inContext Magazine 2014 by Andy Bannister

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THE EXISTENCE OF GOD:

FAITH, FACT, OR FANTASY? By Dr. Andy Bannister

if GOD, why S U F F E R I N G ? By Vince Vitale

Can You Trust

THE BIBLE? By Nathan Betts

how firm a foundation? By Abdu Murray

Does the Resurrection Change Anything? By Rick Manafo

inCONTEXT The Canadian Apologetics Magazine | VOL. 3

inCONTEXT MAGAZINE | VOLUME 3 | rzim.ca

BURNING QUESTIONS EDITION

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REAL ANSWERS TO REAL QUESTIONS FROM REAL PEOPLE

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RZIM TEAM

RZIM Canada exists to reach people for Christ through showing the credibility and beauty of the Gospel. We therefore seek to address the heartfelt concerns and intellectual objections to Christianity from both seekers and skeptics alike, so that people can have an unobstructed view of Christ.

From university open forums to TV and radio debates, from seminars to conferences to church events, through speaking, writing, print and online, the RZIM Canada team works across the country (and further afield) to help the thinker believe and the believer think. Why not consider inviting RZIM Canada to partner with you in helping you reach your community or train and equip your group to articulate the Good News of Christ with clarity, conviction and compassion in a world of competing ideas? Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d love to discuss ways we could serve you â&#x20AC;&#x201D; drop us an email at info@rzim.ca or call the office on 416-385-9199.

For inspiration or resources Find us at rzimcanada

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Andy Writes Life at RZIM is always busy, but this last season has been busier than most as I’ve been working hard on a major TV documentary called Burning Questions. The show sets out to explore six of life’s biggest questions. The 18 months it’s taken to write, film and produce have seen the film crew and I rack up thousands of miles, hundreds of hours of interviews and long hours in the editing suite. Sometimes when the work is tough and tiring you occasionally ask yourself questions like, “Is this worth it? Does it really make a difference?” And then, out of the blue, you have a conversation that reminds you why apologetics is so important. A few months ago I met a university student who introduced himself to me with the line: “Hi, I used to be a Christian but I lost my faith”. As we chatted, Jonathan opened up and told me more of his story. He had been raised in a Christian home, but one that was extremely fundamentalist—any critical questions were forbidden, as they were at his church. “If I ever challenged anything,” Jonathan explained, “I was told that even asking questions like mine would send you to hell.” One thing led to another and he began reading atheist books and before too long, Jonathan had abandoned his faith. “But that’s not the end of my story,” he continued. “I started attending a local atheist group, in which half the members turned out to be former Christians too, along with other assorted skeptics. I quickly discovered something.” Jonathan leaned in closer and whispered conspiratorially: “They were all fundamentalists too. Everything was black and white, everything was certain; if you dared to question anything written by one of their favourite authors, you got shouted down. There were also power struggles and politics—all the things I’d seen and hated in the church. So I left atheism too—now I’m searching again, but I don’t know what I believe: I feel quite lost.” My encounter with Jonathan reminded me with a jolt of how desperately many people are looking for answers, but are often put off by those who claim to have them. The clash of fundamentalisms that the ‘God debate’ has often been reduced to in our culture turns many people away. While the media thrives on pitting iconoclastic atheists against fire-andbrimstone religious types, the endless yelling bores many people. Many, deep down simply hope to have a conversation about the most important questions in a friendly and engaging manner—displaying grace and good humour amidst the grounding-shaking thuds of the philosophical howitzers being fired from entrenched positions on both sides of the culture wars.

crucial questions: Does God exist? Can faith and science fit together? If God exists, why is there evil and suffering? Which religion is the true one? Is the Bible reliable? Who exactly was Jesus? In each episode we talk to skeptics and believers, seeking out the best experts from around the world in an attempt to bring more light—and a bit less heat—to the discussion. As my conversation with Jonathan drew to a close, he looked across the table at me and said: “I guess I’d now have to label myself an ‘agnostic’. But—do you think that’s lazy?” “Well, that depends,” I replied. “I’ve always thought that there are two types of agnostics. You can be a lazy agnostic, sure, which I’d define as somebody who can’t be bothered to find the answer to the God question. Or you can be an active agnostic, somebody who is genuinely searching for the answer, but just hasn’t found it yet.” It was to help people like Jonathan that we wrote and filmed Burning Questions. But I also thought it would be fun to devote this edition of inContext Magazine to exploring some of the same ground from different angles; thus I’m thrilled that we’ve been able to pull together a terrific collection of writers in this issue to help us wrestle with these questions. Whether you’re a Christian who wants to be better equipped to “give a reason for your hope”, or if you’re a skeptic, suspicious of anything that smacks of faith, or even a slightly jaded seeker like Jonathan, looking for a more informed perspective as you think about life’s deepest questions, I hope that this magazine will give you great food for thought. PS: You can find out more about the Burning Questions documentary, the accompanying DVD and watch clips and download additional resources at: www.burningquestions.ca

Andy Dr. Andy Bannister

Canadian Director, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries

That kind of conversation is exactly what Burning Questions is designed to generate as it explores six

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

6 14 21 26 32

The Existence of God: Faith, Fact or Fantasy BY DR. ANDY BANNISTER

If God, Why Suffering? BY VINCE VITALE

Can You Trust the Bible? BY NATHAN BETTS

How Firm a Foundation? BY ABDU MURRAY

Does the Resurrection Change Anything? BY RICK MANAFO

inCONTEXT Magazine is a communication vehicle of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries Canadian Director | Dr. Andy Bannister | andy.bannister@rzim.ca Editor | Rick Manafo | rick.manafo@rzim.ca Graphic Design | Aaron Holbrough | aaron@thecreativespace.net Cover Art | Adam Holbrough | adamholbrough@icloud.com Print | Turnhill Graphics Mailing Address: Ravi Zacharias International Ministries Canada 315-50 Gervais Drive, Toronto, Ontario M3C 1Z3 Telephone: (416) 385-9199 Toll Free (Canada): (800) 803-3829 Fax: (416) 385-9155 Web: rzim.ca | Twitter: @rzimcanada

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THE EXISTENCE OF GOD: FAITH, FACT OR FANTASY? by Dr. Andy Bannister

A couple of years or so ago, commuters on the streets of Toronto were met by some unusual advertisements on the side of buses. In large, friendly letters, they proclaimed “There’s Probably No God: Now Stop Worrying and Enjoy Your Life.” The adverts were paid for by The Freethought Association of Canada and had already seen action in London, New York and other major world cities. Media friendly, in-your-face, the bus ads typify the approach of what’s come to be termed the “New Atheism”. That label was coined back in 2006 in a Wired magazine article to describe the group of media savvy secularists, men like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and Daniel Dennett, taking the world by storm. What’s “new” about the “New Atheism”? Not so much its arguments, which tend to be old ones, but its approach. Its advocates combine an enthusiastic, almost evangelistic zeal for atheism, with a vehement hatred for anything remotely religious. Central to the New Atheism lies the claim that belief in God is not merely wrong, but positively insane—even delusional. I now frequently encounter atheists who tell me passionately that faith is folly, faith is foolishness, or, in the words of Mark Twain, ‘faith is believing what you know ain’t true.’ In his book The End of Faith, atheist Sam Harris writes this: [F]aith is what credulity becomes when it finally achieves escape velocity from the constraints of terrestrial discourse—constraints like reasonableness, internal coherence, civility and candor.1 Similarly, Richard Dawkins, writing in The God Delusion, describes faith as ‘evil’, because it stands on absolutely no foundations and thus cannot be argued with. Faith, says Dawkins, is based on indoctrination, on brainwashing, on believing things because you’re a ‘dyed-in-the-wool faith-head’2, on holding on to ridiculous religious assertions not merely sans evidence but sans reason and rationality, indeed faith is belief ‘in the very teeth of the evidence’. Ah, there’s that word again:

evidence. For Dawkins and atheists of his ilk, there is a frequent tendency to contrast ‘faith’ (which is for the deluded) with EvidenceTM and ReasonTM. I use the trademark symbols semiflippantly because the game is often played in such a way as to suggest that those words belong solely to atheism. “We atheists have evidence, you have superstition; we have scientists, you have goggle-eyed snakehandling loons; we have Stephen Hawking, you have Joel Osteen; we have reason, you have faith.” For all the rhetorical firepower of the New Atheism, I think Dawkins and those who have been swayed by him are largely confused— their confusion partly driven by a fundamental misunderstanding of the word “faith”. You see “faith” is not the opposite of “reason”. The opposite of the word “reason” is the word “irrational”. Is it possible to be an irrational religious believer? Yes, it is. But is it also possible to be an irrational atheist? Oh yes, quite definitely. The question is not what you believe, but what your reasons are for that belief. It’s also interesting to note that the word ‘faith’ actually comes from the Latin word fides, which means ‘to trust’, reminding us of another important issue—the need to distinguish belief that from belief in. For instance, I can accumulate fact after fact about my wife, I can gain more and more reasons to trust her, but I can never one hundred percent prove that she isn’t a very clever confidence trickster. For all the facts I accumulate about her, there comes a point when I have to exercise trust— exercise faith. Faith is based on the facts, but it must also move beyond them to commitment.

inCONTEXT Everybody has faith of some kind, even my atheist friends. You simply can’t get through life without it. For example, I assume you believe that your friends, neighbours, colleagues, your spouse, possess minds— that they are not merely automata, pretending to be human. But you can’t actually prove this—you have to take it on trust. Philosophers will tell you that the “problem of other minds” is one of the trickiest puzzles out there. Nor can you prove that the universe didn’t wink into existence five minutes ago, complete with an appearance of age and all of your false memories of the past. You can’t disprove this. Rather you take the universe on trust.

Where Does the Evidence Point?

Okay, I hear a bit of protest: that’s all very philosophical—and nobody trusts a philosopher. No problem, let me offer some more down to earth examples. When you board a plane, do you personally screen the pilot, breathalyse the co-pilot, read the maintenance logs for the Boeing 727 you’re flying on, or interview every air traffic control person along the route? No. You exercise faith. Similarly, if you are married, you exercise faith that your spouse really loves you—that he or she is not cheating on you or merely pretending to love you so that in a few weeks time they can liberally dust arsenic on your muesli and make off with the life insurance. Human relationships are founded on trust.

Imagine that my friend Daniel and I are about to take a hike in the woods a few hours north of Toronto. I’m excited about the hike, not merely as it affords a chance to escape the city, but because I believe that living deep within those woods are creatures I’ve been longing to see—beavers. Famous as Canada’s national animal, beavers were once almost hunted to extinction in Ontario, but have slowly re-established themselves. I believe there are beavers living in these woods. Dan is a skeptic and disagrees.

Notice that I said ‘evidence’ and not ‘proof’. Some atheists wave the word ‘proof’ around triumphantly like a child with a toy plastic sword. However, proof only actually exists in the realm of logic and mathematics. I can certainly prove to you that two plus two is four, I can prove to you the law of non-contradiction, but beyond that I can’t prove much at all, not even that Richard Dawkins exists. In everyday life, we worry less about ‘proof’ and take a more reasonable approach. We tend to weigh the evidence and see where it points.

The question is not whether you have faith. You do, we all do—the atheist and the theist, the skeptic and the seeker, the doubter and the disciple

The idea that faith is delusional is ridiculous. The question is not whether you have faith. You do— we all do—the atheist and the theist, the skeptic and the seeker, the doubter and the disciple. We exercise faith in a myriad different ways. Rather, the question is simply this: is that in which you place your faith able to bear the weight; is it trustworthy? You see, whatever you believe, whatever you’re trusting in, you ought to be able to give reasons for. Indeed, the Bible actually commands Christians to explain why they trust in God when they’re asked. “Always be prepared to give an answer to anybody who asks you to give a reason for the hope that you have,” says the New Testament. Christians have never advocated blind faith but have always been concerned with reasons, answers and evidence. Indeed, Christianity began by appealing to publically available evidence; when the Roman or Jewish authorities in the first-century challenged the first Christians on why they believed what they did— why they were willing to face persecution, arrest, torture, and execution—Christians always pointed to historical facts: the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Christians have always believed in giving evidence.

After a few minutes hiking from the trailhead I suddenly point to the ground and call out to Dan, “Look! Beaver scat!” He wanders over and stares at the small pile of dung. “Nah,” he says, shaking his head. “Those are the droppings of the Lesser Spotted Maple Mouse.”

Unconvinced that such a rodent even exists, I let it be. A few minutes later, we see some trees by the side of the trail that have been gnawed, clearly bearing the signs of tooth-marks. “Aha!” I exclaim. “Beavers have chewed these trees!” Dan studies them carefully. “I disagree,” he says, “that was the work of rabbits. Tall rabbits, with really strong teeth.” We walk on and after ten minutes come to a clearing in the woods, in the middle of which stands a lake, with what appears to be a beaver lodge in it. The lake itself has been formed by a roughly made dam thrown across a small stream, a dam made of logs and sticks. “What more evidence do you need?” I demand. “Beavers!” Dan stares thoughtfully at the scene. “There were heavy rains last month, weren’t there?” he says. “I think a flash flood swept through here, depositing those sticks in such a way that you think it’s the work of beavers. It’s just natural detritus.”

inCONTEXT Whilst I was unable to convince Dan that day that there were beavers living in those woods, we did see a number of pieces of evidence, things that individually might not have been convincing, but that taken together point strongly to the conclusion that I was correct. Indeed, on every occasion, too, notice how Dan had to appeal to ad hoc explanations— unknown species of mice, enormous rabbits with great dentistry, freak floods and the like. In contrast, The Beaver Hypothesis could accommodate all of the data, drawing it together into one cohesive explanation; it’s where the weight of the evidence lay. So how might this apply to the question of God’s existence? Well, I don’t believe I can prove with 100% certainty that God exists, but nor can I prove anything with that level of certainty. What I believe I can do is demonstrate that the weight of evidence points very clearly in the ‘God direction’, such that I believe somebody would be a fool not to at least consider the question carefully. I believe that God’s existence makes sense of a wide range of data and evidence, ranging from philosophy to science, from aesthetics to morality to history. Allow me to briefly highlight seven such pieces of evidence—things that considered individually may not get us far, but taken together, begin to point clearly in one direction. Why Does Anything At All Exist? Let’s begin with arguably the most important of all philosophical questions: Why does anything exist at all—me, you, the universe, anything? Why is there something rather than nothing? Now, that clearly is not a question that science can help us with—science deals with a world full of stuff, but isn’t equipped to answer the question about why there is stuff in the first place. Think of it this way. Some things cause other things to exist. One domino causes the next to fall. The cello player causes the music. Electricity causes a bulb to emit light. Sexual reproduction causes a baby. So, here’s the question: Is everything that exists right now caused to exist by other things? If the answer is “yes”, then nothing could possibly exist—because everything would need a cause outside itself, and those causes would need a cause, and the causes of the causes would need a cause. Philosopher Peter Kreeft says that existence is a bit like a gift, given from cause to an effect. But somebody has to first have the gift to pass it on. If everyone needs to borrow a particular book, but no one actually has the book, then no one will ever get it. What is needed, in order for anything to actually exist, is some kind of Uncaused Cause, an “unmoved mover” as the Greek philosopher Aristotle put it, who can set the whole chain of being in motion. Without God (or

something very like God) there is no explanation for why anything exists at all. Why Does Science Work? Once we have a universe full of stuff, science can get to work. Now science is a wonderful thing, arguably one of the best tools that human beings have ever invented, unlocking all kinds of knowledge about the natural world. But ponder this; why does science work? Why is the human brain capable of unlocking the deepest secrets of physics? That question kept Albert Einstein awake at night. Why can our minds do science? Why is the universe comprehensible in the first place? It didn’t have to be this way, yet it is. Either that’s the most staggeringly fortunate coincidence, or something else is going on. The problem is deeper than that, too, for science is based ultimately on maths—it is maths that undergird the many and beautiful equations that power the universe. But why? If atheism is true, math is just a human invention, originally invented by Ancient Near Eastern goat herders to count their flocks. So why, precisely, does mathematics so perfectly describe the universe? Physicist Paul Davies puts it this way: [This is] one of the deepest mysteries of science: Why is nature shadowed by a mathematical reality? Why does theoretical physics work?3 If there is no God, then this alignment of maths and science is just a happy accident, an extremely lucky coincidence. But scientists don’t like appealing to dumb luck; they prefer explanations. However, if God exists, then it makes perfect sense that a God who is rational made a universe that is rational and coherent, designing us as rational, thinking creatures, able to understand and comprehend it. In short, the very fact that science works at all is a suspiciously large signpost pointing in the ‘God direction’. Reason and Thinking If, like me, you’re not a scientist, you may find your brain hurting by this point. All this heady stuff requires a lot of thinking. Now thinking is actually a fascinating thing in and of itself. Has it ever occurred to you that your entire life—all your beliefs and desires, hopes and dreams, opinions and memories—everything that makes you you, requires you to be able to trust your mind. For instance, if you came to believe— seriously believe—that you were merely a brain in a jar on laboratory a bench, your synapses electrically manipulated by a mad scientist, or plugged into a computer like the hapless humans in The Matrix movies, you wouldn’t be able to trust anything—not a thought, not an idea, not a sensation.

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A Six-Part Documentary Series taking you to where the evidence leads on some of life’s most profound questions There are burning questions, the answers to which have profound implications on so many areas of life: For instance, Is there a God? Does life have meaning, purpose or hope? Too often, these questions are marred by a clash of fundamentalisms and extremists (religious or secular) simply yelling or trying to outsmart each other. There is a better way to have discourse on these questions. Join Dr. Andy Bannister as he journeys across three countries—engaging a wide range of experts—people of all faiths and none. Whether you’re a skeptic or a seeker, a doubter or a disciple, Burning Questions will encourage you to listen well, think deeply and to follow the evidence where it leads.

AVAILABLE NOVEMBER 10, 2014

Airs Sunday evenings, October 5 – November 9, 2014 on YES TV For trailers and broadcast times in your area please visit:

inCONTEXT Therein lies a profound problem for the atheist. If one doesn’t believe in God, then one’s mind is just a chemical reaction; there’s no soul, no mind, no “ghost in the machine”. The reason you believe what you do is because your brain is fizzing in a particular way. Listen to atheist Daniel Dennett: There is only one sort of stuff, namely matter— the physical stuff of physics, chemistry, and physiology—and the mind is somehow nothing but a physical phenomenon. In short, the mind is the brain … we can (in principle!) account for every mental phenomenon using the same basic principles, laws, and raw materials that suffice to explain radioactivity, continental drift, photosynthesis, reproduction, nutrition, and growth.4 Did you grasp quite what Dennett said there? All that you are—your hopes and dreams, your beliefs and your values and above all, your thinking and your reasoning—are nothing more than the movement of atoms jostling together, chemicals fizzing, neurons buzzing. Physics can explain your beliefs with the same ease as it can explain earthquakes or plant growth. But hang on a moment. Isn’t there a problem here? If Dennett is right, then what on earth would lead you to think that one particular chemical and physical reaction (your brain) gives you “truth” when other processes (gravitation; the fizzing of a can of soda; the slow drift of continental plates) don’t. Furthermore, if you believe that our brains have simply evolved, it gets trickier still, as Charles Darwin remarked:

So here’s the dilemma. If you believe that a rational God lies behind the whole of reality and created us as thinking beings, that human beings are not merely chemistry and biology, then you have perfectly good reason to trust your thinking. If on the other hand you believe—like Dawkins, Dennett and other New Atheists, that there is no God—then you have absolutely no good reason to trust your mind, nor your belief in atheism that your mind produces. Desire Let’s turn from philosophy and science to the humanities, from the external world to the internal and look at three pieces of evidence for God’s existence that can be drawn from the depths of human experience. For many people I speak to, it is these areas of lived experience where they find atheism particularly fails to resonate with reality. The first piece of internal evidence is what has been called the Argument from Desire. It was popularised by the Oxford professor and former atheist, C. S. Lewis, and was instrumental in his own conversion to Christianity after some thirty years as an atheist. Lewis noted that all creatures have what he called innate desires—desires with which they are born and which correspond to things in the real world that can satisfy those desires:

If one doesn’t believe in God, then one’s mind is just a chemical reaction; there’s no soul, no mind, no ‘ghost in the machine’.

With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would anyone trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?5 The problem that Darwin is getting at here is that evolution is supposed to select for survival, not for truth. In short, evolution doesn’t care what you believe, so long as you breed and produce descendants. Another atheist, Patricia Churchland, recognises the problem: Boiled down to the essentials, a nervous system enables the organism to succeed in the four F’s: feeding, fleeing, fighting and reproducing … Truth, whatever that is, definitely takes the hindmost.6

A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. We feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. Lewis then continues: If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.7 The idea of deep desires within us for something more than just this material world is widely recognised, especially across music, art and literature. For instance, the French existentialist and atheist JeanPaul Sartre remarked: “There comes a time when one asks, even of Shakespeare, even of Beethoven, ‘Is that all there is?’”. Now when faced with the realisation that the world cannot meet your deepest desires, most human beings do one of three things: blame the things of this world and try new ones—this is why people desert their spouses for their secretaries, burn their credit cards on expensive holidays, or trade in

inCONTEXT the minivan for a Maserati. Alternatively, you can try suppressing your feelings: as atheist Bertrand Russell said we must build our lives on the first ‘foundation of unyielding despair’—in other words, grin and bear it and try to soldier on. Those are two approaches that many try but I suggest that they both fail. There is a third way, said Lewis. You can conclude that this deep desire points somewhere—that it is designed to find its satisfaction in knowing God, the only person who can fulfil it. As St. Augustine famously wrote: “Our hearts are restless, Lord, until they find their rest in Thee.”

“...what is beauty? It’s clearly more than just my subjective personal opinion, otherwise my telling you that a view is beautiful merely tells you about my personal preference, not anything about the places itself.”

Beauty Alongside desire, there’s a second internal feeling that I believe points strongly in the ‘God direction’, and that’s beauty. Let me illustrate. My favourite place in the world is the English Lake District— whenever I can, I get back to the UK and climb the mountains there; the beauty is sublime. But here’s a question for you: what is beauty? It’s clearly more than just my subjective personal opinion, otherwise my telling you that a view is beautiful merely tells you about my personal preference, not anything about the places itself. Beauty must be, as philosopher Roger Scruton put it, “a real and universal value”.8 But that raises a deeper question: Where is that value grounded? In what is it rooted? If not in my personal opinion, then where? According to atheist Richard Dawkins, our reaction to beauty is just a chemical process—a “Darwinian misfiring” he calls it. Does that really work? Two years ago while on a speaking tour of western Canada, I met a young man who was a musician in the city orchestra. Over lunch, he told me a fascinating story of how he had begun talking to one of his fellow musicians, an atheist, about his faith. The atheist was skeptical and a bit hostile at first. But over time, they became friends. The Christian then began to press his new friend on the basis of his life—the basis of his beliefs, of his art, of his music. “And now I feel guilty,” said the young man, “because my atheist friend has abandoned music. He has concluded his atheism gives him no basis for beauty and art and music and he currently finds himself unable to play.” He paused. “How can I help him?” he asked. This is one of the most unusual questions I have ever had, so I thought carefully before replying: “Have you tried suggesting to your friend that if he knows and feels in his soul that his music is true, that his art is true, that beauty is real and if his atheism cannot explain it, then maybe the problem is not the art, the music or the beauty, but maybe the problem is the atheism.” In other words, if your worldview can’t explain the world, don’t reject the world, find a new worldview.

inCONTEXT Goodness and Morality So far we’ve explored five pieces of evidence that cumulatively point strongly in the direction of God Let’s now turn to our penultimate piece of evidence: goodness and morality. I mentioned earlier C. S. Lewis, the former outspoken atheist who became a committed Christian after he had become convinced by the evidence for God’s existence. Back in his days as an atheist, one of his favourite arguments against God had been the problem of evil. If God was allegedly all good and all-powerful, why was there evil, violence and injustice in the world? You can find versions of that argument frequently used by atheists today. However, at Oxford University, where Lewis began subjecting his own atheism to critical scrutiny, he quickly discovered that this argument contained the seeds of its own destruction. Lewis wrote: My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line.9 After he became a Christian, a process that took him years of thinking and wrestling, Lewis shaped this insight into an argument for God’s existence, one that forms a key part of his famous work of apologetics, Mere Christianity. Here’s how it goes: (1) If God does not exist, then objective morals, values and duties do not exist; (2) Objective morals, values and duties do exist; (3) Therefore God exists. The point Lewis is driving at is that it is hard to see how, if human beings are merely a random collocation of atoms thrown up by the blind, pitiless forces of time, chance and natural selection, how morality could really exist. Personal preference, yes. Even societal norms, sure. But real, objective morality, moral truths that are independent of us? That’s very hard to see. You can find atheists who agree with Lewis’ first two points, such as Joel Marks, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at New Haven University, who writes this: The long and the short of it is that I became convinced that atheism implies amorality; and since I am an atheist, I must therefore embrace amorality ... I experienced my shocking epiphany that the religious fundamentalists are correct: without God, there is no morality. But they are incorrect, I still believe, about there being a God. Hence, I believe, there is no morality.”10 This is not a conclusion that many people—including most atheists—are going to be comfortable with. Not least among the problems for Professor Marks is that we all instinctively know that objective morals,

values and duties exist. Our reaction to stories of ethnic cleansing in Iraq, human sexual trafficking in Cambodia, or the ruthless gunning down of children in another high school shooting is not to shrug and say, “Well, it’s an amoral world,” but to protest “That is wrong!” As another atheist, Michael Ruse, put it: The person who says torturing babies is okay is wrong, fundamentally wrong, in the same way as the person who says 2 + 2 = 5. Even those who protest otherwise know this. I recall talking to a high school student who was struggling in conversations with a friend of hers who claimed there was no such thing as morality—that everything was morally relative and ambiguous. “What should I do?” she asked me. I replied, “Next time your friend tells you nothing is right or wrong, reach over and steal her iPhone. When she demands to know what you are doing, reply, ‘There is no such thing as right or wrong’. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if your friend discovers moral values quite quickly.” Morality exists. But the problem, as Lewis pointed out, is that if God doesn’t, we have no explanation for it. Atoms and particles deterministically dancing in the void cannot impose an “ought” on you. There is no conceivable experiment of chemistry, physics or biology that we could carry out from which we would derive a moral law like, “Do unto others …” Or to put it another way: science can tell you what will happen if you spike your friend’s burger with botulism, but what it cannot tell you is whether you should. As Yale Professor of Philosophy, Gregory Ganssle put it: ‘[I]f theism is true, we ought to expect a moral world, that is a world with moral obligations. In contrast, such obligations do not fit well in an atheistic world.’11 The Life of Jesus So far we’ve looked at six lines of evidence which taken together point powerfully in the direction of God; but can we get further? I believe that we can. See, Christianity claims not merely that there is some kind absent, distant deity who set the universe going then left it to its own devices, but a God who is real and personal, living and active, a God who stepped into history in the person of Jesus Christ. Indeed, of all the major world faiths, it is really only Christianity that is a ‘historical’ religion, in the sense that history matters to it. Consider this for a moment: if Buddha had never been born, somebody else could have brought the system of thought now known as Buddhism— perhaps Richard Dawkins could have started it in which case it would have been called Dawkinsism instead. Similarly, if Muhammad had never been born, Allah could, presumably, have sent the Qur’an via somebody else; Muslim theology is exceedingly clear that Muhammad was just an ordinary human

inCONTEXT being. Perhaps in some alternate reality, Christopher Hitchens was the founding prophet of Islam, although given his legendary reputation for enjoying the quaffing of beverages concerning which the Qur’an is less than enthusiastic, this might quickly have led to complications. But when we turn to Christianity, by contrast, things are a little different, for you soon discover that Christianity is not a set of teachings brought by Jesus, but Christianity in a very real sense is Jesus Christ—his words, yes, but also his life, his character, his actions, his very person stand at the heart of the religion.

we’re in a quandary: if Jesus was not a liar, was not a lunatic—what then? It looks like we might at least be forced to ponder whether he was who he claimed he was. The seventh and final piece of evidence, then, for the existence of God is not an argument, not a proposition, not a doctrine—but a life. The life, ministry, death (and resurrection) of Jesus Christ. Anybody who is serious about exploring the question of whether God exists would be wise to carefully examine the life of Jesus. For if his claims are true, this moves the question of God out of the realm of philosophy and into the personal.

Christianity is not a set of teachings brought by Jesus, but Christianity in a very real sense is Jesus Christ

It has long fascinated me that there is near universal appreciation of Jesus. My atheist friends often admire him, speaking positively of much of his ethical teaching. My Buddhist friends respect him as a teacher of wisdom and my Muslim friends claim they love him dearly, revering him as a prophet. In short, many people like the idea of Jesus as a good, wise, moral teacher. But the problem is, Jesus doesn’t fit that category very well, for he made some extraordinary claims, for example: Philip, one of Jesus’ disciples, said to Jesus: “Lord, show us God the Father and that will be enough for us.” Jesus replied: “Don’t you know me Philip, even after I have been with you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9)

The problem is that Jesus didn’t just claim to teach about God, but claimed in some sense to be God— the creator God made flesh that we might encounter and meet him. The God of the Bible is not just some abstract idea, but a God who took on our humanity, who gazes at us with a human face—a God who walked and talked in history. When you look at the claims that Jesus made for himself, his authority, his identity, you realise that you’re forced to make a choice. You can conclude that Jesus was some kind of lunatic—that he was deluded; yet even a hardnosed atheist like Richard Dawkins, fond of calling Christians delusional, has spoken of how he admires Jesus and his teaching, even claiming at one point to be an “Atheist for Jesus”. Furthermore, Jesus managed to produce some of the most profound teaching ever heard. Most of western culture, law, art and literature is based to some degree on his ideas. Deluded? Really? If not insane, then perhaps you might conclude that Jesus was a liar, a wicked deceiver, leading people astray with his claims. But that hardly fits of what we see of his life and teaching, nor his willingness to die for his claims. As somebody once remarked: liars make bad martyrs. Well, now

Dr. Andy Bannister is the Director of RZIM Canada Follow him on Twitter @andygbannister

Sam Harris, The End of Faith (London: The Free Press, 2006) 65.

Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (London: Transworld, 2006) 28.

Paul Davies, The Goldilocks Enigma (London: Penguin, 2007) 11, 18.

Daniel Dennett, Consciousness Explained (Boston, MA: Little and Brown, 1991) 33.

Cited in H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture (New York: Harper & Row, 1956) 314.

Cited in ibid., 315.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Glasgow: Collins, 1990) 113.

See Roger Scruton, Beauty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).

Lewis, Mere Christianity, 39.

Joel Marks, ‘An Amoral Manifesto I’ Philosophy Now 80 (Aug/Sep 2010) 30.

John Gray, Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 2003) 174

inCONTEXT One of the first significant conversations I’ve had on the topic of suffering was with my aunt Regina as she expressed to me how difficult it was to see her son Charles—my cousin—struggle with a serious mental illness.

IF GOD, why

suffering Dr. Vince Vitale

At the time, I confess, I was a little more concerned with the question than the questioner. So, I started spouting some of my abstract, philosophical ideas about why God might allow suffering. But after listening very graciously, Aunt Regina turned to me and said, “But Vince, that doesn’t speak to me as a mother.” Suffering is very real and very personal, and since that conversation with my aunt I am always hesitant to address it in such an analytical and impersonal manner. Therefore, I’d like to offer some starting points for further thought and prayer. In the process, please forgive me if anything I say comes across as if I am not taking seriously any real-life suffering that you may be dealing with. My hope is that will not be the case, and that amid the suffering of this world each of us will find strength, comfort, and meaning in the community of those who have put their trust in Jesus Christ. Let me begin to sketch seven approaches to thinking about the challenge of suffering.

1. The Objective Reality of Evil The challenge is often framed in this way: if a loving and powerful God exists, He would not allow evil to exist; evil does exist; therefore, there must be no God. In order for evil to pose this problem for belief in God, evil itself must be real. But there is a serious question about whether atheism can account for the objective reality of the evil that motivates the problem of evil in the first place. And if you need a good God to account for evil, then you can’t disprove that good God with evil. I recently came across an interview with Richard Dawkins in which the interviewer was challenging him about the implications of his naturalistic worldview. The interviewer said, “Ultimately, your belief that rape is wrong is as arbitrary as the fact that we’ve evolved five fingers rather than six.” To which Dawkins responded, “You could say that, yeah.”2 I guess you could. I certainly don’t want to, and I don’t think it’s rational to, and having an objective, unchanging standard for morality in the existence of a loving God can help explain why we don’t need to. If a good and loving God exists then there is something we can appeal to beyond shifting cultural

inCONTEXT trends and arbitrary genetic programming as the basis of morality—as the basis for saying that some things really are objectively good and right, and some things really are objectively evil and wrong. Alternatively, if what we call morality is just a byproduct of naturalistic evolution, then to say that something is moral or good is just to say that it is conducive for the survival of the human species. But that is not the morality we actually believe in. People are not morally valuable only insofar as they can be put to use for the survival of the species. No. Each and every individual has an intrinsic and inalienable moral worth. This worth should not be diminished when old age or disability or disease or any host of other things threaten to make us less useful for the evolutionary goal of survival. Naturalistic evolution cannot explain the intrinsic dignity and worth of every single person. What can explain this is that each person is created in the image of a good God, and is fully known and unconditionally loved by Him.

2. The Limits of Human Knowledge One of the assumptions smuggled into the thought that suffering disproves the existence of God is this: If God has good reasons for allowing suffering, we should know what those reasons are. But why think that? When parents decide to move their family from one city to another, this can genuinely be very difficult on a young child. The child may experience it as the absolute worst suffering that could ever occur. In the moment, the child might be certain that all happiness is behind him, that his parents hate him, and that for all practical purposes his life is over. And yet even such outrage on the part of a child does not mean that the child’s parents are wrong to make the move, and it does not mean that they don’t love him. In fact, it’s very likely that it was precisely the good of their children that weighed heavily in the parents’ decision.

declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9)3 If God is as great as Christians claim He is, then sometimes not fully grasping the fullness of His reasons is exactly what we should expect. And if it’s exactly what we should expect to find if God does exist, then that finding cannot be strong evidence that God does not exist.

3. A Response of Freedom What kind of world God would have made depends on what God values. According to Christianity, what God values above all is relationship. But for relationship to be meaningful, it must be freely chosen; for relationship to be freely chosen, there must be the possibility of it being rejected; and wherever there is the possibility of rejecting relationship, there is also the possibility of pain and suffering. The Bible affirms this truth from its very first pages. We find a story of people who have an intimate relationship with God, and who know what God has asked of them. But then they hear this voice in their ears, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” (Genesis 3:1). And they begin to doubt God. They begin to doubt that God knows what’s best for them; they begin to doubt that God is for them; ultimately they begin to doubt what God has actually said—His word. And then they sin. They do what they know deep down they should not do. Not a big sin, just eating a piece of fruit that they were told not to eat. No big deal, right? But it starts them down a path. First we’re told that they felt shame. They were convinced that God wouldn’t want anything to do with them anymore, and so they hid themselves from God. Then they began accusing each other. Adam pointed at Eve and said, “She did it!”—in essence pointing his finger at God as well by referring to Eve as “the woman you put here with me” (Genesis 3:12). Of course, Eve pointed at the serpent and said, “He did it!”

You can see the analogy: if parents’ reasons are sometimes beyond what a child can fully grasp, why then should we be surprised when some of God’s reasons are beyond what we can fully grasp? This general approach is referred to as ‘Skeptical Theism’ in academic philosophy. But this is not a new idea:

From temptation to doubt to disobedience to shame to hiding to finger-pointing to suffering—is there really a question about whether this story speaks the truth about the human heart? When I read it, I have to admit that it resounds with the truth about me.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,”

But here’s the most amazing part of the Fall story. The first persons have rejected God. They’ve decided

inCONTEXT they’d rather be their own gods. And how does God respond? He goes looking for them; he pursues them; he calls out to them: “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9). Then, after their first interaction with God, after they had sinned, Adam names his wife “Eve.” It’s a name of great honor. It is often understood to mean “breath” or “life”, and it is given to her “because she would become the mother of all the living” (Genesis 3:20). Symbolically, it connects her with God’s breathing of life into Adam. And even the spellings of the names Eve and Yahweh show similarities in the original Hebrew. They have the same ending. In English, it would be something like a daughter Hanna having a mother named Joanna. This is probably not the name Eve expected to be given after helping to cause the Fall of all humanity! But even then, in her moment of great sin, she gets the honor of a name that symbolically connects her with God Himself. Even amidst the consequences of the Fall, how generous and loving must God’s interaction with them have been for Adam to choose that name for his wife? Next we’re told that God “made garments of skin for Adam and [Eve].” In an ancient Near Eastern culture this is the exact opposite of what should have happened. Their clothes should have been torn to symbolize their disgrace. Instead God makes garments for them. And not only that, but the text gives this beautiful detail: “and [He] clothed them”. Imagine the intimacy of God pulling a shirt over your head and carefully guiding your arms through the sleeves, before kneeling down to tie your shoelaces. God dressed Adam and Eve himself, so that they would not be ashamed, foreshadowing that one day he would clothe us in Christ (Galatians 3:27), with the best robe (Luke 15:22), with power from on high (Luke 24:49). Right from the very beginning, it is in God’s response to suffering that we see the love of God most clearly, a love that refuses to give up on us even when we use our free will to open the door to great suffering.

4. What It Takes To Be You It’s typical to think of the problem of evil like this: we picture ourselves in this world of suffering; then we picture ourselves in a world with far less suffering. And then we wonder, “Shouldn’t God have created us in the other world—the world with far less suffering?” That’s a reasonable thought. But it’s a thought that relies on a philosophical mistake. It relies on the assumption that it would still be you and me who would exist in that other world.

And that is highly controversial. Let me explain. There was a pivotal moment early on in my parents’ relationship. They were on their second date. They were standing on the Brooklyn Bridge, overlooking the picturesque New York City skyline, and my dad noticed a ring on my mom’s finger. So he asked about it, and she said, “Oh, that’s just some ring one of my old boyfriends gave me. I just wear it ‘cause I think it looks nice.” “Oh, yeah, it is nice,” my dad responded. “Let me see it.” So my mom took it off and handed it to him, and my dad hurled it off the bridge and watched it sink to the bottom of the East River! “You’re with me now,” he declared. “You won’t be needing that anymore.” And my mom loved it! Now it was a pretty risky move my dad made hurling my mom’s ring off the Brooklyn Bridge. She loved it, but what if she hadn’t? What if she had concluded that my dad had lost it and then run off with her old boyfriend instead? What would that have meant for me? (If you can believe it, fifty years on, my dad is still trying to get my mom to reveal who gave her that ring. Mom flatly refuses to say!) I might be tempted to think that if Mom had wound up with her old boyfriend I could have been better off. I might have been taller. I might have been better looking. Maybe the other guy was royalty. That would have been cool! I could’ve lived in a castle! But actually, that’s not right. There’s a problem with wishing my mom wound up with the other guy, and the problem is this: “I” never would have existed. Maybe some other child would have existed. And maybe he would have been taller and better looking and lived in a castle. But part of what makes me who I am–the individual that I am–is my beginning: the parents I have, the sperm and egg I came from, the combination of genes that’s true of me. Asking “Why didn’t God create me in a world with less suffering?” is similar to saying, “I wish my mom had married the other guy.” I’m sure my mom and her old boyfriend would have had some very nice kids, but “I” would not have been one of them. We often wish we could take some piece of suffering out of our world while keeping everything else the same. But it doesn’t work that way. Changing anything changes everything, and everyone.

inCONTEXT

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inCONTEXT Why didn’t God create a different world? Well, it depends on what God was after. It depends on what God values. And what if one of the things God values—values greatly—is you, and the people you love, and each person who will ever live? Sometimes we wish God had made a very different sort of world, but in doing so we unwittingly wish ourselves out of existence. And so the problem of suffering is reframed in the form of a question: Could God have wronged you by creating a world in which you came to exist and are offered eternal life, rather than creating a different world in which you never would have lived?

5. The Best Lives Thought Experiment For a fifth response, think of what is, in your opinion, one of the greatest lives ever lived. Consider it in detail. Think of the person’s character and how it was formed. Think of the person’s relationships. Think of his or her great triumphs, their sacrifices and steadfastness for what is good and true. Now, try in your imagination to subtract from that person’s life all possibility of suffering. Subtract the suffering that shaped the culture and family they were born into, the suffering that formed their character, the suffering they fought against and the suffering that they carried others through.

6. The God Who Suffers With Us A sixth response to the objection from suffering I take, somewhat ironically, from Friedrich Nietzsche. He wrote: The gods justified human life by living it themselves—the only satisfactory [response to the problem of suffering] ever invented.5 Nietzsche is actually writing of the ancient Greeks here, and in his bias he doesn’t make the connection to Christianity. But as a Christian, I am very pleased to agree with him and then point emphatically to the cross where Jesus died. The night before His death, as Jesus wrestled with what He knew the next day would bring, Jesus said to His friends, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow, to the point of death” (Matthew 26:38). Think about it; the God of the Universe, the Creator of all things, saying He is overwhelmed with sorrow, even to death…

Sometimes we wish God had made a very different sort of world, but in doing so we unwittingly wish ourselves out of existence.

What happened to the life you were picturing? All of a sudden it doesn’t look anything like the great life that you were initially so inclined to celebrate.

Without the possibility of significant suffering, practically every great true story in history would be false. No one would ever have made a significant sacrifice for anyone else, no great moments of forgiveness and reconciliation, no opportunities to stand for justice against injustice, no compassion (as there would be nothing to be compassionate about), no courage (because there would be no dangerous situations requiring courage), no heroes, no such thing as laying down one’s life for another. Is it so obvious that God would create that world rather than our own? Criticism without alternative is empty. It’s easy to get mad at the world God has made. It’s much harder to say that God should have made another world instead.

This means there is no depth of agony and helplessness we can experience in this life that Jesus doesn’t understand, be it physical agony, deep depression or even suicidal thoughts.

At the cross of Christ, we see the absolute uniqueness of the Christian response to suffering. In Islam, the idea of God suffering is nonsense—it is thought to make God weak. In Buddhism, to reach divinity is precisely to move beyond the possibility of suffering. Only in Christ do we have a God who is loving enough to suffer with us. The loving parent is not the one who never allows suffering in a child’s life. The loving parent is the one who is willing to suffer alongside their children. And in Christianity this is exactly what we find.

7. A Matter of Perspective Finally, the challenge of suffering is in part a challenge of perspective, and it’s important to remember that our current perspective is not the full perspective. The Bible says that the eternal life that God offers to every person will be one where “God will wipe every tear from our eyes”—where there will be “no more death or mourning or crying or pain” (Revelation 21:4).

inCONTEXT Imagine aliens who somehow managed to tap into a video feed from earth, but all they could see was the hospital delivery room when I was being born. They watched as the doctors forcefully told my mom to do things that made her scream in pain. And then when she could take no more, the doctors got out a knife and cut right into my mom’s stomach. They took me out – blood everywhere – and even though my mom was reaching out for me and screaming for me, the doctors immediately rushed me away from her. What would the aliens think of the doctors? If all the aliens saw were the first few moments of life, they might think that the doctors were utterly evil. Only from a fuller perspective would they be able to see that the doctors actually cared for my mother extremely well, and in fact saved my life. The Christian understanding of reality recognizes that what we currently see is only the first few moments of life—literally just the birthing process of human history! We will always come up short if we attempt to find the full explanation for suffering in this life alone. This life is only the smallest fraction of our lives. We are designed to live forever. And even though right now we live in a harsh and broken world, Jesus promises that one day “everyone who calls on [Him]” will live in a world that will be good to us (Romans 10:13, Acts 2:21, Joel 2:32). “Do You Believe This?” When things get worse before they get better, God is with us. And as we look to the future we can trust in the words of Jesus: “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26). Three weeks ago I shared these words with the father of my oldest friend. I grew up right next door to them. As I write this, my friend Chris’ father, Joe, is suffering from a brain tumor, and the doctors have given him two days to a week to live. When I walked in to see him, I didn’t know if he would want to talk about his approaching death. Joe had always been strong and capable. He had a voice so deep that no matter what he was speaking about, it resounded with confidence and authority, leaving little room for vulnerability. But as soon as Joe saw me he said, “Hey Vince. Good, I’m glad you’re here. I told Chris I wanted to talk to you.” Joe went on to tell me that although he had always been confident that God exists in some way, he was finding himself increasingly scared about what comes next.

As we spoke, what became clear to me was that Joe’s understanding of the central message of Christianity—of what it takes to be right with God— was that you should try to do more good than bad in your life, and then just hope that in the end your good deeds will outweigh your bad deeds. If they do, something wonderful awaits. But if they don’t, you’re in trouble. And as Joe reflected back over his life, he recognized that if that was the case, then he, like the rest of us, had reason to fear. Never was I so incredibly thankful to be sitting before someone as a Christian. Other ways of seeing the world would have had nothing to say. As an atheist, I would have had to say there is no hope at all beyond the grave. If I adhered to almost any other religion, I would have had to tell Joe that he was basically right and had every reason to fear what was next. Only as a Christian could I explain to Joe for the first time that while Christianity does say that God wants us to do good, that is not what makes us right with God. I was able to share with him that the message of Christianity is that what makes us right with God has nothing to do with anything we do or ever could do, but rather with what Jesus has already done— once, and in full, and for all. I explained that if we trust in Jesus Christ, we no longer need to fear judgment, because on the cross Jesus has already taken the judgment for every wrong we have done or will ever do. When I asked Joe if this made sense, he responded— in classic New Jersey fashion—That’s a hell of a realization.” Emphatically he said it again, “That’s a hell of a realization,” and then continued, “Sixty-nine years and I never thought of that. I thought Christianity was one thing, but it was something else entirely.” There was an extended pause, and then Joe said, “You know, Vince, you spend your whole life trying to make up for your [mess] ups, but this finally explains how we can deal with guilt.” I asked Joe if he wanted to pray with me to accept this gift from God—to trust in Christ’s sacrifice and not in our own works—and he said he did, and with great conviction he thrust out his arm to me. We clasped hands, and we wept, and we prayed, and as we finished praying he exclaimed a loud “Amen.” Joe asked me if my wife, Jo, knew this great truth about Christianity as well. I said that she did, and he said, “It must be a happy life.” And then, after a thoughtful pause, “Now I’m actually looking forward to what’s next.” When Joe’s family saw him the next day and asked how he was, for the first time in a long time he

inCONTEXT responded, “Wonderful.” The transformation in him was so visible that his family called me immediately and wanted to know every word that I had shared with him. Life after death, on its own, does not bring hope. Only grace brings hope. I know of no grace as extravagant as the grace of Jesus Christ—as grace upon grace—because Jesus has already done everything necessary for us to be right with God. This greatest of all hopes can be received with a simple heartfelt prayer. I have suggested that the rationality of Christian faith is not undermined by the existence of evil and suffering. But the challenge suffering poses to belief in God is not the only problem of suffering. There’s also the problem of how we’re going to deal with suffering, and that’s a problem for every one of us, regardless of what we do or do not believe about God. Some think that the problem of suffering should push us away from God. For me, it’s precisely because I

feel the problem of suffering so severely that I am led to trust a God who can do something about it. Each one of us is going to deal with significant suffering in our lives. And, one day, each of us is going to have to deal with the reality of death. When suffering comes, when death comes, who will bear it with us? Who will see us through it? Jesus will, if we ask Him to. He will never force Himself into our lives, but if we invite Him, we will never be alone in our suffering and we can trust that we will spend eternity in a place where suffering will be no more.

Dr. Vince Vitale, born in NYC and raised in a family one generation removed from Mafia heritage, went to study philosophy at Princeton University and there took an unexpected journey that led him to God. In his PhD, Vince went on to develop a new response to ‘the problem of evil’. He now teaches at Wycliffe Hall of Oxford University, and is a speaker for Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

NEW RELEASE Why would an all-good and allpowerful God create a world full of evil or allow suffering to occur? In Why Suffering?, Ravi Zacharias and Vince Vitale carefully walk you through a variety of responses that considered cumulatively provide a clear, comprehensive, and convincing case that God is both loving and all-powerful.

Vince is Senior Tutor at the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics and lives in Oxford with his wife Jo. Follow him on Twitter @VinceRVitale

Why Suffering? is written with great respect for the complexity of the issue, recognizing that many who read it will be in the trenches of deep suffering themselves.

Portions of this article are taken from Why Suffering?: Finding Meaning and Comfort When life Doesn’t Make Sense, which is co-authored by Ravi Zacharias and Vince Vitale and is scheduled for publication on October 21st, 2014 .

2 Richard Dawkins, Interview by Justin Brierley. “The John Lennox—Richard Dawkins Debate.” Bethinking.org, 2008. Web. 25 April 2014. <http://www.bethinking. org/atheism/the-john-lennox-richard-dawkins-debate>. 3

All scriptural quotations are taken from the New International Version, 1984.

In the original Hebrew, the names are hwh (“Eve”) and hwxy (“Yahweh”). I do not mean to imply here that Adam knew the name “Yahweh” when he named Eve.

Friedrich W Nietzsche and Francis Golffing (translator), The Birth of Tragedy and the Genealogy of Morals. Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday, 1956, p. 30. This quotation

is taken from The Birth of Tragedy.

inCONTEXT

CAN YOU TRUST THE BIBLE? NATHAN BETTS

ahatma Gandhi once said, “You Christians look after a document containing enough dynamite to blow all civilization to pieces, turn the world upside down and bring peace to a battle-torn planet. But you treat it as though it is nothing more than a piece of literature.”1 The Bible is sometimes treated as merely a piece of literature with its credibility put in question. “It’s just a bunch of made-up stories,” some will say. Or, “You don’t really believe that stuff in the Bible, do you?” The unexpected danger one encounters when defending the Bible’s credibility is that the text itself can become a book merely comprised of evidence rather than an invitation into a profoundly personal relationship with God. While the greater portion of this article will deal with the credibility of scripture, let me begin with the plausibility of Scripture—an issue that often precedes questions of credibility. Dr. John Stackhouse, professor at Regent College explains: Most apologetics throughout Christian history have been directed at the issue of credibility: “Is it true?” Nowadays, however, we are faced with the prior question, the question of plausibility: “Might it be true? Is Christian argument something I should seriously entertain even for a moment?” Without dealing with this prior question of plausibility, apologetics cannot precede to the traditional task of offering good reasons to believe.2 From my observations of Canadian culture, I have found this to be true. Perhaps you too have shared something you feel to be amazing about the Christian faith and the response is far too often something along the lines of, “Huh.” Or maybe on a good night, “Huh. Pass the chips.” I have shared with nonbelieving friends something that I hold to be true about Christianity, something that has bearing on the way I live, yet it seems to fall on deaf ears. It is precisely into this context that Stackhouse speaks. The credibility of the Gospel, and in this case of the New Testament Scriptures, is enormously important,

but if our friends are not at the point at which they are wondering in their minds whether they should entertain whether the gospel might be true, credibility becomes moot. Before we speak to our friends about the trustworthiness of the Scriptures we must figure out how we can help them feel that it is an important question to answer. In other words, how do we answer the plausibility question? The answer is actually in the question. By God’s Spirit, we help our friends value Christian truths by living lives that display the beauty and attractiveness of the Gospel. Salvation, of course, is God’s business, but Christians have a part to play in not only telling people about the good news, but in showing it to be true. The French mathematician, Blaise Pascal, wrote in his Pensées, “Make it attractive, make good men wish it were true, and then show that it is.”3 Stated in a similar yet different way, the Irish evangelist Gypsy Smith once said, “There are five Gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the Christian, and some people will never read the first four.”4 Historically speaking, plausibility and credibility have worked together in helping people come to faith in Christ. In his book, The Rise of Christianity, sociologist Rodney Stark cites the early church theologian Tertullian in explaining what distinguished the early Christian community to the pagans. Tertullian wrote, “It is our care of the helpless, our practice of loving kindness that brands us in the eyes of many of our opponents. ‘Only look’, they say, ‘look how they love on another.’”5 Stark explains how it was the sacrificial love demonstrated by the early church that drew so many to the Christian faith. It was a love that was “alien to paganism”.6 To a culture that will only listen to the message after it has seen it in action, Christians must bring the plausibility question to the surface by living lives that reflect the beauty and teaching of Jesus Christ. The message needs to be heard but it also needs to be seen.

inCONTEXT Just as it is important to explore ways in which the plausibility of the Gospel can be understood, showing its credibility is just as important. Let’s look at four threads of data that shed light on the trustworthiness of the New Testament: The importance of dates, eyewitnesses, manuscripts and the criterion of embarrassment. The Gospels are legend!

When we put the Gospels to this test, they look very good. Leading New Testament scholar Richard Bauckham calls the Gospel accounts, “living memory” reports.9 He writes, “Living memory is a report that was written well within the lifetime of many of the eyewitnesses.”10 Let’s look at a few examples from the New Testament to see what Bauckham is referring to.

In Mark 15:21 we read, “And they One of the critiques often made compelled a passerby, Simon of against the Gospels is that they are Cyrene, who was coming in from the If the Bible is true, legend; in other words, the Bible is country, the father of Alexander and it’s message and simply a bunch of made-up stories. Rufus, to carry his cross.” I admit that However, according to literary I have read this verse many times invitation must be scholarship, in order for the Gospels and have not found it to be terribly taken seriously. to be legend, they would need to profound. However, Bauckham has have been written long after the helpfully pointed out something that life and death of Christ. This would should not be overlooked. He implicitly mean that the people who saw Christ, or heard him asks, “Why does Mark mention Alexander and teach, or perhaps even shared a meal with him, Rufus?” He concludes, would not be around either to verify or dispute these accounts of Jesus’ life. There does not seem to be a good reason available other than that Mark is appealing to However, if the writing of the Gospels occurred early Simon’s eyewitness testimony, known in the early enough for the people who lived during the time Christian movement not from his own firsthand of Christ to also be around for the recording of the account but through his sons. Perhaps Simon Gospels, it becomes highly improbable that the himself did not, like his sons, join the movement, Gospels are legend. The following are the dates or perhaps he died in the early years, while his of Christ’s crucifixion and when the gospels were sons remained well-known figures, telling their written. Most scholars, both Christian and otherwise, father’s story of the crucifixion of Jesus.11 agree on these dates: The point that should not be missed here is that Mark is appealing to eyewitness testimony. Christ’s crucifixion: A.D. 30 Mark: A.D. 60-70 Another example of living memory reporting is found Luke: A.D. 75-80 in the writings of Paul. In his first letter to the church in Matthew: A.D. 75-80 Corinth, he writes these words: John: A.D. 90-957 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which Looking at these dates we can conclude that many you stand, and by which you are being saved, who lived during the lifetime of Jesus would still have if you hold fast to the word I preached to you been alive to hear the Gospel stories. One would – unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to need to completely discard the dating of the books you as of first importance what I also received: in order to call them legend. The writing follows the that Christ died for our sins in accordance with events too closely for the writers to be making it up. the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was New Testament scholar, Dr. Craig Evans adds, “It would raised on the third day in accordance with the not be easy for a Gospel that misrepresents the life Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and teaching of Jesus to have gained widespread then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more acceptance when many of Jesus’ followers were still than five hundred brothers at one time, most of living and in a position to challenge distortions.”8 whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. (1 Corinthians 15:1-6, ESV) This leads us to discuss the importance of eyewitness After reading this passage of Scripture, one might ask testimony. When historians and scholars try to a similar question to the one we asked about Mark’s discover whether a book of antiquity is accurate to citing of Alexander and Rufus: Why is this excerpt reality, they look to see if there were any eyewitnesses from Paul’s letter important? The answer is this: Paul mentioned in the stories of the events being told.

inCONTEXT instructs his listeners to check with living eyewitnesses to establish the truth—500 eyewitnesses! More than that, Paul is writing a document meant to be read aloud in public. Therefore, he cannot write these words, and get away with it unless there really are surviving eyewitnesses to confirm what he is claiming.

today. Of course, eyewitness data does not prove something to be true, but it does give us strong reason to think that it might be true. So far, we have looked at the importance of dates and eyewitnesses. Another point of interest for historians and New Testament scholars are manuscripts. In order to establish the accuracy of any work of antiquity or classical literature, scholars want to know if there are copies available. In this case, quantity and dating matter: the more copies and the earlier the dating of the copies, the better.

A modern day example of eyewitness testimony may help drive home its relevance. During my undergraduate studies in Toronto, I worked on the ground crew for the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team. On one particular day, I was doing field repairs with one of my colleagues when he said, “Nathan, I respect you. I respect the way you live. I respect Just as it is important what you believe. But there is one thing that you believe that I will to explore ways in never be able to believe. It is this which the plausibility whole idea that Jesus Christ was of the Gospel can be an actual historical person. How could we ever believe in a person understood, showing that apparently lived roughly two its credibility is just as thousand years ago? We could important. never know for sure that such a person ever existed!” I took a few minutes to gather my thoughts and then said: “Okay, this is a good question. But think about it like this: What if the Blue Jays win the World Series this year? You and I come down to a Blue Jays game twenty years from now with our sons and we reminisce about the ‘good old days’ when the Blue Jays won the World Series. And as we are talking, our sons break out in to uncontrollable laughter. They look at us and say, ‘No way! The Blue Jays are a terrible team. They could never have won the World Series.’ You and I become increasingly indignant. I speak up and say, ‘But look up at the roof! Do you see those banners? Do you see the one that says ‘Blue Jays 2007 World Series Champions’? Our sons reply, ‘That doesn’t mean a thing. Anyone can pay money to put a banner up at a baseball stadium.’ Then you look at our boys and say, ‘But we were there! We were actually sitting in the security area, as close as one can get to the action without being in the action.’” Unaware of what I was doing at the time, I was appealing to the value of eyewitness testimony. Take a moment and think about the many ways in which we use eyewitness accounts today. We place enormous value on eyewitness reporting in many fields including law, journalism and social settings. When someone tells us a story, perhaps of an event that was moving or poignant, the question we often ask them is, ‘Were you there?’ If the answer is yes, the authority of the account seems to go up. Indeed, the ways in which ancient historians backed up their claims is not so very different from how we do so

Early dating is important because the earlier a document is dated, the less likely it is for that particular document to have been tampered with. As New Testament scholar Dr. Daniel Wallace12 has written, “Less time has elapsed between [the earliest] manuscripts and the originals and fewer intermediary copies have introduced errors.”13

Similarly, the more copies scholars have of the New Testament the more it enables them to ascertain the wording and authenticity of the original New Testament text. The following is an up-to-date chart that shows how the New Testament manuscript findings compare to other well-respected works of ancient history.14

C o m p a r i s o n o f E x t a n t H i s t o r i c a l D o c u m e n t s H I S T O R I E S O L D E S T M S S N U M B E R S U R V I V I N G L i v y 5 9 B . C . - A . D . 1 7

4 t h C e n t u r y

2 7

T a c i t u s A . D . 5 6 - 1 2 0

9 t h C e n t u r y

S u e t o n i u s A . D . 6 9 - 1 4 0

9 t h C e n t u r y

2 0 0 +

T h u c y d i d e s 4 6 0 - 4 0 0 B . C .

1 s t C e n t u r y A . D .

2 0

H e r o d o t u s 4 8 4 - 4 2 5 B . C .

1 s t C e n t u r y A . D .

7 5

N e w T e s t a m e n t

c . 1 0 0 - 1 5 0

c . 5 , 7 0 0 ( o n l y c o u n t i n g G r e e k m a n u s c r i p t s ) ( p l u s m o r e t h a n 1 0 , 0 0 0 i n L a t i n , c . m o r e t h a n 1 m i l l i o n q u o t a t i o n s f r o m c h u r c h f a t h e r s , e t c . )

In light of this data, Wallace writes, Besides the Greek manuscripts, there are Latin, Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Gothic, Georgian, Arabic, and many other versions of the New Testament. The Latin manuscripts number

inCONTEXT over ten thousand . . . even the well-known authors—such as Homer or Herodotus—simply can’t compare to the quantity of copies that the New Testament enjoys. Homer, in fact, is a distant second in terms of manuscripts, yet there are fewer than twenty-five hundred copies of Homer extant today . . . While scholars of other ancient literature suffer from a lack of data, those who work with New Testament manuscripts suffer from an embarrassment of riches.15 It is also worth noting that both the number of manuscripts and the dating of the manuscripts show just how compelling the New Testament’s credibility is, especially when compared to other [ancient] works of literature [or from antiquity].

again, so that they could not even eat. And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, “He is out of his mind.” (Mark 3:20-21, ESV) New Testament scholars conclude that if the early church were trying gain a following by making up stories about Christ, this one in which Jesus’ own family believes that he has gone crazy, would certainly not have been one of them. Therefore, scholars draw the conclusion that the story is in the text because it is true. There are many other stories in the New Testament that caused embarrassment for the early church. These are only two examples.19

The cumulative data pointing to the credibility of the Gospels is significant.

After applying these three tests (dates, eyewitnesses and manuscripts) the evidence defending the credibility of the New Testament Scriptures is strong. One other point of evidence that substantiates the reliability of the New Testament is something called “the criterion of embarrassment”. It is a principle historians use to help distinguish what really came from Jesus. The method “focuses on actions or sayings of Jesus that would have embarrassed or created difficulty for the early church.”16 There are many events and stories that take place either involving Jesus or referring to Jesus that refute the idea that the Gospels were made up stories. Historian John P. Meier, who has written on this topic, has commented, “It is highly unlikely that the church went out of its way to create the cause of its own embarrassment.”17 One example of embarrassment is the story of Peter’s denial of Christ. Had the early church tried to start a movement by making up stories to do so, surely this story of their Lord’s close friend and follower denying him when it seemed to have mattered most would be erased from the Gospels. But the account is found in all four Gospels.18 This story would have been embarrassing for the early church to discuss, but it is neither hidden nor removed. Scholars infer that since the story was left in, the event must have actually happened. Another example of the embarrassment criterion appears in the story of Jesus, his mother and brothers. After Jesus had just appointed the twelve apostles, Mark writes: Then he went home, and the crowd gathered

The cumulative data pointing to the credibility of the Gospels is significant. It is not only the dates or the eyewitnesses on their own that show the trustworthiness of the New Testament Scriptures. It is when one combines the various strands of data, in this case dates, eyewitness accounts, manuscripts and the embarrassment criterion that one is made aware of just how reliable the New Testament documents are. But Does It Matter? At this point, some might say, “So what? Why does this matter?” A short response to that question would be that the evidence outlined above shows us that the Gospels can be taken seriously. Theologian Hans Küng has put it beautifully: Lay people are usually unaware that the scrupulous scholarly work achieved by modern biblical criticism…represented by scrupulous academic work over about 300 years, belongs among the greatest intellectual achievements of the human race. Has any of the great world religions outside the Jewish-Christian tradition investigated its own foundations and its own history so thoroughly and impartially? None of them has remotely approached this.20

Christians can find great encouragement in the fact that the New Testament Scriptures can be taken seriously. But there is more to this topic than knowing the credibility of Scriptures. The primary reason why all of this matters is because if the Bible is true, its message and invitation must be taken seriously. One of the Bible’s central themes is that of a God who can be trusted—a God who invites us to put our faith in him. Faith, in this sense, is not merely intellectual

inCONTEXT assent. Having faith in God means more than believing that he exists. Christian faith is comprised of belief in God—that he exists, putting our trust in him and receiving His invitation into a personal relationship. If we miss out on having a personal relationship with God, we miss out on the good news that the Bible so amazingly tells.

Nathan Betts is an apologist with RZIM Canada Follow him on Twitter @nathanbetts09

Taken from Simon Guillebaud, For What It’s Worth: A Call to No Holds Barred Discipleship (2007) Paperback (Monarch Books, n.d.), 210.

John G Stackhouse, Humble Apologetics: Defending the Faith Today (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 38.

Blaise Pascal, Pensées (London; New York: Penguin Books ; Penguin Books USA, 1995), 4.

Taken from Beyond Opinion, Ravi Zacharias, “The Church’s Role in Apologetics and the Development of the Mind”. (Thomas Nelson, 2010). 304.

Rodney Stark, The Rise Of Christianity, (San Francisco, Calif.: Harperone, 1997), 87.

Ibid., 86.

These dates are taken from Craig A. Evans, Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels (Nottingham: IVP, 2007). 54.

8 Craig A. Evans, Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels (Nottingham: IVP, 2007). 55.

Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2008), . See chapter, “From the Historical Jesus to the Jesus of Testimony”.

Ibid., 7.

Ibid., 52.

Dr. Daniel Wallace is a leading expert on New Testament manuscripts. He is the executive director of The Center For The Study Of New Testament Manuscripts. The center is doing extraordinary work in the field of New Testament manuscripts, notably in the preservation of manuscripts. See csntm.org.

Dr. Daniel Wallacecited in J. Ed Komoszewski, Reinventing Jesus (Kregel Publications, 2006), 84.

This chart is taken from Ibid., 71.

Reinventing Jesus, 72 and 76.

John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Volume I: The Roots of the Problem and the Person (New Haven, Conn.; London: Yale University Press, 1991), 168.

Ibid., 169.

See Matthew 26:69-75, Mark 14:66-72, Luke 22:54-62, John 18:25-27.

19 It is important to note here that although the embarrassment criterion is indeed compelling, John P. Meier gives helpful advice on the topic as a whole: “Like all criteria…the criterion of embarrassment has its limitations and must always be used in concert with the other criteria.” (A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Volume I: The Roots of the Problem and the Person, 170.) 20

Hans Küng, Judaism: The Religious Situation Of Our Time (London: SCM Press, n.d.), 24.

Wellspring International is an extension of the central focus of RZIM, aiming to unite belief with action by empowering donors to make informed decisions about their giving. A humanitarian branch of RZIM, the vision of Wellspring International is to financially equip existing organizations aiding women, and children at risk, as well as to provide individual scholarships to support education, healthcare, and basic living needs.

inCONTEXT

How firm a

FOUNDATION? Abdu Murray

“Life shaping moment”. Those words emerged from a former classmate’s lips while we caught up over dinner. As the hour grew late, leaving just the wait staff and us, our discussion turned from reminiscing about old times to discussing spiritual matters. Since his teen years, my friend was an agnostic who leaned toward atheism. He knew of my commitment to Christ after following Islam most of my life. So quite naturally, he asked why I left Islam to follow Jesus. As I shared my reasons, his casual tone sunk a bit. Looking up from his coffee, he asked how I could believe in an allpowerful, loving God given the suffering and evil in the world. He seemed to regret asking such a faithshaking question, but I soon learned that he needed an answer. The conversation began with a philosophical tone, to which I offered some philosophical responses. If God exists, I argued, he knows all actual and possible future events. My friend agreed. I then argued that it might be possible that God could allow us to experience some suffering knowing that in the future—whether five minutes from now or 50,000 years from now—it would work out for some greater possible good. My friend reluctantly agreed. And because it’s at least possible, God’s existence is not logically incompatible with the existence of suffering or evil.

That’s when things went from the academic to the intensely personal. “It’s hard for me to believe that a loving God exists after my mom died when I was just 10 years old,” he said piercingly. “You can call that a life-shaping moment.” I mentally capitalized those words. At a tender age he had lost his mother—someone so valuable to him. But did she have objective value beyond just his opinion or emotional attachment? In fact he asked me that very question: “How can this good God you believe in value me or my mother when he let her die so young?” In that anguish-laden moment, matter-of-fact philosophy would have been vulgar.On the other hand, a mere “God works in mysterious ways” would have been vapid. Everyone, regardless of his or her worldview, has to contend for an answer. But which worldview provides a form foundation for the answers to our Life Shaping Moments? To capture our hearts and minds, a particular worldview’s claims must be not only true, they must be relevant. We have to be able to relate to the truth claims and apply them in meaningful ways to our lives. Narratives—stories we can relate to—are the chief instruments that give truth claims relevance.

inCONTEXT With this kind of backdrop, it is no surprise that atheist Lawrence Krauss says that, on a cosmic scale, humanity is “just a bit of pollution” that is “completely irrelevant.”1 Consider the narrative the late evolutionary scientist Stephen Jay Gould offers: We are here because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy that could transform into legs for terrestrial creatures; because comets struck the earth and wiped out dinosaurs, thereby giving mammals a chance not otherwise available (so thank your lucky stars in a literal sense); because the earth never froze entirely during an ice age; because a small and tenuous species, arising in Africa a quarter of a million years ago, has managed, so far, to survive by hook and by crook. We may yearn for a “higher” answer—but none exists. This explanation, though superficially troubling, if not terrifying, is ultimately liberating and exhilarating. We cannot read the meaning of life passively in the facts of nature. We must construct these answers ourselves—from our own wisdom and ethical sense. There is no other way.2

Propositional truths are fundamentally important, but when they are given in a relatable narrative, they provide the firmest foundation for the answers we seek. And when the narrative centers on a person, it speaks to us with even greater force. So we must ask: does any particular worldview provide so firm a foundation? Only the Christian gospel, with Jesus as its central figure, does that. Before we explore that, let’s look at some other popular worldviews. The Never Beginning Story – Atheism’s Lack of Relatable Narrative Atheism, for instance, tells us that there is no supernatural being who put us here and, thus, there is no objective purpose or plan for human existence. The best we can hope for are the subjective purposes we devise and give ourselves. Thus, atheism cannot have a narrative structure that can make its truth claims relevant to us. The best narrative it can offer boils down to this: In the beginning there was nothing, and for a long time nothing happened to nothing. Then suddenly something happened to nothing, which created everything. And then dinosaurs turned into birds and there were humans.

Isn’t it fascinating that Gould needs to adorn atheism’s “terrifying” (in his own words) narrative with ornamental words like “liberating” and “exhilarating”? Gould is not alone. Atheists have recently tried hard to brighten the story with billboards that read, “There’s probably no God—Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” But this amounts to nothing more than putting a pretty label on atheism’s empty bottle. The Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy wrestled with atheism’s lack of relatable narrative. In his intensely self-reflective work, A Confession, Tolstoy captures the pathos well: My question … was the simplest of questions, lying in the soul of every man from the foolish child to the wisest elder: it was a question without an answer to which one cannot live, as I had found by experience. It was: “What will come of what I am doing today or shall do tomorrow? What will come of my whole life?” Differently expressed, the question is: “Why should I live, why wish for anything, or do anything?” It can also be expressed thus: “Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy?”3 He laments that whomever we help or hurt in this life eventually will die and everyone they help or hurt eventually will die. Mother Teresa’s selfless acts will

inCONTEXT meet the same oblivion as Hitler’s selfish schemes. For Tolstoy, if the story’s end is useless, what use is any of the story? It’s interesting that Tolstoy, the genius novelist, eventually saw the liberation that comes when truth is given in a relatable narrative.

go of the future without that child? He dismisses the narrative of that child’s life. He dismisses the narrative of that parent’s life with that child. He has dismissed the basic human attraction to narratives that give meaning to brute facts.

Stories Without Any Roots – Pantheism and the West’s New Spirituality

Islam – A History without Intimacy

Common to most pantheistic views is that we are the ultimate reality. In Hinduism, enlightenment culminates in being reabsorbed into the Brahman, the impersonal creative force. For Buddhists, we cease our illusory existence altogether through disciplined detachment. The West’s New Spirituality tells us that we all have divinities within us or that we are striving for a transcendent consciousness in which we realize our oneness with the universe. Traditional Eastern pantheism tries to make these truth claims relevant through complicated narratives of gods and goddesses interacting with the world. The Bhagavad Gita tells the story of how Krishna, an incarnation of the god Vishnu, guides the warrior Arjuna on the cusp of a great battle on matters of duty, devotion, and sacrifice. The Gita’s story is cherished by millions of Hindus worldwide. But the problem is that the story lacks a real historical root. There is no identifiable place or time in which the battle in the Gita took place. If the divine beings in Hinduism’s stories are to be a firm foundation for our trust, then their interactions with us must be more than mythological. Otherwise, their relevance to our lives is anemic and the foundation they provide is flimsy.

Distinct from pantheism, Islam has plenty of historically rooted narratives (though some scholars are beginning to challenge its earliest history). When I was a Shi’a Muslim, I studied the various battles and political machinations in Islam’s formative years. I honored the martyrdom of Hussein (Muhammad’s grandson) and his companions’ suffering at Karbala in modern Iraq. The human stories are intense and moving. While Islam’s human narratives are rich, Allah’s interactions with humanity are less so. The Qur’an shares some biblical stories of God’s creation, his judgment of various peoples, and how God vindicated his prophets. But Allah’s interactions with humanity, according to Islam, are fragmentary. Allah tends not to reveal himself to humanity directly and delivers his message through mitigating angels. Why? Because we’re not meant to relate to God. We’re meant only to follow the prophets’ righteous examples. Allah’s limited interactions with humanity highlight Islam’s truth claim: God is the master; we are his servants. There is nothing more.

Christianity is different because it is based on Christ.

Eckhart Tolle, one of Westernized pantheism’s gurus, seems to see the problem and tries to do away with narratives altogether. He tells us that we can escape suffering by dwelling on “the Now”: Enlightenment consciously chosen means to relinquish your attachment to past and future and to make the Now the main focus of your life. It means choosing to dwell in the state of presence rather than in time. It means saying yes to what is. You then don’t need pain anymore. How much more time do you think you will need before you are able to say, “I will create no more pain, no more suffering”? How much more pain do you need before you can make that choice?4 In jettisoning our narratives, Tolle makes pantheism less relevant to our lives. Is he really asking a parent who has lost a child to just live in the “Now”—to forget the past life she had with her child and to let

This is strange because Middle Eastern and Eastern cultures really value stories. I can’t recall a situation in my life for which my father or grandfather didn’t have a tradition about Muhammad, or a story about Abraham, or maybe how a mythic Arabian figure would handle a situation similar to the one I was facing. This tells us that Muslims want a narrative that animates Islam’s propositional truth claims in ways they can relate to. While lacking a comprehensive divine-human narrative that satisfies that hunger, Islam acknowledges the need for truth to be relatable. Many of the Qur’an’s “Ninety-nine Beautiful Names of Allah” (Sura 59:22-24) convey God’s relational qualities. But Islam doesn’t tell us how to relate to God. It dangles the carrot of knowing God, yet keeps us from ever taking a bite. The Centrality of Christ Christianity is different because it is based on Christ. Jesus is a historical figure—a human like us—yet he is the incarnation of the eternal God. The truth claim is

inCONTEXT there: Jesus is “the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15), yet he is our high priest, able to “sympathize with our weaknesses” (Heb. 4:15). And the narrative of his life makes the truth claim relevant to us all. No other worldview pivots on a central person. If Muhammad were not an historical figure, Islam could still exist. Even Krishna, Hinduism’s most widely loved character, is merely the manifestation of the impersonal creative force. In that sense, his personhood is quite limited, perhaps even illusory. And Buddha never claimed to be a savior. At most, he claimed to be our exemplar. He taught that enlightenment comes from realizing that we are not individual selves, but accretions of karma that must be extinguished. So, quite literally, Buddhism has no central figure as its anchor because its only candidate sought to be extinguished. Atheism, by definition, cannot rely on a person to anchor its central claims. Its very premise is that the universe popped into existence due to blind physical forces. Thus, its truth claims about human dignity and meaning have no firmer foundation than its naïve optimism in human nature. From the various manifestos and websites of the various humanist societies, we read over and over again that humanity is the sole arbiter of truth and meaning. Echoing Protagoras’ ancient declaration that “man is the measure of all things,” G. G. Simpson says, “Man is the highest animal. The fact that he alone is capable of making such a judgment is in itself part of the evidence that this decision is correct.”5 That’s quite a lofty view of human nature. A cursory glance at history reveals it to be empirically false. Just 70 years ago, Allied Forces put an end to the genocidal Third Reich’s branding and exterminating of Jews. In the intervening years, we collectively declared “Never again!” But just a few short decades later, it’s all happening again (but to different people) as genocidal extremists brand Christians for extermination with such brutality that one wonders if they are competing for Monster of the Year. As Mark Twain famously said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.”

Western spokesperson, Deepak Chopra, tells us that “In reality, we are divinity in disguise, and the gods and goddesses in embryo that are contained within us seek to be fully materialized.”6 With a similar sentiment, the Secular Humanist Manifesto III tells us that human beings have the “ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity.” One religion tells us to follow God’s rules to justify ourselves while another tells us that we are God. Atheism then proclaims, “God is dead” so that, as Friedrich Nietzsche prescribed, we can invent sacred games to justify our authority. The fact that nearly every other worldview seeks to make humanity the architect and achiever of utopia suggests that they are human-made worldviews. The non-Christian worldviews that seem so exotic turn out to be more of the same old thing. I’m reminded of the lyrics from the Wallflowers: “The only difference that I see is that you are exactly the same as you used to be.” 7 Unlike a huckster telling us only what we want to hear, Jesus tells us what we need to hear, including the not-so-pretty facts. He doesn’t tell us that we’re magnificent. He doesn’t tell us that we’re the measure of all things. He doesn’t tell us that we can earn our way to heaven, utopia, paradise, nirvana, or what have you. He says the opposite of those things: “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander” (Matt. 15:19). Not surprisingly, human history’s narrative shows that Jesus statement corresponds to reality. Yet, Jesus remains the consummate idealist. While he doesn’t trust the human heart—he can transform it. This is where the narrative enlivens Jesus’s truth claims.

The fact that nearly every other worldview seeks to make humanity the architects and achiever of utopia suggests that they are human-made worldviews.

Look carefully and we’ll see a commonality amongst these otherwise contrary worldviews. Whether religious or irreligious, monotheistic, pantheistic, nontheistic, or atheistic, each view ultimately teaches that humanity is its own savior. In other words, if these views do have a central personage, it is us. Islam tells us that we can have an eternal paradise if our good deeds outweigh our bad deeds on the Day of Judgment (Sura 7:8-9). Pantheism’s

The Bible tells us that God designed the universe and everything in it. It seems that every week, modern science uncovers evidence that the Bible has been right about this all along. God creates us on purpose and for a purpose. That purpose is to be in relationship with the Creator of our souls. It’s fascinating that the Bible does not say we are built. It says that we are knit together (Psalm 139:13). As an expectant mother knits a garment for her soon-to-be born child, so God knits each strand of our DNA with each of us in mind. But the narrative quickly takes a downturn. We had but one command, to not eat of the Tree of

inCONTEXT the Knowledge of Good and Evil, lest we lose our innocence and dependence on God. But in step with our first parents, we chose not to commune with God, preferring to be like him. We, who were knit together to have relationship with the Almighty, violated that purpose. And God says to us, “Thy will be done.” But the God who defines relationship in his triune existence worked throughout human history to undo our self-violation. Time and again, Israel forsook the one true God for false gods, yet God continually reached out to restore the people. Our fickle hearts need redemption. We need a cure, not a poultice. Into history’s grand narrative comes the incarnation of God in Christ. Jesus, the God-man, lived the perfect life, taught us things that would not have otherwise occurred to us. He who had no debts of his own came to pay the debt our sins incurred. On Calvary’s hill, Jesus hung on that tree proclaiming, “It is finished” (John 19:30). Three days later, his resurrection vindicated him—providing us with life eternal. As Immanuel—God with us (Isaiah 7:14, Matt. 1:23)— Jesus is the narrative of truth who came in person to change the course of human history. That kind of story, with the divine and human elements mixed in an identifiable and verifiable past, makes Jesus and his message so real to us. Christ gives substance to all the claims we intuitively hope are true. The secular humanist wants to affirm the inherent and objective value of humanity. But his worldview doesn’t support that affirmation. How can it, if we are merely the products of natural selection, a process that by definition favors the stronger, faster, and more intelligent members of a species over the weaker? Equality is but a mirage that the atheist walks toward but never finds. Compare this with Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s Well. Jews looked at her as a half-breed (John 4). Her checkered past ostracized her from other Samaritan women. Defying his society’s bigotry, Jesus the Jew talked with her. He invited her to drop her ethnic, moral, and political baggage so that she could worship God in ‘spirit and in truth’. Where others shunned her, Jesus welcomed her. He affirmed her essential dignity and equality. Today, human equality is becoming more of a given of the human condition. But historically, it was not that way until Jesus changed it all. As David Bentley Hart noted: It is simply the case that we distant children of the pagans would not be able to believe

in any of these things-they would never have occurred to us-had our ancestors not once believed that God is love, that charity is the foundation of all virtues, that all of us are equal before the eyes of God, that to fail to feed the hungry or care for the suffering is to sin against Christ, and that Christ laid down his life for the least of his brethren.8 Human equality is a truth claim. But without a transcendent source for equality, it just swirls in the air. But in Christ, the transcendent God interrupts the narratives of our lives to ground the truth claim that all people are equal. The Bible’s most famous verse sums up the narrative well: “For God so loved the world [that’s everyone], that he gave his only Son, that whoever [that’s anyone] believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Jesus tells us with his mouth that we are all sinners and demonstrates with his hands and feet that we are all redeemable. That very same narrative can help the pantheist, whose worldview tries to deal with suffering by calling it an illusion of our circumstances. But don’t Buddhists and Hindus mourn a child’s death as a real tragedy? Isn’t that kind of suffering a real chapter in the narrative of each of our lives? It was so for Jesus. On the cross, he experienced agony. Indeed, he experienced our deserved agony. He didn’t try to escape it. He confronted it and won. His historic victory paved our only path to the salvation in which “no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor. 2:9). What of the Muslim, who delights so much in ancient tales but lacks the divine narrative that connects him or her to the source of life? Jesus is the source and provides the way. In Acts 17:22-31 Paul invites the Athenians to worship Jesus instead of the “unknown god” that they were paying homage to. While Muslims don’t claim to worship an “unknown god,” they do worship a God that cannot be known. As one Muslim scholar put it, “The end result of the knowledge of the arifin [those who have knowledge] is their inability to know [God], and their knowledge is, in truth, that they do not know Him and that it is absolutely impossible for them to know Him.”9 Jesus is the embodiment of that which makes the unknowable God knowable. It’s interesting that the Bible tells us that “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world” (Heb. 1:1-2). The word of God tells us the story of God the Word.

inCONTEXT The Philosophical Rubber Meets the Existential Road “Life Shaping Moment”. Those three words framed the loss of my friend’s mother. When he uttered those words, the truth claim I offered—that it was possible that God could allow suffering to accomplish an immeasurably greater good in the future—was ultimately relevant to his pain. It was not my friend’s question, per se that needed an answer. It was my friend who needed an answer. I swallowed hard and prayed for wisdom. “I can’t imagine what that’s like,” I began. “But may I offer you something that might bring some hope and not just logic?” “Sure,” he replied. “As a Christian, I don’t have to rely on the logical possibility that God could allow suffering to exist for a greater possible good that I can’t see. I don’t have to rely on the mere possibility, because history tells me that it is already a reality.” He was intrigued. “Go on.” “Jesus suffered on the cross. Evil men condemned him to die as a criminal even though he was guiltless. God could have stopped it, but did not. Instead he allowed it to happen. I can trust that God can allow suffering for a greater good because at the cross, he allowed a terrible evil to happen to his Son. And he let it happen not just for some good that might happen in the future, but for the greatest possible good—the salvation of anyone who believes in Jesus. I don’t

just rely on theory to tell me that we are all valuable to God—that your mom has value in God’s eyes. The reality of the cross has demonstrated it to me. And you can have that, too.” He nodded and I could tell he was absorbing my answer. “There’s one more thing,” I added. “You asked how I could know that you and your mother have real value in God’s eyes if he let her die when you were both so young. Let me ask you, how do we know how much we value something? I have videos of my wedding and pictures of some of my kids’ early moments and achievements in my home. But if my house caught fire, I wouldn’t risk my life to save those things, as sentiment and irreplaceable as they are. But if one of my children were in that house, I would risk everything to save them.” He was intently listening. I said, “You know how valuable something is by how much you’re willing to pay for it. God values you and your mother so immeasurably that he let his son pay an immeasurable price to spend eternity with you both. He offered that to her and he offers that to you.” No other worldview has that answer. With that, my friend looked me directly in the eye and said, “I’m not totally convinced yet. But you’ve given me a lot to think about.” The narrative of God’s loving intersection in human history through the person and work of Christ has a way of doing just that.

Abdu Murray is President and Cofounder of Embrace the Truth and lives in the Detroit, Michigan area with his wife and their three children

Follow him on Twitter @AbduMurray

Lawrence Krauss, quoted by Richard Panek, “Out There,” (March 11, 2007, New York Times), www.nytimes.com/2007/03/11/magazine/11dark.t.html?_r=1

Stephen Jay Gould, quoted in David Friend and editors of Life Magazine, The Meaning of Life, 33 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1991), p. 33.

Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy, A Confession (Grand Rapids, MI.: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 1998), p. 16.

Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment (Novato, CA: New World Library, 1999), p. 226.

George Gaylord Simpson, Meaning of Evolution, rev. ed. (New Haven, CT.: Yale University Press, 1967) p. 286.

Deepak Chopra, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success: A Practical Guide to the Fulfilment of Your Dreams (San Rafael, CA: Amber-Allen Publishing, 1994), pp. iv-v.

Jakob Dylan, “The Difference” published by Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.

David Bentley Hart, Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies (New Haven, CT.: Yale University Press, 2009), pp. 32-33.

Fadlou Shehadi, Ghazali’s Unique Unknowable God (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1964), p. 37.

inCONTEXT

elief is a rare commodity in our culture. People have a difficult time believing what they read in the newspapers—that goes double for what they see on TV or the Internet. Believe what politicians say? Not likely. We have a hard enough time believing what is right in front of our eyes today. How are we to believe a wandering, homeless preacher from two thousand years ago? How do we respond to the gospel’s invitation to believe in Jesus in a world of skepticism and competing ideas? We get the accounts of Jesus from four pieces of literature called gospels. They take less time to read than a Veronica Roth novel. The question is, can we rely on what they tell us about Jesus? Did the individuals who wrote them accurately record and deliver the straight goods on Jesus? There are other articles in this magazine that can help you with that. But let’s say this: if the gospels are not reliable, we might as well be reading a Veronica Roth novel. It might make a great script for a hit movie, but it’s still fiction. The gospels are quite explicit in their agenda. John 20:31 says, “These [things] have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God and that through this faith you may have life in his name.” The gospels were written to help people get to that point of faith. The oldest gospel manuscripts available to us put them well within the lifespan of the earliest eyewitnesses—most prior to AD90. The gospel of Mark could have been completed and distributed as early as AD50. That’s less than 20 years since the death and resurrection of Christ. The Gospel of Luke mentions 53 actual geographical locations that have been verified from other sources and more archeological discoveries are being unearthed as time passes. This is incredibly important, especially in the light of other historical biographies.

Does the Resurrection Change Anything? RICK MANAFO

For instance, the earliest biography we have of Muhammad was written 125 years after his death and was heavily edited for another 50 years after that. The first records of the life and sermons of Buddha appeared 350 years after his death. Jesus’ teachings, death and resurrection as well as his claims were being taught by missionaries and committed to memory by Christians in the early 30’s of that first century and ever since. This is particularly important as it sets the person and narrative of Jesus apart from other founders of faiths. Jesus is not someone one could simply invent. Jesus understood himself to be the Son of God. He offered people forgiveness (which only God could do). He told people that he existed even before

inCONTEXT Abraham (who was considered the father of God’s people). He referred to himself as “the Way, the Truth and the life.” To his first Jewish audience, the Torah was understood to be “the way, the truth and the life.” It’s what they lived by and lived for, because it dealt with all of life. And what Jesus was saying was, “Everything that is meaningful and important to you—I am.” And he backed his claims with miracle after miracle. Jesus saw himself as a prophet (Mark 12:1-11) and priest. He challenged Jewish temple policies, which was a no-no. He claimed to be the “son of man”. He said he was The One—the Messiah—the son of David, who was coming to restore and establish the Kingdom of God. When a furious High Priest asked Jesus, “Are you the Christ?” (Mark 14:61-62) Jesus, with his neck on the line answered, “I am.” No other faith system purports belief in a personal and relational creator who speaks and who is revealed to human beings. They consist of rules, philosophical reflections, ethical and political teachings and mythological stories that can sometimes only be expounded by a guru. Confucius said of himself, “As to being a divine sage or even a Good Man, far be it from me to make any such claim.” In Buddhism, Siddhartha Gautama (The Buddha, which means “enlightened one”), never claimed to be divine. He was self-proclaimedly not a savior. Anyone could have developed the Buddhist teachings. He said “Buddhas do but point the way; work out your salvation with diligence.” In other words, “Don’t look at me. You’re on your own.” Muhammad never claimed to personally possess anything great from God. He said, “I am only a mortal like you.” He didn’t nor could he offer salvation or hope to anyone. Muhammad saw himself as just a “warner” (Qur’an 18:110). Allah could have downloaded the Qur’an to anyone. Without the Qur’an Muhammad would have been just a man. Whereas, without Christ the Bible would have been just a book. Jesus is different: Jesus accepted worship. He forgave sin, healed the sick, and raised the dead and claimed equality with a personal God. No one else has ever done that, nor could they. Only Jesus put himself forward as the tangible expression and revelation of God. Now, it’s one thing to believe something about yourself, it’s quite another to know what others believe about you. What did others say about Jesus? First, there were Jesus’ followers—those who incrementally believed and accepted his divinity and encouraged

others to do so. We recall Peter’s declaration: “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God” (Matthew 16:16) The gospels and letters in the New Testament support Jesus’ claim of divinity and purpose. Next came the early church leaders like Ignatius and Polycarp and Augustine who confirmed and fleshed out what the early apostles had proclaimed. The Apostles’ Creed, for instance, was written to reflect the understanding and experience of those in the first century. “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.” Jesus is recognized as being divine—that he is from God’s very DNA and deserving of worship. Then there were others who were simply neutral towards Jesus. They simply described different events of Jesus’ existence and the practices of the early believers. People like Pliny the Younger and first century historian Josephus, who wrote: At this time there appeared Jesus, a wise man. For he was a doer of startling deeds, a teacher of the people who received the truth with pleasure. And he gained a following both among many Jews and among many of Greek origin. And when Pilate, because of an accusation made by the leading men among us, condemned him to the cross, those who had loved him previously did not cease to do so. And up until this very day the tribe of Christians, named after him, has not died out. (Jewish Antiquities, 18.3.3 §63) The Jewish Talmud also alludes to Jesus, although not in the most flattering way. Nonetheless, the accounts align with the sentiment held by Jesus’ adversaries in the New Testament1 After all, when it comes to establishing history, good press is not necessarily a prerequisite. The bottom line is this: After the dust settled and the stories were told, analyzed and scrutinized. After serious persecution and watching loved ones die cruel deaths at the hands of unbelievers, people continued to refer to Jesus as the Son of God and as their Lord. No other person in history has caused such a stir. The things Jesus said and did have had lasting implications on humanity. There are over two billion people in our world who consider themselves “Christian.” Yet, there are those who believe the claims of Christ were just the mutterings of a brilliant but possibly deranged individual—maybe even irrelevant. The late agnostic Charles Templeton wrote, “The Christian church bases its claims mostly on the teaching of an obscure young Jew with messianic pretensions who, let’s face it didn’t make much of an impression in his lifetime.”2

inCONTEXT In one way we say, “Really, Charles?” In another way, Jesus’ followers felt some of that. Think of their shattered belief when the one they had followed so closely and had put their hope in was crucified on a Roman cross. Interestingly, most people don’t have a problem with a historical Jesus who walked the face of the earth, who did a little teaching and performed a few miracles. Even the Qur’an concedes that much. Jesus may have even died a martyr’s death—he along with others in history.

One event in history assures us that Jesus is unique: The physical bodily resurrection of Jesus.

But one event in history assures us that Jesus is unique: The physical bodily resurrection of Jesus. The resurrection of Jesus is the greatest issue humanity has ever had to deal with, primarily because the empty tomb validates Jesus’ claim to be all the things he said he was. Our good sense tells us death is final. For the religious leaders of the day, when Jesus hung on the cross, the days of the “blasphemous teacher” were supposedly over. For the followers of Jesus, seeing him on that cross deflated their kingdom aspirations. The religious leaders had a huge stake in keeping things this way. But the Scriptures tell us Jesus didn’t stay dead. He was raised from the dead. Now, we can believe that what we have in the gospel accounts is pure conjecture and that it belongs with stories that begin with “Once Upon a Time.” … or … We can believe that something dramatic actually happened that changed history as well as our future expectations. Let’s ask some of the questions that lurk in the minds of many. One is, did Jesus really die? The Qur’an, for instance, teaches that Jesus didn’t die as portrayed in the New Testament. In fact Muslims believe he was never fully crucified—that a swap occurred and it was someone else who died on the cross or that Jesus was transported to heaven, avoiding the cross. Some believe that Jesus escaped and somehow avoided the cross and made his way to India. There’s actually a shrine in Kashmir marking Jesus’ supposed “real” burial place.

Then there are those who believe that Jesus was crucified but didn’t actually expire on the cross. This swoon theory suggests that Jesus was merely exhausted from the crucifixion ordeal—that he suffered from shock, pain and loss of blood. Instead of actually dying, he only collapsed or swooned but that in the coolness of the tomb, he was resuscitated. Forensic experts have looked at the sequence of the events surrounding the crucifixion and can’t figure out how anyone could survive such an ordeal. Some of the things Jesus went through were; a near-fatal beating followed by long thorns pressed into his skull then paraded to his place of execution carrying his own cross a portion of the way. Steel spikes were hammered through major nerve centres in his hands and feet. He was then tacked to a cross with the weight of his body supported by outstretched arms and dislocated shoulders making it impossible to breathe—his freshly beaten flesh scraping against the coarse timber that supported him. Lastly a Roman spear was lunged into his side most likely puncturing his lung so that any water that collected oozed out with the stream of blood (which was a sign to the executioner that the victim was in fact dead). Crucifixion was a calculated capital punishment machine. If the Romans intended for you to die, you’d be dead. Jesus died an excruciating death. In fact, crucifixion is where we get the word excruciating. It means “Out of the cross.” It was only upon the pronouncement of Jesus’ death that they allowed for him to be buried. There were those who were particularly interested in making sure that what was placed in that tomb was without a doubt, not just the body but, the corpse of Jesus. Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin, asked for the dead body of Jesus in order to provide an appropriate burial place. Neither the ownership of the tomb nor the owner’s title are disputed. Some might raise the security of the tomb as issue? Could someone have stolen the body? The text tells us that the tomb was guarded. When the religious leaders went to Pilate and asked for the tomb to be secured, Pilate said. “Make it as secure as you deem necessary.” Hence, the tomb was most likely guarded by Roman-sanctioned guards at the request of the Jewish religious leadership. Those who desperately wanted Jesus to remain in that tomb did everything they could to keep him there. Because they knew, if they couldn’t produce a body, (their words to Pilate) Jesus’ “last deception” would be worse than all the others. (Matthew 27:64)

inCONTEXT I love watching movies that involve intricate heists— where, under extreme security and impenetrable security systems, a thief is able to steal something of great value. Some believe that was the case with Jesus’ body—that there were people who even under the strictest security detail could pull off the theft of a cadaver, “Italian Job” style. Realize that the tomb was cut away in a large rock. There was a slanted groove to a lower entrance, creating a slope on either side. A boulder was rolled down the slope and lodged into the groove and then a smaller stone was rolled in to securely wedge the boulder. What kind of equipment would have been required for the guards not to hear a boulder being removed from the front of the tomb? The guards were bribed to say that someone stole it while they were sleeping—not a very good career move. No one refuted that.

our reports to throw them off the scent. We’ve gotta keep this Jesus thing alive. We have to make people think it’s true or we’ll all look like fools for following a loser.” I’ve been to and conducted many funerals in my life. I’ve learned something pretty important things in all those funerals. One in particular: Dead people don’t come to life. When someone dies, that’s the last we see of them. Imagine what it would be like if a close friend or family member of yours died. You were there at the hospital when they pronounced them dead—you were at the funeral home and the burial. Then a few days later there’s a knock at your door and low and behold, there they stand … asking if you’d like to go out for dinner. That’s what it was like for Peter and the gang.

Stealing Jesus’ body would have been a major feat. Can we really attribute such a heist to the same frightened disciples who had locked themselves in a room during the time of Jesus arrest and crucifixion. They just weren’t the mastermind types.

Now, some think the disciples, forlorn and overwhelmed with emotion, may have hallucinated en masse—hallucinated Jesus’ in their minds, like an Elvis sighting at Walmart. After all, these guys were big fans.

Maybe there was a financial motive? If Judas sold a “live” Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, imagine what someone would have gotten for a “dead” one—to prove Jesus was dead and gone. The religious elite would have paid anything to have the notion of a resurrected Jesus squashed right away. A stolen body really served no one.

Maybe they were all delusional—maybe they drank too much of the Jesus Kool-Aid or experienced separation anxiety at the loss of their leader.

Some people believe that the so called “resurrected” Jesus the disciples saw was nothing more than a ghost—that Jesus floated around in some disembodied state. But how would they have known it was actually Jesus if they couldn’t see a physical being? Furthermore, ghosts don’t eat, drink and barbecue breakfast on the beach for you, do they? One night, as the disciples were on the lake, they thought they had seen a ghost, but as the individual got closer, they realized it was Jesus—in the flesh. The disciples knew the difference between Jesus and a ghost. (Matthew 14:25-27) Thomas, the disciple, wanted to make sure it wasn’t just some “mystical” thing. He insisted on putting his hands in the wounds of Jesus—he wanted physical evidence too. Then, why would anyone keep up such a ruse to keep the legend of a liar alive? Why would they create a mass conspiracy? “Ok Peter, this is what you’re going to say—and John, you say this. Do we have our stories straight? And hey, let’s throw some discrepancies in

Why would anyone keep up such a ruse to keep the legend of a liar alive? Why would they create a mass conspiracy? Jesus showed himself physically to over five hundred followers—to men and women, to believers and skeptics, indoors and outdoors, in Judea and Galilee, urban and rural settings, morning and evening, by a lake and hill and road, standing, sitting, walking… you get the picture. The fact that there were so many “Jesus sightings” makes the notion of hallucinations very unlikely. However, the resurrection appearances come to an end. If these Jesus sightings were of the hallucinogenic or ghostly kind, they could have continued for years— even up until now. Instead, they end at a specific time—when Jesus ascends. People see him ascend … that’s it. You can imagine the dilemma the religious leaders had. They had no sealed tomb to point to. They

inCONTEXT

Listen to Just Thinking and Let My People Think These radio programs air on thousands of stations in North America and around the world and have impacted many lives. They explore issues such as life’s meaning, the weakness of modern intellectual movements, the credibility of the Christian message and the uniqueness of Christ— stimulating both heart and mind. For broadcast times in your area please visit rzim.ca and click on “Radio”.

You can also download the RZIM App to your smartphone device and access podcasts and videos as well poignant daily devotional called A Slice of Infinity.

“As RZIM celebrates thirty years, the need is greater that I have ever seen; the hostility around the globe is more vicious than I have ever seen. Yet, the response to the claims of Christ is greater than I have ever seen. The gospel alone changes people and countries for eternity’s sake.”

Ravi 36

inCONTEXT couldn’t produce a body they had just buried and secured. With a wave of evidence pointing to their worst nightmare, they couldn’t prove that Jesus had not risen from the dead. All they could do was to live in wonder over what they had done. They would witness the ramifications of a resurrected Jesus and it was going to make their heads spin. Yet there was nothing they could do. Once Jesus’ followers knew Jesus was alive—everything changed. Hesitancy turned to hope and fear turned to faith. Remember, the community to which the disciples belonged was in such close enough proximity to the resurrection event that anyone who wished to debunk their story could have done so easily saying, “It didn’t happen that way.” In Acts 2 Peter addressed the crowd in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. There he proclaimed that God raised Jesus to life and they were witnesses of that fact. There were over 3000 in attendance that day. The testimony of the disciples was in the context of very recent Jesus events—not within months or years, but days and weeks It had just happened. It was in their face. So when Peter, John or Thomas spoke of these Jesus events, they would have been staring their greatest skeptics and detractors squarely in the eye. It’s obvious that the gospels weren’t screened by a PR agent. The Messiah that people were waiting was not apparent in the person of Jesus. Disciples vanish at the sign of trouble. Women, whose testimony

Once Jesus’ followers knew Jesus was alive—everything changed. Hesitancy turned to hope and fear turned to faith. was considered marginal at best, are the primary witnesses at the resurrection. Someone could have tweaked the story. However, episodes of unbelief in the gospels actually lend to their credibility. Matthew 28:17 says that while many were thrilled at the sight of Jesus, some still doubted. When Thomas, a disciple, was told that Jesus was alive—that he had physically risen from the dead— his response was, “I won’t believe it unless I see the nail wounds in his hands, put my fingers into them, and place my hand into the wound in his side.” (John 20:25) That sounds like some of today’s rhetoric: “If you can’t see it or touch it or measure it, it can’t be true.”

But Thomas knew in his mind. “If this is true—if Jesus is alive—then this changes everything. If this is true, then the dream is not over. This is going to revolutionize the world. So, if this is true, then I’m not taking anybody else’s word for it. I want to see for myself. I want to touch him and feel him. Whatever it takes to believe—I’ll do it! I’ll sink my hand into the gash in his side if I have to!” And Jesus honoured Thomas’ request. He said, “Go ahead, Thomas. Do what you need to do in order to believe.” Thomas responds by saying, “It’s true, my Lord and my God is really alive.” For Paul, anything less that what really happened didn’t just weaken the impact of the resurrection, it totally shattered what Christ came to do and made following Jesus futile. In fact, Paul’s conversion, is more evidence that this wasn’t a hoax. The once persecutor of the church gives one of the earliest accounts of the resurrection. When believers in Corinth were questioning and skeptical of the possibility of their own future resurrection Paul tells them, “I passed on to you what was most important … that Christ died for your sins … He was buried and he was raised from the dead on the third day as the scriptures say.” 1 Cor. 15:3,4 Paul is passing on what was already a Christian creed. Why are some of you saying there is no resurrection of the dead? … If Christ is not raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your trust in God is useless. And we apostles would be lying about God … If there is no resurrection from the dead, then Christ has not been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless and you are still under condemnation for your sins. If there is no resurrection, “Let’s feast and get drunk, for tomorrow we die!” (1417,32) How do we give an answer for the hope we have? Christ died (remember, everybody dies), Christ was buried (go to a cemetery and you’ll see how true that is for everyone) But Christ was raised from the dead. (that means those in Christ will be raised). Everything hangs or falls on Christ’s actual resurrection. While the physical and textual evidence presents a good case, the greatest witness to the resurrection is that the disciples were changed people. Jewish scholar Pinchas Lapide says, “It took a very real reason in order to transform [the disciples] from a band of disheartened and dejected Jews into the most self-confident missionary society in world history.”3 One of those was James the brother of Jesus, who was once skeptical about Jesus’ identity. The convincing of James (to the point where he gave his life for the gospel) is huge.

inCONTEXT Had the disciples’ last image of Jesus been of Jesus being flogged or hanging on a cross or being carried to and locked in a tomb, what would it eventually have done to their psyche? They looked on as the most powerful religious and political machine killed Jesus. But what the resurrection showed them was that no religious or political machine could stop what Jesus came to accomplish. For them the cross was no longer just a tragedy, but God’s way to victory. No other worldview or religion is founded upon a living founder. Buddhists do not and cannot clam that Buddha rose from the dead. The same applies for Muslims. Tradition says Muhammad died June 8 in AD632, and guess what? He’s still dead. Christians have no tomb to venerate or such pilgrimage to make. Christians believe their founder is alive and well and still in charge of everything. Jesus is the only one who is still able to care for his followers. The resurrection of Christ is the foundation and culmination of the good news. It gives meaning and substance to our faith. It makes forgiveness for sin possible. It removes the sting of death and robs the grave of final victory. Death is our greatest enemy. We can bounce back from almost anything, but not death. The resurrection of Jesus offers hope in that crucial moment of death. When people say that the physical resurrection of Jesus unimportant or improbable they’re not making the gospel more palatable. They’re not making Christianity more accessible. They’re making it useless. If you want to write off Christianity, disprove or downplay the resurrection—job done! Jesus said he was the way, the truth and the life. If there is no resurrection, then the truth was really a lie, life still leads to death and the way is just a long dead-end street.

of the Politburo. His works on economics and political science are still read today. In 1930, he took a trip from Moscow to Kiev to address a crowd on the subject of atheism. He pulled out all the stops in a verbal assault against Christianity trying to disprove it on several levels. He spoke for an hour and when he was done it looked like he had really reeled the audience in—like he had shattered any shred of faith in the room. Then he asked, “Are there any questions?” The auditorium went silent. But one man got up from his seat and approached and stood behind the lectern. He paused and looked the audience over. After the pause, he shouted out the well-known Russian Orthodox Church greeting: “Christ is Risen.” And without any prompting, in unison, the crowd stood up and responded loudly, “He is Risen Indeed.” Jesus’ disciples may have been able to start a religion based on the notion of Jesus being alive “in Spirit.” They could have propagated hope of a world to come in which even Jesus would be raised and God would finally have God’s way. But the resurrection proves that God has already had his way. The evidence around the resurrection of Jesus, points to a reasonable faith. Only Jesus Christ leads us to a proper understanding of God, our world, our existence, our purpose our destiny. Without the historical, miraculous incarnation of God through Christ the whole thing unravels. That’s why some atheists try to trivialize or underestimate the person and claims of Jesus. That’s why people of other faiths try to categorize Jesus with other religious leaders, because they know that if Jesus can be perceived as simply an option, he becomes inconsequential. But if Jesus is who the gospels say he is … it changes everything.

Those who don’t believe will try to alter the story to suit their agenda. Those who do believe allow that history—and future—altering event to change their lives. We may live in world that says, “I won’t believe it unless I can touch it.” Jesus still responds today, “Go ahead. My body is alive and well.” People are watching to see if Jesus is alive today—if the resurrection is true. Those who have been transformed by the power of the resurrection should be evidence to the fact that Jesus gives life to the fullest now and hope for the future? Life can only be full when you believe the tomb is empty. Nikolai Ivanovich Buhkarin was a Russian Communist leader who took part in the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. He was also editor of the Soviet newspaper Pravda (which means truth) and was a full member

Rick Manafo is Programming Director for RZIM Canada and editor for inCONTEXT Magazine

Schafer, Peter , Jesus in the Talmud, (Princeton 2007) Templeton , Charles, Act of God (Bantam) 1979 p. 152

Lapide , Pinchas, The Resurrection of Jesus: A Jewish Perspective, (Wipf and Stock, 2002) p. 125.

inCONTEXT

We hope that this edition of inContext has been of benefit to you. Whether you’re a Christian and it’s helped you think about some of the questions people are asking, or whether you’re a skeptic and it’s caused you to consider things from a new angle, we hope it’s given you food for thought. Wherever you are on faith’s journey, we hope you found the magazine engaging and thought-provoking. The topics we explored came from real questions, asked by real people, whom we’ve met at events as we’ve travelled the country. If you have a question or an objection, a thought or a challenge, please don’t hesitate to email us at info@rzim.ca. And don’t forget to check out www.burningquestions.ca for more questions and more conversations.

inCONTEXT

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