There are only two possibilities when it comes to Christianity: it’s real or it’s fake. There is no in-between, for if the truth is ever corrupted with even a bit of a lie, then it is no longer “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”
The Truth is Good
I believe every reasonable, sane human being desires to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. The truth cannot be detrimental, even if it might temporarily be disorienting or harmful (like the wound of a needle prick is painful in the moment but delivers the life-saving antidote or vaccine). The truth could only uplift humanity and allow us to achieve to the utmost of our abilities those objectives which we all find appropriate for ourselves.
- If Christianity is fake, the truth will allow us to deal with that reality. As heartbreaking or frightening as the prospect of the finality of the darkness after death might seem, it is better to choose one’s path in truth than be guided by lies to the grave.
- If Christianity is true, the truth will allow us to deal with that reality. Some might find this prospect more scary than the other, but we will address that fear later. Be sure, however, that we will be using a definition of Christianity found unadulterated from the Biblical text.
In one of these cases, the attack on Christianity is noble and honorable.
On the other, it is ignoble and dishonorable.
Given the options as to the validity of Christianity, there could be two reasons to attack it:
- If it is fake, it is for the good of humanity to attack Christianity and to reveal the truth. If Christianity is fake, then it is simply that evil men wield this religion for power and wealth to the detriment of humanity.
- If it is real, it is for the detriment of humanity to attack Christianity and to hide it in darkness. If Christianity is true, then it is simply that evil men fight against it because they either do not care about their neighbors or they are ignorant.
Many evil deeds have been perpetrated in the name of the God of the Bible. However, this does not convict Christianity, but the hearts of men, for many good things, even the giving up of one’s life for another, has been perpetrated by many loving human beings. (I’m not saying this is exclusive to Christianity. Love, defined in this way, is common among most people groups.)
Thus, the two options we face: Christianity is being attacked to our benefit, or it is being attacked to our detriment. This is all predicated on whether or not Christianity is true or fake.
The question of Christianity’s truthiness can be established in several ways:
- God could appear to all of us and make the claim. God could appear in the sky to be seen on television and announce its existence to all mankind on your preferred news channel. Of course, this could lead to questions such as, “How do we know you are the original creator, that you didn’t kill the original creator and are now claiming that position?” We could also ask about all the suffering that has occurred to humanity since its creation. It seems it would be a matter of character, here. Is this being claiming to be the creator trustworthy? Should this God then disappear and never reappear (or remain gone for thousands of years), generations hereafter would have reason to doubt the existence of this supernatural being. They did not witness it themselves, so it is now your character in question: are you trustworthy?
- The other is proving Christianity by using science, logic, and reason. If one could set up a case where only two options are possible and mutually exclusive, simply falsifying the one would confirm the other. If you have two possibilities, A and B, and you falsify A, then B, by definition, must be true.
In the case of Christianity, we have two such binary possibilities.
In the first case, the genesis of life has two options:
- It was caused by a natural process. That is, life arose from the natural laws of our universe that can be observed, reproduced, and confirmed in a lab.
- It was not caused by a natural process. If it was not caused by a natural process, the logical conclusion is it was caused by a supernatural process.
In the second case, the trustworthiness of the Bible as a source of divine revelation has two options:
- It was written by man with no divine input. Its utility for moral governance is, at best, the opinions of imperfect though advanced apes. Its prophetic insights and explanation for humanity’s existence are simply made-up stories.
- It was written by man with divine input. Its utility for moral governance is valuable to the extent that the divine author is trustworthy, just as in our example of a miraculous revelation above. Its prophetic insights and explanation for humanity’s existence can be believed so far as they can be interpreted properly.
Science Is Good
In the first case, science has proven that there is no natural process that can be responsible for life. Science has falsified the hypothesis of abiogenesis. In the same way that perpetual motion machines have been falsified (they are either possible or impossible, just like abiogenesis is either possible or impossible), so too has abiogenesis been falsified.
Perpetual motion has been falsified by what we know about the natural processes of our universe. Because these processes are unbreakable, we know that a perpetual motion machine is impossible. If someone were to create a perpetual motion machine, he would completely destroy our current understanding of physics. However, our understanding has been confirmed time and again for centuries in scientific labs across the world. We know that a perpetual motion machine in our universe is impossible. For the same reason, abiogenesis is impossible.
At its simplest, one can reason, If natural processes cannot sustain the functioning of an operable machine, how can it be expected to create that machine from scratch, from its raw materials?
The human being is the most complex machine humanity has ever encountered. One cell of the human body makes the space shuttle look like a tinker toy model. One cell is far more complex than a human city the size of New York. Our brains are the most powerful super-computers we have ever known, and we still haven’t figured them out.
We have shown that science confirms that a supernatural process is responsible for life on earth. Unfortunately, there is (seemingly) no evidence in nature for the source of this supernatural process. There is no autograph in the pattern of the stars or signature in our DNA that would proclaim, “I AM the supernatural creator of life on planet earth.”
We must search elsewhere for this information.
A History of the Future
There are many supernatural claims about the source of life on earth. In another case of deduction, we need only prove one mutually-exclusive option to eliminate all but that one possibility.
For example, say you have a line-up of US dollar bills. They all look different, but only one is genuine. Once you recognize the genuine, you can summarily reject all others. You can recognize other genuine bills from now on.
We can do this with the religious texts that claim a divine source.
How do we prove that something is divine? It should have divine characteristics. One of the divine characteristics of the Bible is prophecy: seeing what happens in the future.
No human being can see the future. No human being can accurately predict the future, no matter how much data one is given. There is no human being that exists today that can tell us who the President of the United States will be in 200 years. There is no human being who can tell us if the USA will even exist in 200 years.
It would be reasonable to suppose, given the current state of affairs in the USA, that we’re in for some significant upheaval in the next decade or two. Our survival is certainly not guaranteed.
Imagine, however, you find a document whose author says that God told him about the future. In this document, the author claims that in 50 years, the USA will be invaded and defeated, and that a new global power will rise in its place. This document then claims that following that nation, another nation will come to global power. Ultimately, the document tells of several more nations covering centuries of future time, even naming a leader of a global power 500 years from now.
You would, of course, be well within reason to reject those predictions as unlikely.
However, let’s say your descendants are still alive by the time the prophecies are fulfilled. After 400 years, they are witnesses to the fact that every prophecy written has come true. Amazing! You now believe that the author was, indeed, inspired by a divine being to record the prophecy.
Such a document exists.
Prophecy in Daniel
The Book of Daniel outline centuries of human history before they occur. The Bible predicts the appearance of Jesus in history and specific circumstances of his birth, life, and death, such that these prophecies can only be about the Jesus of the Gospels, and the prophecies were written hundreds of years prior to the events they foretold.
That is evidence of divine production.
I have told you this now before it all happens, so that when it does happen, you will believe. (John 14:29)
Notice that the prophecy of the Bible isn’t written for those who exist prior to prophesied events coming true. That is, prophecy is written so that after it is fulfilled, you will believe. Here’s why: revealing the future causes it to change.
For example, say you are a citizen living in Austria-Hungary in January, 1889. An entity appears to you and warns you that a baby born this year in April would be responsible for the suffering and death of millions of people. If you believed the source, you could then make your way to Braunau am Inn and kill Adolphus Hitler at the moment of his birth, thus preventing the prophecy from coming true. But you’ve effectively made the prophecy false, so it never would have been true, therefore never uttered, therefore… You’ve got yourself a paradox.
Let’s turn it around: say that a mad scientist has introduced a disease into the human population. An entity appears to you and tells you that this disease will get worse and become an epidemic, threatening all of humanity. However, in the future, a doctor will create an antidote that will save humanity. He tells you the name, birthdate and birth place of this doctor. The information becomes public, and the mad scientist prevents the birth of the doctor and humanity is, ultimately, lost.
What went wrong? The prophetic information was way too detailed to tell in advance. It gave the mad scientist too much information, such that he was able to disrupt the timeline and destroy humanity.
It’s the paradox of prophecy: Revealing the future causes it to change. Giving specific details of a prophecy causes too much change in the present such that the future will be changed and the prophecy no longer valid.
God could not say, “Jesus is going to appear in 4 BC, born in a manger to Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem, and will be baptized at age 33. He will then be crucified and rise in three days, thus securing the remedy for the salvation of the human race.”
Why could God not be this specific? Because given that information, Satan could change everything.
The Danger of Prophecy
God does not use His power or might to coerce or manipulate others. Therefore, it would be against His nature to, say, tell someone they are free to live their life, then come back and begin to force them to behave in a certain way. God’s love is real and true love, down to the foundation of the definition of the word.
Love requires liberty.
Love requires the freedom to choose how to live one’s life, even if one chooses to give that life up.
What God must do, instead, is hint at the future using symbols and metaphors. These hints are general enough that the plans can’t be affected, but specific enough that looking back, you can know the prophecy has been fulfilled.
Notice that even with the little bit God revealed, Satan tried to alter the prophecy–prevent the birth of Jesus–when he caused the deaths of the babies of Israel. This shows the danger of prophecy as well; if you have an enemy that wants to stop you at any length, there will be suffering and death.
For example, the symbols in Daniel and Revelation that reveal the nations of earth. Satan could not know beforehand what would happen; afterward, we can see clearly that God knew what was going to happen. It is only after the fact that we can conclusively show that the prophecies were told before the events and that those events did occur exactly as the prophecy foretold.
The Hope In Prophecy
The prophecies of the Old Testament were given to humanity to tell of the hope of a coming Savior. In the first appearance, this Savior would deliver a remedy for the fatal disease that infects all human beings. In His second appearance, the Savior would restore the paradise He originally created, and re-establish His kingdom, putting the seat of His government on earth.
We have demonstrated that 1) science proves that a supernatural process is responsible for life on earth, though it does not identify this process nor reveal a creator. For that, we have 2) the evidence of the divine composition of the Bible shows that it was created by an entity who has the supernatural ability to see the future. Therefore, it can also be trusted with its claim of being responsible for the supernatural creation of humankind and the sometimes behind-the-scenes truths associated with the conflict of good and evil. No other religious text has any supernatural characteristics; in fact, all other religious texts can be shown to be humanly created, even proclaiming falsehoods or contradictions. Therefore, when the Bible claims to be the exclusive source of truth, we can trust that claim.
In conclusion, we can reasonably, logically, and scientifically conclude that Biblical Christianity is indisputably true. Any mutually-exclusive assertions that are contrary to what the Bible claims can be confidently rejected as false (such as, for example, there are millions of gods as claimed by Hinduism or that there is no almighty God claimed by Buddhism).
Therefore, the attacks on Christianity are detrimental to humanity, because they are an attack on the truth, perpetrated by enemies of love; namely, Lucifer, now Satan, and those who follow him.
You might be uncomfortable hearing and understanding this for the first time, because what you have heard about the God of the Bible is unsettling, to say the least, and horrific at most.
My words of comfort will do no good here, so we need to explore the character of the God of the Bible: The God Of The Bible Exposed!