I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (63 page)

Second, even if inerrancy is falsified someday, that wouldn’t falsify the central truths of Christianity. As we have seen, the historical evidence that Jesus taught profound truths, performed miracles, and died and rose from the dead for sinful humanity is very strong indeed. Even if the Scriptures are found to contain a false detail or two, the historical truth of Christianity will not be diminished. We hasten to add, we don’t think inerrancy will ever be falsified, but if it is, Christianity will still be true beyond a reasonable doubt.

Is there any discovery that would cause us to disbelieve Christianity? Yes. If someone could find the body of Jesus, Christianity would be proven false and we’d give it up. In effect, we agree with Paul, who said that our Christian faith is in vain if Jesus did not actually rise from the dead (1 Cor. 15:14-18).

This is unique about Christianity. Unlike most other religious worldviews, Christianity is built on historical events and can therefore be either proven or falsified by historical investigation. The problem for skeptics and critics is that all the historical evidence points to the Resurrection. The people who lived in Jerusalem at the time—some of whom would have loved to have found Jesus’ body and paraded it around the city—couldn’t find his body and actually admitted that his tomb was empty. And nothing has been found since. If, after 2,000 years of looking, no one can find the remains of Jesus or real errors in the Bible, isn’t it quite possible that neither exist? When can a question be confidently closed? If not after 2,000 years, when?

Third, after many years of continual and careful study of the Bible, we can only conclude that those who have “discovered a mistake” in the Bible do not know too much about the Bible—they know too little. This doesn’t mean that we understand how to resolve all the difficulties in the Scriptures, but it means we keep doing research. We are really no different than scientists who can’t resolve all the difficulties or mysteries of the natural world. They don’t deny the integrity of the natural world just because they can’t explain something. Like a scientist of the natural world, a scientist of theology keeps looking for answers. As we do, the list of difficulties keeps getting shorter.
¹⁸
(Meanwhile, for those of you who can’t get past Bible difficulties, Mark Twain had a point when he concluded that it was not the parts of the Bible he did not understand that bothered him—but the parts he did understand!)

Finally, it’s the critics who actually maintain an unfalsifiable position. What would convince them that their view is wrong? In other words, what would convince them that Jesus actually rose from the dead or that inerrancy is true? Maybe they ought to consider the evidence we’ve presented in this book. Unfortunately, many critics will not do this. They will not allow facts to interfere with their desire to maintain control over their own lives. After all, if a critic were to admit that the Bible is true, he’d have to admit that he no longer calls all the shots. There would be an Authority in the universe greater than himself, and that Authority might not approve of the life the critic wants to live.

C
ONCLUSION AND
S
UMMARY

Jesus taught that the Jewish Old Testament is the inerrant Word of God, and he promised that the rest of God’s Word would come through his apostles. The apostles, who were authenticated by miracles, wrote or confirmed 27 books. All major books were immediately recognized as part of God’s Word by those connected with the apostles themselves. And all of the 27 books were later recognized as authentic by the early church councils. In other words, the Bible we have today is the true, inerrant Word of God.

Since the Bible is our established standard for truth, anything that contradicts a teaching in the Bible is false. This
does not
mean there is no truth in other religions. It simply means that any specific teaching that contradicts a teaching of the Bible is false.

Now, let’s review the conclusions we’ve drawn since chapter 1:

1. Truth about reality is knowable.

2. The opposite of true is false.

3. It is true that the theistic God exists. This is evidenced by the:

a. Beginning of the universe (Cosmological Argument)

b. Design of the universe (Teleological Argument/ Anthropic Principle)

c. Design of life (Teleological Argument)

d. Moral Law (Moral Argument)

4. If God exists, then miracles are possible.

5. Miracles can be used to confirm a message from God (i.e., as acts of God to confirm a word from God).

6. The New Testament is historically reliable. This is evidenced by:

a. Early testimony

b. Eyewitness testimony

c. Uninvented (authentic) testimony

d. Eyewitnesses who were not deceived

7. The New Testament says Jesus claimed to be God.

8. Jesus’ claim to be God was miraculously confirmed by:

a. His fulfillment of many prophecies about himself;

b. His sinless life and miraculous deeds;

c. His prediction and accomplishment of his resurrection.

9. Therefore, Jesus is God.

10. Whatever Jesus (who is God) teaches is true.

11. Jesus taught that the Bible is the Word of God.

12. Therefore, it is true that the Bible is the Word of God (and anything opposed to it is false).

Let’s go back to chapter 8 to unpack the implications of this. The evidence we had gathered up to chapter 8 (points 1–3 above) helped us conclude that all nontheistic worldviews and religions are false. This left us to consider the three major theistic world religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Which one of them is true? The evidence presented in chapters 9 through 14 (points 4-12 above) now yield their verdict:

The revelation of Judaism is true, but it is incomplete. It lacks the New Testament.

The revelation of Islam has some truth, but it errs on some fundamental teachings, including its denial of the deity and resurrection of Christ (Suras 5:75; 4:157-159).

Only the revelation of Christianity is the complete, inerrant Word of God.

Could we be wrong about all this? It’s possible.
But in light of the
evidence, critics, skeptics, and those of other faiths need to have a lot
more faith than we do.

15

Conclusion: The Judge,
the Servant King, and
the Box Top

“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those
who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to
whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’”

—C. S. LEWIS

T
HE
J
UDGE

A young man is brought before a judge for drunk driving. When his name is announced by the bailiff, there’s a gasp in the courtroom—the defendant is the judge’s son! The judge hopes his son is innocent, but the evidence is irrefutable. He’s guilty.

What can the judge do? He’s caught in a dilemma between justice and love. Since his son is guilty, he deserves punishment. But the judge doesn’t want to punish his son because of his great love for him.

He reluctantly announces the sentence: “Son, you can either pay a $5,000 fine or go to jail.”

The son looks up at the judge and says, “But, Dad, I promise to be good from now on! I’ll volunteer at soup kitchens. I’ll visit the elderly. I’ll even open a home to care for abused children. And I’ll never do anything wrong again! Please let me go!”

At this point, the judge asks, “Are you still drunk? You can’t do all of that. But even if you could, your future good deeds can’t change the fact that you’re already guilty of drunk driving.” Indeed, the judge realizes that
good works cannot cancel bad works!
Perfect justice demands that his son be punished for what he has done.

So the judge repeats, “I’m sorry, Son. As much as I’d like to allow you to go, I’m bound by the law. The punishment for this crime is $5,000 or you go to jail.”

The son pleads with his father, “But, Dad, you know I don’t have $5,000. There has to be another way to avoid jail!”

The judge stands up and takes off his robe. He walks down from his raised bench and gets down to his son’s level. Standing eye to eye next to his son, he reaches into his pocket, pulls out $5,000, and holds it out. The son is startled, but he understands there’s only one thing he can do to be free—take the money. There’s nothing else he can do. Good works or promises of good works cannot set him free. Only the acceptance of his father’s free gift can save the son from certain punishment.

God is in a situation similar to that of the judge—he’s caught in a dilemma between his justice and his love. Since we’ve all sinned at one time in our lives, God’s infinite justice demands that he punish that sin. But because of his infinite love, God wants to find a way to avoid punishing us.

What’s the
only way
God can remain just but not punish us for our sins? He must punish a sinless substitute who voluntarily takes our punishment for us (sinless because the substitute must pay for our sins, not his own; and voluntary because it would be unjust to punish the substitute against his will). Where can God find a sinless substitute? Not from sinful humanity, but only from himself. Indeed, God
himself
is the substitute. Just as the judge came down from his bench to save his child, God came down from heaven to save you and me from punishment. And we all deserve punishment. I do. You do.

“But I’m a good person!” you say. Perhaps you are “good” compared to Hitler or even the man next door. But God’s standard isn’t Hitler or the man next door. His standard is moral perfection because his unchanging nature is moral perfection.

In fact, the greatest myth believed today when it comes to religion is that “being good” will get you to heaven. According to this view, it doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you’re a “good person” and your good deeds outweigh your bad. But this is false, because a perfectly just God must punish bad deeds regardless of how many good ones someone has performed. Once we’ve sinned against an eternal Being—and we all have—we deserve eternal punishment, and no good deed can change that fact.

Jesus came to offer us a way out of that punishment and to offer us eternal life. Paradise lost in Genesis becomes paradise regained in Revelation. So when Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6), he was not making an arbitrary claim but a statement that reflected the reality of the universe. Jesus is the only way because there is only one way God can reconcile his infinite justice and his infinite love (Rom. 3:26). If there were any other way, then God allowed Christ to die for nothing (Gal. 2:21).

Like the father did for his drunkard son, God satisfies his justice by punishing himself for our sins and holding out that payment for each one of us. All we need to do in order to be set free is to accept the gift. There’s only one problem:
just as the father can’t force his son to accept
the gift, God can’t force you to accept his gift either.
God loves you so much that he even respects your decision to reject him.

T
HE
S
ERVANT
K
ING