Answering Tough Questions

1. Answering Tough Questions

2. The first thing to do when confronted with a “tough” question is to step back and ask yourself some questions about the question.

3. Questions to Ask • Is this a sincere or a rhetorical question?

5. This shows us that questions and statements are to some degree transposable—one can be made into the other. So the principles from this lecture apply also to objections that people have to Christianity.

6. Questions to Ask • Is this a sincere or a rhetorical question? • What type of question is this?

7. Types of Tough Questions • Biblical • Theological • Historical • Philosophical/Logical • Scientific • Ethical • Existential

8. These types of questions are not mutually exclusive. Questions may be biblical AND scientific or theological AND ethical, etc.

9. Questions to Ask • Is this a sincere or a rhetorical question? • What type of question is this? • What is this question actually asking?

10. It’s important to know what is really being asked. Sometimes people are not clear in their language—or their answers. Clarity helps us understand what others are saying—and helps others understand what we are saying.

11. Questions to Ask • Is this a sincere or a rhetorical question? • What type of question is this? • What is this question asking? • What does this question presuppose?

12. Often people presuppose something in a question. It is helpful to you—and them—to reveal what they are presupposing. It may not be evident, or it may not be true—or reasonable—to presuppose it.

13. Oftentimes people presuppose the burden of proof is on someone else. For instance, people frequently presuppose that for an argument for God’s existence to be sound it must be impossible to deny it. This is raising the bar to an absurdly high level.

14. Similarly, people sometimes assume that in order to commit themselves to Jesus Christ they must have 100% certainty. After all, we’re talking about a radically existential commitment. But we make radical commitments all the time without 100% certainty.

15. Questions to Ask • Is this a sincere or a rhetorical question? • What type of question is this? • What is this question asking? • What does this question presuppose? • Does this get the facts right?

16. Of the 5,000 early early manuscript versions of the New Testament, not one predates the fourth century. The New Testament as it exists today is essentially a product of fourth-century editors and writers—custodians of orthodoxy, “adherents of the message,” with vested interests to protect.”Holy Blood, Holy Grail- Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln

17. Questions to Ask • Is this a sincere or a rhetorical question? • What type of question is this? • What is this question asking? • What does this question presuppose? • Does this get the facts right? • Is this question logical?

18. Questions to Ask • Is this a sincere or a rhetorical question? • What type of question is this? • What is this question asking? • What does this question presuppose? • Is this question logical? • What follows from this question?

19. It often helps to point out to people what logically follows from believing something. Often we don’t believe what logically follows from believing something. When that’s the case, we shouldn’t hold the original belief either.

20. For instance, determinism logically follows from affirming materialism (that only material realities exist). But this implies that we are not free, or rational. And if we are not free or rational, then how can we believe in morality?

21. Questions to Ask • Is this a sincere or a rhetorical question? • What type of question is this? • What is this question asking? • What does this question presuppose? • Does this get the facts right? • Is this question logical? • What follows from this question? • What is at stake with this question?

22. Sometimes people put a great deal of weight on an issue that is not fundamental to the Gospel. It may be an acceptable interpretation of Scripture but not the only way of understanding a passage or a doctrine that may or may not be believed by an orthodox Christian.

23. Biblical Questions Questions about the Bible can come in various forms. A person might question its textual reliability, or insist that the Bible is an example of an ancient myth, or have problems with miracles, or pit one part of the Bible against another, or its canon (why not the Book of Mormon or Gospel of Judas?), or some such thing.

24. Example Didn’t Jesus say that the mustard seed is the smallest of all seeds? But modern science tells us that that’s not true. So, how is the Bible true?

25. Theological Questions Theological questions arise when people think about doctrines that are difficult or that they misunderstand. Often they arise from pitting one (mis)understanding of a doctrine over against another. Apologetics is frequently just correcting bad theology (or bad interpretation).

26. Example How can a God who is genuinely loving and fair send people who have never heard of Jesus to hell just for not believing in Him? This question presupposes that God sends people to hell for not believing in Jesus but that is not the basis of our condemnation.

27. Historical Questions Historical questions can be questions about historical method (how can you know . . .?) or questioning an event or events that the Bible speaks of. They may also come from reading popular literature that either gets the facts wrong, or states the facts without telling the whole story or ignores the context.

28. Example If Greco-Roman political leaders routinely had miraculous stories told about their births, then why should we believe that Jesus was unique? This question is incomplete—it doesn’t tell the whole story. There were miraculous birth stories about pagan leaders—centuries after their deaths!

29. Historical Questions Do we have any non-Christian evidence that explicitly say that Jesus actually existed? This question unfairly presupposes that a report is disqualified if it is in any way theological, or if it comes from a follower of Jesus.

30. Historical Questions It also shows a good bit of confusion about how history works. Historians try to make sense of the evidence that they have. The explanation with the most explanatory power is deemed the best. Conspiracy theories or theories that insist that ancient people lacked common sense are never the most plausible.

31. Philosophical/Logical Questions Philosophical or logical questions generally arise from perceived incoherence of parts of the Christian worldview.

32. Example “Given the uniformity of nature, how can anyone reasonably believe in miracles?”

33. Scientific Questions Scientific questions arise from misunderstanding what science tells us, or how science works, or what the Bible actually says. For instance, many think that science and Christianity are at war or that one contradicts the other. Others think that science has disproved miracles or creation or God’s existence but such is not the case.

34. Examples How can anyone believe that the universe was created in only 6 24-hour days? How can there be life after death if the body, particularly the brain, has decomposed?

35. Ethical Questions Ethical questions may arise from the behavior of Christian leaders, or from an issue in the person’s life. They may also arise from reading a historical section in the Bible out of context, or inferring something that the Bible does not teach.

36. Examples How can I believe in a God who would order his people to commit genocide, to entirely wipe out another people group? Why are Christians so homophobic? Doesn’t the Bible approve of slavery, abuse of women, and polygamy?

37. Existential Questions Existential questions have everything to do with TRUST. That is the fundamental question of existentialism: To whom or what can I commit myself?

38. Existential Questions Given the frequency of religious wars why should I commit to any religion, much less become a Christian?

39. Thomas Crean “Still, one point is worth making in answer to the author’s claim . . . that ‘religion causes people to do evil things’. Insofar as this is true, it has no tendency to show that religion is itself a bad thing, or that its message is false. Love causes people to do evil things; so does patriotism. The love of a man and a woman can lead to unfaithfulness, to the

40. Thomas Crean destruction of families and even to murder. Patriotism can lead to hatred and to the indiscriminate bombing of cities. None of this means that either love or patriotism is a bad thing. It simply means that the weakness of human nature is such that any great object or cause may stir our emotions as to lead us to act against our better judgment. If religion occasions evil as well

41. Thomas Crean as good, this is no sign of its falsity, but simply of its power of attraction over human nature. That in the name of religion good men may do bad things is no argument against religion, unless crimes of passion are arguments against human love.” Thomas Crean, God is No Delusion, 118-19