I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (68 page)

Atheist: If Christianity is true, that’s the choice I have to make.

Christian: Yes. And God wants you to choose him. But he loves you so much that he’ll respect either choice you make. Just remember that either choice you make will have consequences here and in eternity. And that’s not just my interpretation.

Appendix 3:

Why the Jesus Seminar
Doesn’t Speak for Jesus

MANY CHRISTIANS HAVE been troubled recently by a group known as the “Jesus Seminar” that has made outlandish claims regarding the New Testament, casting doubt on 82 percent of what the Gospels ascribe to Jesus. One member, John Dominic Crossan, even went so far in his denial of the Resurrection as to claim that Jesus was buried in a shallow grave, dug up by dogs, and eaten! But the so-called Jesus Seminar does not speak for the real Jesus. There are at least seven reasons for this conclusion.

The Wrong Group—
The Jesus Seminar, established in 1985, is comprised of seventy-plus “scholars” who are largely on the radical fringe. Some are atheists, and some are not even scholars (one is a filmmaker). Atheist founder Robert Funk acknowledged the radical nature of their work when he stated, “We are probing what is most sacred to millions, and hence we will constantly border on blasphemy.” This is an honest and accurate disclosure.

The Wrong Motive—
By their own admission their goal is to create a new “fictive” Jesus,
¹
which involves deconstructing the old picture of Jesus in the Gospels and reconstructing one that fits modern man. In view of this, no one should look to their work for the real Jesus. They are making Jesus in their own image.

Moreover, their work is tainted by their confessed publicity seeking. They admitted, “We are going to try to carry out our work in full public view. We will not only honor the freedom of information, we will insist on the public disclosure of our work.”
²
More bluntly, the Jesus Seminar sought publicity from the very beginning. A TV summit, numerous articles, interviews with the press, tapes, and even a possible movie are further indications of their aim to advertise.

The Wrong Procedure—
Their procedure is prejudiced, attempting to determine truth by majority vote. This method is no better today than when most people believed the world was square. Having 70 largely radical “scholars” vote on what Jesus said is akin to giving 100 largely liberal members of Congress the chance to vote on higher taxes!

The Wrong Books—
The Jesus Seminar vote is based in part on a hypothetical “Gospel of Q” (from German
Quelle,
meaning source) and a second-century
Gospel of Thomas,
which comes from Gnostic heretics. In addition to these, the Seminar appeals to a nonexistent
Secret Mark.
The result is that the apocryphal second-century
Gospel
of Thomas
is considered more authentic than the earlier Mark or John.

The Wrong Assumptions—
Their conclusions are based on radical presuppositions, one of which is their unjustified rejection of miracles. If God exists, then miracles are possible. Hence, any
a priori
rejection of miracles is a rejection of the existence of God. In light of their implicit atheism, there should be no surprise that they reject the Jesus of the Gospels.

Further, their conclusions are based on the unfounded assumption that Christianity was influenced by mystery religions. As we saw in chapter 12, this could not be the case. The monotheistic Jewish writers of Scripture would not be using polytheistic pagan sources and could not be dependent on sources that were later than their time.

The Wrong Dates—
They posit unjustified late dates for the four Gospels (probably A.D. 70 to 100). By doing this they believe they are able to create enough time to conclude that the New Testament is comprised of myths about Jesus. But this is contrary to the facts, as we saw in chapters 9 and 10. The New Testament is early and contains even earlier source material.

The Wrong Conclusions
—In the wake of destroying the basis for the real Jesus of the Gospels, the Jesus Seminar has no real agreement on who Jesus actually was: a cynic, a sage, a Jewish reformer, a feminist, a prophet-teacher, a radical social prophet, or an eschatological prophet. It’s little wonder that something done by the wrong group, using the wrong procedure, based on the wrong books, grounded in the wrong presuppositions, and employing the wrong dates would come to the wrong conclusion!

Notes

I
NTRODUCTION
F
INDING THE
B
OX
T
OP TO THE
P
UZZLE OF
L
IFE

1
. Carl Sagan,
Cosmos
(New York: Random House, 1980), 4.

2
. From the audiotape “Exposing Naturalistic Presuppositions of Evolution,” at Southern Evangelical Seminary’s 1998 Apologetics Conference. Tape AC9814. Posted online at
www.impactapologetics.com
.

3
. Quoted in Plato,
Apology,
section 38.

4
. All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the authors.

5
. From Friedrich Nietzsche,
The AntiChrist,
section 47, quoted in Walter Kaufmann,
The Portable Nietzsche
(New York: Viking, 1968), 627.

6
. Quoted in Os Guinness,
Time for Truth
(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2000), 114.

7
. C. S. Lewis,
The Screwtape Letters
(Westwood, N.J.: Barbour, 1961), 46.

C
HAPTER
1
C
AN
W
E
H
ANDLE THE
T
RUTH
?

1
. C. S. Lewis,
The Abolition of Man
(New York: Macmillan, 1947), 35.

2
. Frank Morison,
Who Moved the Stone?
(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1977).

3
. Frank Turek and Norman Geisler,
Legislating Morality
(Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock, 2003). Previously published by Bethany, 1998.

C
HAPTER
2
W
HY
S
HOULD
A
NYONE
B
ELIEVE
A
NYTHING
A
T
A
LL
?

1
. See James Sire, “Why Should Anyone Believe Anything At All?” in D. A. Carson, ed.,
Telling the Truth
(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2000), 93 101. See also James Sire,
Why Should Anyone Believe Anything At All
(Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1994).

2
. There is, of course, inductive logic, deductive logic, and symbolic logic, but all of these are based in the same fundamental laws of thought.

3
. David Hume,
An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding,
xii, 3.

4
. C. S. Lewis, “Learning in War-Time,” in C. S. Lewis,
The Weight of Glory
and Other Addresses
(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1965), 50.

5
. Of course, according to Kant, we can know things about this phenomenal world of our senses such as scientific propositions. Also, Kant held that, while we cannot
know
anything about the real world (e.g., God), nevertheless, we can
posit
that there is a God and live
as if
he exists, even though we can’t know anything about the way he really is. This Kant called “practical” reason.

6
. In fact, we arrive at most decisions in life—from what we eat to whom we choose for friends—through observation and induction. For example, we don’t have perfect information about the liquid in a Campbell’s Soup can—we think it’s edible and won’t poison us—but we’re not 100 percent certain. We are relying on our prior experience that Campbell’s Soup is trustworthy, and we are concluding that there’s actually Campbell’s Soup and not poison in the can. Likewise, we don’t have perfect information about the character of people we may meet. But after spending some time with them, we may conclude that they are trustworthy people. Are we 100 percent certain? No, because we are generalizing from our limited number of experiences. Our conclusion may be highly probable, but it is not certain. This is the case with many decisions we make in life.

7
. Frank Turek and Norman Geisler,
Legislating Morality
(Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock, 2003). Previously published by Bethany, 1998.

8
. In addition to the Qur’an (read Suras 8 and 9 for yourself), see Norman Geisler and Abdul Saleeb,
Answering Islam,
2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2002). Appendix 5 lists twenty citations from the Qur’an that either command or condone violence against “infidels.”

9
. Those who disagree with the necessity of logic in finding truth are defeating themselves and proving our point. Why? Because they attempt to use logic to deny logic. This is like trying to use language to communicate that language cannot be used to communicate!

C
HAPTER
3
I
N THE
B
EGINNING
T
HERE
W
AS A
G
REAT
SURGE

1
. Quoted in Hugh Ross,
The Creator and the Cosmos
(Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1995), 57.

2
. All the galaxies are moving away from us, but that does not mean that we are at the center of the universe. To visualize how this can be, picture a balloon with black dots on it. When you blow up the balloon, all of the dots separate from one another whether they are near the center or not. The dots on opposite sides of the balloon (those farthest away from one another) separate more quickly than those next to one another. In fact, Hubble discovered a linear relationship between distance and speed, which showed that a galaxy twice as far from us moves away at twice the speed. This became known as Hubble’s Law.

3
. Quoted in Fred Heeren,
Show Me God
(Wheeling, Ill.: Daystar, 2000), 135.

4
. Francis Bacon,
The New Organon
(1620; reprint, Indianapolis: Bobbs Merrill, 1960), 121.

5
. David Hume, in J. Y. T. Greig, ed.,
The Letters of David Hume,
2 vols. (New York: Garland, 1983), 1:187.

6
. You may have heard the First Law of Thermodynamics stated like this: “Energy can neither be created nor destroyed.” That is a philosophical assertion, not an empirical observation. How could we know that energy was not created? There were no observers to verify it. A more accurate definition of the First Law, as far as observations go, is that “the total amount of energy in the universe (i.e., usable and unusable energy) remains constant.” So as usable energy is consumed, it is converted into
un
usable energy, but the sum of the two remains the same. Only the proportion of usable to unusable changes.

7
. Robert Jastrow,
God and the Astronomers
(New York: Norton, 1978), 48.

8
. Quoted in Paul Davies,
The Cosmic Blueprint
(New York: Simon & Shuster, 1988), 20, emphasis added.

9
. Words like “precede” and “before” usually imply time. We don’t mean it that way, because there was no time “before” the Big Bang. For there can be no time before time began. What then could exist before time? The answer is, very simply, the Eternal! That is, the Eternal Cause that brought time, space, and matter into existence.

10
. The entire debate is available on video at
www.rzim.com
.

11
. Isaac Asimov,
Beginning and End
(New York: Doubleday, 1977), 148.

12
. Anthony Kenny,
The Five Ways: St. Thomas Aquinas’ Proofs of God’s
Existence
(New York: Schocken, 1969), 66.

13
. Jastrow,
God and the Astronomers,
15-16.

14
. See Fred Heeren,
Show Me God,
163-168; and Ross,
Creator and the
Cosmos,
19.

15
. Heeren,
Show Me God,
168.

16
. See Michael D. Lemonick, “Echoes of the Big Bang,”
Time,
May 4, 1992, 62.

17
. Jastrow,
God and the Astronomers,
11.

18
. Ibid., 14.

19
. “A Scientist Caught Between Two Faiths: Interview with Robert Jastrow,”
Christianity Today,
August 6, 1982, emphasis added.

20
. Arthur Eddington,
The Expanding Universe
(New York: Macmillan, 1933), 178.

21
. Quoted in Heeren,
Show Me God,
156.

22
. Quoted in ibid., 157.

23
. Quoted in ibid.

24
. Quoted in ibid., 139.

25
. For a detailed explanation and refutation of atheistic explanations for the beginning of the universe, see William Lane Craig’s article, “The Ultimate Question of Origins: God and the Beginning of the Universe,” posted online at
http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/ultimatequestion.html
; see also Norman Geisler,
Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics
(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1999), 102-106.

26
. See Jastrow,
God and the Astronomers,
125.

27
. See “‘Baby Pic’ Shows Cosmos 13 Billion Years Ago,” CNN.com, February 11, 2003, at
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/02/11/cosmic.portrait/
.

28
. See Kathy Sawyer, “Cosmic Driving Force? Scientists’ Work on ‘Dark Energy’ Mystery Could Yield a New View of the Universe,”
Washington
Post,
February 19, 2000, A1.

29
. Stephen W. Hawking,
A Brief History of Time
(New York: Bantam, 1988), 136-139; see also Norman Geisler and Peter Bocchino,
Unshakable
Foundations
(Minneapolis: Bethany, 2001), 107-110.

30
. Quoted in Norman Geisler and Paul Hoffman, eds.,
Why I Am a Christian:
Leading Thinkers Explain Why They Believe
(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2001), 66.