Only True Christianity is Defensible
| by | Kyle Butt, M.Div. |
Recently I was involved in a very productive
discussion with two atheists. They were in their early thirties,
intelligent, and extremely well spoken. We arranged the meeting to
discuss why they had chosen to adopt atheism, and reject God and
Christianity. In the course of the two-hour discussion, it became clear
that many of their complaints about “Christianity” were legitimate. In
fact, I heartily agreed with a host of their lengthy refutations of, and
rebuttals to, “Christianity.” Lest I mislead the reader, however, let
me explain. Notice that I have put in quotation marks the “Christianity”
against which they railed, because the term demands qualification. Much
of the “Christianity” that so incensed these young men involved gross
misrepresentations of God and heinous misinterpretations of the Bible.
For instance, during the discussion, one of the men explained that if,
according to John Calvin’s views, God arbitrarily chose some people to
be saved and some to be lost, regardless of their choices, then God
would be unjust. He explained this point in detail for several minutes.
After listening attentively to his astute refutation of Calvinism, I
completely agreed with him, but noted that Calvinism is not true
Christianity. It seemed that since Calvinism had been so inseparably
bound-up in many “brands” of “Christianity” to which this young man had
been exposed, he was taken aback that any “Christian” would so readily
agree with his assessment of its evident flaws.
The discussion with these men, coupled with a critical reading of the
atheistic community’s primary authors, has impressed upon my mind the
fact that skeptical writers have a knack for exposing
pseudo-Christianity for the error that it truly is. Unfortunately,
skeptics often use the pseudo-Christianity and misinterpretations of the
Bible that they so adequately debunk as straw men that they insist
represent true Christianity. In truth, they certainly do not. It is a
useful study, however, to notice several areas of biblical
misinterpretation and un-Christian beliefs that skeptics have correctly
identified as flawed.
THEISTIC EVOLUTION IS INDEFENSIBLE
In 2006, David Mills authored a book titled Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism.
Much of the material in that book is incorrect. But chapter six, titled
“Can Genesis Be Reconciled with Modern Science?” has some trenchant
things to say about those who claim to believe the Bible but try to bend
its interpretation to jibe with modern evolutionary findings. At the
beginning of the chapter, Mills stated:
According to Genesis, God made Adam and Eve on the sixth day of Creation Week. The Genesis genealogies then detail the exact ages at which Adam and his male descendants “begat” their own male offspring. The New Testament books of Matthew and Luke [NOTE: Matthew and Luke actually do not give ages—KB] then continue the genealogy from David to Jesus, again specifying the age at which each male descendent “begat” the next generation. Since we have a fixed “historical” time period for Jesus’ birth, creationists thereby calculate that the heavens and Earth were created by God in the year 4004 B.C. Earth, therefore, is only 6000 years old by biblical chronology. [NOTE: Although Mills is correct about the general age of 6,000 years, the chronology is not so precise as to nail down the exact date of 4004 B.C.—KB.] Despite widely divergent viewpoints, creationists and evolutionary biologists agree on a crucial fact: Six-thousand years is insufficient time for evolution to have produced the complex life-forms we observe on Earth today.... A 6000-year-old Earth means therefore that Genesis and the Theory of Evolution are forever irreconcilable (p. 137).
Mills further noted:
If Earth’s history began with Creation Week, and if Genesis provides an accurate historical record, then Earth had no prehistoric eras, no prehistoric peoples, and no prehistoric animals. Dinosaurs walked the Earth only a few thousand years ago, side-by-side with modern man (p. 141).
Mills
went on to write: “If creationists now wish to abandon their historical
position and acquiesce to an ancient Earth, then I applaud their
progress. But it is a farce to maintain that Genesis never
really demanded a young Earth since the genealogies were always intended
as metaphors” (p. 148, emp. added).
Regarding those who attempt to compromise the literal nature of Genesis
and accept both the Bible and evolution, Mills wrote: “Citing the
Day-Age theory, these Great Pretenders make believe that Genesis
actually describes an ancient Earth. The purpose of this pompous
intellectual charade is to allow the Great Pretenders to ‘have it both
ways’—imagining themselves to be both religious and scientific at the
same time” (p. 151). In what sounds exactly like a young Earth
apologist’s writings, Mills then commented: “In seeming anticipation and
preemptive rebuttal of the Day-Age theory, however, the Book of Genesis
itself provides a clear and specific definition of Creation Week...‘the
evening and the morning’ were a day—a literal 24-hour day” (p. 151).
Mills is exactly right in regard to the fact that a compromise of the
Genesis account of Creation is indefensible and illogical. He does an
excellent job of showing that the special pleading needed to warp the
text of Genesis into agreement with modern evolutionary ideas cannot
stand critical scrutiny. He concludes correctly that: “A 6000-year-old
Earth means therefore that Genesis and the Theory of Evolution are
forever irreconcilable” (p. 137). Those who compromise the text of
Genesis in an attempt to force it to agree with modern evolutionary
teachings have gotten it wrong, and would do well to listen to Mills’
criticism of their inaccurate interpretation.
Unfortunately, Mills leaves his critical thinking at the doorstep of
his correct assessment that the Bible and evolutionary theory are
irreconcilable. He incorrectly reasons that the Bible has been wrong all
along and that evolution is the true creative agent of our planet. We
have shown repeatedly that such simply cannot be the case (cf. Jackson,
et al., 2008), and Mills and other atheists would do well to apply the
same critical thinking to the false evolutionary theory as they so aptly
apply to indefensible compromises of the biblical text.
INHERITED SIN
Many
people who consider themselves Christians today have accepted the idea
that humans are born with a sinful nature. These religious people
believe that sin can be inherited from one’s ancestors, and that every
human, even infants, deserve death due to their inherently sinful
nature. The Bible, however, nowhere teaches such a doctrine. Thus, when
atheists and skeptics seize on this false interpretation of Scripture,
they correctly insist that such a teaching would manifest a
contradiction in the nature of the God of the Bible.
Christopher Hitchens, in his discussion of Christ’s death on the cross, wrote:
Furthermore, I am required to believe that the agony was necessary in order to compensate for an earlier crime in which I also had not part, the sin of Adam.... Thus my own guilt in the matter is deemed “original” and inescapable. However, I am still granted free will with which to reject the offer of vicarious redemption (2007, p. 209, italics in orig.).
Hitchens
correctly concluded that such an idea “negates the moral and reasonable
idea that the children are innocent of their parent’s offenses” (p.
99). Richard Dawkins weighed in on the idea as well: “The sin of Adam
and Eve is thought to have passed down the male line—transmitted in the
semen according to Augustine. What kind of ethical philosophy is
it that condemns every child, even before it is born, to inherit the
sin of a remote ancestor?” (Dawkins, 2006, p. 251, emp. added).
Hitchens, Dawkins, and numerous other atheistic writers correctly
conclude that a god who condemns children because they inherited their
ancestors’ sins would be an unjust being unworthy of worship. The
biblical portrait of God, however, is not of such a cruel, unjust being.
In fact, it is the exact opposite. The Bible points out in unambiguous
terms that children do not inherit the sins or guilt of their ancestors.
The prophet Ezekiel wrote: “The one who sins shall die. The son shall
not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the
son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the
wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself” (18:20). It has been
shown repeatedly and beyond doubt that the Bible never indicates that
children inherit sin or guilt from their parents (Butt, 2004), nor do children ever suffer any type of spiritual punishment as a result of the sins of their parents (Butt,
2003). While it is the case that children often suffer physical
consequences of their parents’ wrong choices, such as when a drunken
father abuses his children, it is not the case that those children bear
any of the father’s spiritual guilt or inherit any of their parents’
sin.
One can completely understand why the skeptical community would be
aghast at a being who would cast innocent babies into hell as punishment
for the sins of their parents. Yet, a correct interpretation of the
Bible shows that such is not the case. While it is sad that many
religious people have falsely taught such a view, their false teaching
on the subject, and the skeptics’ acceptance of that false teaching as a
correct interpretation of the Bible, cannot be used as a legitimate
weapon to impugn the character of the God of the Bible.
WRONG DEFINITION OF FAITH
It is
unfortunate for Christianity that some who call themselves Christians
completely misunderstand the basic concept of faith. For many in
Christendom, faith is a warm feeling in their hearts when they have
failed to find adequate evidence to justify their beliefs. Modern
dictionaries have done much to engrain this false definition of faith
into modern Christianity. For instance, Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary states that faith is “a firm belief in something for which there is no proof” (1988). The American Heritage Dictionary
gives as a primary definition of faith: “belief that does not rest on
logical or material evidence” (2000, p. 636). The idea that faith is a
warm, fuzzy feeling divorced from logical thinking and separated from
all “material evidence” does not coincide with what the Bible actually
says about faith (cf. Sztanyo, 1996). As Sztanyo correctly noted: “There
is not a single item in Christianity, upon which our souls’ salvation
depends, that is only ‘probably’ true. In each case, the evidence
supplied is sufficient to establish conclusive proof regarding the truth
of the Christian faith” (1996, p. 7).
The false view that faith is “a leap in the dark” without adequate
evidence provides the skeptical community plenty of fodder for their
atheistic, anti-Bible cannons—and rightly so. If believing in God, or
the divine inspiration of the Bible, or the deity of Jesus Christ is not
established by rational, logical evidence, then those ideas are as
unworthy of belief as the unprovable ideas of atheism and evolution.
Knowing the inconsistency of such a false definition of faith, Sam
Harris wrote: “In fact, every religion preaches the truth of
propositions for which no evidence is even conceivable. This
put the ‘leap’ in Kierkegaard’s leap of faith” (Harris, 2004, p. 23,
italics in orig.). Christopher Hitchens, building on the “leap of faith”
idea, opined:
Actually, the “leap of faith”—to give it the memorable name that Soren Kierkegaard bestowed on it—is an imposture. As he himself pointed out, it is not a “leap” that can be made once and for all. It is a leap that has to go on and on being performed, in spite of mounting evidence to the contrary (2007, p. 65).
In his analysis of religion, Richard Dawkins quipped: “The whole point of religious faith, its strength and chief glory, is that it does not depend on rational justification”
(2006, p. 23, emp. added). Because of his belief that biblical faith is
belief without rational justification, Dawkins concluded: “We believe
in evolution because the evidence supports it, and we would abandon it
overnight if new evidence arose to disprove it. No real fundamentalist would ever say anything like that”
(p. 283). What Dawkins really means to say is that no fundamentalist
who has adopted the concept that faith does not depend on rational
justification would abandon his or her belief if evidence were provided
to the contrary. But if his definition of faith is wrong, then he is
incorrect to conclude that those who believe in God, the divine
inspiration of the Bible, and the deity of Christ would not alter their
views based on the evidence. In fact, according to a proper definition
of biblical faith, it is only because of the rational justification and logical evidence available that true Christians hold to their beliefs.
When Dawkins states, “Christianity, just as much as Islam, teaches
children that unquestioned faith is a virtue. You don’t have to make the
case for what you believe” (p. 306), he manifests his lack of knowledge
of what biblical faith is. Biblical faith is based completely and
solely on truth and reason, as the apostle Paul succinctly stated in
Acts 26:25. The prophet Isaiah underscored this fundamental truth about
biblical faith when He recorded God’s invitation to the Israelites:
“‘Come now, and let us reason together,’ says the Lord”
(1:18). Luke, in his introduction to the book of Acts, pressed the
point that Jesus’ resurrection was attested by “many infallible proofs”
(1:3). For one to believe in the resurrection requires faith, based on
infallible proofs.
Sam Harris wrote: “It is time that we admitted that faith is nothing
more than the license religious people give one another to keep
believing when reasons fail” (Harris, 2006, p. 67). Harris’ accusation
is justified when it is applied to false religions, and to those who
attempt to defend Christianity without providing a logical, rational
justification for their belief. But his allegations, and similar
sentiments from Dawkins, Hitchens, and other atheists, are wholly
inadequate to attack true, biblical faith. Sadly, too many
self-proclaimed Christians open the door for the skeptical community to
bash Christian “faith,” when, in reality, the “faith” that is being
destroyed was never biblical in the first place.
MODERN MIRACLES
It is
often the case that “Christianity” is abused by modern skeptics due to
the tendency of many in Christendom to claim that the Holy Spirit
continues to work miracles today just as He did during New Testament
times. Atheist Dan Barker wrote about the time that he was thrown out of
“Peter Popoff’s ‘miracle’ rally” (1992, p. 291). Barker wrote that
Popoff “grabbed a woman’s head, deliberately mussed up her hair, shook
her and pronounced her healed” (p. 293). During Popoff’s healing antics,
Barker noted, “The audience punctuated his ‘healings’ by loudly
speaking in tongues, raising their arms, shaking, crying, and hollering
‘Amen,’ ‘Thank you, Jesus!’ and ‘Hallelujah!’ It had the feel of one of
those professional wrestling matches on TV” (p. 293).
Barker’s assessment of the event was, “It was comical; and it was sad.
The man was practicing medicine without a license, raising false hopes
and endangering lives. (Many of his believers have discarded medicine or
cancelled doctor’s appointments.) I remember having participated in
meetings just like this when I was a full-gospel evangelist, and I was
ashamed” (p. 294). Barker’s caustic assessment of Popoff’s “faith
healing scam” is accurate in many ways. As Barker admitted, he at one
time in his past participated in many false-healing events, and thus he
knows the inherent dishonesty involved in such deceptive shenanigans.
Here again the skeptical community has logically and correctly concluded
that such faith healings are not valid. As David Mills wrote: “If God
has the power to miraculously cure others (though invariably in a vague
and uncertain way), why doesn’t God ever help amputees?” (2006, p. 161).
Mills is right to surmise that if the miraculous power that was
available during the time of the apostles is still available today, as
many Christians erroneously teach and believe, then miracles that can be
empirically verified like the healing of amputees should be documented.
After all, even the enemies of the apostles had to admit that the
miracles worked by the apostles were empirically verifiable: “For
indeed, that a notable miracle has been done through them is evident to
all who dwell in Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it” (Acts 4:16).
In truth, the skeptical community does an excellent job of showing that
such “faith healing” events are emotionally charged frenzies that do
not produce legitimate medical results. The problem arises, however,
when the skeptical community tries to lump all Christians into this
mold, or attempts to use these verifiably false miracles to discount the
possibility of any type of miracle at any time in history. The fact of
the matter is, the Bible predicted that the miraculous power that was
available to the apostles would come to an end, and would not continue
throughout the ages until modern times (Miller,
2003). Furthermore, it has been repeatedly and definitively shown that
such false miracles sustain no argumentative value against the
historical legitimacy of true miracles recorded in the Bible, such as
the resurrection of Christ (Butt, 2002).
CONCLUSION
Mortimer
J. Adler once stated, “Christianity is the only logical, consistent
faith in the world” (as quoted in Sharp and Bergman, 2008, p. 288).
Unfortunately, the truth of his statement is often obscured by the
copious, false philosophies and inaccurate biblical interpretations that
masquerade as Christianity. Calvinism, theistic evolution, inherited
sin, misdefined faith, and a belief in modern-day miraculous healings
are just a few of the obstacles standing in the way of a proper
understanding of New Testament Christianity. To this list could be added
hundreds of similar ideas fraught with error such as the unscriptural
concepts of purgatory, limbo, modern-day Divine inspiration, the
perseverance of the saints, and a plethora of ridiculous “predictions”
supposedly rooted in the biblical text of Revelation. Those who
genuinely wish to defend the validity of New Testament Christianity must
be willing and able to assess the writings of modern skeptics,
separating the wheat from the chaff. By acknowledging the mistakes that
are inherent in false concepts of “Christianity,” the honest-hearted
truth seeker can be led to see that such foibles and errors do not mar
authentic, defensible Christianity.
REFERENCES
American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin), fourth edition.
Barker, Dan (1992), Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist (Madison, WI: Freedom From Religion).
Butt, Kyle (2002), “Jesus Christ—Dead or Alive?” Reason & Revelation, http://apologeticspress.org/articles/121.
Butt, Kyle (2003), “Do Babies Go to Hell When They Die?” http://apologeticspress.org/articles/2255.
Butt, Kyle (2004), “Do Children Inherit the Sins of the Parents?” http://apologeticspress.org/articles/2543.
Dawkins, Richard (2006), The God Delusion (New York: Houghton Mifflin).
Harris, Sam (2004), The End of Faith (New York: W.W. Norton).
Harris, Sam (2006), Letter to a Christian Nation (New York: Alfred A. Knopf).
Hitchens, Christopher (2007), god Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (New York: The Twelve).
Jackson, Wayne, Eric Lyons and Kyle Butt (2008), Surveying the Evidence (Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press).
Miller, Dave (2003), “Modern Day Miracles, Tongue-Speaking and Holy Spirit Baptism—A Refutation,” Reason & Revelation, http://apologeticspress.org/articles/2569.
Mills, David (2006), Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (Berkeley, CA: Ulysses Press).
Sharp, Doug and Jerry Bergman, eds. (2008), Persuaded by the Evidence (Green Forest, AR: Master Books).
Sztanyo, Dick (1996), Faith and Reason (Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press).
Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary (1988), (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster).