I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (70 page)

34
. Robert Jastrow,
God and the Astronomers
(New York: Norton, 1978), 114.

35
. Fyodor Dostoevsky,
The Brothers Karamazov
(New York: Norton, 1976), 72.

36
. Quoted in D. James Kennedy,
Skeptics Answered
(Sisters, Ore.: Multnomah, 1997), 154.

37
. Strobel,
Case for Faith,
91.

38
. From the audiotape “Reaching Evolutionists,” at Southern Evangelical Seminary’s 2001 Apologetics Conference. Tape AC0108. Posted online at
www.impactapologetics.com
.

39
. Wells,
Icons of Evolution,
230.

40
. Norman Geisler,
Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics
(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1999); Norman Geisler,
Systematic Theology,
vol. 2 (Minneapolis: Bethany, 2003).

41
. Some Christians fear that granting long time periods improves the plausibility of macroevolution. But as we saw in chapter 5, this is not so.

C
HAPTER
7
M
OTHER
T
ERESA VS
. H
ITLER

1
. J. Budziszewski,
Written on the Heart: The Case for Natural Law
(Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1997), 208-209.

2
. C. S. Lewis,
Mere Christianity
(New York: Macmillan, 1952), 19.

3
. See J. Budziszewski,
What We Can’t Not Know
(Dallas: Spence, 2003), 39.

4
. See ibid.

5
. Joseph Fletcher,
Situation Ethics: The New Morality
(Philadelphia: Westminster, 1966), 43-44.

6
. Lewis,
Mere Christianity,
45.

7
. Ibid., 25.

8
. For a transcript of the debate see
http://www.renewamerica.us/archives/ speeches/00_09_27debate.htm
. Accessed May 20, 2003.

9
. Contrary to popular opinion, atheists, like everyone else in politics, are trying to legislate morality. Our book
Legislating Morality
goes into detail on this topic (Frank Turek and Norman Geisler,
Legislating Morality
[Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock, 2003]). Previously published by Bethany, 1998.

10
. See Lewis,
Mere Christianity,
26.

11
. Thanks to our friend Francis Beckwith for this example. See his book
Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air,
coauthored with Greg Koukl (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1998), for an outstanding critique of relativism.

12
. Budziszewski,
What We Can’t Not Know,
114

13
. For a complete discussion of how to resolve conflicting moral absolutes see Norman Geisler’s,
Christian Ethics: Options and Issues
(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1989), particularly chapter 7.

14
. Feminist Naomi Wolf is a notable example. She admits that everyone knows an unborn child is a human being, and that abortion is a real sin that requires atonement. But instead of ending abortion, Wolf suggests that women who get abortions hold candlelight vigils at abortion facilities to show their sorrow! This sounds like an expiatory ritual similar to—forgive the comparison—that of the cannibals.

15
. Frank Turek and Norman Geisler,
Legislating Morality
(Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock, 2003). Previously published by Bethany, 1998.

16
. Edward O. Wilson, “The Biological Basis of Morality,”
The Atlantic Monthly,
April 1998. Posted online at
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/ 98apr/biomoral.htm
. Accessed May 13, 2003.

17
. Lewis,
Mere Christianity,
22.

18
. Jeffrey Schloss, Ph.D. (ecology and evolutionary biology), argues that even though certain altruistic and self-sacrificial behaviors can perhaps be explained in Darwinian terms, there are others that cannot be so explained; Schloss focuses especially on those who aided and hid potential Holocaust victims. See Jeffrey Schloss, “Evolutionary Account of Altruism and the Problem of Goodness by Design,” in William Dembski, ed.,
Mere Creation
(Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1998), 236-261.

19
. Adolf Hitler,
Mein Kampf,
4th printing (London: Hurst & Blackett, 1939), 239-240, 242.

20
. Here is the entire quote: “The Races of Man.—At the present time there exist upon the earth five races or varieties of man, each very different from the other in instincts, social customs, and, to an extent, in structure. There are the Ethiopian or negro type, originating in Africa; the Malay or brown race, from the islands of the Pacific; the American Indian; the Mongolian or yellow race, including the natives of China, Japan, and the Eskimos; and, finally,
the highest type of all, the Caucasians,
represented by the civilized white inhabitants of Europe and America” (George William Hunter,
Essentials of
Biology: Presented in Problems
[New York, Cincinnati, Chicago: American Book, 1911], 320, emphasis added).

21
. Peter Singer,
Practical Ethics,
1st ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 122-123; quoted in Scott Klusendorf, “Death with a Happy Face: Peter Singer’s Bold Defense of Infanticide,”
Christian Research Journal
23, no. 1 (2001): 25. See also Helga Kuhse and Peter Singer,
Should the Baby
Live?
(Brookfield, Vt.: Ashgate, 1994), 194-197.

22
. James Rachels,
Created from Animals: The Moral Implications of
Darwinism
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 186.

23
. Randy Thornhill and Craig Palmer,
A Natural History of Rape: Biological
Bases of Sexual Coercion
(Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2001).

24
. Quoted in Nancy Pearcey, “Darwin’s Dirty Secret,”
World
magazine, March 25, 2000.

25
. Lewis,
Mere Christianity,
21.

C
HAPTER
8
M
IRACLES
: S
IGNS OF
G
OD OR
G
ULLIBILITY
?

1
. This Being is a he, not an it; a person, not a thing. We know this Being has personality because he has done something only persons can do—he has made a choice, namely, the choice to create.

2
. See Francis Beckwith, Norman Geisler, Ron Rhodes, Phil Roberts, Jerald Tanner, and Sandra Tanner,
The Counterfeit Gospel of Mormonism
(
Eugene, Ore.: Harvest, 1998), chapter 2.

3
. C. S. Lewis,
The Screwtape Letters
(Westwood, N.J.: Barbour, 1961), 46.

4
. Antony Flew, “Miracles,” in
The Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
Paul Edwards, ed., vol. 5 (New York: Macmillan and the Free Press, 1967), 346.

5
. From the audiotape “Worldviews In Conflict,” at Southern Evangelical Seminary’s 2002 Apologetics Conference. Tape AC0213. Posted online at at
www.impactapologetics.com
.

6
. We often hear Christians trying to explain the miraculous story of Jonah by appealing to supposed true accounts of fishermen surviving inside whales for some time. Even if those events are true, they are completely irrelevant. The story of Jonah is meant to be miraculous—namely, something only God could do. Certainly, a man would not survive in a great fish for three days and be vomited up on a particular land mass unless it was an act of God. If that appears unbelievable because the world doesn’t regularly work that way, it’s
meant
to appear that way! A miracle may not be a miracle if it can be explained by natural means. The bottom line is that the God who conducted the greatest miracle of all—the creation of the universe, including great fish and human beings—would have had no trouble orchestrating the Jonah miracle.

7
. C. S. Lewis,
Miracles
(New York: Macmillan, 1947), 106.

8
. Unlike moral laws, natural laws are not based on God’s nature and thus are changeable. While God cannot violate moral laws—because he is the unchanging standard of morality—he can change or interrupt natural laws at will. In fact, God could have created physical reality—including natural laws, the natural environment, and living things—with completely different characteristics than what we have now.

9
. Posted online at
http://hcs.harvard.edu/~gsascf/shield.html
. Accessed June 1, 2003.

10
. Most people falsely believe that the more they’ve played the lottery in the past, the greater chance they have to win this time. It doesn’t matter how many times a person has played the lottery in the past; each lottery is a unique event unaffected by previous plays. It’s 76 million to one (or whatever the improbable odds are) every time. Hume would suggest that the repeated past experience of losing should cause you to disbelieve it if you actually did win. But if one day you win, then you’ve really won, despite the fact that you may have lost it thousands of times before. Likewise, a miracle can occur regardless of how many times it hasn’t occurred in the past.

11
. Lewis,
Miracles,
105.

12
. Revised under the new title
Miracles and the Modern Mind
(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1992).

13
. For a detailed discussion, see Norman Geisler,
Signs and Wonders
(Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale, 1988), chapter 8. See also Norman Geisler,
Baker Encyclopedia
of Christian Apologetics
(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1999).

14
. The Bible: Ex. 4:1-5; Num. 16:5ff; 1 Kings 18:21-22; Matt. 12:38-39; Luke 7:20-22; John 3:1-2; Acts 2:22; Heb. 2:3-4; 2 Cor. 12:12. The Qur’an: Sura 3:184, 17:102; cf. Sura 23:45.

15
. For a detailed discussion, see Geisler,
Signs and Wonders,
chapters 7 and 8. See the list on pages 107-108 (out of print).

16
. For much more on this topic, see the article from which this chart is taken: “Miracles, False,” in Geisler,
Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics,
471-475.

17
. On some of these occasions multiple miracles were performed. For example, Jesus is said to have healed “many” several times, usually as people from town gathered around (e.g., Mark 1:34; 3:10; 6:56; Luke 5:15; 6:18; 9:11). The apostles performed several miracles on single occasions as well (Acts 5:16; 8:7; 19:11-12).

18
. Theologically, the three great periods of miracles have certain things in com-mon: Moses needed miracles to deliver Israel and sustain the great number of people in the wilderness (Ex. 4:8). Elijah and Elisha performed miracles to deliver Israel from idolatry (see 1 Kings 18). Jesus and the apostles showed miracles to confirm establishment of the new covenant and its offer of deliverance from sin (Heb. 2:3-4).

C
HAPTER
9
D
O
W
E
H
AVE
E
ARLY
T
ESTIMONY
A
BOUT
J
ESUS
?

1
. There is a version of this quotation where Josephus affirms that Jesus was the Messiah, but most scholars believe that Christians changed the quotation to read that way. According to Origen, a church father who was born in the late second century, Josephus was not a Christian. So it is unlikely he would claim that Jesus was the Messiah. The version we have quoted here is from an Arabic text that is believed to be uncorrupted.

2
. Why didn’t Josephus refer to Jesus more? We can surmise that as a historian for the emperor, Josephus had to choose his topics and words carefully. Domitian was particularly suspicious of anything that might be associated with sedition. This new sect called Christianity could have been considered seditious, because Christians had this strange new belief system and refused to worship Caesar and the Roman gods. As a result, Josephus certainly didn’t want to alarm or upset his boss by writing too many favorable comments about Christianity. Nevertheless, these two references affirm the existence of Jesus and James and corroborate the New Testament accounts.

3
. Josephus,
Antiquities,
20:9.1.

4
. See Acts 21:17-18; cf. 15:13.

5
. The ten non-Christian sources are: Josephus; Tacitus, the Roman historian; Pliny the Younger, a Roman politician; Phlegon, a freed slave who wrote histories; Thallus, a first-century historian; Seutonius, a Roman historian; Lucian, a Greek satirist; Celsus, a Roman philosopher; Mara Bar-Serapion, a private citizen who wrote to his son; and the Jewish Talmud. For a complete listing of mentions of Christ from these sources, see Norman L. Geisler,
Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics
(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1999), 381-385; see also Gary Habermas,
The Historical Jesus
(Joplin, Mo.: College Press, 1996), chapter 9.

6
. Gary Habermas and Michael Licona,
The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus
(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Kregel, forthcoming).

7
. Since Luke mentions Tiberius, the total number of authors for Tiberius is ten. See Habermas and Licona,
Case for the Resurrection of Jesus.
We’ve added the Jewish Talmud to the list assembled by Habermas and Licona because it was likely composed in the early second century, well within 150 years of Jesus’ death. Hence, our count is 43 and 10 instead of the 42 and 9 suggested by Habermas and Licona.

8
. Geisler,
Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics,
531-537.

9
. Ibid., 531-537, 547.

10
. A few critics have offered possible non–New Testament alternatives. In order to be successful, they have had to change the number of letters on a line of ancient text from the 20s to the 60s in some cases. This many letters to a line would be highly unusual. See Geisler,
Baker Encyclopedia of Christian
Apologetics,
547.