Busenitz Reasons We Believe (Foreword by John MacArthur)

50 Lines of Evidence That Confirm the Christian Faith
1. Auflage 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4335-2166-9
Verlag: Crossway
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 224 Seiten

Reasons We Believe will reinforce your personal faith and will provide you with a clear, concise, evangelistic tool to help you share that faith with others. In an age of cynics and skeptics, Christianity is constantly under attack. Believers need resources that defend the veracity of their faith. They are searching for clear, concise, and credible answers to both doubts of their own and objections from their unbelieving friends. Nathan Busenitz provides such resources to believers. Reasons We Believe confirms and strengthens the faith of believers by demonstrating the reliability of the twofold authority on which Christianity rests: the Word of God and the person of Jesus Christ. Reasons builds a biblical foundation for the authority of the Bible and then shows how extra-biblical evidence corresponds with and thereby attests to what the Bible claims. This study seeks to reinforce the faith of Christians while also providing them with a straightforward evangelistic tool for reaching non-Christians.

Nathan Busenitz (PhD, The Master's Seminary) is assistant professor of theology at the Master's Seminary. He previously served on the pastoral staff of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California. He is the author of numerous books and a regular contributor to the blog Preacher & Preaching.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Busenitz, Nathan

Leseproben

INTRODUCTION

Faith, no matter how sincere, is only a fantasy if it is based on bad information.

Consider the misguided ventures of Juan Ponce de León, a sixteenth-century Spanish explorer. Ponce de León was appointed governor of Puerto Rico (then called Boriquien) in 1509. Having been a crew member on the second voyage of Christopher Columbus, he had decided to stay in the New World when Columbus returned to Spain. While serving as governor, Ponce de León began hearing rumors about an alleged “fountain of youth,” a spring that reversed the effects of aging and gave eternal life. His imagination was immediately captivated, and he became determined to find the magical source of immortality.2

On March 3, 1513, Ponce de León set out from Puerto Rico with several ships to locate the island of Bimini, where the fountain of youth was supposedly situated. He was convinced that the island existed, and he planned on doing everything in his power to find it. But, although he did discover Florida, he never found the legendary Bimini or its life-giving spring. His search ended in 1521 when he was fatally wounded during one of his exploits.

Despite good intentions and repeated attempts, this treasure-hunter was doomed to fail from the outset because he was chasing something that didn’t exist. He believed that it existed, but his faith was ultimately disappointed because it was based on faulty data. The unverifiable reports he had received about the fountain of youth were false, meaning that Ponce de León was trusting in sources that had given him bad information. Though his faith was surely sincere, it was ultimately worthless because it was founded on error.

Ponce de León’s negative example can be contrasted with one of his contemporaries, another Spanish explorer named Hernán Cortés. While Ponce de León was searching for the mythical fountain, Cortés was learning about a city so magnificent, it too sounded legendary. But there was something different about the information Cortés received. Unlike Ponce de León, Cortés had good reason to believe that the city actually existed. He had received specific details about the city’s king, Montezuma. He had also been met by one of the city’s ambassadors, Teudile. He had even been given precious stones and featherware from the city as a token of Montezuma’s goodwill. Although he had not yet visited the city, Cortés found the evidence for its existence impossible to ignore.3

The name of the city was Tenochtitlán; it was the capital of the Aztec Empire and one of the largest cities in the world at that time. The city was known as “the Venice of the New World,” and Cortés and his men thought they were dreaming when they finally saw it for the first time (on November 8, 1519). But Cortés was not dreaming. His quest for Tenochtitlán had not been in vain, because it had been based on credible information. His faith in the city’s existence was not founded on legends or myth; it was founded on trustworthy evidence. His faith was vindicated because his sources were reliable.

So how do the exploits of Juan Ponce de León and Hernán Cortés compare? Both men were Spanish explorers and conquerors. Both made expeditions for the purpose of discovery in the New World. Both believed that what they were searching for truly existed. Both had faith in their respective pursuits. But only one of the two men was right about what he believed. Only Cortés believed in something that actually corresponded to reality.

IS CHRISTIANITY BASED ON GOOD
INFORMATION?

When it comes to contemporary religious beliefs, people exercise faith in many different belief systems. Certainly every religion can boast of ardent followers—morally good people, humanly speaking, who strongly believe that their respective religion is correct. Like Ponce de León they spend their lives pursuing what they believe to be true. But unless their faith is based on an accurate source of information (a correct authority), they are pursuing nothing more than a fantasy.

In this book, we will survey the case for the reliability of the twofold authority on which Christianity rests—namely, the Bible and the person of Jesus Christ (cf. Hebrews 1:1–2). In order to do this we will go to the Bible itself, which is “the word of Christ” (Colossians 3:16), to see what reasons it gives for why we should accept its claims about God, about itself, and about Jesus. Rather than starting with philosophy, history, science, or even human reason, it is only right that an examination and defense of biblical Christianity begin with the Bible. The renowned evangelist D. L. Moody reportedly noted, “There’s no better book with which to defend the Bible than the Bible itself.” He was absolutely right. As we will see in the upcoming pages, Scripture not only invites scrutiny, it also consistently demonstrates itself to be a trustworthy source of information.4

Once we have developed each reason from Scripture, we can then show how extra-biblical evidence corresponds with, and thereby attests to, what the Bible claims. To be clear, this external evidence does not establish the truthfulness of the Christian faith. If Christianity is true, it is because there really is a God, and He has revealed Himself to us through His Son and in His Word. Nonetheless, external evidence does corroborate the claims of Christianity. Because the God of the Bible is also the God of creation, time, and truth (cf. Psalm 19:1–6; Acts 17:26–28; John 17:17), the facts of science, history, and logic will necessarily correspond to what the Bible reveals.5 Such evidence therefore provides wonderful confirmation for believers, because it bears witness to both the reliability of Scripture and the authenticity of Jesus Christ.

The empirical, forensic, and philosophical evidence that backs up Christianity sets it apart from other worldviews and belief systems. In the words of Christian author Morris Inch, “There is a case to be made for Christianity. It passes the philosophic criteria with highest honors; it focuses on the incomparable figure of Jesus; it draws credibility from accumulative evidence; and it satisfies the conditions of trust. We need not, and ought not, settle for less.”6 In fact, the Christian faith is unique in the amount of evidence that supports it. As Christian apologist and scientist Henry Morris observes:

The entire subject of evidences is almost exclusively the domain of Christian evidences. Other religions depend on subjective experience and blind faith, tradition and opinion. Christianity stands or falls upon the objective reality of gigantic supernatural events in history and the evidences therefore. This fact in itself is an evidence of its truth.7

Other scholars agree, noting that “only Christianity stakes its claim to truthfulness on historical events open to critical investigation.”8 Irwin H. Linton, in his book A Lawyer Examines the Bible, contends that the evidence for Christianity confirms it to be true beyond any reasonable doubt. After all, it “rests on definite, historical facts and events” that, due to the overwhelming evidence that supports them, must “be regarded as proved under the strictest rules of evidence used in the highest American and English courts.”9

But what about other religious beliefs? How do they fare? Like Christianity, they too have “authorities” on which they base their beliefs.10 For the Muslim, authority is found in the Qur’an, the Hadith (Muslim traditions), and the Sunnah (customs of Muslim life). For the Hindu, the authority is the Scruti (the revealed canon, which includes the Bhagavad Gita) and the Smitri (semi-canonical literature). Buddhist teachings center on “four basic truths” and the “eightfold path.” Atheists too are people of faith. Though they cannot disprove that God exists, they choose to believe it nonetheless. For them, the naturalistic theories of evolution or the musings of contemporary philosophers are often appealed to as sources of authority. But what happens when these supposed authorities are put to the test?11

Christian apologists John Ankerberg and John Weldon give us the answer: “Other religions . . . can also be tested by examining their claims and looking critically at the facts—but again, one finds that they are invalidated by such a procedure.” In fact, “no genuinely historical or objective evidence exists for the foundational claims of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, or any other world religion [besides Christianity].”12 Author Robert Morey concurs, noting that “the faith of the non-Christian is externally and internally groundless.” On the other hand, “there is more than enough evidence on every hand from every department of human experience and knowledge to demonstrate that Christianity is true.”13

Though a thorough examination of other religions is outside the scope of this book, we will consider them briefly at the end of Section 2 (in considering pantheistic and polytheistic religions) and also in Section 3 (where we will specifically address the Qur’an). Many excellent books have been written that compare Christianity with other religions.14 Our purpose here is to show that Christianity does not shy away from critical investigation and that its twofold authority stands when put to the test.

EVIDENCE MADE...