A Letter to Clare: Apologetics 101 Part 4

In this five-part series on apologetics, Dr. Dick Jones provides a number of useful insights via a letter to Clare, a real person. Beyond its hoped-for impact on her life, this offering from the  Truth of God’s word was written so as to be equally useful for today’s Christian adults, the majority of whom have been philosophically enslaved to a faulty belief system. (This is part four of a five part series.)

Dear Clare,

Review of Part 3: Evolution is true – a true dream about a dreamy theory. Meanwhile, a non-created, universe-creating God simply has to exist because of the impossibility that He doesn’t.

Imaginary explosions, swampy ponds and life coming from non-life aren’t the Christian answers for truth about creation or for knowing and thinking. But, you’re still wise to ask: “Aren’t there non-Christian or even anti-Christian books out there with 100% different versions of ‘truth’ as they see it?” Yes. Christianity-rejecting religions have plenty, and evolutionists, atheist leaders, the angry people and a lot of scientists have even more. But, whatever they write or teach at any given moment is often way off base because of man’s inner sin nature. That’s why the opinions of leaders and their followers constantly change depending on what’s popular, not necessarily on what’s true. What they say about epistemology and about God are not opinions we can trust.

Even so, millions keep stubbornly fighting against Him. Most of the time this would just be kind of funny, but too many of them have power in school, in magazines, in movies, on TV and elsewhere to get American kids to switch over to their big pretend answer of evolution. And, sadly, it’s taught it a lot. But, think of this: Imagine you’re at a store, at work or at a party and you meet an evolutionist type. He’s not lecturing at that moment so you quickly see he’s not acting as though he believes either of you are animals or that the chemical-electrical lump he calls his brain is an accident, or that neither of you have important life purposes. In fact it’s very interesting that his general behavior is pretty much like yours. So, if you ask him why his beliefs about things are in the same ballpark as your Christian beliefs, don’t be surprised to hear this:

“I’m not a Christian, but my moral standards are just as good as yours, and I don’t have to depend on faith in a fictitious god for them like you do. I know right from wrong (and I can know and think) because of reason, logic and common sense.” Or, that “society shows the way,” or that “history proves it,” or that “everyone agrees.” He may even throw “science” into the mix. So, is it true that these kinds of people can know, think and be logical just like everyone else? Absolutely!, but they refuse to give Him credit. Instead, they proudly take credit for it themselves. This is where not knowing about epistemology lets them down. Here’s the truth:

 

Without admitting it – and they always deny it when you bring it up – they have to borrow the Christian worldview from the Bible in order to account for knowing, thinking, right and wrong. There’s no other place for them to go except for the Bible, the same, historically proven Bible telling us that God, in the form of Jesus, was and is a real person who came to earth 2,000 years ago and who lived among us for 33 years. 

Here are five explanations why the trust they think they have in their own intellectual strength doesn’t make sense:

First Problem: If we are only accidental evolved animals (we’re not) with accidental brains, this primitive “glob” of a brain could never understand or have the ability to account for rules about knowing, thinking, right and wrong. Our friends, the evolutionists, can’t have it both ways – the brain can’t be just a chemical glob “during evolution classroom hours,” but then turn back into a highly complex, advanced body organ once class is over – J. Fortunately, evolutionists really do have every right to be confident in their knowing, thinking and morality skills because they’re made in God’s image. They automatically know in their hearts about right, wrong and the Golden Rule because the God who created us placed them in there.

Second Problem: The big bang explosion people are always ridiculing Christians. They do it by asking, “If your wonderful God exists then who created Him?” But, fair is fair which is why we get to ask, “who created your teeny-tiny, pre-explosion particle?” If they were honest they’d admit that their faith says that their particle must have “always been” and not created. It takes a lot more faith to believe in an imaginary particle and that non-God reasons can be a source for knowing, thinking, right and wrong than does the Christian faith in the God of the Bible. The truth is that evolutionists are every bit as religious as Christians. All of us have an unavoidable, God-given “spiritual itch” in our souls and evolutionists try to deal with their itch by looking at evolution as though it were an actual religion. Science laboratories are their churches; physical testing in laboratories is their worship ceremony; science is their substitute bible; scientists are their ministers and priests, and evolved man (mostly them!) is god. They can say their “religion of evolution” gives them to power to have moral standards, but of course it doesn’t.

Third Problem: You know that the word “science” often refers to the research and experiments that take place in a science laboratory. To investigate something in a lab, the thing has to be physical in nature (seeable, touchable) so that it can be scientifically measured with equipment. (We can’t bring the moon to a lab, but long-distance lab equipment can still do the measuring.) But, here’s where the evolutionists go too far. Because non-physical (immaterial) things, for example things like God, love, life’s big questions, purpose, kindness etc. can’t be tested in a lab, evolutionists say scientists don’t need to waste serious time on them. They’re better left for chats at church, funerals or over coffee on the back porch. This pretend “lab only” rule wants us to believe that important facts only come from labs, not from the Bible or studying about God.

But, hang on a minute. That doesn’t make sense. If it were true, evolutionists and atheists would have to admit that what they do because of their own non-lab-testable logic and common sense “skills” are worthless regarding making sense about life, thinking or anything else. “Logic” can’t be measured in their highly worshipped science labs either! Going a step further, they’d also have to admit that even having just the idea (also an immaterial thing) about doing the pre-construction dreaming about a brand new laboratory can’t be physically checked out or tested in advance in some other lab. Labs don’t build themselves, and yet every new lab has to begin as a non-lab-measurable idea/thing in someone’s mind. Just because something is immaterial doesn’t mean it’s not important, and, that’s true for the evolutionists’ own reason, logic and common sense skills, too. Skills, by the way, they received from God, not from the teeny particle.

Here’s the summary: If immaterial things like reason and logic are important – and they are – then so is the Biggest Immaterial of Them All – God. The way that evolutionists try to trick each other into denying and disobeying Him is by saying that since immaterials can’t be measured in a lab “empirically” (a fancy word for experimental or trial-and-error) then He must not exist.

Problems number 4 and 5 are coming up next in Part 5 of this letter.