Stepping Stones to Faith
This is an outline of a popular lecture that has been given over the years. The numbers refer to the slides. This has now been published under the title ‘Stepping Stones to Faith’
1. Is Christianity Reasonable?
This is a fundamental question. Any faith, if valid, should be evidence based.
2. In a mother’s womb were two babies. One asked the other,
“Do you believe in life after birth?”
“Of course, everybody knows there is a life after birth. We’re here now because we have to grow and get ready for what’s to come.”
“That’s ridiculous! There’s no life after birth. What could such a life be like?”
“I don’t know exactly, but there must be more light than in here. Maybe we’ll walk on our legs and eat with our mouth.”
“Nonsense! It’s impossible for us to walk. And eating with our mouth? That’s crazy. We get our food through the umbilical cord. And obviously there can be no life after birth because the umbilical cord is too short.”
“Well, I think it’s possible. It’ll just be different from what we’re used to in here.”
“But nobody has ever come back after birth. Birth is the end of life. And frankly, life is just meaningless existence in the darkness. There’s no point 1to it, and we’re going nowhere.”
“No! I don’t know exactly what it will be like after birth, but I’m sure that we’ll see our Mother and she’ll take care of us.”
“Mother? You believe in Mother? And just where is she then?”
“Where? She’s all around us! And we’re inside her. We’re her children. In her we live and move and have our being. Without her we wouldn’t exist.”
“That’s absurd. I’ve never seen this "Mother," so there’s no such thing.”
“I don’t agree with you. In fact, sometimes when it’s quiet, you can hear her sing and feel her caress our world. You know, I believe that we’re here to prepare for the life to come, and our true life starts after birth.”i
Seeking God in our lives can at times seem illogical or impossible. We all know someone who will insist that there’s no point – that the material world is all there is! But seeking answers, being curious about life and death, wanting the truth - these are all great human qualities and we must pursue them.
3. The apostles used reason to convince people about the truth of the Christian faith. Thus when Paul first arrived in Corinth,
“Every Sabbath, he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks.” Acts 18:4
Peter had the same approach. He thought that the evidence about Jesus was persuasive and this
“Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope you have.” 1 Peter 3:15
4. It is a tragedy that some who deny the possibility of there being a creator are selective about what evidence they will accept. When Nikita Khrushchev was leader of the Soviet block he gave a speech at the plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union about the state’s anti-religious campaign. He gave as evidence the experience of the first Soviet cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, saying,
‘Gagarin flew into space, but didn’t see any god there.’
Clearly such an argument limits the search for God to visual sight. The obvious response would be to broaden the parameters and say,
“If he had opened the door of his spaceship, he could have done.”
The Bible is clear, when we die we will all meet God for judgment?
In this talk we will be looking at some of the evidence that has convinced me and many that there is a God and that Jesus is that God.
5. Stepping Stones
Imagine a river that separates the two banks of a river. One bank represents a godless, selfish world where we all do their own thing, there is ‘no king; everyone does as he sees fit.’ ii Hatred, dishonesty and selfishness are rife. as each individual makes himself a king. This results in fear, anxiety and loneliness. History teaches that out of the fears a minority takes over everything and totalitarian control by dictators ensues. These people, being themselves of this godless world, will also have their self-interest at heart. Many atheistic dictators have seen themselves as being virtually omnipotent, and too often the people suffer.
In contrast, on the other bank is God’s ideal world, where control is in the hands of a beneficent Lord whom the people willingly follow. All its subjects are committed to living under the authority of their Saviour and Lord.
Although there would be many benefits of living in God’s kingdom, it seems as if a giant leap of faith is required to jump across. We will all occasionally have seen something of the good life in others but for a society to live in such a way is so idealistic that many doubt it can be achieved. There is also the personal cost of giving up our sovereignty to a God some are not sure exists or are unsure whether he can be trusted.
But look more closely, there are stepping stones across the river, each with a name written on it.
6. Groups of Evidence
Each stone represents a rational reason why our attraction to God’s world is not just wishful thinking but is based on reality. I have divided these stones into three groups, each group having many stones,
1. The Logical Consequences if there is no God.
2. Evidence from science
3. Evidence about Jesus
4. Evidence from our instincts
7. Logical Consequences if there is no God
When I was a student Francis Schaeffer used to visit Cambridge University regularly to teach us. One of the concepts I remember him putting forwards was that, when talking to people with a different world view, such as atheists, agnostics, existentialists or whatever, he would spend much time talking with them to show the negative, illogical and often disastrous consequences of that way of thinking. Only then would he go on to explain the reasons why he had become a Christian. The following are some of the consequences of godlessness that he would discuss.
8. No values
If mankind accidentally evolved from slime in an atheistic world there can be no ‘real’ moral values such as honesty, fairness, courage and kindness, all must be make-believe and therefore optional. Clearly they can have no ‘otherworldly’significance - if life is an accident. These values would certainly not be worth dying for.
If however, we were created ‘in God’s image’, then God’s values would be part of our make-up. It is no coincidence that these values, that people admire, are characterised by Jesus Christ.
9. No morals
If there is no God where do the innate moral values that everyone has come from. They cannot be derived fro the chemical soup if we accidentally derived from there.
10. Fredrick Neitzsche
One hundred years ago the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche foretold that, within a century, God would ‘be dead’ in people’s thinking. Some modern thinkers have recognised the importance of so-called Christian values but want to try and give them substance without invoking a creator. Neitzsche rightly scorned those who tried to keep the old morality and duties whilst maintaining that God was dead.
He derided people as “odious windbags of progressive optimism, who think it is possible to have Christian morality without Christian faith.” In “Twilight of the Idols” he wrote,
“They are rid of the Christian God, and now believe all the more firmly that they must cling to Christian morality . . . when one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality from under one’s feet.”
Without God, anything goes and the strong will control even the morality of society. It is only because there is a supreme being, who will judge us all, that the atrocities of Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot and the genocides in Rwanda, Sudan and Bosnia are wrong.
This point was brilliantly put in a debate where an analogy between our reliance on God and air was made - both are invisible but are essential for life.
“Imagine a person who comes in here tonight and argues, ‘no air exists’ but continues to breathe air while he argues. Now, intellectually, atheists continue to breathe – they continue to use reason and draw scientific conclusions (which assumes an orderly universe), to make moral judgments (which assumes absolute values) – but the atheistic view of things would in theory make such ‘breathing’ impossible. They are breathing God’s air all the time they are arguing against him.”iii
This pressure to leave God out of our thinking is very dangerous for ours or any society. Dostoevsky wrote in ‘The Brothers Karamozov’,
“Is there no God? Then everything is permitted.”
11. No Truth
There is a universal conviction that there is an ultimate reality called truth. Society is dependent on there being a real value called ‘truth’. The law courts, work on the basis of truth. In medicine we recognise that there is a true diagnosis even though we may have difficulties coming to the right answer. Society is dependent on there being a real value called ‘truth’.
What is truth? I discussed this with a group of non-Christian medical consultants and they concluded, “Truth must be consensus”. This cannot be right because consensual support for an idea can be obtained using a variety of means. Politicians with power have often tried to rewrite history when the real truth is not helpful to their political aspirations. Hitler had the consensus of Germany in supporting his regime, yet now most Germans strongly repudiate many of his repugnant views. Truth must be a concept compatible with God - it must have an absolute dimension.
12. Totalitarianism increases
It was Ernest Haeckel, a Professor of Zoology in Germany and an ardent disciple of Darwin, who popularised the logical consequences of atheistic Darwinism. He wrote,
“What good does it do to humanity to maintain artificially and rear the thousands of cripples, deaf mutes, idiots, etc., who are born every year with a hereditary burden of incurable disease?”
He encouraged ‘involuntary euthanasia’, the active killing of “the hundreds of thousands of incurables – lunatics, lepers, people with cancer, etc.” and he recommended the “indiscriminate destruction of all incorrigible criminals.”
Haeckel’s views became very popular in Germany. They were accepted by Hitler and became the basis for the extermination of the Jews, the insane, gypsies and other undesirables such as unwanted children, by the third Reich regime. It is important to remember that many of these killings were undertaken by ordinary doctors and nurses, who were following approved protocols.iv
13. When my wife and I visited the Nazi extermination camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau, the truth of what happens when men become gods becomes grossly apparent. Hitler had envisaged a generation that had rejected the old ideals and boasted,
“I freed Germany from the stupid and degrading fallacies of conscience and morality . . . We will train young people before whom the world will tremble. I want young people capable of violence – imperious, relentless and cruel.”
When man turns his back on God, morality becomes arbitrary. The agenda can be set by the man who is most powerful.
14. No logic
There is no time now to go into the philosophy of this. If we came from primordial soup by quirks of science and if we accidentally descended from apes, there is no basis for the logic we depend on in all our arguments.
15. Evidence from Science
The stepping stones are in groups and various forms of scientific evidence make up one of these groups. Science can only explain how a machine, system or organism works – it is about technology. It cannot explain why. It is easy for the two to get muddled. Professor Stephen Hawking acknowledged this, saying,
“Although science may solve the problem of how the universe began, it cannot solve the question, ‘Why does it bother to exist?’
Yet how often people blindly say that science has supplied all the answers and has excluded the need for God. It hasn’t. Sir William Bragg, a Nobel Prize-winning Physicist said,
“From religion comes man’s purpose, from science his power to achieve it. Some people ask if religion and science are opposed to each other. They are – in the same way that the thumb and fingers are opposed to one another. It is an opposition by which anything can be grasped.”
It is no coincidence that the renaissance of science was associated with the rediscovery of the significance of the Bible as God’s word to man. This teaches that God made the world according to plan, with order and natural laws. Many of the early scientists were deeply committed Christians who felt encouraged to discover these laws.
16. Anthropic Principle
There are many remarkable design features of our world and its place in the universe that enable man to live on earth. These together are called the ‘Anthropic Principle’.
Our world has to be on a nearly circular ellipse around the sun to prevent great variations of temperature. If we were just 2% closer to the sun we would be too hot, 2% further away and we would be too cold for life. We have to have an iron core to keep the ozone layer in place to prevent the sun’s irradiation destroying the earth. We need an atmosphere with 21% oxygen and 78% nitrogen. We need carbon and oxygen atoms to have very specific energy so that carbon chains can form into organic chemicals.
The physical constants of the universe had to be set before the universe came into being. They control all physical, chemical and biological processes. Yet they are all set at precisely the right values for our world and the universe to exist and work.
One example is found in the precise balance between the force of gravity and the electromagnetic force. If there were a change in that ratio by just one in 1040 (ten with thirty-nine noughts after it), planets would either be so small or so large that life could not exist. To get all the constants right, if this is the only universe, is impossible - without a divine designer.
For example: Protons are the positively charged subatomic particles which (along with neutrons) form the nucleus of an atom (around which negatively charged electrons orbit). Protons just happen to be 1,836 times heavier than electrons. If the ratios of their masses was a little bigger or a little smaller, we would not exist (because atoms could not form the molecules life requires). So how did protons end up being 1,836 times heavier than electrons? Of all the possible variables, how did protons and electrons end up having just the right mass? Was it luck or contrivance?
To counter such major problems, it has been proposed that there might have been an infinite number of other universes –the ‘multiverse theory’. There is no evidence for this whatsoever; it is sheer speculation, as the alternative is unwanted. Michael Hanlon wrote in ‘New Scientist’,
“When physicists whisk us into the realms of ‘multiverses’ and universe-gobbling particles, it is time to ask whether there is something amiss.”v
17. Rules in nature
Einstein recognised that the basis of the scientific method was the fact that the universe is rational. He astutely said,
“The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.”vi
It is this rationality that has led many philosophers to recognise that the universe must be the product of a very intelligent God who must have a rational mathematical mind.
Science has always been understood as being the search for truth. If truth is defined in Plato’s terms as concepts compatible with God, which we are trying to understand, it is clearly nonsense to try to use science, a search for truth, to try to destroy a belief in God. God is the only basis for truth’s validity.
Sir Isaac Newton, the great seventeenth century scientist who gave us our understanding of gravity, built a model of the solar system to help him with his work. A fellow scientist, who was an atheist, came to visit him and admired the model.
“Who made this?” he asked.
“Nobody,” replied Newton.
“Don’t be ridiculous, someone made it.”
Newton poignantly responded.
“If no-one has a problem in realising that a model needs a maker, why is it such a problem when confronted with the real universe?”
Sir Fred Hoyle, the astrophysicist, was not a Christian but he concluded,
“A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature.”vii
18. The source of new genetic information
The theory of neo-Darwinism depends upon there being many beneficial mutations that work coherently together. Yet nearly all the mutations seen in the animal kingdom are detrimental. David Demick, a medical pathologist, wrote in an article on mutations,
“With thousands of examples of harmful mutations readily available, surely it would be possible to describe some positive mutations if macro-evolution is true. These would be needed not only for evolution to greater complexity, but also to offset the downward pull of the many harmful mutations. But, when it comes to identifying positive mutations, evolutionary scientists are strangely silent.”viii
It is very hard to conceive how major advances in organisms could be brought about by random mutations. Mutations are largely harmful effects that clearly get weeded out with time. This is why the fossil record confirms that species do not alter whilst they exist. That is why the fruit fly, which can readily develop mutations with irradiation, with sometimes bizarre effects, has not changed significantly according to the fossil records since they first appeared.
The oldest insect fossils are thought to be about 400 million years old. Around 300 million years ago, there suddenly appeared a wide range of insects, such as cockroaches. The striking feature is that the oldest dragonflies, centipedes and flies have not changed at all over all this time. The adaptation in design needed for a fly to flap its wings 500 times a second is marked. We are totally in the dark over how insects developed.
Pierre-Paul Grassé, a former President of the French Academy of Science, acknowledges that mutations, which are like “making mistakes in the letters when copying a written text”, cannot give rise to new information. This point is so important. He writes,
“Mutations, in time, occur incoherently. They are not complementary to one another, nor are they cumulative in successive generations toward a given direction. They modify what pre-exists, but they do so in disorder, no matter how . . . . As soon as some disorder, even slight, appears in an organised being, sickness, then death follow. There is no possible compromise between the phenomenon of life and anarchy.”ix
In fact, mutants usually die or are sterile. Experiments over many years have resulted in just what would be expected. Mutations do not produce beneficial, meaningful genetic code.
Males and females with the same ‘beneficial’ mutations would need to breed together if the effect was to remain. Furthermore, this line must then inbreed. So two similar groups of mutants must appear at the same time, in the same place and have a particular survival advantage in that habitat. All this makes theory very far fetched indeed.
In 1967, there was a rather tense meeting between some mathematicians and leading Darwinists at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia. The mathematicians argued that there was nothing like enough time for the necessary multitude of small beneficial mutations to have occurred. Thus it was said that for an eye to develop and become even partially functional would necessitate there being huge numbers of specific mutations that would give no function until they were all present. In a report of the conference it was said,
“There is a considerable gap in the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution, and we believe this gap to be of such a nature that it cannot be bridged with the current conception of biology.”x
19. Irreducible complexity
Michael Behe wrote a book called ‘Darwin’s Black Box’, in which he highlighted this problem. He gives the example of the retina cell, which cannot transform a photon of light into an impulse along the optic nerve unless it has at least two hundred enzymes, all in the right sequence and all fully working. There is no benefit and no ‘survival of the fittest’ unless everything is in place. How could that happen randomly? He also discusses the chemical motor at the base of the flagellum of a bacterium. This motor can turn the flagellum up to ten thousand revolutions a minute. It is made up of many proteins, all in exactly the right place. Such complex mechanisms cannot work, unless everything is in place to start with. They cannot have gradually developed as there was no survival advantage until the whole worked.
Christian de Duve. "A Guided Tour of the Living Cell" (Nobel laureate and organic chemist)
"If you equate the probability of the birth of a bacteria cell to chance assembly of its atoms, eternity will not suffice to produce one... Faced with the enormous sum of lucky draws behind the success of the evolutionary game, one may legitimately wonder to what extent this success is actually written into the fabric of the universe.”
20. DNA
The existence of this remarkable nucleic acid is surely an astounding miracle. How could it have developed randomly without there being a designer? Professor Anthony Flew, Professor of Philosophy, former atheist, author, and debater said,
"It is, for example, impossible for evolution to account for the fact than one single cell can carry more data than all the volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica put together."
"It now seems to me that the findings of more than fifty years of DNA research have provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to design."
21. Apes and humans
When the genetic differences between the higher apes and humans are looked at, it is seen that there are bigger differences between the gorilla and the chimp genomes than there are between the chimp and humans. Until recently it was widely taught that there was a 98% similarity between the genetic make-up of chimps and humans. When insertions and deletions are included this is reduced to 95%.xi While 18 pairs of chromosomes are ‘virtually identical’, chromosomes 4, 9 and 12 show evidence of being ‘remodelled.’ In other words, the genes and markers on these chromosomes are not in the same order in the human and chimpanzee.xii In some segments there are very few differences whereas in other segments there are marked differences. There are not uniform slight differences that would be expected if random mutation was the cause of the differences. This is more in keeping with the theory that a creator altered a working genetic template to produce the genome of man.
Now we come to more specific evidence about how God has given us answers.
22. Evidence about Jesus
There are about three hundred and thirty prophecies about the Messiah in the old Jewish Scriptures. For example,
This Messiah would be born into the Jewish tribe of Judah.
He would be born in Bethlehem.
He would live whilst the temple was still standing since he would visit it.
He would die by crucifixion (even though there is no evidence that crucifixion was practised when King David’s described this).
He would then overcome even death itself and rise from the dead.
I have written about some of these in my book ‘Cure for Life’, so won’t repeat them here. Isaiah chapter 53 is one of the sixty major prophecies about God’s Messiah in the Jewish Scriptures. It is the last of the passages in Isaiah about God’s future ‘suffering servant’. This was written about 700BC. It describes an innocent person who was to die and take responsibility for the sins of others so that they may be put right with God. Yet, after his death, he was to live again.
4 Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
Isaiah is clearly talking about Jesus, God’s chosen king, God’s Messiah. Thousands followed him around.
Now we come to the evidence about Jesus and this is crucial.
23. Jesus’ Healing Ministry
Mark’s gospel describes how his close followers, his enemies and the masses were all astounded by the miracles he publicly performed. Even by non Christian writers, such as Josephus, refer to the miracles Jesus performed.
24. Jesus’ Death and Resurrection
There are five historical facts must be explained:
Jesus’ burial
Even most New Testament critics agree that Jesus was buried by Joseph of Arimathea in a tomb. Thus the late John A. T. Robinson of Cambridge University said that the burial of Jesus in the tomb is “one of the earliest and best-attested facts about Jesus.” xiii
The discovery of his empty tomb.
His appearances as a live man to many people on many different occasions after his execution and burial.The origin of the disciples’ belief in his resurrection.
The extraordinary rapid expansion of the early church, in spite of political opposition
25. Jesus’ teaching
His teaching was so new. He taught that God looked at people’s hearts and not their outward behaviour or social acceptability. He emphasised the reality of God’s final judgment at the end of our life here on earth and of the reality of heaven and hell. He taught that any person, including the oppressed and poor, can be admitted into God’s kingdom. He taught as if he knew what he was talking about.
Most striking is the fact that he taught so much about himself. When I was at school, a schoolmaster told our class that Jesus never claimed to be God. I don’t think that that master could have read the New Testament. Jesus made astonishing claims. Everyone knew that the Jewish Scriptures, our Old Testament, are all about God, who alone could give people life. When Jesus was summarising the evidence that supports his claim to have come directly from the Father, he said to the religious leaders, who claimed to be authorities on Scripture,
“You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” John 5:39-40
After his resurrection, Jesus talked with two disciples as they walked to Emmaus,
“And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in the Scriptures concerning himself.” Luke 24:27
Nothing could be clearer than the discussion Jesus had with Jews who asked him,
“Who do you think you are?”
Jesus replied,
“Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad”
“You are not yet fifty years old.” The Jews said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!”
“‘I tell you the truth,’ Jesus answered, ‘before Abraham was born, I am!’ At this they picked up stones to stone him” John 8:57-59
They wanted to stone him for blasphemy; Jesus had dared to use the divine name for himself.
Jesus claimed he had the right to forgive people their sin against God, which only God can do. Jesus said to a paralysed man,
“Son, your sins are forgiven.”
This created uproar amongst the rabbis listening.
“Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” Mark 2:5,7
This Jesus, who made such outlandish claims, healed the sick and even raised the dead. He repeatedly taught his disciples that he would be executed, but would rise again after three days. This he proceeded to do! It was the mass of evidence, accumulated from living closely with Jesus over three years, which convinced his disciples that Jesus was indeed the Son of God. Why else would they give their lives to tell the world that God had visited this planet as a person and had been crucified, so that men’s rebellion against God could be forgiven? The convincing evidence for his resurrection combined with the astounding, well-documented growth of the early church is impossible to explain without Jesus’ claims being true.
26. Jesus character
This is a very important point. For someone whose teaching centred on himself, he was so kind and forgiving to those who asked for his help. Many people have become Christians by reading one of the gospels and so becoming convinced that he is no ordinary man.
27. Our Instincts
This for me has become a very powerful argument. After I had given a lecture in the University of Hertfordshire on the relationship between science and faith, I was surrounded by a group who were associated with ‘The Atheist Society’. They tried to counter several of the arguments I had used for the need of a designer and creator, by bringing up the theoretical possibility of there being an infinite number of universes. However we moved on to the question of ‘moral instincts’. They acknowledged that they also had ‘gut feelings’ that these moral values were valid. They thought that their lives did have a purpose. They instinctively believed that ‘right and wrong’, ‘integrity’ and ‘honesty’ mattered. They valued ‘beauty’, ‘courage’ and ‘altruism’, even they could not explain where these ideals had come from.
28. All people have these human ideals even if they consider their origin and or validity as uncertain. The pop music group,’ The Who’, made a record called ‘The Seeker’, which included the line,
“I’ve got values, but I don’t know how or why.”
29. Guilt
The feeling of guilt is interesting, shouting that there is right and wrong in the world and in us. Guilt is, to some degree, a universal phenomenon. Although some people with obsessive personalities are liable to be overwhelmed with excessive feelings of guilt, this should not negate its significance. I have an instinct within me that I should do what is right, and when I do something wrong or fail to do something right, something inside my conscience hurts.
Joseph recognised that guilt was not just the effect of social upbringing, but was a God given instinct that we have all been given to help us search for and stay close to God.
Marghanita Lasky, a humanist, was involved in a television debate with a Christian. She said,
“What I envy most about you Christians is your forgiveness. I have no-one to forgive me.”
The reality about my guilt and my need to be forgiven for wrongdoings are powerful arguments supporting the claims of Jesus.
30. The Problem of Evil
When we see Jihadi John beheading an innocent man, doesn’t something shout out inside you,
“That is evil!”
There is evil in this world, just as there is real good.
Some have suggested that the problem of evil in the world is an argument against there being a God. A question he was asked of a Christian speaker after he had given a lecture at Nottingham University,
“There is too much evil in this world, therefore there cannot be a God.”
The speaker replied,
“When you say there is evil, aren’t you admitting there is good? When you accept the existence of goodness, you must affirm a moral law on the basis of which to differentiate between good and evil. But when you admit to a moral law, you must point to a moral lawgiver. That, however, is what you are trying to disprove and not prove. For if there is no moral lawgiver, there is no moral law. If there is no moral law there is no good, there is no evil. What then is your question?”xiv
31. Sin
At heart, sin is the innate rebellion against God that we all suffer from. It is spelt ‘S I N’, emphasising with great clarity that the root of sin is the ‘I’ placed at the centre of my motivation. Sins, as opposed to ‘sin’, are those things we do wrong as a result of this rebellion - we lie, cheat, say unkind things, lust and the like. This is different from but related to guilt. It is our sin that leads to an eternal separation from God.
Frank Jenner was a very polite elderly Australian living in Sydney. He was a retired sailor. Every day he would go down to George Street on the lookout for people he might talk to. He did this for thrity years and must have talked to around 100,000 people.
Corporal Murray Wilkes was in a hurry to catch a tram on George St when a voice behind him called,
“Hey, wait!”
The well dressed stranger then politely asked,
“Soldier, if you were to die tonight where would you go? Would it be heaven or hell?
“I hope I’d go to heaven,.” the corporal replied.
“Hoping isn’t enough, you can know for sure.”
This strangers question resonated through Murray Wilkes mind over the following days. He was a married , church-going man but he also knew that he was a hypocrite who had never seriously thought about his eternal destiny. He started to ask questions. Two weeks later Murray knelt in his army barracks and gave his life to Christ. This question has helped many search for answers to the meaning of life.
32. The God shaped gap
The philosopher and mathematician, Blaise Pascal, argued that the human experience of emptiness and the yearning for something more is an indication that our essential need is to be fulfilled in something greater - a relationship with the God who made us. Augustine expressed this in his famous prayer,
“You have made us for yourself and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in you.”
C.S.Lewis also argued that there is a God-shaped gap within all people that we try to satisfy in many different ways – usually by inventing our own false, temporary gods. In the absence of God people experience a deep sense of longing, a longing that is really for God, but is misinterpreted as a longing for things in this world.
33. Christianity has always been Evidence Based
The apostles based their message on the evidence of what they had ‘seen and heard’ (Acts 4:20), supported by the Old Testament prophecies about the Christ. Their emphasis was on facts first and then explain the implications of the Lordship of Jesus.
When Paul went to Corinth on his Second Missionary journey he continued in trying to convince people that Jesus was the Christ.
“Every Sabbath he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks.” Acts 18:4
This appears to have been the approach of all the early Christians. Apollos was a scholar who had a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures. When he visited Achaia, the region around Corinth, in Greece,
“He vigorously refuted the Jews in public debate, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.” Acts 18:28 34.
34. A leap of faith or a step of faith?
I was discussing with a friend the decision we all have to make about the place we will allow God to have in our life . Whose world will we live in, which of the two banks of the river is right and briefly went over the reasons for faith as the stepping stones across the river. He appeared to agree with the thinking behind each step. It was as if he was on the last of the stepping stones. He had a choice to make. People can either take a step of faith based on their instincts and the scientific and historical evidence, or take a massive leap of faith back into a selfish world where they, in their imagination, are one of many gods. Logically, making such a massive leap should include obtaining of answers to all the evidence provided by the stepping stones.
However this last step is hard because it is a moral step - I have to decide,
‘Am I willing for my creator to be my Lord and Saviour’.
God requires us all to choose in which world we want to live, but he warns us that this choice, based on evidence, will have eternal consequences. It is much more than an intellectual exercise - our future depends on it.
“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.” John 3:36
35. The step of faith
I became a Christian during my first year at university. I was slow in asking Jesus to take control of my life, to be my Lord, because I was determined not to be conned. But one day I went back to my room and asked the Lord Jesus to come into my life. It was the best decision I have ever made. It was a step into God and his family. I cannot refute the evidence of the stepping stones. The giant leap of faith is to reject the evidence and enter a meaningless selfish world with no hope. Logically such a person should find answers to all the evidence of the stepping stones. The choice is not just an intellectual one. Too often our will controls our thinking, too many people do not want God and refuse to seriously consider Jesus’ claims to be the embodiment of God.
Jesus message is beautifully summarised in that famous verse John 3:16
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
The choice is ours, but there can be no doubt what God wants for us.
References
i http://blogs.christianpost.com/ambassador-of-reconciliation/is-there-life-after-birth-13548/ This dialogue is widely available on the internet. One source attributed the story to Dr. Jirina Prekop, PhD, Czech Psychologist, translated to English by Ily Reis, prepared by SGNY/SAB. Diane Castro adapted this dialog from the Spanish version.
ii Judges 21:25 - tense changed to the present.
iii Greg Bahnsen, ‘Prepositional Apologetics Stated and Defended’, American Vision, 2010
iv Ernest Haeckel, ‘The History of Creation’, translated by E.R Lancaster, Appleton, New York , 1901, quoted by Sheena Tyler, ‘Origins 41’ Sept 2005 p18
v Michael Hanlon, ‘Reality check Required’ New Scientist 2008 Feb p. 22
vi Albert Einstein, ‘Letters to Solovine’, New York, Philosophical Library, 1987 p.131
vii Fred Hoyle ‘The Universe; past and present reflections’, Annual Reviews of Astronomy and Astrophysics 1982, 20:16
viii David Demick, “The Blind Gunman”, Impact 308 1999
ix Pierre-Paul Grassé, “Evolution of Living Organisms”, Academic Press
New York 1977 p. 97-98
x Schutzenberger, M.P. (1967) “Algorithms and the Neo-Darwimian Theory of Evolution”, in Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution, ed P.S.Moorhead and M.M.Kaplan, Wistar Institute Press, Philadelphia, p75 Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, 1985, Adler & Adler, Publishers, Inc. pages 289
xi Britten, R.J. 2002. “Divergence between samples of chimpanzee and human DNA sequences is 5% counting indels.” Proceedings National Academy Science99:13633–13635.
xii Gibbons, A. 1998. ‘Which of our genes make us human?’ Science 281:1432–1434.
