Posted on 09/19/2014 9:04:55 AM PDT by Kaslin
When a witness for the prosecution provides the testimony that affirms the innocence of the defendant—when a witness is turned—there can be no more dramatic and powerful exoneration for the accused. And amongst the many gifts that David Limbaugh brings to bring to his latest best-selling book, Jesus on Trial: A Lawyer Affirms the Truth of the Gospel, it is Limbaugh’s gift of disbelief, his prior agnosticism toward “the God of the Bible,” that provides the gripping testimony necessary to turn an ordinary apologetics book into an extraordinary defense of, not just the Bible, but of belief in general.
What makes Limbaugh’s book so compelling, in brief, are the use of third party, scientific and scholarly testimony—supposedly the domain of doubters only-- to refute the arguments of a group that often hates the very thing they confess does not exist: God.
Sometimes using only logic but often using both scholarship and logic, Limbaugh, in Jesus on Trial, brushes away argument that skeptics, agnostics and atheists have employed for centuries to deny not just the truth of God, but the truth of the Gospels as well.
And while no book will ever prove the existence of God, or Jesus as God, Limbaugh is not shy about stacking up enough circumstantial evidence in his book to fully indict the anti-God crowd with, at the very least, a hate crime upon the Gospels.
But it is the logical Limbaugh who is the most effective prosecutor of disbelief.
In his chapterette speaking of the resurrection evidence, Limbaugh lays out nine facts on the resurrection story. Scholars, writes Limbaugh, “agree with these nine key facts concerning the resurrection of Jesus.” The most powerful of these facts deals with the certainty that it was the Apostles’ interaction with the resurrected Christ that changed Jesus from a messianic rabbi to the Messiah, the God of Redemption. Reports from contemporaneous sources tend to verify that at the very least, Limbaugh contends, the Apostles believed that Jesus was raised from the dead because they saw him.
“Jesus,” Limbaugh points out, “was the only founder of a major world religion who had miracles reported of Him in reliable sources…within a few decades, and during the lifetime of many of the eyewitnesses.”
Is that proof that the resurrection happened? Certainly not, but it is enough evidence to provide believers with a bulwark in their faith. And certainly it is enough to give skeptics pause for second thoughts.
And it is to those second thoughts, to those “better angels” of our nature that this book should appeal.
Limbaugh’s book is a challenge to the skeptics to stop fighting with God; to stop trying to prove what, by their very denial of His existence, even atheists would agree that they can never prove: God's nonexistence.
Instead, he asks non-believers to put away their prejudices and “give Him a Chance.”
He correctly identifies the paramount problem with people who lack faith: For a God that doesn’t exist, skeptics sure spend a lot of time fighting about God.
Instead, Limbaugh suggests, they should just try to coexist with Him.
Well done
That has always bothered me about some atheists. I have always felt that they were actually believers but try to mask that belief from themselves by their stridency.
They are believers. They believe there is no God
Lee Strobel, a lawyer, did a similar book called “The Case for Christ” a while back. This should be just as good a read.
They try to believe there is no God but they fear there is. That is the reason they make so much noise about it. An atheist has no actual interest in other people’s belief or non belief except, perhaps for his own children. He should not care what people believe so long as they don’t try to force him to believe something. I know atheists who are that way. They don’t have time or inclination for soapboxes.I also know “atheists” who are intent that no one should believe anything they consider to be supernatural and want to enact that into law or at least get belief banned from discussion and from education and from any place where they can hear it. I truly think they fear there is a God and hate the idea and try to make it go away in their own heads. Their brittle touchiness strongly suggests that.
This new Limbaugh books sounds like pretty much the same book as Strobel's. Both were about skeptical lawyers attempting to refute claims about Christ, only to be swayed in Christ's favor by the evidence. I don't think the arguments in these types of books make a great deal of impact on non-believers. But I think they make great support materials for the faith of believers who are sometimes challenged by the rebuttals of atheists.
You are very close. He's how the Apostle Paul described it: "because that, when they knew God, the glorified him not as God, neither were thenkful; tut became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened."
If you had to list 4-5 books (including the Bible) that you thought were excellent in proving God exists- what would they be?
There have been many apologetic books written in this vein. The standard approach is the investigator who sets out to debunk the story of Christ by examining only the tangible, verifiable evidence and in the course of their investigation are so blown away by the mountain of evidence for the Gospel that they become a converted Christian. I'm not putting them down, formula or not, they are always good reads, make for a good back story, and do a good job of marshalling the evidence together. Believers have the better side of the argument when you look at the evidence and make logical, rational inferences.
This is the acedemic field of apologetics known as "Evidential Apologetics." If your are interested in the subject, I strongly recommend Norman Geisler's "I don't have enough faith to be an Atheist." It is a great book and Dr. Geisler makes it very accessible. I think it is much better than its primary competitor "Evidence that Demands a Verdict" by Josh McDowell. McDowell's book is exhaustive and covers a lot of minutia which can cause you to get bogged down. Dr. Geisler's book is a fairly quick read at about 250 or so pages but very good and covers the basics.
Either that, or they believe there is no God, but don't believe in their belief. They have no confidence.
I’ve read the Mcdowell book. Although I agree with him, and his evidence is immense, my memory is that he didn’t put it together in slam-dunk manner. That he skipped a few steps in the chain of logic.
could be wrong, I read it years and years ago.
While I’m sure that David Limbaugh’s new book is outstanding, especially for this day and age; yet, he’s a tad late to the party, as it were. For there was another lawyer, a skeptic very much like David; who was the Dane professor of Law at Harvard University, named Dr. Simon Greenleaf.
One of Professor Greenleaf’s books, titled, “Treatise on the Law of Evidence” is of great importance, since this is THE book on how the court looks at evidence. In other words, Simon Greenleaf was an established authority on the nature of evidence as seen from a court of Law.
Professor Greenleaf brought his expertise in the matter of legal evidence, in his major contribution to Christian Apologetics with his book, titled “TESTIMONY OF THE EVANGELISTS”, (published 1846) which set the model for Evidentualist Christian Apologists.
In this book, Greenleaf applied the canons of the ancient document rule to establish the authenticity of the gospel accounts, as well as cross-examination principles in assessing the testimony of those who bore witness to the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ.
Thus, Greenleaf established the methodology which is reflected in the works of John Warwick Montgomery, Josh McDowell, and even R.C. Sproul.
But, lest you think that Evidentualist apologetics is the ONLY methodology used in Christian Apologetics, there is another Apologetic methodology that is fast gaining ascendency in Evangelistic circles.
Advocates of PRESUPPOSITIONAL APOLOGETICS believe the Christian faith is the only basis for rational thought. This methodology presupposes that the Bible is divine revelation, then attempts to expose flaws in other worldviews. It claims that apart from presuppositions, one could not make sense of any human experience, and there can be no set of neutral assumptions from which to reason with a non-Christian.
Dr. Cornelius Van Till is the “Godfather” of the Presuppositional Methodology. Van Till taught at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Pa.
One of his students was Francis. A. Schaeffer, who used Van Till’s Pre-Suppositional Apologetics extensively in his ministry to the Intellectual. This methodology was further advanced by Van Till’s protoge, Dr. Greg Bahnsen. Other well known adherents to this methodology are John Frame, and Sye Ten Bruggencate.
For those who are interested in learning more regarding the Presuppositional Apologetic, I would suggest a few books, all of which can be found on Amazon.
THE DEFENSE OF THE FAITH-Cornelius Van Till, (this book is a heavy row to hoe..) Van Till undertakes to examine why man denies Christ, also looks at various philosophical worldviews, this book may be hard to understand for those who are not familiar with philosophy.
An easier to understand book may be VAN TILL’S APOLOGETIC by Dr. Greg Bahnsen...this book is much easier to get through, Bahnsen explains this methology so well, that even someone like ME can understand it.
Dr. Greg Bahnsen’s book, ALWAYS READY-DIRECTIONS FOR DEFENDING THE FAITH, is the best, and most easily accessible and understood explaination of this apologetic method.. how to proclaim the Gospel using this methodology.
A VERY simple book, titled, EVERY THOUGHT CAPTIVE, by Dr. Richard Pratt, is written at a High School level..an excellent instruction manual for how to use the Presuppositional method in practical ways, in everyday contact with friends..
Sye Ten Bruggencate has an EXCELLENT video, titled HOW TO ANSWER THE FOOL, Sye travels to various college campuses, (after getting permission from the universities,) he stands in the middle of the quad, proclaiming the Gospel to anyone who will listen..in doing so, of course; he has to answer the hecklers, and skeptics. This video shows HOW he uses the presuppositional method to do so, and so shows how ANYONE can proclaim the Gospel useing this method. Sye shows how any Christian can proclaim the Gospel..it doesn’t matter how smart anyone is. This is a GREAT instructional video, which can be ordered for 20 bucks from www.americanvision.org
Both the Evidentualist and the Presuppositional methodology are useful in proclaiming the Gospel. However, our duty is not to simply learn about these various methods, but to actually EMPLOY them in Evangelism where ever we are, and THAT is the challenge. Amen and Amen.
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let's say there is no God.
If true, then could someone tell me who created that ugly,disease-carrying cockroach crawling across my floor.
I want to scream in the person's face: Stop making those ugly creatures!
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let's say there is no God.
If true, then could someone tell me who created that ugly,disease-carrying cockroach crawling across my floor.
I want to scream in the person's face: Stop making those ugly creatures!
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Sorry about double post. Mirse
And long before that, there was the collection of CS Lewis essays, "God In The Dock" ("dock" being the defendant's position in a UK court room...quite literally, "God on Trial".)
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