GYC 2018: To The End

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

Atheism, Apatheism, or Adventism

Anthony Bosman

1. Do We Need to Win Arguments to Win Souls?

This message was presented at the GYC to the end in Houston, Texas.

For other resources like this, visit us online at GYCweb.org.

So let me go ahead and say a word of prayer and then we can dive right in.

And each 1 of us has such an incredible testimony of your goodness.

Father, we pray that you're present here today to teach us how we might effectively share the message of hope that we have, that we can help others come to trust you and know you, others who maybe don't even recognize you.

Father, be with us now, help us to think clearly, help us to love greatly, in Christ's name we pray, amen.

So the name of the seminar is Atheism, Apotheism, or Adventism.

So you've probably heard of atheism before, ah, theism, no, God.

It's a combination of apathy and theism, theism, belief in God, but it's apathy about God.

So apatheism are those who don't take a strong stance and say, I reject God, they're just apathetic.

I wake up in the morning, I live my life, I watch some Netflix, I go to sleep.

Yeah, okay, on religious, or just spiritually not interested.

And so we'll see some data showing this pretty large class that aren't necessarily atheists, they're just apathetic about God.

And so we want to make sure we're talking about this group as well, and then Adventism, which we're probably a little more familiar with.

So the plan is we're gonna be going through 6 seminars and engage you with some of the big questions, big topics that come up in this arena.

Today we're gonna be asking, do we need to win arguments to win souls?

And then our next seminar will be, can we be certain that God exists?

In the second seminar, we'll both be seeing some positive evidence for God, but also looking at a number of objections that people raise and how we can respond to those.

Then tomorrow morning, we'll have 2 about science.

And then, do we still need to take Genesis seriously?

And then tomorrow afternoon, we'll ask about the problem of evil, the problem of divine hiddenness.

Why does God hide while people suffer, and then we'll end about thinking about the future, space colonies, artificial intelligence, where is humanity heading?

But I want us to begin by jumping in to this question, do we need to win arguments to win souls?

And so to engage with this question, I want to hear from some of you.

Who would answer in the affirmative, yes, we need to win arguments to win souls?

We have a couple of brave souls or maybe particularly argumentative souls.

Who would answer no, that No, I don't think we need to win arguments.

Well, let me hear from someone who said yes.

We have a mic, and I want to hear from someone who said yes.

Who has someone who had their hand up for yes?

And I'll ask you briefly, why do you think it's important for us to win arguments?

Because if you don't win the arguments, they won't believe.

Okay, and so people have serious objections, and if you can't respond to those objections, why would they believe?

Can we pass the mic back here to Kevin on the third row?

We're asking this question, do we need to win arguments to win souls?

If Stephen hadn't presented a persuasive argument for the Messiahship of Jesus and his rejection by the Jewish nation, would there have been a conversion on the part of the Apostle Paul?

So you look at some of the biblical evidence, and you see that throughout Scripture, you have a presentation of arguments.

In Acts 1, our theme verse for this weekend, we see that when Christ rose, he presented many infallible proofs.

So there was an argument being won there.

Paul would go synagogue to synagogue, engaging in some form of argumentation, as in showing from the scriptures the reasons for the confidence they had in the Messiah.

So you do seem to have some biblical evidence of presenting the case for Christianity.

Well, let me hear from someone who said, no, We don't need to win arguments to win souls.

I think before we discuss this, we have to know what an argument is.

Because when I think of an argument, I think of conflict.

And I don't think we have to win conflicts, but persuasion and giving them facts and information is important, but somehow I don't like the word argument.

Yeah, argument kind of has a combative tone to it.

When you hear argument, you imagine 2 heads going against each other, trying to outwit or outpower the other.

But if we take argument in the classical sense that we are engaging in a truth-seeking dialogue together where we're respecting each other, then maybe it takes a little bit more positive tone.

Engaging in a truth-seeking dialogue together.

So we're coming together, I'm presenting the best evidence I have, you're presenting the best evidence you have, and we're trying to seek truth together.

So it's a discussion with a definitive goal to arrive at the truth of some topic.

You know, we don't hold the answers for everything.

But, you know, certainly we can disprove other things.

And so that's honestly how I arrived to creation is real, because evolution is not real.

I mean, it's, once, I don't know if you're gonna go through examples, but once you plant the seed of doubt, then they'll start, they'll maybe disbelieve what they, their lack of belief in God.

So you started by saying that we don't have the answers to everything, and so Maybe we don't have to win every possible argument to win souls, but there do seem to be some really significant arguments, some big issues where we need to be able to make a compelling case.

Well, let's look at some of the biblical data.

Well, we're gonna be turning to 1 Peter 3, verse 15.

And 1 Peter 3, verse 15 tells us that 1 of the ways that we honor Christ as Lord, that we sanctify him in our hearts, is by being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for the reason for the hope that is in you.

That word for defense is apologia, from which we get the word apologetic.

And so Peter's telling us that 1 of the ways we honor Christ, there's many ways, we live a godly life, but another way is we prepare ourselves to give a response to those who come up and ask questions about why do you live the way that you live?

Why do you believe the things that you believe?

And so Peter's saying that not only should you give a response, but ahead of time, you need to be prepared so that when you come against those questions, you're able to answer in a thoughtful way.

And that's what we're trying to do in this series of seminars.

We're trying to prepare you so that when people ask you questions about, well, why do you believe that?

3. Has Science Replaced the Need for Faith?

I'll say a word of prayer and then we'll begin with today's topic which is has science replaced the need for faith?

Father God we stand in incredible awe of you.

We recognize you as the sovereign, the creator of heaven and earth.

But I just pray today as we take some time to unpack how you revealed yourself.

That you might give us clarity of thinking, that we might better understand and appreciate you and your works.

That We might learn how to communicate the truth about you to those who don't yet have that saving knowledge It's in Christ name we pray Amen So you might have seen some internet memes I go something like this here's what I pulled up it's go science It's God's way of telling you he doesn't exist.

Or there's a great number in this category, just suggesting that now that we know science, we don't need faith.

Maybe we needed faith when we were primitive people, maybe we needed faith when we didn't understand the universe very well, when lightning was a mysterious thing, when the stars in heaven were cryptic messages.

But now that we have science, we don't need faith anymore.

Has anyone come across this idea in any capacity?

Yeah, you've probably come across it in some form.

So what I want us to do is I want us to judge and evaluate that claim.

In particular, I want us to compare 2 world views.

Naturalism is the claim is that the natural is all that there is.

Carl Sagan put it this way in his show Cosmos.

He said, the cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be.

That is merely the natural, the physical, matter and energy, right?

No spirits, no angels, no demons, no God, just the natural.

And we're going to contrast that with Christianity, with theism, belief in God, but in particular a creator God who has entered into time and history.

He said that when I became a Christian, I believe in Christianity as I believe in the risen son.

Not just because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.

And so Lewis is saying that his faith isn't just 1 belief among many, that he has his scientific knowledge and his historical knowledge and his aesthetic knowledge and then his faith, but he says his faith opens up a window by which he understands the world as a whole.

Eleanor White made a similar statement when she said, Christ, his character and work, is the center and circumference of all truth.

And so Lewis and White and others understood that Christianity isn't just 1 belief among many, but it's our way to make sense of the world as a whole.

And what I want to try and argue today is that Christianity has incredible sense-making power.

That is, Christianity makes sense of the world around us.

And when we're able to make this case and establish it to others, we can help others see that Christianity isn't in tension with science.

Rather, Christianity helps us understand and appreciate the discoveries of science.

Let me give you the mic so we can get it on recording.

Now, Carl Sagan and the cosmos, I've watched some of it, but I've watched some of it, but he doesn't really say that the cosmos is everything.

He says that the cosmos includes all that.

So there is the view of pantheism that the universe itself is God and I don't think he's advocating that But there are other world views that we could compare of of God is somehow part of the universe, the universe itself is God.

And perhaps that's the direction you're thinking.

But I just want to contrast the 2 claims of the biblical claim of there being a creator God with naturalism, the claim that there is no God at all.

It's merely the physical, merely the natural universe.

And I want to suggest there's a number of features of the universe that Christianity makes sense of.

And the first 1 is the origin of the universe.

Genesis 1-1 begins after all of the claim that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Now, that's not a controversial claim today because we have overwhelming scientific agreement that the universe had a beginning.

Beginning with Hubble, as he was observing the world around us, Hubble noticed that there was some redshift that occurs when looking at distant galaxies, and he came to the conclusion that the galaxies are moving away from each other, that the universe is expanding.

But then if you play the story in reverse, the universe is expanding, you rewind the story, you get back to some origin of the universe.

The universe is expanding, you can rewind this, we have some origin of the universe.

This is commonly referred to as the Big Bang, right?

Interestingly enough, the term the Big Bang was a critique of this theory.

A number of individuals were resistant to the idea that the universe had a beginning.

In the 1900s, while it was being proposed, this model that the universe had a beginning, a number of people thought, no, that can't be possible, because throughout the centuries, we believed that the universe was infinite, infinite in time, it had always existed.

And that's really convenient, Because if the universe had always existed, then you don't have to explain where it came from.

But suddenly, if the universe has a beginning, it then begins to cry out for an explanation of where did the universe come from.

What I want us to do is contrast the biblical claim, and truly enough the Bible begins by affirming the universe had a beginning.

Thousands of years ago, scripture declared this, and it wasn't until the 19th century that our science caught up and was able to see oh in fact There's really good reason for us to believe that the universe had a beginning So if you had lived a couple hundred years ago people might have thought you'll be weird to believe in Genesis 1 1 but now we have overwhelming evidence that in fact the universe did have some beginning, with some singularity point at the very beginning.

But I want us to contrast this with how might a naturalist, 1 who rejects the narrative of scripture, How might he explain this?

And so I'm going to give 1 such explanation.

My hope for today is to get through this so we have some time for Q&A at the end.

So if you want to hold on to your question, we'll save some time at the end for it.

But I'll try and make sure we have plenty of time for your questions.

So here's 1 attempt to explain the origin of the universe from an entirely naturalistic perspective.

That is, without making any appeal to God.

Stephen Hawking, the recent physicist, in his book, The Grand Design, wrote, because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.

Notice he's trying to appeal to, to explain the origin of the universe, make sense of the origin of the universe without appealing to God.

What I want us to do is think about his statement right here.

Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.

Now when you hear that, do you notice anything possibly problematic about it?

So this requires appealing to the law of gravity and so It posits the existence of the law of gravity.

So in fact, it doesn't claim, it says the universe came from nothing, and yet somehow there was a law, so there was something.

So again, pointing out this claim, it comes from nothing.

Because it seems to say that it's coming from something.

But also, how can, well, let me get 1 more, 2 of you more to chime in.

4. Should We Still Take Genesis Seriously?

For other resources like this, visit us online at gycweb.org.

I'm particularly excited about this next presentation.

We're going to be looking at Genesis asking should we still take Genesis seriously?

Thank you And I'm hoping that afterwards when we finish, we can have extended time for more Q&A.

I know there's a lot of questions we didn't get to this last time or that we may want to revisit.

So let's go ahead and pray and then we can jump in talking about Genesis.

Fathers, we stop right now to spend some time thinking about Genesis going back.

We're just reminded of the fact that as we travel backwards, back before the creation of all, we find you, Father, Son, Spirit, existing in loving community.

What an awesome reality that the foundation of a reality itself is you and your love.

The hope is to grow in that love, grow in appreciation of who you are and better communicate the reality of you to those who don't yet have that confidence in you.

So you may have seen some critiques like this.

So it's this basic narrative that science has been moving us forward, creating all these exciting things, putting people on the moon, right?

This afternoon we'll talk about the future of humanity and the awesome potential of science, space colonies, we can colonize Mars, artificial intelligence.

But this is just looking back, this is historically science, look what it's given us.

Whereas religion, it gave us the crusades, it gave us, it held back scientific progress.

1 of the best examples of this is is this guy you know who this is?

Yeah, this is Galileo, and so the story goes well look what happened Galileo, right?

He was trying to usher in this scientific truth, but religion was holding him back, right?

Galileo was trying to explain the universe, but the religious system was holding him back.

But when you actually look at the life of Galileo, something interesting happens.

You begin to recognize that Galileo himself had a high view of scripture.

For instance, he wrote, I think in the first place that it's very pious to say and prudent to affirm the Holy Bible can never speak on truth whenever its true meaning is understood.

And so Galileo didn't sense this tension between what God had revealed in scripture and his study of the universe that some project onto him.

What was the what was the fueling this conflict with Galileo and the church?

Well when you step back and appreciate the world view that was dominant at the time, a worldview that was inherited from Aristotle.

The Aristotelian worldview had been integrated into medieval theology and it went something like this.

You have the Earth at the center of the solar system, which was then the entirety of the cosmos, And then you had a number of bodies orbiting the Earth, the moon, Mercury, Venus, the sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn.

Incidentally, these bodies are the foundation for the names of the week, right?

So we have like Sunday after the sun, Monday after the moon and so forth, up to Saturday after Saturday.

So the 7 days of the week were named after the 7 bodies that we could see with the naked eye orbiting the earth.

And then there was believed to be some outer spheres where the stirrers were fixed.

And then in the outermost sphere, Aristotle had this idea of the prime mover, or the uncaused first cause.

And what happened was, when the medieval church read Aristotle, someone who was held in very high esteem, they're like, huh, we can integrate this with our religious teachings pretty well.

The On Cause versus Cause is just another name for God.

And so we could integrate our theology with this philosophy And it gives some kind of prestige some kind of authority to church because if you have Aristotle on your team You know you're winning right so so they're able to get him on their team but it came at the cost of not only integrating into the theological system, but also integrating into their the cosmology, their understanding of the world around them.

And so what the Reformation then came and did was the Reformation was a pushing back upon Aristotle.

By the way, this is why there was conflict.

When Galileo was proposing his model, hey, we have this Copernican model, we have the sun is at the center, and you look up into the heavens, and oh, the heavens is not just about things going in perfect circles, right?

It's a little more complicated than that.

And he's beginning to challenge the church because he's challenging Aristotle.

And so the cause of the controversy there was because the church had married itself with Aristotle.

But what the Reformation did was it pushed back on Aristotelian worldview.

For instance, Aristotle had written his ethics, we become just by doing just acts.

So Aristotle has this idea that, you know, what makes you a flutist?

It means, well, you're a flutist because you play the flute well.

Well, you're just because you do just things well.

And now it'd been integrated into the theological system.

So justice is that we become right with God through good works.

And so you have a pushback in the Reformation where Martin Luther realizes, no, the just shall live by faith.

And so you begin to have a rejection of this marrying of the philosophy with the theology.

But then that also then paved the way to begin to reject the way in which the astronomy had been married to the church's understanding.

Interestingly enough, Kepler calls himself the Luther of astronomy.

And what Kepler is doing is he's pushing back on some of these models saying, okay, no, just like how Martin Luther studied the book of scripture to understand how we become just.

Now I'm going to study the book of nature and understand how the world really is and come up with models that will challenge those of what the church had previously held via Aristotle.

So central to this Reformation was this idea of 2 books.

It's an old idea that dates back in Christian history, that there are 2 books of God's revelation.

That God has revealed himself both in the book of Scripture, but also in the book of nature.

And so both are telling us something about who God is.

And so when Protestants come and they begin to read the book of Scripture in a new way, let's not just listen to the past authorities, let's study the book itself, and then gave permission for individuals to rise up and study the book of nature itself, rather than just listening to what the past authorities had said about nature.

So the Protestant Reformation, re-reading the book of scripture, leads the way to the scientific revolution, which is re-reading the book of nature.

In particular, the Protestants introduced a new hermeneutic that radically changed how they read scripture.

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Atheism, Apatheism, or Adventism

4. Should We Still Take Genesis Seriously?

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