christian ammunition

Interesting title, huh?  Now that I have your attention, please consider the following illustration:

Once upon a time, a young man believed he was dead.  For months, his friends and family tried desperately to convince him that this was not the case, but to no avail.  Finally, at their wits end, they decided to take him to see the family doctor in hopes that he could offer some sort of medical counsel to help the young man come to his senses.  After two unproductive hours of talking with the young man and reasoning with him using the latest medical journals, charts, and photos, the good doctor had an idea!  “Son, do dead men bleed?”  He asked.  The young man thought for a moment and then responded, “well, if a person is dead, there is no heartbeat to pump the blood and, therefore, no blood pressure to force the blood out of the body, so, no, dead men do not bleed.”  Upon hearing this, the doctor took a needle and pricked the young man’s index finger.  As the blood began to ooze from the small wound, the young man grabbed his finger and cried with great excitement, “well, what do you know! Dead men DO bleed after all!”

The point (pardon the pun) is, it is impossible to convince somebody of something that they do not wish to be convinced of, no matter how much evidence is provided to them or how valid it may be.  After all, many of the people who witnessed Jesus’ miracles were the same ones who demanded His crucifixion.  Why do you suppose they were not convinced by the marvelous feats of the dead being raised and the blinded eyes receiving sight in their presence?  It was simply because they did not WANT to be.  Likewise, the young man in our story had a predetermined belief which he was unwilling to surrender, despite being shown ample proof that it was false.  The overwhelming evidence given to him did not change his mind, but, rather, his mind changed the evidence to make it fit his presuppositional bias (now there’s a mouthful!).  Presuppositions are the most foundational assumptions/beliefs that we each hold, and through which we examine and interpret the world around us, including any (and all) evidence presented to us.  For instance, Christians begin with two basic assumptions which form the basis of our view of the world (our worldview).

First, we assume that God exists and secondly we assume that the Bible is His inspired Word.  It is through the ‘lens’ of these two assumptions that we then begin to reason and form our conclusions about the universe in which we live.  That’s why Christians and unbelievers can examine the exact same piece of evidence and then reach two totally different conclusions about it; it’s because we have two completely different starting points from which we perform our assessment of the evidence we are given.  

Whereas the Christian begins with the previously mentioned assumptions about God’s existence and the truth of the Bible and then reasons from that position,  those holding to anti-Christian worldviews assume the contrary (i.e. God does NOT exist and the Bible is not true) and then proceed to reason from that position.  Therefore, the real issue is not one of evidence at all, but of those foundational assumptions through which we interpret the evidence in the first place (our presuppositions), and whether or not they are logically sound and rationally defensible.  First, let’s examine the Christian presuppositions to see if they pass this test:

1. God Exists:  This presupposition is justifiable/provable after the fact, in that God has revealed Himself to all mankind both directly and indirectly via natural and special revelation.  Natural revelation is God’s revelation of Himself by natural means (through His Creation), while special revelation pertains to God’s revealing of Himself via supernatural means (the Bible, His Spirit, and His Son, Jesus Christ).  Through these avenues, God has made it possible for us to be certain of who He is and what He expects from us with regards to our behavior, reasoning, and salvation.
2. The Bible is true:  This assumption is also provable after the fact, by the impossibility of the contrary.  That is, the contrary position (i.e. The Bible is not true) ends in absurdity and irrationality, which makes it false.  Consider what the Bible says about this in Romans 1:21-22:

Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools

According to Scripture, when someone rejects or fails to acknowledge God and the truth of the Bible as the foundation of their thinking and reasoning, we can expect their thoughts to become ‘vain’ and ‘foolish’ (illogical).  Let’s see if that’s what we get when we examine the unbelievers’ presuppositions that God does not exist and the Bible is not true: First, it should be pointed out that, when someone makes these assumptions, they are forced, by default, into the position of embracing evolution as the means and mechanism by which life as we know it exists on earth today (as opposed to the Biblical account of creation as found in Genesis).  As such, there are several other assumptions that they also have to accept as a consequence of this position.  Namely:

• In the beginning there was nothing.
• Nothing somehow turned into something.
• The something which came from nothing somehow blew up and became everything.
• Life somehow arose from that non-living matter
• Randomness somehow became ordered.
• Intelligence somehow came from non-intelligent matter.
• Morality somehow evolved from amoral matter.
• Absolute (unchanging), immaterial (not made of matter), universal (applying everywhere and at all times) laws of logic, math, science, and morality somehow came from a strictly material, constantly changing, random chance universe.

The problem with these assumptions is, they are all unjustified and unjustifiable.  Each of them is contrary to sound reasoning and good science, as they are not consistent with reality nor are they based upon ANY observable data or evidence gathered through actual repeatable testing and experimentation.  Rather, they stem from a flawed belief system about the unobserved past and, as such, are based upon nothing more than blind faith.  It should be pointed out that believing something and acting upon that belief with no logical reason for doing so is but one form of irrationality.  This makes those who hold to anti-Christian positions alot like the young man in the story above;  they do so in spite of any logically sound reasons, not because of them.  Without exception, this is the sad end result when one abandons the absolute Truth of God and His Word in favor of ANY competing non-Christian worldview (including those which advocate the existence of a ‘deity’ other than the God of the Bible).  I think the following quote from Christian Author Ken Ham sums this up nicely.  He says:

It’s not a matter of whether one is biased or not.  It is really a question of which bias is the best bias with which to be biased.

Just as the idol Dagon was physically reduced to rubble in the presence of God’s holy Ark of the Covenant (see 1 Samuel Chapter 5), so the false ideologies of our day are exposed and eviscerated by the ‘quick and powerful’ Word of that same living God.

For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.  Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?                                                      ––1 Corinthians 1:19-20