Unbelief is the shield of every sin.

I question whether the defenses of the gospel are not sheer impertinences. The gospel does not need defending. If Jesus Christ is not alive and cannot fight his own battles, then Christianity is in a bad state. But he is alive, and we have only to preach his gospel in all its naked simplicity, and the power that goes with it will be the evidence of its divinity.

Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?

A religion confined to the closet, the cell, or the church, therefore, Calvin abhors. With the Psalmist, he calls upon heaven and earth, he calls upon all peoples and nations to give glory to God...Wherever man may stand, whatever he may do, to whatever he may apply his hand, in agriculture, in commerce, and in industry, or his mind, in the world of art, and science, he is, in whatsoever it may be, constantly standing before the face of his God, he has strictly to obey his God, and above all, he has to aim at the glory of his God.

The Bible is thought of as authoritative on everything of which it speaks. And it speaks of everything...It tells us not only of the Christ and his work but it also tells us who God is and whence the universe has come. It gives us a philosophy of history as well as history. Moreover, the information on these subjects is woven into an inextricable whole. It is only if you reject the Bible as the Word of God that you can separate its so-called religious and moral instruction from what it says, e.g. about the physical universe. It is therefore the system of truth as contained in Scripture which we must present to the world.

For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ...

All possible knowledge, then, depends on the validity of reasoning...Unless human reasoning is valid no science can be true. It follows that no account of the universe can be true unless that account leaves it possible for our thinking to be a real insight...We may in fact state it as a rule that no thought is valid if it can be fully explained as the result of irrational causes...But Naturalism, as commonly held, is precisely a theory of this sort...The finest piece of scientific reasoning is caused in just the same irrational way as the thoughts a man has because a bit of bone is pressing on his brain.

The Challenge of the Christian Worldview

by Douglas Jones

Most non-Christians simply assume that Christianity is false. They brush it off without a thought like a rich person with a pestering beggar. Why is this? One reason may be that Christians themselves have done a poor job of presenting their case. Much of contemporary Christianity is infected with emotionalism and mysticism, and these do not provide a basis for a serious critique of the non-Christian worldview. Nevertheless, biblical Christianity does in fact challenge the very foundation of non-Christian worldviews.

Worldviews

First of all, what is a worldview? In short, a worldview is the set of all our beliefs about the world that determine the way we understand every aspect of life (reality, knowledge, ethics, etc.). We each have a worldview, whether or not we understand or acknowledge it. Each worldview operates according to its own standards. For example, something that is "rational," "convincing," or "good" in one worldview may be understood as just the opposite in another. For example, a "miracle" as interpreted in one view may be seen, in another view, as an "oddity of nature that will one day be explained." Each view has its own guiding and controlling assumptions about the world, and so no one can truly be "neutral" or "open-minded." Nevertheless, though differing worldviews appeal to different standards, we are not left with a relativism in which all views are of equal merit. As we will see, we have means by which to reject certain worldviews.

Some philosophers have noted that board games, such as chess and checkers, give us a picture of the workings of worldviews. Each game has its own rules for determining what the possible and impossible moves are; each game has its own standards for good and bad strategies. It would be absurd for a chess player to criticize a game of checkers for violating the rules of chess; the rules and "facts" in one game are understood in an entirely different way than in another. Similarly, a Christian or non-Christian cannot hope to "prove" something to the other by simply appealing to "facts" or standards that are interpreted differently by the other.

Disputes about worldviews must therefore be handled indirectly. For example, one can show that some of the claims of a worldview rule out some of its other claims, or one can show that some beliefs cannot be justified or supported within the view itself.

Similarly, some worldviews cannot justify our most obvious commonsensical beliefs. Internal problems of this sort are inherent in all non-Christian worldviews.

The Challenge

When pressed, the non-Christian may offer many "reasons" for ignoring or rejecting Christianity. However, the chief reason that non-Christians dismiss the Christian worldview goes deeper than the failings of some Christians. Biblical Christianity is a probing light, which exposes all the blind assumptions and pitiful justifications used to defend all non-Christian worldviews. Hence, non-Christians must dismiss Christianity in order to avoid embarrassment at the foundation of their reasoning. Given the utter bankruptcy of their position, they must ignore whatever exposes it. The Apostle Paul made this same sort of indictment in the New Testament era: "Where is the wise? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?" (1 Cor. 1:20) Paul scoffs at any claim to knowledge that ignores the Christian God. But Paul is not condemning scholarly work, wisdom or the rational justification of beliefs. He is attacking the view that one can have or do any of these activities without Christ (Col. 2:8).

The challenge of the Christian worldview is simply this: there can be no knowledge, reason, science, or warranted thinking of any kind if the Christian God does not exist. The biblical worldview provides the inescapable preconditions of all knowledge. Claims of knowledge in mathematics, physics, economics, biology, politics, psychology, logic, linguistics, etc. are only justifiable within the Christian worldview.

All worldviews that do not acknowledge the Christian God must therefore ultimately fail; they cannot justify a single word of their system let alone logic, ethics, and science. But why are these subjects important? We use them (self-consciously or not) in every aspect of our day-to-day lives. The implication is that activities that so many people take for granted driving, writing a check, gardening are impossible without the Christian God.

All this will strike the non-Christian as totally absurd: "It's ridiculous to say that I can't do or know anything if I'm not a Christian; non-Christians have been leaders in all these areas." This is quite true, but it's only true because non-Christians are radically inconsistent with their own premises.

The crux of the matter is this: if the world were really as the non-Christian imagines without the Christian God then logic, science, ethics, etc. would not be possible. Non-Christian philosophy ultimately destroys the ground of all rational thought. Let me explain.

Logic

How can the non-Christian who holds that the world is the product of chance consistently use logic? If the laws of logic are not objective, or are not universal (applicable everywhere), or are changing, then logical thinking makes no sense. But universal, unchanging principles cannot be justified in a non-Christian worldview. If everything is changing and evolving then so must the laws of logic; if everything is material then the non-material principles of logic are ruled out.

Some non-Christian have conceded this point and have argued that the laws of logic are merely the product of our mind or reflect the way we talk. But if this is the case, then reasoning with others is futile; there are no rules of reasoning binding upon everyone, and any rules that appear to hold would change or evolve as our minds and language do.

In the Christian worldview this sort of radical inconsistency on the part of the unbeliever is understandable. The Bible describes humans as in rebellion against God. They would rather believe anything, no matter how inconsistent, than acknowledge the Christian God. Non-Christians can use reason only because the world is made and ordered the way the Bible describes and not the way the non-Christian imagines.

In the Christian worldview, the laws of logic are universal and unchanging because they reflect the nature and decree of the living God. God is unchanging and perfectly controls every aspect of creation.

Ethics

The non-Christian worldview also fails with regard to moral standards or ethics. As with logic, non-Christians use and argue about ethics all the time, but given their view of the world, they cannot justify their conclusions. On the one hand, they will argue that there are no standards of right and wrong behavior, yet on the other hand, they vehemently protest violations of rights and denounce "unjust" government policies. But why is any act objectively good or bad on non-Christian grounds?

If we and the world are products of impersonal natural forces, as many believe, then there are no values or rights for anything. Given the non-Christian view, humans have as many "rights" as a block of granite. There is no way for the non-Christian to justify an ethical distinction between racial prejudice and brotherly love or genocide and a family picnic.

Ironically, non-Christians have often pointed to all the evil in the world in order to argue that there is no God. However, the real problem of evil rests with non-Christians. How, according to their worldview, can they justifiably distinguish good from evil? They can only do so by being inconsistent with their basic beliefs. They must borrow ideas about right and wrong from the Christian worldview even to state their objection.

In the non-Christian worldview, all standards, rights, and values are ultimately arbitrary and unjustifiable. So, if the world were really as the non-Christian imagines, then it would be nonsense to speak of any absolute right and wrong. The Christian is not in this quandary. God's unchanging, holy nature determines whether something is good or has value. Humans have value because they are created in the image of their Creator. God has revealed His absolute standards for personal and social ethics. These norms are objective, universal, and applicable. Hence, the Christian has the philosophical basis to reason about morals, politics, and economics, but the non-Christian does not.

Science

We have been taught since our early school years that there is this great conflict between science and Christianity. This is false. In fact, scientific practice is only possible within the Christian worldview.

Science requires certain conditions. For example, the way the world operates must remain generally the same (uniformity of nature) or else scientific prediction is futile. If the conditions being tested in a particular experiment were constantly changing, then the scientific method would be inane. Moreover, our minds must be able to perceive accurately and analyze the data in question.

The non-Christian cannot justify these two basic concerns. If everything is the product of chance, then the non-Christian cannot know that the world will operate uniformly from moment to moment. How does the non-Christian justify the claim that the future will even probably resemble the past? Or how does he know that any unexamined cases will resemble those which have been examined? One cannot logically deduce that nature is uniform on the basis of past experience, since one would be assuming uniformity in order to prove it begging the question. Other attempts to solve this problem have failed just as badly.

Non-Christians cannot rationally account for the uniformity of nature though it is an essential aspect of science (and everyday life). Hence, non-Christian scientists must blindly assume that the universe is predictable. If they consistently followed their worldview, they would have to give up their scientific endeavors.

Secondly, on the non-Christian view, why should we expect that the mind accurately analyzes the world? They believe all conclusions are only the results of electro-chemical processes. In a non-Christian universe, why are these results more "rational" or "true" than the results of the physical processes that occur when two marbles strike each other?

The Christian worldview provides the necessary basis for science. The God of biblical Christianity explicitly promises to maintain the uniformity of nature so that He can accomplish His purposes. Secondly, humans are made to reflect their Creator, which is the foundation of our rational capacities and moral responsibility.

Conclusion

We've looked at just three examples of how the non-Christian worldview fails. The non-Christian worldview destroys logic, ethics, and science. The examples could be multiplied. Much more detail could be added, and secondary objections could be addressed, if space permitted.

Note that the conclusion is not that non-Christians do not use logic, argue that there are right and wrong actions, or carry out scientific experiments. They do all these things, but they cannot justify doing them on the basis of their worldview. They carry out these activities by "borrowing" from the Christian worldview.

Moreover, the argument is not that the God of the Christian worldview is only some sort of practical necessity or a being that may "probably" exist. He is inescapable. In every place we look, and in every thing we do, we are confronted with the God of the Bible. We cannot do anything without presupposing the Christian God.

If we were to try to live consistently in terms of a non-Christian worldview, then we couldn't reason or even talk about the attempt without presupposing God. If we were to go further in our resolution to deny the Christian God then we must deny imputing value to anything including the value of our endeavor to deny Him. Even then our continued existence would show that we inconsistently impute value to our own life.

The non-Christian who attempts to adhere to his or her principles will ultimately need to give up all knowledge, language, and value. God's indictment rings clear: "all they that hate me love death" (Prov. 8:36). It is Jesus Christ, the Son of God, "in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Col. 2:3). All of the above arguments can be summarized with Christ's declaration: "without me you can do nothing" (John 15:5).

The Bible describes the human condition in the following way. God continually pours out His mercy and blessings on us. Yet as ungrateful creatures we rebel against Him. We all inescapably know God, but because of our willful rebellion (Rom. 3:10-18) we suppress that knowledge deceitfully (Rom. 1:20-21). Therefore, God's righteous judgment awaits every human.

However, God in great mercy has established a covenant or bond between Himself and those who trust Him, as His people (Deut. 7:7-9). God loved those who deserved only His wrath. He sent His Son Jesus Christ to live a perfect life and to die as a sacrificial substitute for His people, taking their condemnation on Himself (Rom. 5:8).

Those who would be saved are commanded by God's Word to turn from sin and entrust themselves to Christ. This means that we need to accept His claims and promises, and rest on His work (not our own) for forgiveness, cleansing, and eternal life with God. In Christ, the believer is a "new creation" (2 Cor. 5:17) who is "being renewed to a true knowledge" (Col. 3:10). We can only escape intellectual futility through Christ; only through Him can we make sense of the world around us. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; but fools despise wisdom and discipline" (Prov. 1:7).

Thoughts on Apologetics

by Douglas Wilson

Unbelievers, by nature, hate the truth. Our task, therefore, in our presentation of truth, is to leave them no excuse for that hatred. Our task is not to convince them that deep down they really love God. They do not.

We have only two choices. Either we seek to reason our way to the truth of the Scriptures, or we reason from the truth of the Scriptures. The first seeks to arrive at a believing conclusion through an adroit use of an unbelieving methodology. The latter sees the Bible as the ground and foundation of all truth.

The Bible requires us to be prepared to give a reason for the hope that is in us. But it not possible to be prepared without preparation. And preparation requires work.

Modern evangelicals seek to defend Christianity as a reasonable faith to exercise in the "spiritual" sphere. But unless Christianity is defended as a total world and life view, there can be no adequate defense for it. How can there be a defense for something there is no excuse for?

Christianity is not just true behind our eyes and between our ears; it is true objectively.

If the Lord Jesus Christ is not the Lord of all, He is not the Lord at all.

We do not have the option of neutrality in our investigation of the truth claims made in the Bible. All such investigations will be conducted by men who either hate God or love Him. If they hate Him, then they have no desire to leave their sin, and their investigation will not arrive at the truth. If they love Him, then they cannot investigate whether or not He exists. How could the One they love not exist?

The Christian apologist must not argue for the possibility of God's existence or even the probability of it. Our highest duty is to love God, and we cannot love a probability. The task of the apologist is to demonstrate the inescapability of the Father's presence.

Christian apologists who argue for the "probability" of God's existence are leaving room for sin. If there is any legitimate chance that God does not exist, then there must be correspondingly a legitimate chance that a man's "sins" are not sins at all.

To suggest that there are men capable of objectively investigating whether or not Christianity is true is to assert that Christianity is false. The Bible says that no one seeks after God. Not even one.

Reasoning from the Scriptures is not an exercise in blind faith. It is not an abandonment of reason. It is the recogntion that reason needs a foundation, which only Scripture can provide.

Unbelievers, and believers compromised by an unbelieving methodology, assert strongly that reason is to be our starting point, not faith. And what is their reason for trusting reason? You see, they don't have reasons for reason; they have faith in reason.

Our faith is in God, the only possible precondition and foundation for human reason.

Everyone starts with faith. Some with faith understand that they have it, and some with faith don't understand. Our choice is not whether we will start with faith, but rather which object of faith we shall trust God or man?

Our task is not to defend our faith with our reason. Our task is to defend our reason with our faith. Some say they want to understand in order to be able to believe. We say that we must believe in order to be able to understand.

We wear the helmet of salvation to protect our heads. We must not reverse it; heads are poor protections for helmets.

Because we are creatures, we must begin with faith.

Unbelief is not the cause of sin; sin is the cause of unbelief.

Nothing is more reasonable than faith in God; nothing is more unreasonable than a blind leap of faith in reason.

We believe that the teaching of the Bible provides both the foundation and the house. But there are some Christians who believe the Bible provides us only with the house.

Unbelievers must assume the existence of God in order to deny Him. He is the ground and support for all reason, and yet unbelievers persist in marshalling reasons for their unbelief.

If God does not exist, the difference between one man's thoughts and another man's thoughts is the same difference as that found by shaking up a bottle of Mountain Dew and a bottle of Dr. Pepper.

The chief tools of the Christian apologist are love to God, and heart-felt gratitude to Him for all that He has done for us.

It is common for men to make doubts when they have the mind to desert the truth.

The message of the cross and resurrection reconciles sinners to God, and part of this reconciliation is the dispelling of intellectual darkness. The futility of thinking is gone because the hardness of heart which produced it is gone. Hard hearts make for soft heads. Because the Spirit of God has taken away the heart of stone, the way the man thinks is altered forever.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, But fools despise wisdom and instruction.

The authority of the holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed, and obeyed, dependeth not upon the testimony of any man, or church; but wholly upon God (who is truth itself) the author thereof: and therefore it is to be received, because it is the Word of God.

The sciences bring to the "facts" the philosophy they claim to derive from them.

Without Christ, sciences in every department are vain...The man who knows not God is vain, though he should be conversant with every branch of learning. Nay more, we may affirm this too with truth, that these choice gifts of God expertness of mind, acuteness of judgment, liberal sciences, and acquaintance with languages, are in a manner profaned in every instance in which they fall to the lot of wicked men.

The Christian cannot be satisfied so long as any human activity is either opposed to Christianity or out of connection with Christianity. Christianity must pervade not merely all nations but also all of human thought.

The natural man is such a one as constantly throws water on a fire he cannot quench.

The non-Christian, of course, can accept an absolute only if that absolute is impersonal and therefore makes no demands and has no power to bless or curse. There are personal gods in paganism, but none of them is absolute; there are absolutes in paganism, but none is personal. Only in Christianity (and in other religions influenced by the Bible) is there such a concept as a "personal absolute."

Men love to be encouraged by false hopes; the world is full of quack remedies for sin.

As it turns out, Operation Desert Storm was not the Battle of Armageddon. When it comes to prophecy and the end times, why are evangelicals so gullible?

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