Excerpts from the book of the same name by Norman Geisler and Frank Turk
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Introduction
When they asked Mortimer Adler, who edited the series of books of the ‘Great Book of the Western World’, why the ‘God’ section is the most comprehensive in the entire series of these books, he sharply noted that it has more implications than any other theme. In fact, the five most important in life:
1. Origin: Where do we come from?
2. Identity: Who are we?
3. Sense: Why are we here?
4. Morality: How should we live?
5. Fate: Where are we headed?
The answer to each of these questions depends on the existence of God. If God exists, then your life has a ultimate meaning and purpose. If your life has a deeper meaning, then there is the right and wrong way to live it. The decisions you make now affect not only your life here, but also affect you in eternity. On the other hand, if God does not exist, then your life ultimately has no permanent meaning. Thus, there is no right or wrong way to live it. And it doesn’t matter how you live it.
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What god?
Before we continue, let’s make sure we are clear about the terminology. Most of the world’s major religions fall into one of these three religious world views: theism, pantheism and atheism.
theist is someone who believes in the personal God who created the universe, but not part of the universe. This could be compared to a painter and a painting. God is like a painter and his creation is like a picture. God painted a picture and his qualities are manifested in it, but God is not an image. the main theistic religions are Christianity, Judaism and Islam.
Whereas pantheist is someone who believes in an impersonal God who them literally by space. So instead of God painting the picture, pantheists believe that God them by image. In fact, pantheists believe that God is all that exists: God is grass; God is heaven; God is a tree; God is this book; God is you; God is I; etc. Major pantheistic religions are Eastern religions, such as Hinduism, some forms of Buddhism and many forms of ‘new age’.
Of course an atheist is someone who doesn’t believe in any god. To continue our analogy, atheists believe that what looks like an image, it has always existed and nobody painted it. Religious humanists would fall into this category.
Here is an easy way to remember these three religious views of the world:
Theism – God He created Everything;
Pantheism – God them Everything;
atheism – no God.
Another term we will use often is agnostic. That’s someone, Who is unsure about God’s question. Now that we have defined terms, let’s go back to the question of faith and religion.
Faith and Religion
Despite its apparent persuasiveness, it is not a claim that Religion is only a matter of faith, nothing but a modern myth – it’s just not true. though religion certainly requires faith, religion is not only about faith. fact are also the focal point of all religions, because all religious views of the world (including atheism) It claims the truth. And many of these claims of truth can be evaluated through scientific and historical research. Theists (e.g. Christians, Muslims, Jews) claim that the universe had its beginning, while many atheists and pantheists (e.g. followers of the New Age, Hindus) claim that it did not (the universe is eternal).
These are mutually exclusive claims. Both cannot be correct. Either the universe had a beginning or it shouldn’t. Based on the investigation of the nature and history of the universe, we can reasonably come to the conclusion that one opinion is correct and the other is incorrect.
Another example is the alleged resurrection of Christ. Christians claim that Jesus rose from the dead while Muslims say Jesus never died. Again, one of these opinions is correct and the other is incorrect. How can we find out which one is correct? By comparing each of these conflicting claims of truth to historical evidence.
Note that not only different religions are trying to answer these questions, but also scientists have something to say about these matters. This means that science and religion often deal with the same questions: Where does the universe come from? Where does life come from? Are miracles possible? …and so on. In other words, Science and religion are not mutually exclusive categories, as some suggest.
Certainly not all religious claims can be subjected to scientific or historical investigation. Some are an unverifiable dogma. However, the validity of many religious beliefs can be verified. Some beliefs are reasonable – they can be proven with a high degree of certainty –, while others are clearly unreasonable.
Problems with Christianity
Is Christianity reasonable? We believe so. However, if one does not thoroughly examine the evidence with an open mind, the belief in Christianity may seem problematic…. There are many questions about Christianity, but despite these intellectual, emotional and willful obstacles, we argue that the difficulty is not faith in Christianity, but the belief in atheism or any other religion. This means that once one looks at the evidence, we believe that being a non-Christian requires more faith than being a Christian. This may appear as a statement that is contrary to common sense, but it is simply based on the fact that Every religious worldview requires faith – even a worldview that says that God does not exist.
Why? Because as limited human beings we do not have the kind of knowledge that would provide us with absolute proof of the existence or non-existence of God. Apart from knowing our own existence (I know I exist because I have to exist to be able to think about this issue), we are in the realm of probability.
Whatever conclusion we have come to regarding the existence of God, it is always possible that the opposite conclusion is true. In fact, it is possible that our conclusions in this book are wrong. We don’t think so because we have good evidence that supports them. In fact, we think our conclusions are true without any doubts. (This type of certainty, say 95% or more, is the best that erroneous and limited people can achieve on most questions, and it is more than enough for the most important decisions in life.) However, a certain belief is needed to overcome the possibility of being We are wrong.
faith of an atheist
Although our conclusions require a certain amount of faith, it is often forgotten that faith is also necessary for the acceptance of any worldview, including atheism and pantheism. This was recently reminded by an atheist named Barry, whom we met at one of our seminars. Barry couldn’t believe our mutual friend Steve had become a Christian.
He said, ‘I don’t understand Steve. He says he’s an intellectual, but he can’t answer all the objections I put to him about Christianity. He says he doesn’t have all the answers because he’s a newbie and he’s still learning.’ I (Frank) said, “Barry, it’s practically impossible to know everything about a certain topic, and it’s definitely impossible when the subject is the infinite God. So there must come a moment when you realize that you have enough information to come to a conclusion, even if the questions remain unanswered.”
Barry agreed, but still didn’t realize he was doing exactly what he criticized Steve for. Barry decided that his opinion – atheism – was correct, although he did not have exhaustive information to support him. Did he know for sure that God did not exist? Did he examine all the arguments and evidence for the existence of God? Did he have exhaustive information about the question of God? Could he have answered all the objections to atheism? Of course not. In fact, it would be impossible.
An atheist must have much more faith than a Christian! What does Geisler and the Turk mean? we mean that The less evidence you have for your opinion, the more faith you need to believe it (and vice versa). Faith fills in knowledge gaps. And it turns out that Atheists have more gaps in their knowledge because they have far less evidence for their beliefs than Christians for their. In other words, Empirical, forensic and philosophical evidence strongly supports conclusions that are consistent with Christianity and contrary to atheism.
Fourth, we present evidence for Christianity, because we should live our lives based on the truth. Socrates once said that an unexplored life is not worth living.3 We believe that an unexplored faith is not worth believing. moreover, Contrary to popular belief, Christians should not ‘just believe’. Christians have a duty to know what they believe in and why they believe. They have the duty to answer those who ask them (1 Peter 3:15) and refute the arguments against the Christian faith (2 Cor 10:4-5). Because God is reasonable (Is 1:18) and wants us to use our mind. Christians don’t get points for being stupid.
In fact, the use of reason is part of the greatest commandment, which according to Jesus reads: ‘Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind” (Mat 22:37
Finally, they often ask us: ‘If Christianity has so much evidence, why do more people believe in it?’ Our Answer: Although we believe that the evidence we are about to present proves that the Bible is without a doubt true, no amount of evidence can make anyone believe in it. Faith requires the consent of not only the mind, but also the will. While many non-believers have sincere intellectual questions, we have found that many more people seem to have the will to resist Christianity. In other words, It’s not that they don’t have evidence to believe, it’s that they don’t want to believe. ‘It is our preference that decides against Christianity, not arguments.’6
God has provided enough evidence in this life to convince anyone who is willing to believe, but at the same time to leave a certain ambiguity not to force those who do not want to believe. In this way, God gives us the opportunity to love him or to reject him without violating our freedom.
Continuing in Part 1
