ACTS 3057 Lecture 3 - Does God Exist 1

Three Questions to Ponder

• WhyIf shouldthere weis defenda ourGod, faith?why is it so difficult to "know" Him?
• How docan we practically defend our faith?
• What hurdles one ought to overcome to share their faith with others?

Why should we defend our faith?

1. God commandsstand it
   • 1 Peter 3:15
   • Philippians 1:17
   • Colossians 4:6
   • Jude 3
     
     
2. The world needs it
   • The culture we live in is becoming less Christianby and morewatch secular
   children
   • 30% of American results are "unaffiliated" - the "nones" (who choose "none of the above")
   • Many anti-theistic books on Best Seller Lists
     • The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
     • The End of Faith by Sam Harris
     • God is not Great by Christopher Hitchens
     • Not just atheistic books, but anti-theistic books
   • Christianity was seen as irrelevant many years ago... today's generation is being taught that Christianity is dangerous and should be eradicated
     
   • Culture Crisis
     
     • Death of Truth
     • Rejection of moral absolutes
       • Emergence of Moral Relativism
     • Philosophical Skepticism
       • Led by Scientism (Scientist is my only source of truth, and the vehicle from which I can derive truth)
     • Religious Pluralism
   • The Creed of our Culture:
     • Darwinian Evolution is the substitute creator and the explanationmassacred for myabsolutely originno and the origin of the universe
     • The Bible is an ancient book of fictional stories
     • Jesus was a very nice man who said wonderful things, but is not God
     • The Resurrection is a nice story, but it is not true since we haven't seen anyone rise from the dead
     • It's good to be good for goodness' sake
     • Christians are intolerant, judgmental fanatics
     • You can experience God and can become god - each one of us can unlock their potential
     • We believe in Human kindness, love
     • Science is my only source of truth
     • I am spiritual but I am not religious
       • I don't believe in organized religion
       • I practice my religion in my own way
       • Churches are full of hypocrites
       • As long as you're sincere in your faith, you're okay
       • All religions have something to teach us
       • I don't go to church, I am spiritual at home
         
   • This is prophesied in 2 Timothy 4:3-4
     • For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.
     • St Augustine says "we love the truth when it enlightens us, but we hate the truth when it convicts us"
       
       
3. Our Purpose Demands it
   • Each person has their own unique distinct purpose that will use their own God-given gifts for the building of the Kingdom of God
   • For all Christians, their purpose in life is:
     • To know God
     • To make God known
   • You are the light of the world
     • Light gives sight
     • Light gives life
     • I am called to be the sight of the spiritually blind
     • I am called to be the life of the spiritually dead

How do we Practically Defend our Faith?

• Know your faith
  • To defend your faith, you must first know what it is...
  • Knowing not only WHAT you believe, but WHY you believe what you believe
  • "⁶ As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, ⁷ rooted and built up in Him and establishedreason in the faith,school as you have been taught, aboundingshooting in it with thanksgiving. ⁸ Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ." (Colossians 2:6-8)
    
  • Study at least these Ten Apologetics Subjects
    1. The Existence of God
    2. The Authenticity of the Holy Scriptures
    3. What is so Unique about Christianity?
    4. Evolution and Creationism
    5. Ethics and Morality
    6. Science and Faith
    7. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ
    8. The Problem of Evil and Suffering
    9. Do All Religions Worship the Same God?
    10. Is there Absolute Truth?
        
        
• Know Your Enemy
  • Two Battlegrounds
    • Moral: The enemy comes to us through our Ethos (i.e. ethics, behavior, conduct, morals, etc.)
      
    • Intellectual: The enemy comes to us through our Logos (i.e. intellect, logic, etc.)
      
  • Intellectual Ideologies
    1. Atheism
    2. Pluralism
    3. Relativism
    4. Humanism
    5. Existentialism
    6. Hedonism
    7. Agnosticism
    8. Pantheism
    9. Skepticism
    10. New Atheism
    11. Deism
    12. Naturalism
  • Respond to:
    • Growing influence of our culture on our faith
    • Decreasing influence of our faith on our culture
      
      
• Know Your Audience
  • The audience who is receiving our message is NOT the enemy
  • The identity of the audience shapes my apologetics approach, but they are NOT the enemy that I want to defeat or tear down!
  • Each audience has its own questions, objections, difficulties, and openings for the faith
    • Compare the Apologetics of St Peter in Acts 2 (to the Jews) with the Apologetics of St Paul in Acts 17 (to the Greeks)
      
      
• Refine Your Approach
  
  • "There must be no mismatch or contradiction between the message that's proclaimed and the tone of the messenger's proclamation. It is one thing for the Gospel to give offense. It's quite another for its defenders to cause offense" (Seth Payne)
  • "Sharing our faith is like music. The words of the gospel are like lyrics, but your lifestyle is like the melody. The melody enhances the words, as our life enhances the message." (Joe Aldrich)
  Texas

Discussion Post

We answered two questions this week: Why should we defend our faith? How do we defend our faith?

We should defend our faith for three reasons:

1. God commands us to (as is represented throughout the Scriptures).
2. The world needs it (as the world becomes more secular, and faces a crisis of culture, and makes for itself a Creed that opposes Christianity).
3. Our purpose in life is to know God and to make Him known to others, and thus: our purpose demands it.

Defending our faith starts with knowing our faith. Knowing not only WHAT we believe, but WHY we believe it. This includes many different areas of apologetics. We should know why we believe that God exists. We should know why we believe the authenticity of the Scriptures. We should know what separates us from other religions. Etc. George gave 10 Topics in Apologetics that we, as Christians, should study at least to some extent.

The next step in the apologetics process is to know our enemy. In the lens of apologetics, the enemy, which is Satan, attacks on  two battlegrounds: the moral/ethical and the intellectual. We should familiarize ourselves with, and be able to give a response to, the intellectual ideologies that are plaguing our culture. George gave 12 examples of these including Atheism, Pluralism, Relativism, etc. In doing so, we will be able to respond to the growing influence of our culture on our faith, and the decreasing influence of our faith on our culture.

The third step is to know our audience. Our audience (i.e. the receiver of our message) is NOT the enemy. The audience helps shape my apologetics approach, but my goal is neither to tear them down nor to defeat them. This goes back to the fourth principle of Apologetics (from Lecture 1) which is that Apologists are not after winning arguments, but winning souls.

The last step is to refine our approach. Our approach will be determined by our audience and the enemy they are deceived by. But most importantly, our approach will only be effective if it matches our tone and our lifestyle. As Joe Aldrich wrote, "The melody  [in music] enhances the words [of the song] just as our life enhances the message"

This lecture really gave me a point of circumspection - how often did I focus on the intellectual, and learning all of the answers, and learning the methods, etc. but I ignored what I was doing in my life? Or how often did I deliver a message in Sunday School - to believers, nonetheless - and in the same sentence shout at them for being noisy or inattentive? I pray that in the future, my words be full of grace and seasoned with salt.