Apologetics

The faith of the great John the Baptist seemed to waver when he was imprisoned and things were looking grim. He sent his followers to ask Jesus, “Are you the Messiah we’ve been expecting, or should we keep looking for someone else?” (Matthew 11:3).

Remember this is the man who had said, “I testify that he Jesus is the Chosen One of God” (John 1:34). But after John was thrown into prison he must have wondered why Jesus wasn’t coming to rescue him.

Like many of us do when faced with difficulties, John the Baptist experienced doubts.

When other disciples of Jesus were questioning who he actually was, he told them to “believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.

Or at least believe because of the work you have seen me do” (John 14:11).

Jesus wasn’t put off because his followers had some doubts or wanted some proof. He appealed to evidence to establish that he was who he claimed to be. God wants our faith in him to be assured and become deepened by our convictions. And having some uncertainties at times isn’t necessarily wrong. Like John the Baptist, we sometimes lack sufficient evidence to support our faith. And so, seeking to know why we believe what we believe can strengthen our faith and is by no means wrong.

When Jesus heard of John the Baptist’s doubt, he offered him the evidence of his miracles (“And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.” (Matthew 11:4-5 ESV) and subsequently praised John for his character and work in the ministry! Jesus wasn’t at all upset with John, because Jesus understood that sometimes we may have doubts that simply need to be reassured. The future is unknown and our lives are full of uncertainty and insecurity. And while it is in our nature to question how things are going to turn out, when we add the knowledge or evidence of the caring heart of God to our faith, our doubts can be removed. So while it may not be wrong to have some doubts about God, he wants to remove them so we can trust him for whatever comes our way, and help others trust in him too. (77 FAQ about God and the Bible, Sean and John McDowell) 

God in a real sense remains hidden to us as a material being. The Scripture says, “God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). And as a spirit, God is invisible to us (see 1 Timothy 1:17). You see, he is on another plane of existence than we humans. We are not meant to see him in all his awesome power and might. He told Moses, “You may not look directly at my face, for no one may see me and live” (Exodus 33:20).

Actually God is hidden from us because he is a perfectly holy God (Isaiah 54:5 and Revelation 4:8) and we as humans are imperfect and unholy (Romans 5:12). We are contaminated with evil, and Scripture says God’s “eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong doing” (Habakkuk 1:13 NIV).

The spirit form of God is too much for us sinful mortals to stand, and he must remain hidden from us. Yet God wants a relationship with his creation, and he has enabled us to know him through the sacrificial death of Christ, which atones for our sin. Christ’s atoning for sin means that Jesus paid the “wages of sin” for us, which was death, and that he “ransomed” us out of the “prison” of death. (See Romans 6:23 and 1 Peter 1:18-19.)

He also reveals himself to us through creation (Romans 1:18-21), our moral consciences (Romans 2:14-15), his Word (2 Timothy 3: 16-17), the church (Ephesians 1:23), history (1 Samuel 17:46-47), and through the indwelling of his Holy Spirit in our lives (Romans 8:9-11). God may be hidden from us in a material, physical sense, but he is very much evident in the life of a child of God, who has been redeemed through Christ.

Of course God revealed himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ when he was here on earth. There are many evidences or proofs we will offer to support an intelligent faith that Jesus in fact was God in the flesh. Jesus and the apostles clearly stated that he was the revelation of God to us. (See John 1:1-14; 14:8-11; Colossians 2:9; and Hebrews 1.) So while God may be hidden to us in the material world, he has still revealed himself to us in a substantial way.

And on one level the hidden aspect of God is not a negative thing. His hiddenness can have a very positive result. He told the children of Israel, “If you look for me in earnest, you will find me when you seek me. I will be found by you” (Jeremiah 29:13-14 NLT). Jesus said, “Seek and you will find” (Luke 11:9 NIV). As with hidden treasure, God wants us to seek and search and discover all the riches that his relationship with us offers. There is mystery to that which is hidden from us. And that mystery can deepen our desire to know the hidden riches of God. (77 FAQ about God and the Bible by Sean and John McDowell)

It was Jesus who made the exclusive claim to be the only way to God-and for good reason. No one else had the qualifications that a holy and just God would accept. “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die like everyone else, will live again. They are given eternal life for believing in me and will never perish” (John 11.25-26). He could make this seemingly arrogant declaration because he was the one and only Son of God, who could back it up. 

Read these words of his: “Unless you believe that I AM who I claim to be, you will die in your sins” (John 8:24). “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

Christ-followers need to be careful not to assert that they have a corner on truth or are the ones who have the only true religion.

Rather, it is Jesus who is the way, the truth, and the life—his followers are simply sharing his message. So as Christians we need to point the matter of obtaining eternal life back to him. Our task is to spread the Good News about him. And we are wise to share that news enthusiastically, yet humbly.

Of course people can be arrogant about the truth and be right. People can be arrogant about the truth and be wrong. People can also be humble and be right; they can be humble and be wrong. The important thing for us as Christians isn’t who wins the argument of who is right or wrong. That is not the point. The important thing is that we challenge people to consider Jesus for who he is and what he has to offer them. And we don’t need to shy away from our belief that he is the only way. We can say as Paul did:

“I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes-the Jew first and also the Gentile. This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight” (Romans 1:16-17)

(77 FAQ about God and the Bible by Sean and John McDowell)

The Bible says, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1 NASB). A good question to ask is, “Where do the assurance and conviction of our faith come from.” They come from knowledge or evidence of the things hoped for or not seen. It is your knowledge of something that allows you to trust in it. And seeing the evidence gives your faith confidence. So biblical faith isn’t a blind faith that operates without any reason to believe—rather, it looks at the evidence. In fact that is one of the reasons the apostles of Jesus recorded many of the miraculous signs performed by Jesus: “These [signs] are written down so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah” (John 20:31).

Here is an example: You exercise faith every time you fly in an airplane. You may not even see the pilot, but you place your faith in him or her to safely fly the plane. You probably have not seen the expert engineers, machinists, and craftsmen who built the aircraft, but you believe the plane you are flying on is airworthy. So where do you get the assurance you are traveling safely? You have no doubt placed your faith in the knowledge of the airline’s record of performance and the FAA rules that regulate and monitor the airline industry. There is overwhelming evidence that airline travel is safe. And that knowledge of the evidence gives assurance and conviction to your belief.

The point is, your faith is based upon knowledge about the airline company and its strict rules of operation. You have gained assurance based on an intelligent or knowledgeable faith or on personal experience. Your faith isn’t a blind faith that requires no information or evidence at all.

Believing something without clear evidence is like taking a leap into the dark; acting on faith that is rooted in clear evidence is like stepping into the light.

In the Old Testament, God sent Moses to Pharaoh, the leader of Egypt.

God worked miraculous acts to convince Pharaoh to release the children of Israel. Finally he relented. But the evidence of God’s might had a profound impact on Israel. “When the people of Israel saw the mighty power that the LORD had unleashed against the Egyptians they were filled with awe before him. They put their faith in the LORD and his servant Moses” (Exodus 14:31).

But evidence of God isn’t always that pronounced. Most of the time he is hidden from us in the material world and we must continue to believe anyway. Yet that doesn’t mean we can’t be assured or have deep conviction about him based on evidence. At The Jesus Conversations, we will provide evidence for God and answer questions about what he is like, and that will help give us a firm faith. (77 FAQs about God and the Bible, Sean and John Mcdowell)

Often we hear people profess that if there are no hardcore, testable ways to prove that God exists, then there is no good reason to believe that he does. This claim is often made to appeal to science, purporting that science is the only way we can ever know something for a fact, and if science cannot prove it, then it does not exist. However, scientists themselves do not provide proofs for their theories. They provide evidence and use methods like inferring to the best explanation, where you are comparing competing hypotheses to know which one provides the best overall explanation of the evidence at hand. That is the case we make for God. We don’t merely offer God as a hypothesis but we argue that this hypothesis provides the best overall explanation when we compare it to other competing worldviews. We have good reason to believe in it but we do not have absolute certainty (to prove) because scientific evidence doesn’t provide that in any domain.

This is called abductive reasoning, and we use it all the time. It’s the way detectives reason (examine clues back to causes), historians reason this way, and of course, every one of us reason this way in our everyday lives when making sense of human interactions and deciphering between lies and the truth. Of course, with abductive reasoning, you can have more than one cause explain the same effect, so usually the way that scientists (and the others we have listed) separate good hypotheses from bad when they have two or three that can explain the same evidence, is that they look for more evidence. They then will see if all of the hypotheses can continue to explain the whole ensemble of evidence and then they elect the hypothesis, which if true, would best explain the widest ensemble of relevant evidence.

The reason why we believe Christianity is true is because it is the best explanation for the way things are. Christianity has the strongest explanatory power for the evidence we have in science, history, and everyday life.

Of course, many Christians (like myself) believe in God with absolute certainty. We have experienced his quickening Power (The Holy Spirit), miracles, heard his voice, and have interacted with the spiritual realm. However, in apologetics, we find that the best way to navigate conversations with those who do not believe, is to meet them in a philosophical middle. For example, we might say, “Okay it might be possible that God doesn’t exist (for the sake of argument), but is it the most likely, the most reasonable, the most plausible conclusion based on the evidence and facts we have today?”

We can be assured beyond a reasonable doubt, that Christianity is true.

I (Grace) once saw a message that said: “Well, anything that is true doesn’t need to be defended. If something needs to be defended, it’s obviously not the truth.”

And I responded, “Hmm interesting – I don’t believe that statement you just made, can you defend that claim?”

You see what happened there? The opposing statement contradicts itself. Any claim made by anyone can be doubted or disputed; no claim is universally accepted. We need to be prepared for those who will question and inquire of us reasons for why we believe that Jesus is Lord. And that will give you confidence.