The Case for FaithA Journalist Investigates the Toughest

Objections to Christianity

Owning Your Worldview Considers

By: Lee Strobel

Session 6 Additional Objections

Objections from the Book1. Since Evil and Suffering Exist, a Loving God

Cannot. (Weeks 3 & 4)

2. Since Miracles Contradict Science, They Cannot Be True.

3. Evolution Explains Life, So God Isn’t Needed.

4. God Isn’t Worthy of Worship If He Kills Innocent Children.

Objections from the Book

5. It’s Offensive Claim Jesus is the Only Way to God. (week 2)

6. A Loving God Would Never Torture People in Hell.

7. Church History Is Littered with Oppression and Violence.

8. I Still Have Doubts, So I Can’t Still Be a Christian.

Objection 2 Since Miracles

Contradict Science, They Cannot Be True.

“The virgin birth, the Resurrection, the raising of Lazarus, even the Old

Testament miracles, all are freely used for religious propaganda, and they

are very effective with an audience of unsophisticated and children.”

–Richard Dawkins, Atheist

Considering DawkinsWhat are some of Richard Dawkins’ presuppositions?

Are discussions of miracles propaganda if they are true?

Is Dawkins encouraging open and honest dialog and inquiry?

Is name-calling supporting his argument?

What is the difference between a magic trick and a

miracle?

Defining Our Terms “a miracle is an event which in not producible by the natural causes

that are operative at the time and place that the event occurs.”

–William Lane Craig, Philosopher

What are the “Laws of Nature”?

Are they immutable?

Are they tangible?

The Miracle ProcessA super-natural “actor” begins injecting something into the natural processes of reality, thus starting a miracle.

A super-natural “actor” completes the intervention, the miracle ends.

Once completed everything related to the miracle continues on according to natural processes.

Arguing Against the Resurrection “In order to argue against the evidence

for the Resurrection, you have to provide evidence against the

Resurrection itself, not evidence that everyone else has always remained in

the grave.”–William Lane Craig, Philosopher

Objection 3 Evolution Explains Life,

So God Isn’t Needed.

Evolutionist William Provine

If Darwinism is true then:

There is no evidence for God.

There is no life after death.

There is no absolute foundation for right & wrong.

There is no ultimate meaning of life.

People do not really have free-will.

Darwinian Evolution Presupposes

Enough time, proper chemicals, and environment were available on the primordial Earth to allow life to arise from non-living matter.

Natural processes can create information.

The rate of mutation is fast enough that organisms “evolve” faster than they degrade.

Hurdles for Darwinian Evolution

Find enough “transitionary forms” to build Darwin’s Tree of Life.

Determine the mechanism that allowed the creation of DNA and the information it contains.

Explain the “Cambrian Explosion”.

Solve the problem of “first life”.

Objection 4 God Isn’t Worthy of Worship If He Kills Innocent Children.

Deuteronomy 7:1-6 (HCSB) “When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess, and He drives out many nations before you—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and powerful than you— and when the Lord your God delivers them over to you and you defeat them, you must completely destroy them. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy. 3 Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, because they will turn your sons away from Me to worship other gods. Then the Lord’s anger will burn against you, and He will swiftly destroy you. Instead, this is what you are to do to them: tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, cut down their Asherah poles, and burn up their carved images. For you are a holy people belonging to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be His own possession out of all the peoples on the face of the earth.

Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB) Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009 by Holman Bible Publishers, Nashville Tennessee. All rights reserved.

Old Testament Context

Three Points

The Amorites were given 400 years to change their ways. God only intervened once the Amorites (Canaanites subgroup) had reached total depravity.

There is no evidence that these people were actually eliminated at the levels assumed.

God used Israel as a tool to bring about His judgement of the Canaanites. Nothing could be salvaged.

Genesis 15:13 & 16 (HCSB) Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know this for certain: Your offspring will be foreigners in a land that does not belong to them; they will be enslaved and oppressed 400 years. In the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”

Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB) Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009 by Holman Bible Publishers, Nashville Tennessee. All rights reserved.

Israelites Must Wait

Hyperbolehyperbole (noun):

obvious and intentional exaggeration.

an extravagant statement or figure of speech not intended to be taken literally.

"hyperbole". Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. 16 Apr. 2016. <Dictionary.com http://www.dictionary.com/browse/hyperbole>.

Example: “I have been standing here forever.”

“We didn’t just win, we killed them.”

Deuteronomy 2:32-36 (HCSB) When Sihon and all his army came out to meet us in battle at Jahaz, the Lord our God delivered him over to us and we struck him down, together with his sons and his whole army. At that time we took all his towns and completely destroyed them—men, women and children. We left no survivors. But the livestock and the plunder from the towns we had captured we carried off for ourselves. From Aroer on the rim of the Arnon Gorge, and from the town in the gorge, even as far as Gilead, not one town was too strong for us. The Lord our God gave us all of them.

Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB) Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009 by Holman Bible Publishers, Nashville Tennessee. All rights reserved.

Biblical Hypoerbole

Josua 23:9-13 (HCSB) “The Lord has driven out before you great and powerful nations; to this day no one has been able to withstand you. One of you routs a thousand, because the Lord your God fights for you, just as he promised. So be very careful to love the Lord your God. “But if you turn away and ally yourselves with the survivors of these nations that remain among you and if you intermarry with them and associate with them, then you may be sure that the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations before you. Instead, they will become snares and traps for you, whips on your backs and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land, which the Lord your God has given you

Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB) Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009 by Holman Bible Publishers, Nashville Tennessee. All rights reserved.

Biblical Hyperbole

Nothing to SalvageAn excellent resource to better understand the utter depravity and unsalvageable nature of the Canaanites is “We Don’t Hate Sin So We Don’t Understand What Happened to the Canaanites.”

Written by Clay Jones of Biola University

Published in Philosophia Christi, Vol. 11, No. 1, 2009.

http://www.clayjones.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/We-Dont-Hate-Sin-PC-article.pdf

Canaanite Idolatry &Depravity

Asherah (mother) and Baal (son) had an incestuous relationship.

Baal (brother) and Anat (sister) had an incestuous relationship.

Molech and Kronos required children to be sacrificed to them.

Inanna and Ishtar were worshiped during homosexual acts.

Baal engaged in acts of bestiality.

Nothing to Salvage in Canaan

The more Israel came into contact with Canaanite culture, peoples, religions, and ideologies the greater the damage.

The Canaanites were never completely destroyed, and that led Israel to stray from God over and over.

Eventually Israel was destroyed the same way as the Canaanites. Once by the Babylonians and again by the Romans.

The Case for FaithA Journalist Investigates the Toughest

Objections to Christianity

Owning Your Worldview Considers

By: Lee Strobel