Posted on 02/24/2008 4:18:12 PM PST by no nau
Over the years, many people have challenged me with a question like:
‘I’ve been trying to witness to my friends. They say they don’t believe the Bible and aren’t interested in the stuff in it. They want real proof that there’s a God who created, and then they’ll listen to my claims about Christianity. What proof can I give them without mentioning the Bible so they’ll start to listen to me?’
Briefly, my response is as follows.
Evidence
Creationists and evolutionists, Christians and non-Christians all have the same evidence—the same facts. Think about it: we all have the same earth, the same fossil layers, the same animals and plants, the same stars—the facts are all the same.
The difference is in the way we all interpret the facts. And why do we interpret facts differently? Because we start with different presuppositions. These are things that are assumed to be true, without being able to prove them. These then become the basis for other conclusions. All reasoning is based on presuppositions (also called axioms). This becomes especially relevant when dealing with past events. Past and present
We all exist in the present—and the facts all exist in the present. When one is trying to understand how the evidence came about (Where did the animals come from? How did the fossil layers form? etc.), what we are actually trying to do is to connect the past to the present.
However, if we weren’t there in the past to observe events, how can we know what happened so we can explain the present? It would be great to have a time machine so we could know for sure about past events.
Christians of course claim they do, in a sense, have a ‘time machine’. They have a book called the Bible which claims to be the Word of God who has always been there, and has revealed to us the major events of the past about which we need to know.
On the basis of these events (Creation, Fall, Flood, Babel, etc.), we have a set of presuppositions to build a way of thinking which enables us to interpret the evidence of the present.
Evolutionists have certain beliefs about the past/present that they presuppose, e.g. no God (or at least none who performed acts of special creation), so they build a different way of thinking to interpret the evidence of the present.
Thus, when Christians and non-Christians argue about the evidence, in reality they are arguing about their interpretations based on their presuppositions.
That’s why the argument often turns into something like:
‘Can’t you see what I’m talking about?’
‘No, I can’t. Don’t you see how wrong you are?’
‘No, I’m not wrong. It’s obvious that I’m right.’
‘No, it’s not obvious.’ And so on.
These two people are arguing about the same evidence, but they are looking at the evidence through different glasses.
It’s not until these two people recognize the argument is really about the presuppositions they have to start with, that they will begin to deal with the foundational reasons for their different beliefs. A person will not interpret the evidence differently until they put on a different set of glasses—which means to change one’s presuppositions.
I’ve found that a Christian who understands these things can actually put on the evolutionist’s glasses (without accepting the presuppositions as true) and understand how they look at evidence. However, for a number of reasons, including spiritual ones, a non-Christian usually can’t put on the Christian’s glasses—unless they recognize the presuppositional nature of the battle and are thus beginning to question their own presuppositions.
It is of course sometimes possible that just by presenting ‘evidence’, you can convince a person that a particular scientific argument for creation makes sense ‘on the facts’. But usually, if that person then hears a different interpretation of the same evidence that seems better than yours, that person will swing away from your argument, thinking they have found ‘stronger facts’.
However, if you had helped the person to understand this issue of presuppositions, then they will be better able to recognize this for what it is—a different interpretation based on differing presuppositions—i.e. starting beliefs.
As a teacher, I found that whenever I taught the students what I thought were the ‘facts’ for creation, then their other teacher would just re-interpret the facts. The students would then come back to me saying, ‘Well sir, you need to try again.’
However, when I learned to teach my students how we interpret facts, and how interpretations are based on our presuppositions, then when the other teacher tried to reinterpret the facts, the students would challenge the teacher’s basic assumptions. Then it wasn’t the students who came back to me, but the other teacher! This teacher was upset with me because the students wouldn’t accept her interpretation of the evidence and challenged the very basis of her thinking.
What was happening was that I had learned to teach the students how to think rather than just what to think. What a difference that made to my class! I have been overjoyed to find, sometimes decades later, some of those students telling me how they became active, solid Christians as a result. Debate terms
If one agrees to a discussion without using the Bible as some people insist, then they have set the terms of the debate. In essence these terms are:
1. ‘Facts’ are neutral. However, there are no such things as ‘brute facts’; all facts are interpreted. Once the Bible is eliminated in the argument, then the Christians’ presuppositions are gone, leaving them unable to effectively give an alternate interpretation of the facts. Their opponents then have the upper hand as they still have their presuppositions — see Naturalism, logic and reality.
2. Truth can/should be determined independent of God. However, the Bible states: ‘The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom’ (Psalm 111:10); ‘The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge’ (Proverbs 1:7). ‘But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned’ (1 Corinthians 2:14).
A Christian cannot divorce the spiritual nature of the battle from the battle itself. A non-Christian is not neutral. The Bible makes this very clear: ‘The one who is not with Me is against Me, and the one who does not gather with Me scatters’ (Matthew 12:30); ‘And this is the condemnation, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the Light, because their deeds were evil’ (John 3:19).
Agreeing to such terms of debate also implicitly accepts their proposition that the Bible’s account of the universe’s history is irrelevant to understanding that history! Ultimately, God’s Word convicts
1 Peter 3:15 and other passages make it clear we are to use every argument we can to convince people of the truth, and 2 Cor. 10:4–5 says we are to refute error (like Paul did in his ministry to the Gentiles). Nonetheless, we must never forget Hebrews 4:12: ‘For the word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing apart of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.’
Also, Isaiah 55:11: ‘So shall My word be, which goes out of My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall certainly do what I sent it to do.’
Even though our human arguments may be powerful, ultimately it is God’s Word that convicts and opens people to the truth. In all of our arguments, we must not divorce what we are saying from the Word that convicts. Practical application
When someone tells me they want ‘proof’ or ‘evidence’, not the Bible, my response is as follows:
‘You might not believe the Bible but I do. And I believe it gives me the right basis to understand this universe and correctly interpret the facts around me. I’m going to give you some examples of how building my thinking on the Bible explains the world and is not contradicted by science. For instance, the Bible states that God made distinct kinds of animals and plants. Let me show you what happens when I build my thinking on this presupposition. I will illustrate how processes such as natural selection, genetic drift, etc. can be explained and interpreted. You will see how the science of genetics makes sense based upon the Bible.’
One can of course do this with numerous scientific examples, showing how the issue of sin and judgment, for example, is relevant to geology and fossil evidence. And how the Fall of man, with the subsequent Curse on creation, makes sense of the evidence of harmful mutations, violence, and death.
Once I’ve explained some of this in detail, I then continue:
‘Now let me ask you to defend your position concerning these matters. Please show me how your way of thinking, based on your beliefs, makes sense of the same evidence. And I want you to point out where my science and logic are wrong.’
In arguing this way, a Christian is:
1. Using biblical presuppositions to build a way of thinking to interpret the evidence.
2. Showing that the Bible and science go hand in hand.1
3. Challenging the presuppositions of the other person (many are unaware they have these).
4. Forcing the debater to logically defend his position consistent with science and his own presuppositions (many will find that they cannot do this).
5. Honouring the Word of God that convicts the soul.
Remember, it’s no good convincing people to believe in creation, without also leading them to believe and trust in the Creator/Redeemer, Jesus Christ. God honours those who honour His Word. We need to use God-honouring ways of reaching people with the truth of what life is all about. Naturalism, logic and reality
Those arguing against creation may not even be conscious of their most basic presupposition, one which excludes God a priori, namely naturalism/materialism (everything came from matter, there is no supernatural, no prior creative intelligence).2 The following two real-life examples highlight some problems with that assumption:
1. A young man approached me at a seminar and stated, ‘Well, I still believe in the big bang, and that we arrived here by chance random processes. I don’t believe in God.’ I answered him, ‘Well, then obviously your brain, and your thought processes, are also the product of randomness. So you don’t know whether it evolved the right way, or even what right would mean in that context. Young man, you don’t know if you’re making correct statements or even whether you’re asking me the right questions.’
The young man looked at me and blurted out, ‘What was that book you recommended?’ He finally realized that his belief undercut its own foundations —such ‘reasoning’ destroys the very basis for reason.
2. On another occasion, a man came to me after a seminar and said, ‘Actually, I’m an atheist. Because I don’t believe in God, I don’t believe in absolutes, so I recognize that I can’t even be sure of reality.’ I responded, ‘Then how do you know you’re really here making this statement?’ ‘Good point,’ he replied. ‘What point?’ I asked. The man looked at me, smiled, and said, ‘Maybe I should go home.’ I stated, ‘Maybe it won’t be there.’ ‘Good point,’ the man said. ‘What point?’ I replied.
This man certainly got the message. If there is no God, ultimately, philosophically, how can one talk about reality? How can one even rationally believe that there is such a thing as truth, let alone decide what it is?
They’ll be having much more serious things to worry about.”
Will they be worrying?
Or will they be so filled with terror at their fate that no other thought can surface?
Or will they be so filled with the sorrow of separation from God for all eternity that no other thought can surface?
Or will they stand before God and still hate Him?
What's your relativistic inertial reference frame? A perpetual calendar travelling at 99.99999999999% of the speed of light would mark out 6,000 years while 15 billion years elapsed here on Earth. 15 billion or six days? Today, we look at time going backward. We see 15 billion years. Looking forward from when the universe is very small - billions of times smaller - the Torah / Bible says six days. In truth, they both may be correct. What's exciting about the last few years in cosmology is we now have quantified the data to know the relationship of the "view of time" from the beginning, relative to the "view of time" today. It's not science fiction any longer. Any one of a dozen physics text books all bring the same number. The general relationship between time near the beginning and time today is a million million. That's a 1 with 12 zeros after it. So when a view from the beginning looking forward says "I'm sending you a pulse every second," would we see it every second? No. We'd see it every million million seconds. Because that's the stretching effect of the expansion of the universe. The Torah doesn't say every second, does it? It says Six Days. How would we see those six days? If the Torah says we're sending information for six days, would we receive that information as six days? No. We would receive that information as six million million days. Because the Torah's perspective is from the beginning looking forward. Six million million days is a very interesting number. What would that be in years? Divide by 365 and it comes out to be 16 billion years. Essentially the estimate of the age of the universe. Not a bad guess for 3000 years ago. The way these two figures match up is extraordinary. I'm not speaking as a theologian; I'm making a scientific claim. I didn't pull these numbers out of hat. That's why I led up to the explanation very slowly, so you can follow it step-by-step. Now we can go one step further. Let's look at the development of time, day-by-day, based on the expansion factor. Every time the universe doubles, the perception of time is cut in half. Now when the universe was small, it was doubling very rapidly. But as the universe gets bigger, the doubling time gets exponentially longer. This rate of expansion is quoted in "The Principles of Physical Cosmology," a textbook that is used literally around the world. (In case you want to know, this exponential rate of expansion has a specific number averaged at 10 to the 12th power. That is in fact the temperature of quark confinement, when matter freezes out of the energy: 10.9 times 10 to the 12th power Kelvin degrees divided by (or the ratio to) the temperature of the universe today, 2.73 degrees. That's the initial ratio which changes exponentially as the universe expands.) The calculations come out to be as follows: • The first of the Biblical days lasted 24 hours, viewed from the "beginning of time perspective." But the duration from our perspective was 8 billion years. • The second day, from the Bible's perspective lasted 24 hours. From our perspective it lasted half of the previous day, 4 billion years. • The third day also lasted half of the previous day, 2 billion years. • The fourth day - one billion years. • The fifth day - one-half billion years. • The sixth day - one-quarter billion years. When you add up the Six Days, you get the age of the universe at 15 and 3/4 billion years. The same as modern cosmology. Is it by chance? But there's more. The Bible goes out on a limb and tells you what happened on each of those days. Now you can take cosmology, paleontology, archaeology, and look at the history of the world, and see whether or not they match up day-by-day. And I'll give you a hint. They match up close enough to send chills up your spine. Go directly to Dr. Schroeder's book, Genesis and the Big Bang, at Amazon books. Dr Gerald Schroeder received PhD's in Oceanography and Nuclear Physics from MIT, and was on their staff for seven years. He did extensive work with the Atomic Energy Commission. Dr. Schroeder now lives with his family in Jerusalem, Israel. He is the author of Genesis and the Big Bang and The Science of God, which has been translated into six languages.
[[Will they be worrying?
Or will they be so filled with terror at their fate that no other thought can surface?]]
No- there’ll be seething burning hatred of God and of those who follow Him- much more intense than what they now feel- all the emotions you mention will be magnified many fold.
Some people (myself included) who have had NDE’s but didn’t go to heaven but hell instead explain a little of the horror that will be hell, and the nearly indescribable pain and suffering they experienced- whether these people actually experienced hell first hand, or whether Satan was allowed to try to shake hteir faith by giving them aweful thoughts while close to death, or whether God allowed the person to experience Hell in thought for some reason, we will never know, but one hting is for certain- Hell will be no party place. When I experienced my NDE, I went through a range of emotions and experinced pain, suffocation, fear, darkness, heat, feeling like I was being consumed but not consumed- unable to escape- but again, whether real experience of Hell, or just a picture of hell from either God or Satan for whatever purposes, I’m not sure- but it was an experience that shook me quite badly for a very long time- Even now when I get real sick, these thoughts surface- Being close ot death has a way of doing that to a person. Anyways- I beleive people will experience a full range of intensly painful, sad, angry emotions that consume their thoughts- the gnashing of teeth described in the bible is said to be an effort to dull the pain and excruciating emotions.
I have a liberal family member who always says she would rather go to hell because "that's where all the cool people will be". Sad.
Who? Does she mean folks like Hitler, Stalin, Torquemada,...?
It’s not even a very good paraphrase of Mark Twain’s quip: “Heaven for climate, but Hell for the company.”
My personal opinion is that most of us are going to be more than a bit surprised about where we find ourselves after judgement, and with whom we will be spending eternity. And none more so than the more fervent true believers contributing to this thread.
“These two people are arguing about the same evidence, but they are looking at the evidence through different glasses.”
You have a Christian world view, they have a secular world view. They will be blind to the Christian world view until they become believers.
Forget it, he's rolling. *LOL*
Well, if you judge it the same way other historical documents are judged, it passes the test.
Unless you want to try and prove any historical document can be fiction then you're case is mute.
“These are competing truth claims; only one set can be true...”
Yes, but you’re never going to settle the question by pitting science against religion. They take two completely different approaches, and come at it from two completely different angles.
To me, the interesting thing is that the Bible itself says that salvation is a matter of faith. So if it’s a matter of faith, then what amount of “proof” or “evidence” or scientific logic can shake it? If you could prove that the Biblical account was true, then there would be no need for faith, and the Bible would be a lie.
What other theories explaining flight are out there?
Gee you gave a really stupid response.
It's certainly a good thing that the moon has never been closer than it is now, and it's certainly comforting to know it is not getting further away.
“Gerald Schroeder’s scheme for matching up the days of Genesis doesn’t work. He has to invent the idea that “waters above the heavens” is when the Milky Way formed, but the earth wasn’t even around at the time so the text is pretty meaningless if his interpretation is correct. Also, he says that “let there be light” on Day 1 is when the cosmic background radiation thermally separated from the primordial plasma. However, the problem with that is the Bible describes the period before that event as having darkness on the surface of the earth’s waters, whereas the primordial plasma was intensely bright before the light decoupled thermally from it. Just because the light had a very short mean free path (wasn’t yet statistically decoupled) doesn’t mean that it wasn’t there. The light in the primordial plasma was many times brighter than under a noon day sun on Earth today. So again, if Schroeder’s interpretation is correct, then the Bible text makes no sense. Bottom line: he is really stretching to make his scheme work.” ~ Phil Metzger - scientist - NASA’s Kennedy Space Center
http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:3sKUwKcdo10J:www.spacecongress.org/sessions.htm+Phil+Metzger+nasa+orlando+fl&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us
Actually, not. Jesus walked among the disciples, taught them, declared in no uncertain terms who He was, was even willing to let Thomas, who doubted, to place his hands in the wounds. You can't get more evidence than that, and yet each of those men save Judas, were men of great faith, great enough that they were willing to die horrible deaths rather than renounce Jesus.
Jesus also said that they were blessed because they saw and believed, but greater blessing would be on those who believed without seeing.
John 20:24-31 Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord!" But he said to them, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it."
A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe."
Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!"
Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."
Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
There's also the evidence of Jesus being who He said He was in Scripture, His miracles (which Jesus said testified of Him), the eyewitness accounts of the people who saw Him killed and after He was resurrected.
Faith certainly doesn't mean believing something there's no evidence for, on the contrary, the evidence strengthens the faith. Nor does it mean believing something you know isn't true, as I've seen erroneously posted on this forum.
God is the one who provides the evidence and uses it to convince unbelievers. Clearly, it's not wrong to believe because you've seen that and it doesn't make it *not faith*.
Can't you see what I see?
No, can't you see what I see?
No.
Spell check is your friend.
FWIW maybe that is the problem science changes and adapts new interpretations. Religion, as more information becomes available, does not - causing people to look at it with a skeptical eye.
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