Tag Archives: creation

Covid-19 Nuggets of Hope, Eschatology

Nuggets of Hope 24 – The King’s Beauty

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This morning I began my day with a walk to see the horses in the field at the end of our crescent. Although the weather forecast tells me a blast of winter is coming, this morning I can still taste, see and feel the glory of spring. It speaks to me of the Creator’s great wisdom.

The Biblical storyline tells us what young children often intuitively understand – we were made by a good Creator. Our lives come from His hand. The beauty and complexity of creation testifies to His goodness and power. He made humans for intimate fellowship with Himself.

That storyline goes on to tell us that a rebellious angel tempted our first parents to choose independence, and ever since there has been a curse on creation. But even when the curse was first pronounced, Eve was promised that her offspring would one day crush the serpent’s head. That offspring is Yeshua, who was, who is and who is to come. He came once to announce the coming Kingdom in words and deeds of great power, and to offer his life as a sacrifice for sins. He is coming again to restore all things.

Some ask why a good God would permit terrible things like the coronavirus to occur. There are many ways of answering that question, but anyone who has been paying attention to the message of the Kingdom shouldn’t be surprised. We know from Scripture that many things will be shaken before Jesus returns to bring in the Kingdom that cannot be shaken. We are currently experiencing one of those times of shaking.

Near the beginning of COVID-19 lockdowns, Marion and I watched a movie about World War II. It reminded me of my parents. They were 22 and 18 respectively when the Netherlands was invaded by the Wehrmacht in May 1940. They lived in an occupied nation for most of the next five years. Did they know how long it would last? No, but they held on to the hope that there would be life beyond the war, and in that hope they gave themselves to living for the day when the war would be over.

We are called to live with our eyes on an even greater Day – not just the day when the covid-19 crisis will subside, though that will be a day of great rejoicing, but the day when our eyes see the King in his beauty. Our response to Him in this age will determine whether that Day brings us the joy of sharing his reward or the horror of irreversible judgement. We are made to share in His glorious Kingdom that is coming, and to inherit a new heaven and a new earth. Don’t let the troubles of today cause you to lose sight of that hope. Let that hope anchor your soul. The King is coming.

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Intimacy with God, Reflections on Life, Seasonal Thoughts

Summer Reflections

In the coolness of a summer morning, I sit outside and sip my coffee and take in the beauty all around me.

A quiet breeze rustles the leaves of the majestic maple in my neighbour’s yard.

Wind chimes hint of faraway visions and unresolved mysteries.

The deep green leaves, bright blue sky and perfect temperature delight my senses.

For those with eyes to see, the glory of the creation points to the Glorious One.

He is coming to make all things new.

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Eschatology, Faith and Science

Why evolution can’t save you – but Jesus can

John C. Sanford is one of the world’s premier plant geneticists.  A research scientist at Cornell University since 1980,  he co-invented the gene gun which is widely used in genetic engineering of plants.

Sanford began his career as an atheist and militant evolutionist, but his conversion to Christ initiated a process of reflection which eventually led him to re-examine all his presuppositions about science.  A few years ago, Sanford published a ground-breaking work (1, 2, 3) arguing forcefully that mutations in the human genome inevitably lead downhill, and that the “Primary Axiom” of evolutionary theory (that life is the result of mutations and natural selection) is demonstrably false.

Sanford is convinced that there is no way that the evolutionary process could have led to life as we know it.  There is only one reasonable conclusion that could be drawn by an objective observer : we were made by a Designer.

Even though advances in agriculture, medicine and sanitation have led to overall improvements in human health in the past couple of generations, Sanford shows that over time, as mutations increase, there will inevitably be more cancer, more birth defects, and shortened lifespans. His model, which predicts the degeneration of the genome over time, perfectly fits the Biblical narrative of decreasing lifespans and increasing pain and suffering following the sin of Adam and Eve.

This might not sound like good news. However, if the Titanic is going down, you’d want to know where the lifeboats are. Sanford argues that the evidence from science points us to our need for a Saviour, and declares that Jesus is our lifeboat, our way of escape from a dying creation. In his own words, ” … Jesus is our hope … He gave us life in the first place—so He can give us new life today. He made heaven and earth in the first place—so He can make a new heaven and earth in the future”.

 

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Apologetics, Basic Principles, Faith and Science, Reflections on Life, Social Commentary

The parable of Steve Jobs and the two iPhones

Once upon a time two iPhones were having a chat. It went something like this.

Phone #1 :  “I wonder how we got here?  We are so amazing, I think someone very smart – even smarter and more amazing than us – must have made us. ”

Phone #2 :  “No, I don’t believe that.  That’s just a fairy tale.  Don’t you know that there used to be other, simpler Apple devices,  not nearly as amazing as we are?  The landscape is littered with them.  No-one made us.  I think we must have evolved from a more primitive species of Apple.”

Phone #1 :  “No way, phone.  I’m way too amazing to have just happened by accident.  I think that human they call Steve Jobs must be responsible.  They say he started the whole Apple thing in the first place.  I’ve heard he’s a creative genius.  Nothing as amazing as us could have happened just by chance.  I think Steve Jobs must have designed us for some purpose.  Maybe we were made for him to enjoy. ”

Phone #2 :  “Steve Jobs?  Haven’t you heard that he’s dead?  No-one believes in him anymore.  I tell you, phone, you got here by accident – pure chance.  One day, a long long time ago, all the components for the first Apple device were just swimming around in a component soup, and there was a big explosion, and presto – the very first Mac just appeared, all by itself.  And that’s where it all started.  Then gradually they started changing, all by themselves, and then other forms of Apple devices began to emerge.  And eventually the first iPod crawled out of the slime onto land, and after that came the iPhone.  No-one made you.  I tell you, Steve Jobs never existed.  You just happened.  Get used to it.  You have no creator and no purpose.  Steve Jobs is just a myth.”

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For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
Romans 1:20, NIV

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Apologetics, Basic Principles, Faith and Science

Beyond Reason

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Beyond Reason.

Margaret Trudeau wrote a memoir by this title in 1979, and in 2009 Roger Fisher and Daniel Shapiro wrote about the art of negotiation in a work by the same title.

Both books were best-sellers, but when I hear the expression beyond reason, I don’t think of either of them, nor the talk show by the same title.  To me, the phrase beyond reason suggests one of two things – either behaviour that is unreasonable and therefore hard to accept (“it’s beyond reason the way he carries on”), or a belief that is unsupported by reason and therefore unconvincing (“I can’t imagine that Jim still believes in Santa Claus at age 29 – it’s beyond reason“).

In this post, I am not going to get cranky about anyone’s unreasonable behaviour.  Rather, I want to focus on one very popular belief that I consider to be beyond reason, even though it is held by many seemingly rational people.  I am referring to the increasingly common belief that life on earth was not created by some supernatural intelligence, but “just happened”.  I was exposed to this belief in university and accepted it for a time, thinking it was undeniable because it had been proven by science.   I have since given the matter a lot of consideration and have concluded that this common conviction is in reality totally unfounded, and that far from being based on reason it is in fact quite unreasonable.

I realize, of course, that by definition beliefs about the origins of life are unprovable.  By its own standards, operational science can have nothing conclusive to say about such matters.  From a scientific perspective, the best we can do is talk about possibilities and probabilities, because no-one was there to observe what actually happened.

So let’s stick to possibilities and probabilities.

Today I did a Google search on “What do cells do”.  My first hit was a very informative site from the British Science Museum.  In it, I found this revealing description of just one of the functions of living cells
( How do cells make proteins )

Proteins are large, complex molecules, which all your cells are making continuously. Each protein is made up of many amino acids which must join together in the correct order for the protein to work properly. Imagine a car assembly line: to end up with a working car, the workers must know when and where to add each part. Likewise, the cell needs a set of commands for making proteins. This instruction manual is in your genes – found in the cell nucleus. 

This is just one of the many intricate processes that are going on constantly inside each living cell. I studied introductory biology in university almost 40 years ago.  Since then, what is known about cellular biology has increased greatly, but even what was known at that time was enough to amaze me. I was in awe of the complexity and level of organization involved in the structure and function of even the simplest living cells.  Yet, the lecturer was clearly hostile to Christianity and all forms of theism, and openly mocked any suggestion that such wonders might have originated from the hand of a Creator.  No, he insisted, any reasonable person would agree that they arose purely by natural processes.   Such confidence seems more like an article of faith than a scientifically-based conclusion.  It makes me wonder who is being unreasonable.

It’s a well-known fact of cellular biology that cells can only come from other living cells.  No scientist has ever observed, or been able to reproduce, the spontaneous generation of a living cell from inert chemicals.  So how did the first living cell arise?  The popular site How Stuff Works addresses this issue in an article entitled Where did the first living cell come from.  Despite being written with a clear evolutionary bias, the article still contains the surprising admission that no-one really knows how the first living cell could have arisen “spontaneously out of the inert chemicals of Planet Earth perhaps 4 billion years ago“.  Yet, the author assures us, one day science will find the answer.   Really?

I work in the field of information technology, writing PL/SQL code to implement business logic in Oracle database systems.  Someone had to create the PL/SQL engine that I use to write and compile my code.  Someone else had to design the core Oracle database engine and the SQL language on which the PL/SQL language is built.  Someone else had to design the C programming language in which most of Oracle’s core components are written.  Someone else had to come up with the basic binary logic that makes all computer languages possible.  And that’s only a small part of what is required for me to do my work.  There are layers upon layers of complex systems and sub-systems underlying every line of code that I write.  But even given the best tools to work with, if I blindly hit keys on my computer keyboard, my code would not be very good – in fact it wouldn’t work at all.  I have to apply structured reasoning and creative intelligence to the process of coding, otherwise I come up with nothing but a useless mess.

There is far greater complexity programmed into even the simplest living cell than what is contained in any computer program that I could ever hope to write.  Faced with this undeniable reality, an unbiased, unprejudiced observer could draw only one conclusion.  There must have been some creative intelligence involved in the process.   This is not provable, of course, but it is the only reasonable conclusion in light of the available evidence.  In fact, we can go farther and assert that it is beyond reason to suppose it all just happened by chance, spontaneously.

Francis Crick, the man who won the Nobel Prize for co-discovering the structure of DNA, and a self-proclaimed atheist, made this startlingly frank admission :

An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going  ( Crick, F., Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1981, p. 88 )

Evolutionists typically scoff at Bible stories that include miraculous elements, such as the account of the virgin birth of Christ.  David White (Single Cell Irony, Creation 32(3):20, June 2010), has cogently pointed out that it really takes no more faith to believe in the virgin birth of Jesus than to believe that the first living cell could have arisen spontaneously.  After all, when considering the feasibility of the virgin birth, it is really only the origin of the first embryonic cell of Jesus that is at issue.  The first fertilized cell in a human embryo contains the entire human genome – all the information required to give rise to a fully-functioning human being.  Once this first cell was formed, Jesus’ embryo would have grown through natural processes, with no further miraculous intervention.  The Bible agrees with this statement, clearly indicating that it was only Jesus’ conception that was miraculous, initiated by the Holy Spirit.

While the thought of a miraculous conception of a fertilized human embryo may seem far-fetched to someone predisposed to believe that supernatural events cannot occur, consider for a moment.  Is it really any harder to believe that God could miraculously fertilize an already-existing egg inside Mary’s womb (an environment perfectly designed and suited for such a feat), thus creating the first embryonic cell that gave rise to Jesus, than to believe that the first living cell on earth arose spontaneously out of chemical soup in circumstances that “just happened” to be perfectly suited for its survival, growth and reproduction?

Yet, oddly, it is creationists who are mocked by evolutionists and criticized for believing in miracles.   It’s beyond reason … seems they must have a hidden agenda, no?

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.  For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.  (Romans 1:20-21, NIV)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.  Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.  In him was life, and that life was the light of men.  The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.  (John 1:1-5, NIV)

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Apologetics, Basic Principles, Reflections on Life

Circle of life?

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Recently several of my friends and colleagues have lost loved ones.  My own father and mother died in 2007 and 2008, and my wife’s parents are in their upper 80s and dealing with diminished capacities.  All of this has prompted me to reflect again on life, death, and eternity.

As we move from childlike innocence to adulthood, all of us have to learn to reckon with events over which we have little or no control, events that threaten our sense of order.  When a loved one dies, your country is suddenly plunged into war, you lose your job and cannot pay your bills, or your health is threatened, it can feel as though your life is sliding from order to chaos.

From what I can observe, our dog Cookie doesn’t spend much time worrying about why things are the way they are, or what will happen to her tomorrow.  But humans are different from dogs – we have a built-in drive to make sense of life in some way.  So, we try to come up with explanations that comfort us and give meaning to our lives.

One very common way of coping with the reality of aging, illness and death is to see them as simply an inevitable part of “the circle of life”.  We live; we grow old; we die.  The ancient Greeks added the belief that death was a welcome release for the soul, which they saw as having been trapped for a time in the physical realm.  In this view, death is not an enemy, not something to be feared or even resisted, but simply a natural and even welcome part of the life process.  All living things come from the earth and must go back to the earth; when your time comes, you die, and your soul goes to some sort of (hopefully friendly) afterworld.

This way of thinking is quite ancient but still very popular today.  It has the appearance of wisdom, and with the addition of a belief in heaven it can even masquerade as a Christian outlook.  But although there are elements of truth and wisdom in this way of looking at life, at its core are two beliefs that are totally contrary to Christian faith: the view that death in its proper time is a friend, not an enemy; and the view that we all automatically go to some state of bliss after we die.

In contrast, the Bible clearly portrays death as an enemy, not a friend.  In Biblical thinking, humans were made for an unbroken relationship with God, and death is an unwelcome intruder, the tragic consequence of our first parents’ decision to turn away from God towards independence.  It is true that believers in the risen Christ do not need to fear death; but that’s not because death is our friend, it’s because Jesus has risen from the dead to conquer our enemy.

But why does this matter?  Does it make a difference what you believe about such things?

Yes it does.  Beliefs have consequences.   If humans are just souls trapped inside bodies for a while, then by killing someone you are really doing him a favour.  Then Hitler was doing those 6 million Jews a favour by incinerating them; he was just liberating their souls from their bodies.  You can see where that type of thinking leads – abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide all become acceptable and even compassionate choices.   If, on the other hand, we were  made for an eternal purpose and we have an eternal destiny in a renewed and restored earth,  then each human life has eternal value.  This has huge consequences both for how I conduct my own life and the degree of respect with which I treat the lives of others.

Probably all of us who have watched a loved one die slowly can relate at some level to the idea of death as a friend.  I have to admit that I was relieved when my mother died, because I felt she had suffered long enough, and I was confident that she was going into the presence of the Lord.   I am so thankful that she met her Redeemer before she died and that she is in His presence today.  However, I did not see her death as simply a natural culmination of her life, but rather as an expression of humanity’s broken condition and our need for a Redeemer; and while I was in agreement with the family decision to let her die without trying to bring her back to life artificially, I could never have agreed to any form of euthanasia because I do not believe that her life was mine to end.

I believe that my life is headed somewhere – it is a journey with a destination, not a circle.  I believe that Jesus rose from the dead to set me free from the power of death and the fear of death, and that regardless of what trials I may face in my life,  I have a glorious destiny in a renewed heaven and earth.  I also believe that I will one day face the one who made me and redeemed me and give an account for what I have done with my life while I am on this earth.  I’m thankful that I don’t need to fear judgment, since Jesus has paid the price for my sins, but I want to live in a way that brings joy to the One who suffered so much for me.

Life is not a circle but a journey with a destination.  All of us are headed somewhere.  Whether we are headed for glory or misery depends on our response to the One who gave His all for our freedom.  The price has been paid, and the gift of eternal life has been purchased for us, at an incredibly high price – the lifeblood of the only truly pure man who ever lived.  What we do with that gift determines our eternal destiny.  The value we place on the lives of others – especially the weak and helpless – says much about the value we assign to His sacrifice.

Over to you …

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Basic Principles, Faith and Relationships, Reflections on Life

In God’s image : creativity

My friend Frank MacDougall is the CTO and co-founder of GestureTek, a pioneer in camera-enabled gesture-recognition technology for presentation and entertainment systems.   To develop this new technology he had to be a visionary – he had to be able to imagine something that did not currently exist, that he could not see, feel or touch, and then bring it into being.

I am currently reading Stone of Farewell, a fantasy novel by Tad Williams.   One of the things I love about the book is its vivid descriptions of a world that is entirely imaginary.   To write this series of novels, the author had to conceive a universe that no-one but the readers of his books would ever see, then breathe life into it with his words.

My wife Marion tutors children who have trouble learning.  Part of her task is to help them to see themselves differently.  She has to be able to see potential that they might not see in themselves, convince them that they do indeed have this potential, then motivate them to make it a reality.

Creativity – it’s part of what makes us human, part of what it means to be made in the image of God.  Although animals display varying degrees of intelligence and skill, they do not appear to possess this ability to imagine a complex reality that never existed, and then bring it into being.  Alone on the earth, humans possess this attribute of creativity in abundance.

Of course, there is a basic difference between God’s creativity and ours.  We work with materials and potentialities that are provided to us in the already-created world into which we are born.  God started from nothing.

Another difference between God’s creativity and ours is that our human creative capacities can be used for good or for evil.  Along with great works of art, music, medical breakthroughs, and various other beneficial discoveries, under the influence of the Evil One our race has also spawned computer viruses, concentration camps, and torture chambers.

What God creates, on the other hand, is always good.   It’s true that God’s creation has been marred by sin and suffering – but that was not His original intent or plan.  All manner of misery can be traced back to the malicious thief who has invaded God’s world to steal, kill and destroy what God has made.  But that’s not the end of the story!   The great rebellion set the stage for God’s most creative act.

When my son was a little boy, he would bring me a broken toy and say “Daddy, fix it”.  And this is what our God has done with the gift of creativity that He originally imparted to us.   When our first parents chose independence and went their own way, choosing to resist God’s influence, gradually our creativity became corrupted and all manner of evil began to emerge.   But just when things were at their worst and all hope seemed lost, God sent His Son – the perfect reflection of His goodness and glory – to initiate a new beginning on planet Earth, a new creation.

As a result, those who live under Jesus’ Lordship are promised that one day His image in us will be fully restored and we will be like Him.   I am so grateful that God is able to fix what we have messed up – and not only fix it, but work even our mistakes and sins into His redemptive pattern, so that the end result incorporates what we did and looks even better than it would have if we had never gotten involved.   We see this supremely in the cross – an instrument of the worst kind of evil, yet chosen and used by God for His good purposes and made into the means of our redemption.

The great apostle Paul said it best ( Romans 11:33-36 ) :

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
“Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?”
“Who has ever given to God,
that God should repay him?”
For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.

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Apologetics, Basic Principles, Faith and Relationships

Made in God’s image

In my next few posts I want to expore the topic of our human nature.   Since people are usually interested in themselves, these topics could be good discussion starters for small groups.

Let’s start with the concept that we are made in God’s image.   This is a basic Biblical principle.  But what does it really mean?

In the ancient world, kings would erect little statues of themselves at the borders of their realm.  The image looked enough like the king that everyone who saw it would recognize it.  It represented the king’s authority and power – it was a way of saying “This territory belongs to the King”.   So when the book of Genesis says that God made humankind in his image, this is very significant.  Genesis goes on to say that God assigned us the task of governing the created world.  This means we are put in charge of the earth on His behalf, and that we represent His rule and authority on earth.

Being made in God’s image also means that we are intended to be like God.   I’ll explore some implications of this idea in my next few posts.  God’s original intent was that we would have unbroken fellowship with Him, and that our lives would reflect His glory and goodness on earth.  We see this only imperfectly because the original couple gave into the snake’s deception and chose independence, turning against God.   If we had never sinned, this likeness would be far more evident and complete.

Even so, there is a nobility in the human spirit that reflects our origins.   St. Augustine, one of the greatest writers and thinkers in all of Christian history, said that human nature is like a ruined palace.  Although it is in ruins, you can still see the outlines of the glory that was originally intended by its creator.  Although human beings have become capable of much evil, we have many capacities that distinguish us from the animal kingdom and reflect our unique place as carriers of God’s image.   We’ll look at some of these in the next few posts.

The image of God in us is also a clue to where we are headed.  The New Testament tells us that tells us that Jesus our Lord is a perfect reflection of God’s glory, and that the destiny of those who belong to Jesus is to be made like Him.

For discussion and reflection :

  • What difference does it make in the way you live your life to know that you were made in God’s image, and are destined to reflect Christ’s glory?
  • What difference does it make in the way you treat others or think about them to realize that they, too, are made in his image, no matter how damaged they may be?
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Apologetics, Reflections on Life

Who made the hyacinth?

Last week I bought a hyacinth plant for my wife.  It was still in bud at the time, and we couldn’t tell what colour the blooms would be.   This morning she showed me, with great delight, that the buds were beginning to blossom into deliciously fragrant tiny white flowers.

Have you ever considered the amazing complexity of a flowering plant?  The visual design alone is astounding.   Our hyacinth boasts dozens of tightly-clustered blossoms, each one a tiny flower in its own right.   Looking a little deeper, the reproductive system of a flowering plant – pistils, stamens, pollen – is both delicate and elegant.   And that’s not to mention the myriad of interdependent systems and sub-systems which cannot be seen by the naked eye, but which are all required in order for the plant to function.   Each cell in even the simplest living thing is incredibly complex.  And of course each of these marvels of engineering depends on the design built in to the chemical molecules that allow it to function.  The molecules, in turn, depend on the consistency of design of their constituent atoms.  Digging a little deeper, we get into atomic structure and sub-atomic particles, and again we have amazing mysteries of complex design.  All this so that a simple flower can bloom!

Small children sometimes like to play with magnetized plastic letters and form words out of them.  Suppose I had a collection of several hundred of these plastic letters, and I painstakingly picked out just the right ones to create the text of this blog post, mixed them in a bucket, and dumped them out.   How likely is it that the letters would have arranged themselves into the words, sentences and paragraphs in this article?

We all know, of course, that this is extremely unlikely.   Probability theory shows that if a monkey were trained to type randomly on a keyboard, it would take about 113 billion years for the 23rd Psalm to emerge.  Astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle, himself not a Christian, ridiculed the idea that the operating system of a living cell could be arrived at by chance, calling it nonsense of a high order.

Yet evolutionists would have us believe that this is the way flowers – or people, for that matter –  came into existence.   This conviction defies all logic, and cannot be proven (after all, no contemporary scientist was there to observe evolution from goo to you) but that’s what they believe.  The only kind of evolution that is observeable is natural selection within already-existing information (such as happens in breeding different strains of corn, for example).   No new information ever gets created in this process;  what happens is that the existing information is selected in particular ways to achieve a particular result, under the influence of either the breeder or (in nature) the natural environment.  But the very fact that natural selection works at all is actually further evidence for the amazing amount of intelligence built into the DNA of every living thing.

Of course, my wife’s lovely hyacinth did not come directly from the hand of God – it was produced by the labours of horticulturists.   But who created the amazingly well-ordered systems that allow these horticulturists to do their work?  Although I used to be among those who do not believe, I am more grateful than words can express to my God who opened my eyes and showed me His goodness in Creation, and supremely in Jesus, the Word made flesh.  I am now proud to say that no matter what popular opinion maintains, I know without any doubt that the hyacinth can only exist because an amazingly good Creator made it possible.   Nothing else makes any sense.

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Apologetics, Reflections on Life

The atheist bus campaign

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Today I left a comment on the Atheist Bus Campaign web site.  For those who haven’t heard of this campaign, it involves placing ads on buses in cities throughout Canada with the slogan “There’s probably no God.  Now stop worrying and enjoy your life”.

I’m not at all distressed by this campaign.  It shouldn’t surprise us in the least if we understand the Bible, because we are clearly told that in the last days there will be an increase in unbelief.  We’re also told that Jesus will return for a glorious Bride.  I believe that we can expect the line between faith and unbelief to become much more visible as the Lord’s return draws near.

I see this campaign as a great opportunity for Christ-followers to consider why we believe and how we can give an intelligent defense of our faith.  Of course, when you try to do this you soon discover that many atheists are not really all that rational or logical in their arguments.  Still, it is a good thing for us to be able to give reasons for the hope that we have.

What arguments would you use if you were trying to get atheists to re-think their position – keeping in mind that our goal is not simply to win a debate, but to speak the truth in love so that some may have their eyes opened and come to know the God who loves them?

If I were having a conversation with an individual atheist who was open to a dialogue, my response would depend on where they were coming from, and what stumbling blocks they were dealing with.  In my comments on the atheist web site, I pointed to the incredible complexity of the creation, which is totally contrary to the entropy principle (the Second Law of Thermodynamics).   Basically this law says that left to itself, everything in the natural world always tends towards more randomness.   We see this in the inevitable process of decay that affects all living things.   But the question for atheists to consider is how the complexity of life could have arisen in the first place.   The idea that life arose spontaneously, by evolutionary processes, is not supported at all by the most elementary logic or probability theory.  By the way, contrary to popular belief, the idea that life arose spontaneously has never been proven by science because it is unprovable – it is simply a faith position.

So what would you say to someone who holds an atheist position, but was open to talking about it?  Don’t be afraid of the dialogue.  Remember, you don’t have to defend God – His existence and His sovereignty aren’t affected one bit by the delusions of those who do not believe.  But for the sake of those who are open and searching, we need to be able to articulate a response.

There are many good resources for those who want to grow in their ability to give reasons to believe.  Personally I have found the web site of Creation Ministries International to be an excellent source of help over the years.   Feel free to post your own favourites in a comment.

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