Intellectual Objections

Number 4 in my list of reasons to not believe you might perhaps expect to be higher up the list. Surely it's not logical to believe in something you can't see and what about the whole science versus faith debate?

Reasoned Faith

For me personally this is an odd one, because it's always seemed logical that there's a God. If you investigate the evidence for Jesus coming to this Earth, doing what He did, why He did it and the repercussions across history, there's nothing more reasonable and logical. I'm an engineer, with a PhD. As far as I can tell, I've never been brainwashed, I'm not gullible and I am able to look at things objectively, weighing up facts and coming to sensible conclusions.  Now I'm not saying I'm always right, but I am usually logical.  When I look at the existence of the Universe, the place of humanity in it and the problems of evil versus good, they all have reasonable descriptions in the Bible that are consistent and logical. Outside of scriptures I've read plenty by very intelligent Christian authors such as C.S. Lewis, Lee Strobel and Ravi Zacharias, to name a few. All three of these fellas give reasoned and compelling arguments for the Christian faith. My own faith in Jesus is a reasoned faith, it is not a blind one.

What's the Game?

So what gives? Why is there even a discussion of science versus faith? I am a person with a strong faith, who uses science and sees no need to pit one against the other. I think there are a number of reasons why there are apparent conflicts between science, reason and faith. I could probably write whole blogs on each (hey, material for a future series!), but here I'll just list them out with some brief comments:

1. Bad science - there I said it.  There is a lot of bad science, philosophy and rhetoric that claims to be scientific fact but really it's not.  Whenever a scientist starts a monologue with "We know..." or "Perhaps..." my skeptical radar kicks in.
2. Scientism. When science becomes a philosophy of life ("In the name of science"), that can be a dangerous thing.  I always think back to the classic line from the original Jurassic Park movie where Jeff Goldblum's character, Dr Malcolm says "Yeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should." If you recall the end of the movie, it didn't work out so well.
3. Pride. This comes from both people defending their faith and those defending science. They both want to win the argument and don't really want to discover the truth. There are many scientists and philosophers, good and bad with a lot invested in their ideas who get very emotional when they're challenged. They ignore the facts and throw stones rather than answering the challenges with rational proofs.
4. Ignorance. No-one can know everything but I think a lot of the talk of conflict between science and religion is bogus and comes from ignorance about what the other "side" believes to be true.
5. A hidden agenda. And this is the big one.  I've heard it said and I think it's true that many folks who state they have intellectual objections to Christianity, actually have moral objections. That is, they don't want to believe the Christian message, whether it's true or not. It's a heart issue, not a head issue.

Using Reason to Find Faith

I have a feeling I'll be quoting his book a lot, but I've just finished reading a pre-release copy of Abdu Murray's excellent new book "Saving Truth" which has the subtitle "Finding Meaning & Clarity in a Post-Truth World." Chapter 7 of his book is titled "Clarity about Science and Faith" and in it he breaks down what science is really about and what faith, in the Christian definition, really means.  Rather than disproving faith, Abdu makes a strong argument that the observations we get from science are actually part of discovering the wonder of God that can lead to faith. Whether it's the intricacies of the structure of DNA or the mind-blowing beauty of the stars, we can see God's fingerprint in nature and be in awe.

To wrap up this blog, here is a quote from the chapter that's pretty cool:

"Science confirms the truths in Scripture. Scripture unveils the poetry of science. The confusing fog of the false dichotomy between science and faith fades. The sea of glass mingled with fire that is the intertwining of faith and science becomes clear. The signals of transcendence reveal our relevance to the Transcendent One."

Further Reading?

So there you have my take on intellectual objections to believing in Jesus. Perhaps this blog took a different tack than you expected in that I didn't list a bunch of intellectual objections and give arguments against them.  There are plenty of books that do that much better than I could here. But to be fair, if you do have genuine intellectual objections here are a few resources that might be helpful from the authors mentioned in this blog and others:

• The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel
• Jesus Among Secular Gods by Ravi Zacharias and Vince Vitale
• Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
• Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton
• I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek
• Darwin's Black Box by Michael Behe

Enjoy!

Missing Out

In my last blog I ventured into the tricky territory of cultural differences which is subject material that I'm probably not the best qualified to address.  For this blog I think I'm on safer ground, talking about what you think you'll need to give up, or what you'll miss out on in order to follow Christ.

Prohibitions

When I lived in Singapore a couple of years ago, I loved seeing some of the signs that were posted prohibiting all sorts of things.  In fact the Singaporeans poke fun at themselves with all the prohibition signs and fines. You can even buy t-shirts or other souvenirs with them on. Some of the prohibitions seem crazy, but the majority of them are sensible and all of them are there for a reason, namely to protect the public. (By the way, you really don't want Durians on a bus or train - they stink!)

Turning to scripture and the various prohibitions listed there it's easy to see that the majority of them are commands that help society as a whole...

 "'You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’”

So rather than seeing these as things that cause us to miss out in life, they are boundaries that help us to enjoy life safely and with consideration to those around us. Particularly, if we do love our neighbors as ourselves then life as a whole is good, right?

Sugar-coating Sin

The trickier things that the Bible says we shouldn't do are things that fall under the general designation of "sins" which can be sins against others (mostly covered in the list above), sins against God (worst of which is ignoring Him altogether), or, more subtly, sins against ourselves (think addictions).  In the modern world it's not popular to talk about sin and it's effect on individuals and societies as a whole, but it's still there and still takes it's toll on individuals and society. Ultimately the scriptures paint a terrible picture of sin and its consequences. The book of Romans is particularly clear on this:

"The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse... They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them."

Sin does three things: (1) it separates us from God, (2) it sets us against each other, and (3) it enslaves us. There's no way to sugar-coat it, though much of our modern culture tries to glamorize sin, redefine it, or, worse still, ignore it. It's a fallacy that freedom to do whatever you want is the best way to live. In the end the unfettered freedom to do anything often results in you becoming trapped by the very things you do. 

Freedom

In his upcoming book "Saving Truth" Abdu Murray suggests that real freedom is not just freedom to do whatever you want, but is made up of three parts: freedom from restraint, freedom for the greater good, and freedom from sin. In order to be truly free, we need all three.

The best news is that we don't need to strive to achieve this freedom alone, but can seek and find that freedom in the person of Jesus Christ. He said:

 "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”