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Studies on the following topics are available:
How exactly does the visible universe show the existence of God? The answer is the main theme of classic apologetics, which uses nature and human experience as starting points for systematic reasoning leading to knowledge of God and His attributes. Each line of reasoning is known as a theistic argument. The four primary arguments are the cosmological, the teleological, the moral, and the ontological. The cosmological argument is the one leading to the conclusion that the universe must have originated in an act of creation by an ever-enduring power. The greatness of that power is suggested by the size of the universe. It is now estimated that in the visible universe there may be as many as 500 billion galaxies. Who knows how many are beyond sight?
The line of reasoning that discovers the Godhead of the Creator is known as the teleological argument (from the Greek word telos, meaning "purpose"). Throughout the created universe we see abundant evidence of purpose and design. We see the intricate beauty of a flower, the marvelous development of a baby, the perfect rhythm of planetary motions. Every purpose is conceived by an intelligent being, and every design is the work of a designer. Why must the source be a person? Because both purpose and design are the product of thought. Without thought there could be neither, because both consist of ideas. But only a person can think. Therefore, the great power that relied on purpose and design in creating the universe must be a person—specifically, because of His great power and wisdom, a divine person.
We perceive moral value as objective rather than subjective. For example, if I see a vandal breaking a windshield, I perceive not only the incident itself but also its moral significance as external to my own mind. The car is real. The boy is real. The shattering of glass is real. Also, the wickedness of what the boy does is real. I see the wickedness as inherent in the vandalism, not as a product of my own judgment. How could there be objective moral value in a universe containing only matter in motion, evolving by chance? Such value could exist only in a universe created by a moral Being—that is, by God.
Our concept of God is so firmly joined to the concept of His existence that we can avoid the conviction that He exists only by a strong effort of will. This, I believe, is the essence of Anselm's argument. He is saying that no man can deny the existence of God without contradicting what he himself believes.
We must humble ourselves before Jesus though we lack absolute proof of His deity. We must believe in Him though no writing in the sky or voice from heaven affirms His preeminence. In other words, we must receive Him by faith. Yet faith in Jesus Christ is not a fanciful, subjective preference. As we will show in these studies, a multitude of evidences establish who Jesus was.
It should be obvious to any reader of the Gospels that Jesus overshadows His followers. He is far loftier in His mind and character than any mythic hero that the early church might have invented. Therefore, if the Jesus of Christianity cannot be a figment of pious imagination, the Gospels must be a truthful memorial to a real man.
The proof that Jesus is the Christ rests on the convergent testimony of two persons: Jesus Himself and God the Father. The testimony of God the Father exists in two forms: in the Scriptures that speak prophetically of Jesus, and in Jesus' supernatural works. These Scriptures and these works are the two main evidential bases of Christian faith.
In all of the world's literature apart from the Bible, there is no prophecy that correctly specifies the nature and timing of unusual events hundreds of years in the future. Yet the prophecy laid out in Daniel 9:25-26, written centuries before the time of Jesus, yields specific dates for several key events in His ministry. Thus, this prophecy is in itself enough to establish, first, that the Bible is the Word of God and, secondly, that the One who came at the appointed time was the promised Messiah.
The Gospels furnish two genealogies of Jesus, and both trace His ancestry to David. Throughout His ministry, Jesus allowed others to call Him David's son. In the Book of Acts, which chronicles the early expansion of the church, the first reference to Jesus as the son of David occurs in an excerpt from one of Paul's sermons during his first missionary journey. The kingly descent of Jesus must therefore have been a teaching of the church from the very beginning.
Critics say that the early church invented the Virgin Birth to accomplish two apologetic purposes at once: first, to prove that Jesus was the Christ of prophecy, and, second, to prove that Jesus was God, on the assumption that it was more reasonable to view Him as the Son of God if He was not the son of a human father. Five lines of argument decisively set aside this view.
The reader is going to look at some tightly woven exegesis. If he follows along patiently despite the intricacies, he will come to understand some remarkable prophecies that, by themselves, verge on being decisive evidence of the supernatural, for they reveal, hundreds of years before the fact, that the coming Messiah would be a man named Jesus.
Micah clearly states that the future ruler of Israel would come from Bethlehem. By associating the Messiah with the birthplace and ancestral home of King David, the prophet recalls and reaffirms the earlier prophecies that the Messiah would come from David's line. Yet Micah cautions the nation not to expect a mere man, for the Messiah would be the One "whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting." No mere man could be described as eternally preexistent. Thus, the ruler who would "come forth unto me" must unquestionably be God Himself.
Christ's prophetic ministry had two main aspects. First, through His teaching He lifted men to a higher understanding of God's will and purposes, and He pointed the way to becoming right with God. Second, He performed supernatural works attesting the truth of His teaching.
Besides generally foretelling the humiliation of Christ, the passage from Isaiah 52:13 to the end of Isaiah 53 contains twelve specific prophecies that came to pass in the course of Jesus' life and death.
The most straightforward interpretation of Psalm 16:10 is that a single event in the experience of the Holy One would both terminate His soul's stay in hell and spare His body from decay. The event that the prophecy foreshadows must be a resurrection, reuniting His soul and body in new, unending life. To forestall the corruption of His body, the resurrection would have to take place soon after His death, within a few days at most.
For scoffers at the supernatural, these prophecies must be among the most indigestible in the Old Testament. With utmost transparency, they say that soon after the death of the Messiah, the Jews would suffer a great disaster. A foreign people would invade the land, attack Jerusalem, and destroy both the city and the sanctuary.
The requirement to do miracles has made it impossible for any false Messiah to fulfill prophecy. All the other requirements are stringent enough, but to do miracles also is beyond human cleverness. You, dear reader, may think yourself very shrewd and capable. But do you think that you could fool multitudes into accepting you as a miracle worker?
The core affirmation of the Christian gospel is that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. While insisting that men must accept the gospel by faith, the church does not neglect to give them sufficient proofs that the Resurrection was an actual event in history. The proofs we will lay out in these studies are not only sufficient; they establish the Resurrection as one of the best-attested events in antiquity. Our confidence in the Resurrection rests on competent eyewitnesses, otherwise inexplicable circumstances, and telling historical results.
The great size, worldwide scope, and salutary influence of the church that Jesus founded are threefold testimony that He is indeed the Christ, and that His church is indeed God's chosen instrument for revealing Himself to the whole world.
The first or nearly the first miracle that every Christian can remember in his own life is conversion. At the moment someone believes in Christ, the benevolent hand of the Holy Spirit touches him and wholly transforms his life and character. Whether his former life was, in human estimation, sinful or exemplary, he becomes a new creature. The metamorphosis does not produce a perfect butterfly. Yet the convert does not remain the same old caterpillar either. The beauty that now shines forth from his face and heart defies natural explanation.
We will review the evidence that the Gospels were actually written by men who knew Jesus or Jesus' apostles. But since many opponents of Christianity have alleged that the Gospels contain false stories which the apostles fabricated for personal gain or for furtherance of the Christian cause, we will also review the evidence that the Gospels are not only authentic, but also trustworthy and true.
The best available evidence concerning the date of Christ's birth indicates that the date was possibly 6 January (25 Kislev) 4 B.C.
For many reasons a legion of commentators ancient and modern have believed that the star was a supernatural visitation of some sort. One reasonable possibility is that the star was an angel
When I belonged to the secular academic world, the well-informed people still believed in evolution by chance. They were pinning their hopes on neo-Darwinism, but this refinement of Darwin's theory failed to eliminate its implausibilities and its dearth of supporting evidence. The turning point in learned opinion arrived in the 60s and 70s, when it became exceedingly obvious that cell chemistry is far too complex to have been the product of random events. Any theory of evolution by chance became untenable to the extent of being absurd.
But although leading intellectuals have known for over thirty years that classic evolutionary theory is bankrupt, the truth has not filtered down to ordinary people. It has not even filtered down to people who are reasonably well educated but who nevertheless depend on others to tell them what to believe. Why are most people still under the impression that evolution is a proven fact? Because most of the knowledgeable elite are not willing to say otherwise. The reason is fear, actually two fears: first, fear of reprisal. The academic world looks with hostility on anyone who challenges evolution, and it marginalizes or ostracizes him if he is trying to pursue an academic career. A second fear inhibiting the knowledgeable elite from speaking out is that they will open the flood-gates of irrationalism. "Irrationalism" is a code word for Biblical Christianity.
What is relativism? Relativism says that truth may be one thing for me, another for you. Such a simplistic philosophy would never have gained a serious hearing in the past. Only by working hard these last fifty years to dummy down education has the devil been able to convince people to accept relativism as a world view. Why can we reject it? For five reasons.
Apologetics is unique to Christianity. Other religions never encourage their adherents to investigate deeply whether they are true. Nor do they ever use any manner of apologetics in their efforts to win converts. The reason is obvious. These false religions do not stand up to scrutiny. They fear being exposed for what they are—a clever system of lies. Therefore, they demand unreasoning faith in their teachings and unquestioning obedience to their teachers. But Christianity is different. It welcomes examination. Why? It is confident that it offers truth.