God's Not Dead: Evidence for God in an Age of Uncertainty (4 page)

While many bad things have been done in the name of religion, and even in the name of Jesus Christ, an honest inquiry can quickly separate truth from error, fact from fiction. False claims must be challenged and seen for what they are—vain imaginations. Fanaticism is a human problem, not a religion problem. Don’t believe it? Just watch any sporting event, rock concert, or political rally. Atheist fanatics are just as unreasonable as
their religious counterparts. Just as you don’t dismiss politics because there are bad politicians or commerce because there are bad businesses, you certainly must know how to separate the precious from the worthless when it comes to God and faith.

Again, Jesus Christ stands apart from man-made philosophy and religion. He was the original critic of empty religious practices and shallow lives. With a little effort, you can have a faith that is “un-mahered,” one that is free from defects or stains. This kind of faith begins with a rock-solid
knowledge
that God is indeed real. The false notions of the age must be examined like the one-hundred-dollar bill a cashier examines as potential counterfeit. We must not be misled by phony arguments or phony lives. Remember, it isn’t enough simply to know God is real. Even the demons believe in God and tremble. We must be able to demonstrate and articulate God’s truth in a way the people around us can clearly understand.

W
HAT
9/11 T
AUGHT
U
S

Just days after the attacks I drove with some friends to New York to see how we could serve that great city in its unprecedented time of crisis. It didn’t take long to realize that we needed to plant a church in the heart of
New York City
to minister to the
spiritual
needs of as many as possible on a consistent basis. Within a month we were flying every Sunday night from Nashville to New York and holding Sunday night services. Today that church,
Morning Star New York
, consists of three congregations.

After we had been flying in for a few weeks for the Sunday night meetings, the owner of one of my favorite restaurants was thanking us for our commitment to help his city. I recounted an
incident that occurred in his restaurant in my book
Finding Faith at Ground Zero
. Sandy, the owner of Carnegie Deli, called me over to a table of TV-network executives for an introduction. He said, “Reverend [I really don’t like it when people call me that!], these men are having to burn their furniture because of anthrax-poisoned letters they have been receiving. They need answers about what’s going on.”

I sat down at the table with these very important media leaders and paused to consider what I could say that might make an impact for Christ in a wise and believable way. I said, “Well, if there’s anything 9/11 taught us, it’s that all religions are not the same. The god that told those men to get in airplanes and come to this city and hurt people is not the same God that inspired us to get into airplanes each week and come here and help people.”
²⁰

There is no way you can group every
religious belief
and practice together and then smugly denounce religion as a whole. All beliefs are not equal. Some are true, and others are false. History has proven that ideas—religious, philosophical, or scientific—have consequences.

B
REAKING
N
EWS

The greatest idea in history, the one that has produced the most significant and enduring benefit to humanity, is Jesus Christ. God’s idea to come to earth as a human, undeniably demonstrating the power of truth, has given us the ultimate message of hope, called the
gospel
or
good news
. God’s good news is as current as any breaking news you’ll see or hear today on any news channel.
It is so encouraging I will refer to it as often as I can so its message is not missed or misunderstood. The good news announces that God became man in Jesus Christ, He lived the life we should have lived, and in our place He died the death we should have died. Three days later He came back to life to verify His identity as the Son of God, and now He offers full pardon and forgiveness to all who will believe and turn from the darkness of sin and the futility of trying to save themselves. Those who turn and put their trust in Him will never be ashamed.

This message of hope, this good news, is true no matter what country or culture you’re from. Christ came to deal with the legal consequences of humanity breaking God’s law once and for all. Far from wanting us to be religious, He calls us simply to love Him and love others. The gospel changes us from the inside out. That is why many are quick to say that Christ didn’t call us into religion but into relationship, relationship with Him and with one another.

W
HY
G
OD
’
S
E
XISTENCE
M
ATTERS

Once in
Argentina
at the
University of Buenos Aires
, I spent time talking to five young students who identified themselves as atheists. I spent a lot of time asking questions about the reasons for their atheism. Thanks to a good translator, Phillip Steele, I was able to understand the details of their disbelief. As I listened intently, a young man carrying a guitar with him asked me, “Why should we even be concerned with the question, ‘Does God exist?’ Does it really matter?”

I asked him, “Have you ever written a song?”

His facial expression changed instantly as it seemed I was changing the subject from God and to something he really wanted to talk about. He said yes, then I asked, “Why did you want to write a song?”

He raised his hand to emphasize his passion. “I wanted to share my feelings with others, to create something they could enjoy as well as express my heart and my thoughts.”

“What would you do if you wrote a song for those noble reasons and someone either denied you wrote the song or mistakenly gave credit to someone else for writing it instead of you? Would that bother you?”

Looking like he knew I was going to make a bigger point, he agreed, “Yes, I would be upset if I didn’t get recognized as the author of the song I wrote.”

I paused for just a moment. “What if you created a planet?”

You could see the evidence of the connection between the two thoughts on his face.

God deserves the recognition for all He has created. Knowing that a Creator exists changes everything in our outlook and worldview. It should inspire us to honor Him more than we would honor any woman or man for any human achievement. It should also cause us to seek Him, to earnestly desire a relationship with Him.

The reality of God as Creator compels us to investigate the world He created with greater confidence and to understand His nature and character. All the
beauty
, grandeur, and provision on the planet should produce a gratitude that overwhelms us. This is the spirit of
evangelism
that sends us out with a message of love, hope, and reconciliation, not hate and division.

S
UMMARY

When you hear “God is back,” that obviously doesn’t mean He actually went anywhere. Faith in God is back. Not a blind, unreasonable faith, but one that is well grounded in evidence. The grounded evidence is the basis to communicate that faith in a straightforward, clear manner. If nothing else, the writings of the new atheists have succeeded in awakening millions of Christians from their dogmatic slumbers.

This book is one of the many works that have been inspired by the audacity and arrogance of some of these skeptical writers who have decided to take their personal battle and hatred of religion public. When I was doing my doctoral work at
Fuller Theological Seminary
, my mentor Dan Shaw would constantly advise me to keep my writing from sounding “preachy.” The goal was to produce a doctoral thesis based on empirical data and research with personal opinions and preachments at a minimum. While I still endeavor to present sound, rational arguments for the existence of God based on the best explanation of the evidence, I also want to offer the encouragement and hope that real faith in God produces. Let’s now turn to the reasons to believe in the existence of God—starting with
reason
itself.

2
REAL FAITH ISN’T BLIND

Faith is not a leap in the dark; it’s the exact opposite. It’s a commitment based on evidence. . . . It is irrational to reduce all faith to blind faith and then subject it to ridicule.

—J
OHN
L
ENNOX
¹

Reason is a tool to help us better understand and defend our faith; as
Anselm
put it, ours is a faith that seeks understanding.

—W
ILLIAM
L
ANE
C
RAIG
,
R
EASONABLE
F
AITH
²

IT’S SAFE TO SAY THAT THE MOST UNUSUAL CONFERENCE I’ve ever attended was the 2012
Global Atheist Convention
in Melbourne, Australia, promoted as “A Celebration of Reason.” More than 3,500 delegates came to hear speakers such as evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Sam Harris. Very few if any Christians appeared to be in attendance.

My goal in attending was simply to listen. I thought that if
atheists were gathering from around the world, then something earth-shaking would be said that I would want to hear firsthand—maybe some new discovery in science that demonstrated (in their minds) that God does not exist. Instead of the intellectual onslaught I was bracing for, the opening-night speakers were four professional comedians. Their profanity-laced rants were perhaps an attempt to demonstrate their disdain for any hint of
morality
that might be lingering from their admitted religious upbringings.

The next day, rather than offer scientific or philosophical reasons for the nonexistence of God, speaker after speaker railed against religion and continued the tone set by the comedians on opening night. Again, mockery and ridicule were the primary themes. Ironically, there was very little “reason” present at their Celebration of Reason. The emotionalism they claim religion relies on permeated every presentation.

I left the conference convinced that the primary strategy of these new atheists is to lay claim to the word
reason
, as a business owner might try to secure a domain name before the competition gets it. By doing this they can label anyone who opposes them as “anti-reason” or irrational. With the zeal of a political party, their hope is that science would eliminate any faith or religion as well as philosophy. This was stated clearly by Dawkins in a discussion with John Lennox at
Oxford University
, sponsored by the Fixed Point Foundation:

What worries me is if you don’t have, if you don’t allow in a rational basis for what you believe then it is possible for people to say, I’m sorry I just believe that Allah told me to go kill all those people. And it’s no good arguing with me because arguing is not what it’s about.
Faith is what it is about, and that is the danger.
³

John Lennox, an Oxford
mathematician
who has debated Dawkins on several occasions, responded to this remark in one of their encounters:

I understand it from my own perception of the New Testament that that is not what the Christian faith is, that’s dangerous, that blind faith. But all faith is not blind faith and just as you say you have faith in the scientific method and so have I, I have faith in God and believe that it is evidence based.
⁴

A legitimate concern is when people believe without a rational basis. This allows them to carry out horrible, unreasonable acts, such as the 9/11 terrorist acts, in the name of their faith. The One who said, “Love your enemies,” is the extreme opposite of someone commanding his followers to “kill the infidel.”

Reason serves as a type of immune system helping us sort out helpful beliefs from harmful ones. When humans look at any set of events, we use our reason to draw conclusions about what has happened. Whether it is an incident that just took place before our eyes or one that happened thousands of years ago, reason processes the events and decides whether the explanation being offered is plausible. Irrationality is not a religious thing; it’s a human thing. Ever heard of a
mad scientist
? Making the point that real faith isn’t blind includes not blindly believing everything said in the name of “science.” The evidence that God exists is all around us and inside of us. You have been given the ability
to observe the phenomena around you and reason whether it is the product of blind forces or an intelligent Creator.

The twenty-first century is the most astounding time in history to be alive; every day we learn more about the stellar universe and subatomic particles. Consider the discovery of the
Higgs boson particle
at the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, Switzerland, in July 2012. This particle, nicknamed by nonscientists the “God Particle,” is unlocking physicists’ understanding of the mysterious subatomic world and producing the belief that humanity may soon understand the smallest detail of how the universe works. However, just because we know how a mechanism works doesn’t eliminate the existence of the architect and builder of the mechanism. The way these facts are interpreted comes down to the beliefs you hold or the lens through which you look.

Atheists believe a fantastic story that the universe just happened, by chance, and that all of this life and complexity came from nothing. “The universe just is,” asserts the naturalist. Yet is that really true? Is that the only option a rational person has to consider? The late Christopher Hitchens, one of the most outspoken atheists of this generation and considered their most eloquent voice, seemed quite taken aback when he encountered Christians in his debates who actually had reasons for their faith. He thought that all we had was our appeal to our subjective experience.