone, 1995), 21.

12
. David Aikman, in discussion with the author, September 12, 2012.

13
. Malcolm Muggeridge,
A Third Testament: A Modern Pilgrim Explores the Spiritual Wanderings of Augustine, Blake, Pascal, Tolstoy, Bonhoeffer, Kierkegaard, and Dostoevsky
(New York: Ballantine, 1983), 32.

14
. Richard Dawkins,
The God Delusion
(New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2006), 15.

15
. Richard Dawkins, interview by Tony Jones,
Q&A
, ABC Australia, April 9, 2012.

16
. Greg Graffin and Steve Olson,
Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God
(New York: HarperCollins, 2010), 5–6.

17
. Plato,
Republic
, 394d.

18
. John Lennon, “Imagine,”
Imagine
(Apple Records, 1971).

19
. Bill Maher,
Religulous
, directed by Larry Charles (Santa Monica: Lionsgate, 2008), DVD.

20
. Rice Broocks,
Finding Faith at Ground Zero
(Nashville: Every Nation, 2002), 10.

C
HAPTER
2: R
EAL
F
AITH
I
SN
’
T
B
LIND

1
.
Richard Dawkins vs. John Lennox: The God Delusion Debate
, University of Alabama at Birmingham, October 3, 2007 (Birmingham: New Day Entertainment, 2007), DVD.

2
. William Lane Craig,
Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics
(Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1984), 48.

3
.
Dawkins vs. Lennox: The God Delusion Debate
.

4
. Ibid.

5
. Timothy Keller,
The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism
(Ontario: Penguin, 2008), xviii.

6
. Dan Cray, “God vs. Science: A Spirited Debate Between Atheist Biologist Richard Dawkins and Christian Geneticist Francis Collins,”
Time
, November 13, 2006, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/pacific/0,9263,503061113,00.html (accessed September 16, 2012).

7
. Ibid.

8
. John Polkinghorne, quoted in Dean Nelson, “God vs. Science,”
Saturday Evening Post
, September/October 2011, http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2011/08/16/in-the-magazine/features/god-vs-science.html.

9
. C. S. Lewis,
Miracles: A Preliminary Study
(London: Fontana, 1947), 110.

10
. Albert Einstein,
Physics and Reality
, trans. Jean Piccard (Lancaster, PA: Lancaster, 1936).

11
. Johannes Kepler,
Defundamentis Astrologiae Certioribus
, Thesis 20 (1601).

12
. Richard Dawkins, speech at the Reason Rally, Washington DC Mall, March 24, 2012, quoted in Charlie Spiering, “A Rally Without Faith,”
Crisis Magazine
, March 27, 2012.

13
. Peter Hitchens,
The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me to Faith
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010), 12–13.

14
. David Albert, “On the Origin of Everything:
A Universe from Nothing
, by Lawrence M. Krauss,”
New York Times
, March 23, 2012.

15
. Joe Marlin, in discussion with the author, August 15, 2012.

16
. C. S. Lewis,
Mere Christianity
(1952; New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 140–41.

17
. Stephen M. Barr, “Retelling the Story of Science,” Sixteenth Annual Erasmus Lecture, Institute on Religion and Public Life, New York, November 15, 2002, cited in Melanie Phillips,
The World Turned Upside Down: The Global Battle over God, Truth, and Power
(New York: Perseus, 2011), 79.

18
. Leon Wieseltier, “The God Genome,”
New York Times
, February 19, 2006.

19
. “Science in the Dock: Discussion with Noam Chomsky, Lawrence Krauss & Sean M. Carroll,”
Science & Technology News
, March 1, 2006.

20
. William Lane Craig, debate with Peter Atkins, Georgia, April 1998, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vnjNbe5lyE (accessed September 16, 2012).

21
. Eugene Wigner, “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences,”
Communication on Pure and Applied Mathematics
13, no. 1, February 1960, 1–14.

22
. Phillips,
The World Turned Upside Down,
321.

23
. Richard Dawkins, interview by Tony Jones,
Q&A
, ABC Australia, April 9, 2012.

24
.
Dawkins vs. Lennox: The God Delusion Debate
.

25
. Stephen Jay Gould,
Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life, The Library of Contemporary Thought
(New York: Ballantine, 1999), 4–6.

26
. Polkinghorne, quoted in “God vs. Science.”

27
. Ibid.

28
. Albert Einstein,
Out of My Later Years
(New York: Citadel, 1956), 26.

C
HAPTER
3: G
OOD AND
E
VIL
A
RE
N
O
I
LLUSIONS

1
. Richard Dawkins, interview by Tony Jones,
Q&A
, ABC Australia, April 9, 2012.

2
. Francis Schaeffer,
How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture
, L’Abri 50th Anniversary Edition (1976; Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2005), 145.

3
. Larry Alex Taunton,
The Grace Effect: How the Power of One Life Can Reverse the Corruption of Unbelief
(Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2011), 6.

4
. Ibid., 21.

5
. Hugh Ross,
Why the Universe Is the Way It Is
(Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008), 169.

6
. Cornelius van Til,
The Defense of the Faith
, ed. K. Scott Oliphint (Phillipsburg, NJ: P and R, 1955).

7
. C. S. Lewis,
Mere Christianity
(1952; New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 38.

8
. Sam Harris,
The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason
(New York: W. W. Norton: 2005), 67.

9
. William Lane Craig in debate with Sam Harris, “Is the Foundation of Morality Natural or Supernatural?” University of Notre Dame, April 2011.

10
. Melanie Phillips,
The Spectator
, “Welcome to the Age of Irrationality,” April 28, 2010, http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/5951248/welcome-to-the-age-of-irrationality (accessed December 20, 2012).

11
. Lewis,
Mere Christianity
, 8.

12
. Sam Harris,
The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values
(New York: Free Press, 2010), 28.

13
. David Hume,
A Treatise of Human Nature
(1739; Brisbane: Emereo, 2010), 335.

14
. Harris,
The Moral Landscape
, 39.

15
. Immanuel Kant, quoted in
Wiener Zeitschrift
[Vienna Journal], February 1, 1820.

16
. Immanuel Kant,
Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals
, trans. James W. Ellington (1785; Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994), 30.

17
. Kant,
Metaphysics of Morals
, 22.

18
. Friedrich Nietzsche, “Twilight of the Idols,”
The Portable Nietzsche
, ed. and trans. Walter Kaufman (New York: Penguin Books, 1976), 515–16.

19
. Herbert Spencer,
The Principles of Biology
(New York: D. Appleton, 1866), 1:444.

20
. Thomas Huxley, “Evolution and Ethics,”
Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays
(New York: D. Appleton, 1899), 83.

21
. Richard Dawkins,
River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life
(New York: Basic, 1995), 133.

22
. Dawkins,
Q&A
.

23
. Aldous Huxley,
Ends and Means: An Enquiry into the Nature of Ideals and into the Methods Employed for Their Realization
(London: Chatto and Windus, 1946), 273.

24
. Jean-Paul Sartre,
Existentialism Is a Humanism
, trans. Carol Macomber (1945; New Haven: Yale, 2007), 28–29.

25
. Malcolm Jones,
Dostoevsky and the Dynamics of Religious Experience
(London: Anthem, 2005), 7.

26
.
Richard Dawkins vs. John Lennox: The God Delusion Debate
, University of Alabama at Birmingham, October 3, 2007 (Birmingham: New Day Entertainment, 2007), DVD.

27
. Christopher Hitchens,
Letters to a Young Contrarian
(New York: Basic, 2005), 64.

28
. Lewis,
Mere Christianity
, 69.