What We Believe

Contents
Structure of the Study	3
What Do We Believe?	4
THE APOSTLES' CREED	4
Introduction to the Apostles' Creed	4
From Atheism to Agnosticism to Belief: Building a Case for Christianity	5
Christian Apologetics	5
Classical Apologetics	6
Evidential Apologetics	6
Epistemology & Presuppositional Apologetics	7
Some Ways to Critique a Worldview	8
I BELIEVE IN GOD	11
Questions about belief in God	11
Arguments for the Existence of God	11
The Ontological Argument	11
The Teleological Argument	12
The Cosmological Argument	14
The Kalam Cosmological Argument - Another Approach	15
The Argument from Mind	21
The Argument from Morality	21
The Argument from Desire	24
The Anthropic Principle	24
The Cumulative Probability Argument	24
THE FATHER ALMIGHTY: MAKER OF HEAVEN AND EARTH	25
The Nature and Attributes  of God	25
God is Non-Contingent	25
God is Spiritual, Infinite, Eternal, and Omnipresent	25
God is One	27
God is Genderless	28
God is Personal	28
God is Omniscient	28
God is Omnipotent	28
God is Omnibenevolent	29
God is Immutable	29
The Case for the Special Revelation and the Bible	30
Why is it necessary?	30
How would it occur?	30
Arguments for the Bible to be considered special revelation?	31
How reliable is the Bible?	31
Appendix B - Science, Metaphysics, and Worldviews	49
Appendix C - Criticisms of Theism	55
Christianity and Myth	55

Structure of the Study

What Do We Believe?
What does it mean to be a Christian?  How do we define what that is?  This study will explore the basic areas of Christian faith – taken from the ground us – and attempt to understand where these beliefs come from, what their basis in history and Scripture are, and why they are important to our understanding of our faith.

As a starting point for our investigation of Christian belief, we will use a document that is almost as old as Christianity itself – the Apostles’ Creed.  
THE APOSTLES' CREED
I.	I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth
II.	And in Jesus Christ His only Son, our Lord
III.	Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary
IV.	Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried
V.	On the third day He rose again from the dead
VI.	He ascended into heaven and sits on the right hand of God the Father Almighty
VII.	From there He shall come to judge the Quick and the dead
VIII.	I believe in the Holy Spirit
IX.	I believe in the holy catholic [universal] Church, the communion of saints
X.	I believe in the forgiveness of sins
XI.	I believe in the resurrection of the body
XII.	And I believe in the life everlasting
Introduction to the Apostles' Creed
•	The Apostles' Creed is not an inspired document; it is a collection of beliefs that the early church (probably late 2nd - early 3rd century) came to agree upon as the measure of whether a person was "orthodox" in his or her beliefs regarding basic philosophy
•	I don't believe in Creeds as statement of faith the Bible should be our only guide as to what we are to believe
•	However, the Apostles' creed does boil down many of the fundamentals of Christian theology into concise statements
•	These classes will attempt to do two things: 
•	reinforce in us the basic ideas of Christian theology
•	develop an apology for the basis of our beliefs in these things
•	We will not attempt to argue every facet of Christian doctrine - only the highlights captured eloquently in the Apostles' Creed

From Atheism to Agnosticism to Belief: Building a Case for Christianity
As stated earlier, the intent of this study is to investigate the fundamentals of Christianity from the ground up.  This is intended to be a high-level overview of the basic ideas of Christian belief beginning with establishing belief in God and following this with a defense of special revelation, then culminating in a doctrinal analysis of Scripture taking into consideration the “highlights” of the historical development of different Christian doctrines.

In order to do this, we will approach Christianity from the perspective of the unbeliever.  How does a person come to believe in God?  In the Bible?  In Jesus?  This study will attempt to answer these questions.  This kind of study is usually referred to as apologetics.

Before we can dive into the specifics of these issues, however, we need to spend some time thinking about thinking.  The following discussion will discuss the terms and concepts that we need to understand in order to talk coherently about building a case for belief in God.

It is important to understand the power of a person’s worldview in our attempts to share our faith.  If a person’s worldview simply precludes the possibility of miracles, it will do no good to quote biblical passages in an attempt to prove the existence of miracles.  In this process, we must first assess our own “hidden” presuppositions and assumptions, and verify that we are thinking rationally and logically about how we view truth, knowledge, and the universe.  It is only when we understand our own worldview well that we are truly prepared to challenge another person’s worldview.

In our discussion of approaches to apologetics, it is important to understand the impact of the differences in Christian beliefs.  If you believe, as typical Calvinists do, that man’s intellect is flawed because of the Fall of Man, classical and evidential approaches to apologetics will be of only secondary use.  If your view of the Fall of Man is more along Arminian lines – or along Catholic lines – then the classical and evidential approaches may be a palatable starting point.

In the section that follows, we provide a brief overview of these types of apologetics dealing with the existence of God.
Christian Apologetics
Apologetics, at a high level, can be divided into two major types: the Classical/Evidential, and the Presuppositional. 

•	The Classical refers to those arguments initially created in the pre-Reformation period and used by such thinkers as Aquinas, Augustine and many of the early church fathers. Classical apologetics is based on the concept that man can, through reason, see the necessity and evidence of God's existence. 
•	The Evidential refers to those arguments that began appearing especially during the Enlightenment and the advent of modern scientific thought. These arguments contain modified versions of some of the Classical arguments but make special claim to scientific evidence pointing to God's existence. Again, the underlying concept is that a rational man can be shown reasonable proof of God's existence.  As such, evidential apologetics is really just an extension of the arguments made in classical apologetics
•	The Presuppositional refers to those arguments developed by post-Reformation thinkers. Under Reformation thought, the Fall affected not only man's spiritual and moral state, but his rational state as well. So that we are predisposed to approach evidence for God with bias. The Presuppositionalist will argue that the reason people don't accept God's existence is because they begin with an a priori bias against belief in God - their entire worldview is constucted on a flawed epistemological basis. Thus, in arguing for God's existence, one should question and refute the "hidden" presuppositions of atheists and unbelievers.  Further, they argue that in order to reach belief in God, you must begin with God – a position that draws much fire from classicists and evidentialists as well as non-theistic thinkers as being petitio principii  or begging the question.
Classical Apologetics 
Modern Classical Apologists include Charles Hodge, B.B. Warfield, Charles Hartshorne, F. R. Tennant, Norman Geisler, R.C. Sproul, and John Gerstner. 

The importance of studying classical apologetics stems from the fact that most secular philosophy courses only dialogue with the classical arguments. In addition, Classical Apologetics are an item of dogma for the Roman Catholic Church. As Christiani puts it, 
"Before starting to examine modern forms of apologetics,... Are such forms permitted; are they lawful?...Yes, but with a few conditions: first, they do not contradict classical apologetics and, secondly, that they are in some way connected with it. No one may reject classical apologetics, for, as we have seen, it has been sanctioned by the Vatican Council, and the principles then laid down have been repeated by St Pius X in his Encyclical Pascendi. These two documents, which we must not reject, indicate the proper end for Catholic apologetics, and the essential means for gaining this end." 
As a result of these two facts, most students today are led to believe that these arguments are the main line of Christian defense, even though many of them are not particularly effective. Classical apologetics should be understood then, not only for use in evangelism, where appropriate, but also in order to be prepared to critique some of the weaker arguments.
Summary of Classical Apologetics
The classical arguments cannot prove the existence of God. If they could, the explanation would be pages long, and incomprehensible to the average man. Finally, if classical apologetics could prove the existence of God, it would not necessarily be the God of the Bible. 
Evidential Apologetics
Evidential Apologetics are the product of the rise of modern science and modern historiography. During the period of the Enlightenment, Christians were eager to show that a scientific approach to Christianity was possible. 

The type of scientific method used was a forensic, or inductive approach, which is similar to courtroom evidence. Forensic science collects evidence after the event (e.g. an autopsy) and seeks to find the most plausible explanation for the event. Such an argument does not claim to "prove" Christianity, but only to render it probable. 

Today, evidentialism is the main approach in use in American fundamentalist and evangelical circles. Spokesmen for the approach include Josh McDowell, C. S. Lewis, John W. Montgomery, Clark Pinnock, Hal Lindsey, and many others. Many other author's combine evidential arguments with other approaches. 
Critique of the Evidentialist Approach
The evidentialist approach has strengths in certain contexts. It is used in Scripture, by Christ, the Old Testament, and by the apostles.

However, it is essential that the Christian apologist realize some limitations of this method.
•	Modern evidentialist apologists have made exaggerated claims regarding our ability to verify the historicity of the Gospels.
•	Although we can demonstrate relatively good historical value in the gospels, it would be a mistake to think that secular scholars will be impressed to the extent that they would accept supernatural aspects of the narrative. 
•	Evidentialists have failed to point out that the Gospels lack one feature that is considered important for credibility by modern historians-- namely correlation. That is, even though the gospels can be correlated with other sources regarding geography and non-Christian historical facts, they can not be compared with outside sources regarding the words, acts, and character of Jesus. This does not mean that the gospels are not historically sound. It only means that they are not as iron-clad as some authors have claimed. 
•	The empty tomb argument is based in part on an argument from silence. This fact is mitigated somewhat by the fact that it is a conspicuous silence (because the body could have been exhumed) but it remains a sore point which has not been admitted or dealt with by evidentialists. 
•	The Lord Liar Lunatic dilemma is not a very strong argument from the standpoint of cogency. On the other hand, it is effective in confronting the hearer with his choices, and eliminating the likelihood of the "good man" theory. It does not usually deal with the legend theory sufficiently. 
•	Some evidentialists have a reputation for credulity and deliberate distortion, especially when citing authorities who supposedly agree with the position taken, when they actually do not. There are even cases of gross misinterpretation and quotations taken out of context apparently on purpose. The work of many evidentialists has the appearance of "working from the bottom line up" (looking for anything that will prove the point) rather than careful scholarship.
Strengths of the Evidentialist Approach 
There are appropriate uses of the evidentialist approach. The main thing is to avoid attempting to make the evidences do more than they can legitimately do. This has to do with the burden of proof question.

The evidential arguments have strengthened the faith of many Christians. 

When addressing non-Christian's, the argument from fulfilled prophecy is the best part of the evidentialist argument to use. This argument has definite value in terms of establishing the likelihood of biblical revelation and the uniqueness of Christ. 

Evidentialist arguments can and should be used to create curiosity and willingness to hear a more complete presentation of biblical teaching. They should also be used to correct the misconception that Christianity is without evidence. They are, in other words often pre-evangelistic in scope. 
Epistemology & Presuppositional Apologetics
Presuppositional apologetics have become prominent in recent years due to the work of several reformed scholars including Cornelius Van Til, Gordon Clark, E. J. Carnell, and Francis Schaeffer. 

At a time when classical apologetics are in general discredit among scholars in the secular world, presuppositionalism has enjoyed increasing respect in scholarly circles. Modern Christian communicators should read a good selection of the writings of these authors, and become able to employ this approach when appropriate. 

The central idea behind presuppositional apologetics is the fact that everyone does have certain presuppositions, no matter what their world view. This fact is obvious, although the exact presuppositions held in a given case may not be obvious. It is even possible that the presuppositions are not clear to the one that holds them. Therefore, there often needs to be a step of discovery of the other's presuppositions before applying the method. 

In presuppositional apologetics, the classical/evidential arguments for God are used secondarily.  The initial goal is to discuss the internal incoherency and irrationality of the unbeliever’s unbelief.  The final summary of presuppositional apologetics is simply to show that the unbeliever’s position is a house of cards – an irrational conclusion built on irrational assumptions that is ultimately held up by irrational faith and is, upon honest inspection, self-refuting.

The point of presuppositional argumentation is to go beneath the level of argument the unbeliever is attempting to maintain because his/her foundation for such argumentation is severely flawed.  In essence you must begin by, as Francis Shaeffer put it, “tearing the roof off” of their epistemological house.

In some models (Van Til's for instance) there is the assumption that the presuppositions of all non-theists are the same. 

In others, this question is left open at first. 
Van Til's Presuppositional Method
1.	Gain awareness of each other's presuppositions (epistemological self-consciousness) and of their absolute difference. 
2.	Place oneself upon the presuppositions of the unbeliever for arguments sake--show that they do not provide an adequate reference point for predication (i.e., a sufficient base for reasoning at all). 
3.	Show that on Christianity`s presupposition (the ontological Trinity as ultimate Creator and Interpreter), rationality is upheld. Only Christianity does this (facts and laws analysis). 
4.	Press the claims of the Gospel. 
5.	Point out that since rational conversation has gone on, the unbeliever must abandon his presuppositions and adopt Christian ones. 
6.	Point out why unbelieving presuppositions were chosen, and call for repentance and faith. 
Schaeffer's One on One Approach
1.	Establish communication and common meanings. 
2.	Dialogue to discover the other's presuppositions.
3.	Carefully push the non-Christian's presuppositions to their logical conclusion with an attitude of compassion. 
4.	Find the point of tension, pressing the unbeliever to compare the logical conclusion of his beliefs to the real world, himself and his actual conduct. 
5.	Show that the Christian world-view better allows him to live in the real world, thus suggesting that this world view is true. 

A sound presuppositional apologetic belongs in the arsenal of the modern Christian communicator, because it is frequently very effective in public speaking, and in gaining respect in one on one conversations, especially with well educated and intelligent hearers. 

Because the point of presuppositional apologetics is to demonstrate the irrationality of the unbeliever’s worldview as opposed to offering positive argument for the existence of God, this section will attempt to outline the basic things to think about and look for in critiquing a person’s worldview – whether someone else’s or your own.
Some Ways to Critique a Worldview
When analyzing someone's worldview, there are a number of errors which you should look out for. These errors represent the different ways in which one's worldview can be exposed as being philosophically inadequate. They are by no means exhaustive of all the different ways in which a given worldview can be critiqued, but they represent some basic strategies which I personally find to be helpful. We will also apply the general insights gained from the analysis of such errors to particular statements which are often uttered by proponents of a non-Christian worldview.
1.	Self-referential incoherence or self-refutation
Whenever you are listening to someone argue for a position, ask yourself, "Is that statement or position self-referentially incoherent or self-refuting?" A given worldview is definitely inadequate when its central tenet is self-referentially incoherent. Let me explain what this means.

Statements or propositions have a subject matter; they refer to things (either actual or not) or are about them. The proposition, "There are trees outside my window" refer to trees outside my window. This proposition does not refer to itself but to something other than itself.  Call this "the referential character of propositions."

However, there are propositions which refer to themselves; they are included in their own field of reference. For example, "This is an English sentence" refers to itself and claims that it is in English. Whenever a proposition refers to itself it is said to be self-referential.

A proposition is said to be incoherent when it is not logically consistent or coherent. An incoherent proposition is false and necessarily so.

Now we are in a position to understand what a self-referentially incoherent proposition is. A self-referentially incoherent proposition is a proposition which includes itself in its own field of reference, and fails to be consistent with itself. Such a proposition is said to be self-refuting. For example, the proposition "This sentence contains less than three
words" is self-referentially incoherent since it contains three or more words. Likewise, the proposition, "I can't speak a word of English," if spoken in English, is self-refuting. 

Let's look at some other examples which are more relevant to apologetics:

•	"One ought to believe that determinism is true and that every event is determined by its antecedent causes."
Philosopher J.R. Lucas says about the determinist:
If what he says is true, he says it merely as the result of his heredity and environment, and of nothing else. He does not hold his determinist views because they are true, but because he has such-and-such stimuli; that is, not because the structure of the universe is  such-and-such but only because the configuration of only part of the universe, together with the structure of the determinist's brain, is such as to produce that result.... Determinism, therefore, cannot be true, because if it was, we should not take the determinist's arguments as being really arguments, but as being only conditioned reflexes. Their statements should not be regarded as really claiming to be true, but only as seeking to cause us to respond in some way desired by them.

Thus, physical determinism is self-refuting if it is offered as a rational theory which one ought to believe for good reasons. 

•	“There is no such thing as absolute truth.”
This is often uttered by epistemological skeptics. If they claim that this statement is absolutely and objectively true, then it is self-refuting (e.g. it is an absolute truth      that there are no absolute truths). The only way the skeptic can avoid self-refutation is by making a non-absolute claim that there are no absolute truths. But if his claim is now non-absolute, then he can't be as dogmatic and he should be more open-minded towards the possibility that there are absolute truths!

•	"We ought to tolerate every point of view."
This becomes self-refuting when, as is usually the case, the principle in question, namely, tolerance, is used to accept some point of view (e.g. homosexuality, religious pluralism) while excluding others (e.g. Christianity) -- which shows that they are intolerant of those views which are excluded! If such people were really consistent with their principle of tolerance, then they should accept every point of view, including Christianity.

•	"We can never get to the meaning of a text."
Many Postmodernists and Deconstructionists make the above claim. But this claim of theirs becomes self-refuting when they themselves write books, expecting people to "get to the meaning of the text" which they authored! If no one can get to the meaning of a text (as the Deconstructionists claim), then why is Deconstructionism so well understood?!

•	“Only that which can be verified empirically is meaningful or true.” 
A claim very similar to this one was made by the "Logical Positivists" of the early 20th century. They were a group of philosophers who wanted to allow only scientific and logical statements within their worldview. By means of their "verificationist criterion of meaning" they sought to rid philosophy of metaphysical statements about God, the soul, immortality, etc. The trouble with the Logical Positivists' criterion was that their criterion itself could not be verified empirically. We can't verify the meaningfulness of that statement itself by means of "the scientific method." Thus, every worldview (such as the Logical Positivists') which tries to limit the domain of existence to empirical existence is bound to be self-refuting. Consistent empiricism is self-refuting as a philosophy. Also, strong Scientism is self-refuting since its claim that science is the only way to know things itself is not a scientific claim, but a second-order philosophical claim about science.   Similar self-refutation occurs when one claims (e.g. Antony Flew) that every meaningful proposition must be falsifiable, since there is no way to falsify that statement itself. 

•	“Nothing should be believed upon mere authority."
Sometimes skeptics mistakenly believe that Christians are commanded by the Bible to believe its truth-claims on "mere" intrasystemic and self-referential, biblical authority-pronouncements alone. Setting aside this error for the moment, let's focus on the claim above. If nothing should be believed upon mere authority, then that statement itself should not be believed upon mere authority either. Thus, the skeptic who makes that claim in opposition to biblical authority ought to produce some kind of evidence or argument for that claim itself. But since most of the time the skeptic makes such a claim as the one above without offering a single argument for its truth, the statement in question often turns out to be self-refuting.

2.	Inconsistency between one’s metaphysics (theory of reality or being), epistemology (theory of knowledge), and ethics (theory of right and wrong).
•	“All that exists is matter,” a metaphysical claim, in conflict with, “We are able to know universal and necessary truths,” an epistemological claim. If all that exists is      matter, which is always a particular thing, then how can we account for any universals?

•	“The universe began as a result of chance (e.g. the Big Bang)” (metaphysics) in conflict with “We should seek to discover the fundamental laws of the universe” (epistemology, or ethics concerning our scientific practices). If the universe really is the product of blind chance, then how can we ever justify our belief that there are genuine laws of nature? If the universe is the product of chance, then Hume was correct in his skepticism concerning induction.  

•	As noted above, physical determinism involves the following inconsistency: “Everything is determined by the laws of physics” (metaphysics) is in conflict with “One ought to believe that God doesn’t exist” (epistemology or ethics).

•	“Humans are simply products of evolution” (metaphysics) does not comport well with “We should fight racial injustice” (ethical claim). If humans do not bear the image of God, then why is racial injustice really wrong? Maybe such racial injustice is simply natural selection (survival of the fittest) in action!

•	“There are no moral absolutes” (ethics) is inconsistent with the claim that “We know that the problem of evil disproves the existence of God” (epistemology). If there are no moral absolutes, no absolute good or bad, then there is no absolute evil either. And if there is no absolute evil, then the problem of evil loses its force.  If there is absolute evil, then this actually boomerangs into an argument for God, if one grants (as even some atheists actually do) that the existence of an absolute standard of morality entails the existence of God.

•	"There are no moral absolutes" (ethics) is inconsistent with "What Hitler did to the Jews was really wrong" (ethics). If there is no absolute standard of morality, then how can we objectively and rationally critique moral monsters like Hitler?
3.	Unargued philosophical assumptions: Presuppositions which are simply assumed, rather than argued for.
To give just one example, I often hear people say “The impossibility of miracles disproves Christianity” - but miracles are impossible only if God doesn’t exist. Therefore, to assume this from the outset is to beg the fundamental question!

 I BELIEVE IN GOD 
This is the first question we must answer: Is there a God?

We believe in God - but why? Is it reasonable to do so? How do we demonstrate the reasonableness of this question?  How do we deal with the questions of skeptics and honest unbelievers?

In this lesson we will build on our introduction to the discipline of apologetics and seek to build a defense of belief in a god, and then a belief in the God of the Bible.
Questions about belief in God
•	Ontological Questions - 
•	If God created all things, who created God? (God's non-contingency)
•	If God is the uncaused cause, why couldn't the uncaused cause be the cosmos?
•	Isn't belief in god just wishful thinking of people afraid of death and injustice?
•	Why doesn't he make himself known?

•	Theological Questions -
•	Why one god instead of many?
•	Why a good god instead of any evil one?
•	If god is good, why is there evil (theodicy)
•	Why a personal god instead of an impersonal force?
Arguments for the Existence of God
There are three classical arguments for the existence of God: 
•	The Ontological Argument
•	The Teleological Argument
•	The Cosmological Argument
The Ontological Argument
This argument attempts to prove that the existence of God necessarily follows from the idea of God. 

Proslogion 2 Form (positive form)
1.	Everyone can conceive of God (the infinite, eternal necessary Being of Scripture). 
2.	God is that being, greater than which cannot be conceived. 
3.	A non-existent God is not that greater than which cannot be conceived, because a greater God can be conceived—one who does exist.
4.	Therefore God exists. 

Descartes' Meditation #3 (positive form)
1.	Everyone can conceive of God. 
2.	The idea of God is that of an infinite perfect unlimited Being. 
3.	For everything there must be a cause as great or greater than the effect. 
4.	Therefore, for the idea of God which we have, there must be an infinite, perfect, unlimited cause. 
5.	But we are not infinite, perfect or unlimited--and thus could not create such an idea ourselves. 
6.	Therefore there must be a cause outside of ourselves, which is infinite, perfect, and unlimited, which caused the idea of God which we have in our minds. 
7.	This Cause is the God of the Bible 

Proslogion 3 form (negative form)
1.	No contradictory thing can be conceived of. 
2.	No inconceivable thing can exist (where inconceivable because contradictory). 
3.	God is by definition the greatest thing which can exist. 
4.	God either exists just as an idea, or really exists. 
5.	To really exist is greater than to be just an idea. 
6.	Therefore a God who is just an idea is a contradiction in terms. 
7.	Therefore a God who is just an idea is inconceivable. 
8.	Therefore a God who is just an idea cannot exist. 
9.	Therefore God must really exist. 

Aquinas' second Way to God
Thomas Aquinas conceived of five ways to God, the second of which was his version of the ontological argument. In Aquinas' rendition of this argument he uses the idea of an infinite causal regression which should not be confused with an infinite temporal regression: 

1.	In the world of sensible things we find there is an order of efficient causes. 
2.	There is no case known (neither is it, indeed possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible. 
3.	Now in efficient causes it is not possible to go on to infinity, because in all efficient causes following in order, the first is the cause of the intermediate cause, and the intermediate cause is the cause of the ultimate cause, whether the intermediate cause be several, or only one. 
4.	Now to take away the cause is to take away the effect. 
5.	Therefore, if there be no first cause among efficient causes, there will be no ultimate, nor any intermediate cause. 
6.	But if in efficient causes it is possible to go on to infinity, there will be no first efficient cause, neither will there be an ultimate effect, nor any intermediate efficient causes; all of which is plainly false. 
7.	Therefore, it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God. 

Critiques of the Ontological Argument
The Ontological argument is not effective and should not be used for the following reasons: 

We cannot deduce the existence of a being from the idea of that being. The attempts to do so usually involve untrue premises or conclusions that do not follow from the premises.  In Proslogion 2 form, #4 does not necessarily follow from #1-3.  In Descartes' Meditation #3, premise #3 is unproven. Further, it is the God we think of that is perfect, not our thought of Him. This undermines #4. Conclusion #6 is false. We are not claiming to understand infinity, only to be aware of it.  In Proslogion 3 form, step #5 is neither a logical conclusion nor an axiom, but an unproven value judgment. 

Some more recent approaches to the Ontological Argument have shown some promise. Discussions of these approaches will be forthcoming in a future revision to this paper. 
The Teleological Argument
This argument (an argument from "teleology" or "design") argues that the presence of order in the universe requires the existence of an orderer: 
A typical formulation of the argument.
1.	The universe manifests evidence of design.
2.	All design demands a designer (which entails x,y,and z characteristics).
3.	Therefore, the universe must have a designer.
4.	This designer is the God of the Bible. 
Paley's Watch argument
This is really less of an argument than a metaphor. A point which Scottish philosopher David Hume used to show that this "argument" is really not very forceful. 

The basic scenario is stated similar to: 
While walking through a field, one finds a watch on the ground. He naturally and rightly concludes that it had a watchmaker. Likewise, if one studies the more complex design in the natural world, he cannot but conclude that there is a world Designer behind it. 

The fourth of Thomas Aquinas’ Five Ways is essentially a statement of the teleological argument.
Critiques of the Teleological Argument
There are limitations to the teleological argument that we should be aware of. However, if used properly, this argument can be helpful.

David Hume produced effective criticisms of the teleological argument in his essay, "Dialogues Regarding Natural Religion."  The main salient points were that: 
•	The term "design" needs to be defined. He shows that there is unavoidable subjectivity involved in the concept of design.  Two observers can look at the same thing without agreeing that it shows design. Any universe must have "design" in order to exist. Can we describe what a universe without design would be?  It is also claimed that the theist selects some features in the universe to demonstrate that God must have made them, but attributes other features of the world (such as evil and suffering) to man. This is seen as special pleading. Special pleading means that one side of an argument is claiming rules for itself which it will not extend to the other side. In other words, it is improper to point to the nature of the cosmos to prove the existence of God, but to plead that some of the features of that cosmos must be excepted.  
•	It is argued that the presence of whatever design there is, might be an isolated exception. Perhaps we are an island of design in a vast ocean of chaos. This argument is pointing to the difficulty inherent in the area of probability. No matter how improbable something is, it could still happen. If a million-sided dice is rolled, then any number that comes up is one chance in a million. Yet, it did come up on the first roll! A person could also win the state lottery even though it is unlikely. In the same way, our own world may have occurred by chance, no matter how unlikely. 
•	Paley's watch argument is attacked on the basis of special pleading as well. What makes the watch stand out in the field where it is found? If the answer is "the presence of design", then it is evident that the design of the watch set it apart from the rest of the field-- (that is, the watch shows design, while the field does not). How then can the watch be used to demonstrate that the field has design, when it is the difference between the watch and the field that drew our attention to it in the first place? 
The main problem with the teleological argument is the effort usually made to frame it as an inescapable deductive proof of theism. It would be far better to frame this argument as an inductive argument which points to the presence of a designer as one of the more likely explanations for apparent design. This has to do with the "burden of proof" issue: namely, that the Christian need show no more proof for his position than anyone else. 

Although the teleological argument makes the existence of a designer likely, the argument by itself does not lead necessarily to belief in biblical monotheism. It could, for instance, also support polytheism. 

Critics feel the Darwinian theory of natural selection has destroyed the teleological argument, by showing that changes come from purely natural causes rather than by special design. This is not true. While natural selection may account for which forms "survive", it cannot account for which forms "arrive". Stated differently, a distinction must be made between change within given levels of complexity, versus the emergence of new levels of complexity. For example, a screw cutting machine may accidentally produce a backward threaded screw. However, it will not produce a television! 
Scientific Arguments in Support of the Teleological Argument
The scientific laws governing energy transfer (thermodynamics) suggest that the amount of energy in the universe is constant, though changing in form. 

Furthermore, in all closed systems we observe a leveling process. Physicists point out that there is a universal tendency toward greater entropy. This means, among other things, that the amount of energy available for use is always decreasing. In a sense, the Universe is running down, which means that the universe should eventually reach a state of complete entropy. 

This implies that the Universe is not eternal, because if it was eternal, it would have reached a position of complete entropy an eternity ago. This suggests that the Universe had a cause which is beyond itself. 

The "red shift" Doppler effect shows astronomers that the universe is expanding. Such movement could not have been in progress forever. This is the origin of the so-called "big bang" theory, which is more or less axiomatic today. 

There is no known reason why a big bang would have occurred, or why the present inertia of the stars would ever reverse direction, as in the theory of the oscillating universe. This is to say that the theories that might account for such oscillation are unproven, and involve phenomena which have never been observed. 
The Cosmological Argument
The Cosmological Argument differs from the Teleological Argument in that it considers why anything exists whereas the Teleological considers the nature of what does exist. 
A summary of Geisler's Cosmological Argument
 (a deductive argument with an a posteriori first premise) 
1.	Some contingent [dependent] beings exist 
2.	All dependent beings must have a cause or explanation for their dependent existence (cf. Principle of Sufficient Reason) 
3.	An infinite regress of existentially dependent causes is impossible 
4.	Therefore there must be a first uncaused Cause of the dependent beings. 
5.	This Uncaused Cause is the God of the Bible. 
Sproul's Cosmological Dilemma
Either the Universe is: 
1.	Illusion-- (but I think, therefore I am- Who is thinking of non-existence?) 
2.	Spontaneously Generated-- (but this is an unthinkable thought, because it is an effect with no cause) 
3.	Eternal-- (but it would still need a cause) 
4.	Created by something eternal. 

A simpler statement
It is assumed in science and reasoning that any effect or event must have a cause. Since the universe is an effect, or result, then the universe as a whole has a cause. 

Illustration
A 10' wooden ball would seem to require a maker, or a cause for its existence. It should be clear that one several times as large also requires a cause. If a 100 foot ball would require a cause, how much more a ball 25000 miles in diameter, not to mention, one the size of the universe? 
Critiques of the Cosmological Argument
The main critique of the cosmological argument is that it involves special pleading. 

If everything requires a cause, then God requires a cause. If God requires no cause, then not all things require a cause. 

However, if it can be shown that the eternal existence of God is different than the eternal existence of the Universe, this argument might hold up. John Hick has argued that since God is personal, He is not subject to natural law, (e.g. thermodynamic laws) which apply to the physical realm. Therefore, there are fewer problems with His eternity than there would be with the eternity of the physical universe. 

The position taken in the cosmological argument regarding an infinite regress of cause and effect (namely that an infinite regress is not possible because the whole string requires a cause) fails to come to grips with the word "infinite". If a cause and effect chain is infinite, then the reason for it is always the previous cause. To appeal to any outside cause is to beg the question entirely. 

The appeals to scientific laws and to the big bang are primarily useful for showing that there are problems with the naturalistic view. They do not prove the existence of God. However, by comparing the theistic model with the naturalistic model in the light of these laws of nature, it is possible to show that theism would remove some problems that naturalism cannot. the result is greater probability for theism. 
The Kalam Cosmological Argument - Another Approach
In addition to the approaches already mentioned, an ancient cosmological approach developed by Islamic philosophers is called the kalam cosmological argument.  This particular argument was ignored by Aquinas and many others because of certain religious differences, but St. Bonaventure used it extensively. 

In recent years, modern philosopher William Lane Craig has stirred a renewed interest in the Kalam approach. 

What follows is a short presentation of the Kalam Cosmological Argument for the existence of God. The sources used in this presentation are documented according to current Modern Language Association standards. Consult the cited works of Craig for a more thorough statement and defense of the argument.

The KCA has its roots in medieval Arabic philosophy and theology. The Arabic word "kalam" means "speech," but more broadly it means "natural theology" or "philosophical theism" . The distinctive feature of kalam-style cosmology is its stress on the impossibility of the actual infinite. Put simply, kalam arguments try to demonstrate (1) that the existence of an actual infinite (a concept from modern set theory to be discussed shortly) is impossible and (2) that even if it were possible, the universe itself is not actually infinite and hence must have had a beginning.

The KCA has also been defended by Christian and Jewish philosophers. It is currently being defended by professional philosophers William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland. The majority of what follows comes from Craig's defense of the argument.
Outline of the argument
 [1] The universe either had: 
     [A] a beginning 
     [B] or no beginning 

[2] If it had a beginning, the beginning was either: 
     [A] caused 
     [B] or uncaused 

[3] If it had a cause, the cause was either: 
     [A] personal 
     [B] or not personal 

The KCA works by supporting the [A] option of each premise and then using it in the following premise. Hence the KCA is actually a series of connected arguments. To be successful each of these arguments must be logically valid and have true premises. Since the KCA is a series of arguments that take the form of a valid argument known as a disjunctive syllogism, the KCA's formal validity is beyond dispute. To be a sound argument, however, the KCA must have true premises, and thus the bulk of this presentation will attempt to support the premises.

Let's begin with [1]: the universe either had a beginning or did not have a beginning. Craig offers three arguments in support of a universe with a beginning. Two are philosophical; one is scientific. Here is the first philosophical argument:

1.	An actual infinite cannot exist.
2.	A beginningless series of events in time is an actual infinite. 
3.	Therefore, a beginningless series of events in time cannot exist.
Premise One
In contemporary set theory, an actual infinite is a collection of things with an infinite number of members, for example, a library with an actually infinite set of books or a museum with an actually infinite set of paintings. One of the unique traits of an actual infinite is that part of an actually infinite set is equal to whole set. For example, in an actually infinite set of numbers, the number of even numbers in the set is equal to all of the numbers in the set. This follows because an infinite set of numbers contains an infinite number of even numbers as well as an infinite number of all numbers; hence a part of the set is equal to the whole of the set. Another trait of the actual infinite is that nothing can be added to it. Not one book can be added to an actually infinite library or one painting to an actually infinite museum.

By contrast, a potential infinite is a set of things that can be added to. The collection of paintings in a real museum is a potentially infinite set; one can always add another painting to the collection (given enough space), but there will always be a finite number of paintings in the museum. Another way of stating the difference between an actually infinite set and a potentially infinite set is that the latter has identical ordinal and cardinal numbers, but the former has a cardinal number known as the aleph zero or aleph null and an ordinal number which designates the entire series of natural numbers.

A common objection at this point is that if an actual infinite cannot exist, and God is infinite, then God cannot exist. This objection is based on a confusion of the terms "infinite" and "actual infinite." An actual infinite is a technical concept found in set theory that refers to sets and collections, not to single beings. To deny that an actual infinite can exist is to deny that a library with an actually infinite set of books or a museum with an actually infinite number of paintings can exist. God, on the other hand, is a being, not a set or collection of things, and hence God is not an actual infinite.

It should be noted that kalam defenders do not dispute the legitimacy of the actual infinite as a mathematical concept. Craig writes that what kalam defenders argue "is that an actual infinite cannot exist in the real world of stars and planets and rocks and men". In fact, until Gregor Cantor's work in set theory, mathematicians rejected the existence of an actual infinite as a mathematical concept. But Cantor himself denied the existential possibility of the actual infinite. In correspondence with the Pope, he even suggested that the existential impossibility of the actual infinite could be used in a mathematical-metaphysical proof for the existence of God.

Another famous mathematician and expert in set theory, David Hilbert, writes:

“ . . . the [actual] infinite is nowhere to be found in reality. It neither exists in nature nor provides a legitimate basis for rational thought--a remarkable harmony      between being and thought. . . . The role that remains for the [actual] infinite to play is solely that of an idea…"

But why can't an actual infinite exist in the real world of rocks and trees? Hilbert explains why by using an argument known as "Hilbert's Hotel":

Let us imagine a hotel with a finite number of rooms, and let us assume that all the rooms are occupied. When a new guest arrives and requests a room, the proprietor apologises, 'Sorry--all the rooms are full.' Now let us imagine a hotel with an infinite number of rooms, and let us assume that again all the rooms are occupied. But this time, when a new guest arrives and asks for a room, the proprietor exclaims, 'But of course!' and shifts the person in room 1 to room 2, the person in room 2 to room 3, the person in room 3 to room 4, and so on. . . The new guest then moves into room 1, which has now become vacant as a result of these transpositions. But now let us suppose an infinite number of new guests arrive, asking for rooms. 'Certainly, certainly!' says the proprietor, and he proceeds to move the person in room 1 into room 2, the person in room 2 into room 4, the person in room 3 into room 6, the person in room 4 into 8, and so on. . . . In this way, all the odd-numbered rooms become free, and the infinity of new guests can easily be accommodated in them. In this story the proprietor thinks that he can get away with his clever business move because he has forgotten that his hotel has an actually infinite number of rooms, and that all the rooms are occupied. The proprietor's action can only work if the hotel is a potential infinite, such that new rooms are created to absorb the influx of guests.

For if the hotel has an actually infinite collection of determinate rooms and all the rooms are full, then there is no more room.”

Craig uses the example of a library to illustrate this same point. Imagine an actually infinite library of books that come in two colors: black and red. The books are placed on a shelf in an alternating pattern of black and red. It is obvious that there are an equal number of black books and red books. But if this library is actually infinite, the number of black books is equal to the number of all the books, i.e., the number of black books is equal to the number of red books plus the number of black books. While these counter-intuitive paradoxes might make sense at the level of mathematical theory, they do not make much sense in the real world of books and libraries.
Premise Two
A beginningless series of events in time is an actual infinite. In other words, if the series of past events had no beginning, it is actually infinite. If premise one is correct, however, it follows that a beginningless series of events in time cannot exist. Consider the following example. The Battle of Hastings took place in 1066. The Declaration of Independence was adopted in 1776, 710 years after the Battle of Hastings. If the series of past events in the universe is actually infinite, we can say that the Battle of Hastings was preceded by an infinite number of events. We can say the same about the Declaration of Independence. In fact we can say that the set of past events before the Battle of Hastings is equal to the set of past events before the Declaration of Independence, because part of an actually infinite set is equal to the whole set, as noted above. But how can that be? 710 years separate these two events, i.e., 710 years were added to the set of past events before the Battle of Hastings to get to the Declaration of Independence. By definition, however, nothing can be added to an actual infinite. Hence the series of past events before the Battle of Hastings cannot be actually infinite. Craig thus draws the
conclusion to the first philosophical argument as follows: "[s]o the series of all past events must be finite and have a beginning. But the universe is the series of all events, so the universe must have had a beginning" 

The second philosophical argument for the beginning of the universe does not dispute the existence of the actual infinite, but instead points out that an actual infinite is not attained by adding new members to a potential infinite:

1.	The series of events in time is a collection formed by adding one member after another.
2.	A collection formed by adding one member after another cannot be actually infinite.
3.	Therefore, the series of events in time cannot be actually infinite. 
Premise One
Returning to the example of the Battle of Hastings and the Declaration of Independence, it is obvious that the 710 years between them came about by adding one year after the other. History is the continual addition of new events, one event being added after another.
Premise Two
Remember that nothing can be added to an infinite set. Any set to which can be added another member is not infinite, simply because another member could always be added. Infinity could never be reached by addition. This is called the impossibility of traversing an infinite. Craig asks us to "Imagine a man running up a flight of stairs and every time his foot strikes the top step, another step appears above it. It is clear that the man could run forever, but he would never cross all the steps because you could always add one more step" . 

It follows from this that the series of events in time cannot be actually infinite. 1993 would never have arrived had it been preceded by a infinite number of years, because one cannot cross an infinite number of years to reach 1993 anymore than the man running up the stairs can cross an infinity of steps. Thus the number of years before 1993 must be finite and potentially infinite, but not actually infinite.

The scientific argument for a finite universe is by far the most controversial. Cosmologists constantly gather new evidence and refine theories accordingly. Skeptics often object that cosmology is too tentative of a discipline from which to draw absolute conclusions and thus does not provide good evidence for theistic arguments, and they further object that supporting theistic beliefs with tentative scientific arguments means that such beliefs run the risk of being falsified. These objections fail to grasp three important points. First, scientific arguments for theism do not intend to draw absolute conclusions, but to establish the likely probability that God exists. Second, the same risk that theism runs in using tentative scientific arguments is exactly the same risk that atheism runs. Third, a universe with an absolute beginning is well supported by scientific findings, and classical big bang theory is currently the best cosmological theory.

These findings include the following (consult the works cited for a more comprehensive explanation of these findings). First, earlier this century, Edwin Hubble discovered that light from distant galaxies is red-shifted, implying that the universe is expanding from an initial explosion which took place a finite time ago. Although a few scientists have challenged this interpretation of the red-shift, it has been supported by observation and successful prediction and has an explanatory power unmatched by other theories.  Second, the big bang theory predicted the discovery of three-degree blackbody radiation, a discovery which surprised other cosmological theories. Third, astrophysicist Robert C. Newman writes "If there is any process which causes our universe to lose energy at a non-zero rate, then an oscillating universe would have run out of energy (and so ceased to oscillate) long ago". This means that it is all but improbable that the universe as we know it is one universe in an infinite series of expanding and contracting universes. Fourth, there is no explanation for why a contracting universe would "bounce" and begin expanding again. Recent evidence confirms that galaxies are moving too quickly away from one another for gravity to pull them back into a compressed point. Fifth, in April 1992, American scientists discovered ripples of matter at the edge of the universe. These ripples are evidence that the universe was given its structure very early in its history and further confirm that the universe had a definite beginning.

Having given three arguments to show that the universe had a beginning, we can move on to the second dilemma posed by the KCA:

[2] If the universe had a beginning, the beginning was either: 
     [A] caused 
     [B] or uncaused 

Before discussing the [A] option, we should consider what is becoming a common response to this dilemma from those critical of the cosmological argument. Some theorists speculate that before Plank's time (10 to the negative 43 seconds after the universe began) the universe came into existence out of a quantum mechanical fluctuation. Hence some argue that the universe came out of nothing. Moreland, however, rightly points out that identifying nothingness with something, in this case a mechanical fluctuation, is a mistake; nothingness does not cause anything, let alone fluctuate or bring a universe into existence. Astronomer Hugh Ross notes that one of these theorists, Alan Guth, remarked that "such ideas are speculation squared." Put more concretely, there are three main problems with the quantum fluctuation speculation: it is based upon (1) a non existent theory of quantum gravity, (2) the use of imaginary numbers, and (3) the assumption that the universe was in a quantum state in its early beginning and thus had an indeterminate beginning.

Problem (1) could be solved by the discovery of a quantum theory of gravity, but such a discovery has not been forthcoming and should not be taken for granted. (2) puts the argument that the universe came from quantum fluctuation on non-realist grounds. Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking writes:

If the universe really is in such a quantum state, there would be no singularities in the history of the universe in imaginary time. . . . The universe could be finite in imaginary time but without boundaries or singularities. When one goes back to the real time in which we live, however, there will still appear to be singularities. . . . In real time, the universe has a beginning and an end at singularities that form a boundary to space-time and at which the laws of science break down"

Note especially the phrase "when one goes back to the real time in which we live." This is a remarkable scientific confirmation of what kalam philosophers have been saying for a long time and what mathematicians such as Cantor and Hilbert confirm: the actual infinite cannot exist. When the imaginary transfinite mathematics of the actual infinite is translated into real finite terms, the results are nonsensical.

This leads to problem (3). If the universe was in a quantum state at its beginning, then one could speculatively circumvent the problem of switching between imaginary and real time, but this brings up a further problem. Under the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics, there needs to be someone to observe the quantum fluctuation that produced the universe. Since, of course, no human beings were present at the inception of the universe, it is obvious who the best candidate is for being the observer of the alleged quantum fluctuation that brought forth the universe. To avoid the theistic implications of this interpretation, some theorists have argued that our universe fluctuated out of superspace in which an infinite number of universes were physically possible. However, this is another example of "speculation squared." Craig writes of this: "It hardly needs to be said that this is a piece of speculative metaphysics no less objectionable than theism; indeed, I should argue, more objectionable because the reality of time is ultimately denied as all dimensions, temporal as well as spatial, are subsumed into superspace". Moreover, it posits the existence of an actually infinite number of universes--and since an actual infinite cannot exist, this speculation is at odds with reality.

Finally, the concept of quantum indeterminacy only tells us that measurements at the atomic level cannot be taken with precision; it is not a metaphysical or ontological principle. Applied to the beginning of the universe, if the universe was in a quantum state, quantum indeterminacy simply means that we cannot know with Newtonian precision what happened before Plank's time. It does not mean that the universe popped into existence uncaused or that the ultimate cause of the universe is indeterminate. On the contrary, it was the work of Hawking et. al. that established the singularity theorem, i.e., a theorem which affirms that space and time had a definite beginning - regardless of whether scientists can measure with certainty what happened before Plank's time. 

Since the appeal to quantum indeterminacy does not support the [B] option, what can be said in favor of the [A] disjunct? Consider the principle of sufficient reason as formulated by the German philosopher Leibniz: "no fact can be real or existing and no statement true unless it has a sufficient reason why it should be thus and not otherwise". This principle is often stated as "everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence" or "every event has a cause." It is hard to overestimate how essential this principle is to rational enquiry. Biologists who seek to explain the origin of life depend upon it. So do detectives solving a crime, meteorologists forecasting the weather, and doctors diagnosing a patient. In commenting on Leibniz's cosmological argument, one philosopher writes ". . . if one were to reject it [i.e. the principle of sufficient reason], the argument would fail. But this is a principle Leibniz contends it would be absurd to reject. And it is also one of the most fundamental principles of rational thought".

Moreover, the principle of sufficient reason has never been falsified in the history of rational thought. Hence the principle can amply be defended upon empirical grounds as well as philosophical grounds. Why, then, should one balk at the principle of sufficient reason in regards to the beginning of the universe? Why arbitrarily set aside a fundamental principle of rational thought to avoid the implications of a universe with a beginning? Thus unless someone can give a good reason for waiving the principle at this point, we can conclude that a universe that began to exist had a cause of its existence.

This leads us to the final dilemma:

[3] If the universe had a cause, the cause was either: 
     [A] personal 
     [B] or not personal 

Even if one should accept the [A] option of the first two dilemmas, why should one believe that the cause of the universe is a personal being? Some argue, for example, that even if the universe had a cause, its cause could have been a natural one. Presumably this means that the universe could be the product of an impersonal physical cause. The problem with this is twofold. First, what does it mean to say that the cause of the universe is a natural one? Natural causes exist within the universe, not outside of it. If something preceded the universe, then by definition it is not a natural cause, because the laws of nature came into existence after whatever preceded the universe.

Second, if the cause of the universe is a sufficient cause, meaning that the existence of the cause alone guarantees the existence of the universe, the universe would always have existed. To make this clear consider the sufficient cause of lighting a match. When a match is struck against the proper surface, it ignites, and thus striking the match is the sufficient cause of an ignited match. Note that as soon as a sufficient cause exists, the effect follows immediately; there is no gap between the cause and the effect. This raises a question: if the sufficient cause of the universe has always existed, then why has the universe not always existed? 

The answer to this question is that the cause of the universe is a personal agent who willed the creation of a finite universe. To use the match example, once the match is struck the effect immediately follows, but if a personal agent does not strike the match, the effect does not have to follow. Likewise, if the cause of the universe is personal, the universe does not have to be eternal like its sufficient cause. Instead, the universe could have been willed into existence much like a person wills to light a match. Once the cause is set into motion the effect follows, but only after the cause is set into motion; and a personal agent has the power not to set the cause in motion. Thus we can conclude that the cause of the universe is personal.
Conclusion
Now that we have supported the [A] option of each dilemma, we can draw this conclusion: the universe was brought into existence by a personal agent. Now this conclusion might startle some people. Many of us believe that the existence of God cannot be proven or cannot be proven with any strong certainty. But if the three main premises of the KCA are sound and adequately supported, then the conclusion is true regardless of the remarkable and startling implications of such a conclusion.

In addition to the classical arguments for God, there are other arguments made based on evidential approaches used in building a case for God’s existence.
The Argument from Mind
There are two approaches to arguing for God’s existence from the existence of the human mind.  One is inductive and the other, deductive.

The inductive approach is essentially that the human mind seems to require the existence of some non-physical reality (this is ontological dualism – the view that reality is made up of two kinds of stuff – matter and non-matter, or, physical and spiritual), and that human reason (or, rather, the validity of human reason) seems to require the existence of absolutes and order and some intelligence providing these true references.

The deductive approach argues that if the belief in other minds is reasonable and warranted, then the belief in God is also reasonable and warranted on the same epistemological grounds.
The Argument from Morality
While the problem of evil is often cited as a threat to the rationality of believing in an all-powerful, good god, the existence of our sense of morality can also be shown to be a reason for believing in exactly such a being.  C. S. Lewis was an articulate promoter of this particular argument for God’s existence.  What follows is an analysis of Lewis’ thinking on the matter.

Lewis begins with a two-part observation about humankind. First, for a good part of our history we have had a sense that there is a way that we ought to behave: fairly, decently, morally, however you like to put it. But the second part of the observation is that very often we don't act the way we believe we ought to. The content of this sense of how we ought to behave Lewis calls, variously, the Law of Right and Wrong, the Law of Nature, and the Law of Decent Behavior. 

This law doesn't apply to most things. If you say that a stone or a tree ought to be a certain way, this is at best a manner of speaking. It's really shorthand for something like: it would be convenient for me (or for people in general) if this tree were a certain size or this rock were a certain shape. But from the point of view of the (lower-case) laws of nature, a "bad" tree and a "good" tree follow the laws equally.

Lewis makes this point by saying that what we usually call laws of nature are not "laws" at all. What he means is that a law of nature is simply a description of what does happen. It is not a prescription about what should happen. A departure from a "law of nature" would normally be taken as evidence for revising the law - for saying that we hadn't really given the right general description of the way the world works. But the Law of Decent Behavior (to pick one of Lewis's descriptions) isn't like that at all. Moral laws don't describe what actually happens. As Lewis puts it,

You have the facts (how men do behave) and you also have something else (how they ought to behave.) In the rest of  the  universe, there need not be anything but the facts. (my emphasis)

Lewis points out that this is very strange, and the strangeness of it might lead us to try to explain it away. He considers two possible ways of eliminating the strangeness.

The first is to say that moral judgments about people are ultimately no different from judgments about the goodness or badness of stones: they are judgments about what is or is not convenient for the person making the judgment. But Lewis points out that this is just wrong. I might judge two equally inconvenient situations as very different morally. In fact, if you trip me by sheer accident, I make a very different judgment than if you try but fail to trip me deliberately. In the first case, I won't say that what happened was morally bad, however inconvenient it might have been. In the second case, I will judge what you did to be morally wrong even though it didn't cause me any real inconvenience at all.

The alternative "natural" explanation that Lewis considers is that morality is not a matter of what is good for me as an individual.  Rather, it is a matter of what is good for society. But Lewis points out that if you tell someone they ought to behave decently because it is good for society, the person could well ask: 

Why should I care about what's good for society except when it happens to pay me personally?

and to answer "you ought to do what's good for society because you ought to behave decently" is to land us right back where we started. 

What is the upshot of all this? It is that 

The Moral Law... is not simply a fact about human nature, in the way that the Law of Gravitation is, or may be, simply a fact about how heavy objects behave.

Nonetheless, we find ourselves -- most of us, anyway -- unable to deny that there are laws of decent behavior; the Law of Morality is "really there." And so, Lewis says,

It begins to look as if we shall have to admit that there is more than one kind of reality: ...there is... a real law, which none of us made, but which we find pressing on us.

This is the crucial premise for all that follows: there is a sort of reality that is not exhausted by the ordinary facts. Before we go on, then, we might want to ask if the case for this alternate sort of reality is quite as strong as Lewis believes it to be. The hard-bitten naturalist might say "no." The observable facts are that we find ourselves with conflicting impulses. We feel an impulse to satisfy our own selfish needs and we also feel an impulse or motivation to what Lewis calls "decent behavior." Those are the facts. Do they really call for a non-natural explanation?

Now the mere fact of conflicting impulses is not in need of any special, explanation at all. After all, our desires are complex. Sometimes they clash. I might want to go out dancing. And I might also want to stay home and watch a movie. Both impulses are real, and they conflict. But what of it? Or to return to a sort of case already discussed, I might find a conflict between my immediate impulse to take a nap and my longer-term desire not to have to finish up all my work in a hurry at the last minute. Once again, conflicting desires. But once again, there is no mystery calling for anything that goes beyond the realm of the natural. 

Lewis would point out that all these examples involve purely selfish desires. His sorts of cases point to something different: a felt or perceived to go beyond our merely selfish desires. But the naturalist will point out that we find forms of altruistic behavior in the animal kingdom. Indeed, evolutionary biologists have given them plenty of attention over the last few decades. And what they have pointed out is that in many cases an evolutionary explanation seems possible. Evolutionary fitness is a matter of having characteristics that tend to get your genes passed on to the next generation. Doing things that benefit your children or even your nieces and nephews or even members of your group can sometimes have this effect indirectly. And it wouldn't be too surprising if a mechanism that evolved in small, close-knit groups would tend to lead to more generally "decent" behavior as society grew larger and more complicated. 

The trouble with this, Lewis might reply, is that even if it has a large element of truth to it, it doesn't fully explain morality. My sense that I have a moral obligation to people who will not be able to benefit me is not just an instinctive impulse. It is a considered judgment.  Even though evolution might give me a tendency to think this way, it has clearly also given me a tendency to look out for my own purely selfish good. My judgment that decent behavior matters even when it won't do me any special good can't be accounted for by an evolutionary just-so story.

As Lewis sees it, there are two broad views that people have held about the universe. One is what he calls materialism. This is the view that ultimately, all there is is matter obeying the laws of nature. The fact that we are here at all is really just a sort of fluke outcome of matter blindly doing what matter does. The other view, which he calls the religious view, is that what lies behind nature is much more like a mind than like anything else. 

How can the conflict between these two views be resolved? Lewis insists that it can't be a matter of doing science. Science deals with what is -- with what is actual. Scientific experiments are descriptions of actual events and particular places and times. Scientific laws are generalizations about the actual behavior of things. It is no insult to science to say that it can't do what it wasn’t intended to do. And what it can't do is tell us if there is anything behind the actual appearances and behaviors of things. 

In truth, science is unlikely ever to resolve the question. All the same, it is hard to see why, given the sorts of arguments often presented for belief in God, science should be irrelevant. Leaving aside the ontological argument, typical arguments for God's existence have a clear resemblance to scientific arguments: they begin with statements about what we find in the world and end with a proposed "best explanation" of these facts.

Still, Lewis has a couple of replies that he can make. One is this:

Supposing science ever became complete enough so that it knew every single thing in the whole universe. Is it not plain that  the questions, "Why is there a universe?" "Why does it go on as it does?" "Has it any meaning?" would remain just as they  were?

In other words, there are questions about the universe "all told" that seem by their very nature beyond the scope of science. And Lewis even tells us, in effect, why this is so.

We want to know whether the universe simply happens to be what it is for no reason or whether there is a power that makes it what it is. Since that power, if it exists, would not be one of the observed facts but a reality which makes them, no mere observation of the facts can find it.

Lewis's point is more far-reaching than it may appear to be. Consider electrons. We can't observe them. but they are, nonetheless, facts of the universe. They don't lie "behind" the universe; they are part of it. What Lewis is pointing out is that religion deals with "ultimate questions," to borrow a phrase from the theologian Paul Tillich. No mere fact about the universe, no matter how exotic or exalted, would count as answering an ultimate question. 

But then, what hope is there that we can get any purchase at all on such questions? 

Lewis notes that

Anyone studying Man from the outside as we study electricity or cabbages, not knowing about language and consequently not able  to get any inside knowledge form us, would never get the slightest idea that we have this moral law.

But we aren't restricted to this "objective" or "external" perspective. In the case of ourselves, and other humans, we have an insider's view. And this is the key, according to Lewis. If there is a "controlling power outside the universe”,

it could not show itself to us as one of the facts inside the universe... The only way in which we could expect it to show itself  would be inside ourselves as an influence or a command trying to get us to behave in a certain way.

The argument, then, comes down to this: we find ourselves, as it were, being commanded or instructed to act in a certain way. The best explanation for this is a mind -- or something like a mind -- behind the universe, 

because after all, the only other things we know is matter and you can hardly imagine a bit of matter giving instructions

Based on this argument, then, Lewis is attempting to show that our sense of morality has an otherness to it.  We can only account completely for our sense of morality by ascribing to some external, non-material source informing us of our perceptions of right and wrong.

Another writer, Fyoder Dostoyevsky, in his novels attempts not to argue for God’s existence as a proof – indeed, he believes such is impossible.  Rather, he attempts to show through moral situations the sheer absurdity of life without a God defining absolute truth, justice and morality.  This, while not a true argument, is certainly persuasive.
The Argument from Desire
Again, we refer to C. S. Lewis for this argument – or persuasion – of God’s existence.
The Anthropic Principle

The Cumulative Probability Argument

THE FATHER ALMIGHTY: MAKER OF HEAVEN AND EARTH
(So far in our discussion, we have relied solely upon general revelation, reason and logic to present our arguments.  As we begin to delve into the nature and character of God, it will become increasingly obvious that, from the Christian perspective, special revelation will be required to establish many of the characteristics and nuances of God’s nature as Christianity has come to understand them.  As part of our discussion of the nature of God, we will attempt to defend the existence, necessity and reliability of special revelation in the texts of the Old and New Testaments of the modern biblical texts.)

It is after we have come to agree that there is a God, that much of the real debate begins.  Is he good?  Is he all-powerful?  Does he care about me?  Is “he” a “he”?
The Nature and Attributes  of God
God is Non-Contingent
Where did God come from?  Who created God?

Having established the reasonableness of God’s existence essentially answers this question.  If God exists at all, he exists non-contingently – else he is not God.
God is Spiritual, Infinite, Eternal, and Omnipresent
What is God “made of” ?  Is he subject to suffering?  To emotion? Can he be measured in any sense we can conceive of?  We will discuss God’s complete “otherness” from his creation – the nature of his substance and his infinity with regard to time and space.

When we say that God is infinite, we deny to him all limitation in his nature or essence. We are conscious of the finite nature of our soul as well as of our body; it has limitations as to place, time and capabilities. In arriving at the idea of the perfect being by way of negation, we deny all such limitation in him, and therefore ascribe to him infinity as to time and space, as well as infinite perfection in his mode of existence, in his power, wisdom, goodness, justice, holiness and truth.

The infinity of God as to time is called his eternity.

By this we mean:
(1)	That he has no beginning nor end.
(2)	That with him there is no succession of moments.

It is difficult to attain any conception of the mode of existence which is thus ascribed to him. It is so different from our own. Yet a brief consideration of what is involved in the nature of God must convince us that the idea which we express by these statements is just and true.

1. As to the statement that he has no beginning nor end.

When we say that we shall live forever, we can understand how a life once begun may never be completed.

But it is difficult to conceive of a life which goes back equally forever as one may go forward. The past is always completed, and as completed, must be measurable. That which has been by succession of moments or days must have had some first day or moment with which it began. We can form no other conception of it.

That division of eternity, therefore, which is called eternity a parte post we can comprehend; but the complement of it, the eternity a parte ante, which is united with it to express infinite duration, is felt at once to be an attempted conception of the mind to express the eternity which we know must be true, and yet which we perceive is inadequately conceived as well as incorrectly expressed.

While, therefore, we know that God has had no beginning, we see that his mode of existence cannot have been one in which he has had in the past that ever continuing indefinite duration which corresponds to what may be ours in the future.

2. When we say that during some period a certain being has always existed and will always exist, we mean that there has not only been no moment in that period when he has not existed and will be none in which he will not exist, but that during that period he has been and will be existent in a constant succession of moments. There is at all times, after the beginning, a past and present, and will be, until the end, a future. One moment passes away, and another succeeds. But with God there can be no succession of moments.

(1.)	Because then he would have had a beginning, which is opposed to his infinity.
(2.)	Because then he would not he unchangeable, for that would be true of him to-day which was not yesterday and will not be tomorrow.
(3.)	He would not be perfect because something could be added to him from day to day. He would become older. He would have new experiences. Indeed there would be either increase or diminution of his power, wisdom, etc.

This is the conception of eternity which we strive to attain. Our difficulty in doing so is that we can no more conceive of duration without succession than we can of an eternity a parte ante. But we see that in this conception we are not arriving at a thought in itself erroneous, as in the other case, but are simply recognizing the fact that God's mode of existence, as to time, is different from ours.  Ours has succession of moments, increase in the length of the period, is not all of it possessed at the same time, has had beginning and might have an end, and has a past and future as well as present. God has no succession, no increase of life, is possessed of the whole of his existence at once, and eternally possessed, has had no beginning, can have no end, and lives in the present only, having no past or future.

This accords with the statements of Scripture. God is always spoken of in the present.

He calls himself I AM. His name Jehovah has been supposed mystically to express this.

The psalmist says: "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from
everlasting to everlasting, thou art God." Ps. 90:2.

Thus our Lord, when he would declare his equality with the Father, uses the present tense for each. "My Father worketh even until now, and I work." John 5:17.

So also in like manner he declared his divinity by saying, "Before Abraham was, I am." John 8:58.

A question arises, what then is the relation of time and eternity to each other?

Time is not a part of eternity, for if it were, eternity must have succession, viz.: before time, during time, after time.

They are in reality different modes of existence which are unlike each other, time being suited to the measurement of creation periods and creature life. True eternity belongs only to the life of God.

While time, however, is not a part of eternity, it co-exists with it.

Through the divine purpose all its events have been eternally present with God, and as well known and realized by him as though actually existent. And, in the actual existence of time, it has been present actually with God and with eternity, although not constituting a part of eternity.

The nature of these relations we cannot understand. Our ideas are vague, and the language in which we would convey them is incapable of expressing even what we perceive and know. But while this is true, we have no question as to the possibility of better knowledge in the future on this point. The difficulty is in reality no greater than in the connection between the immensity and omnipresence of God. Yet from the knowledge of the presence of our spirits as compared with that of our bodies, we comprehend the fact of the omnipresence of God with all created things, while the space in which they exist is no more a part of his immensity than is time a part of his eternity.

Corresponding to the infinity of God in respect to time, is his infinity in respect to space, which is called his immensity.

God is not confined to space any more than he is measured by time.

Space must have its limitations because its existence is commensurate only with the universe. Where there is no creation, there can be no space nor time. But creation cannot be infinite, but must have its bounds, impossible as it may be for us to imagine the Nonexistence  of space. In our mode of existence, space and time are so necessary that we cannot even deny their existence without using words which involve that existence. Thus if we say, "Where there is no universe, there is no space," the very words "where" and "there" involve the notion of space.

But notwithstanding this, we know that, just as time is the period, so is space the location, in which creation exists.

When, therefore, we speak of God's immensity, we mean more than his filling all space, just as when we speak of his eternity, we mean more than his existing throughout all time.

We can only express the idea by the fiction of infinite space, as in the other, we have done by that of infinite time.

Immensity is the absolute attribute of God to which corresponds the relative one.

We may conclude that God is spiritual in nature – since he does not exist in the material world.  God exists outside the creation – not within it.  The creation includes all matter or material dimensions.  God must therefore exist outside of these qualities – in the spiritual realm.
God is One
Under this heading we will demonstrate the necessity of God having unity and simplicity.

By this we mean, that the nature of God, comprising his essence and his attributes, is simple or uncompounded pure spirit.

It means more than his unity, for this expresses only the fact that there is but one being, that is, God. Were God both matter arid spirit, or compounded in any other way, his unity would not be affected.

Were there but one man in the world, we should ascribe to him unity, and if there could be but one we should ascribe essential unity.

It means more than the spirituality of God, for that includes only that he must be spiritual, and, also, as we have seen, that he should be purely spiritual.

But there is nothing contradictory in the idea, that created spirits might have a composite spiritual nature, composed, for example, of mind, soul and spirit, as three distinct essences, or that a spiritual nature should have a spiritual body, as well as a spiritual soul.

But in God there can be no composition, and therefore his spiritual nature must be uncompounded. Even his attributes and his nature must be in such a manner one, that his attributes essentially inhere in that nature and are not capable of separation from it, which really makes them one with that nature.

The reasons for this are:

1.	Because composition (or a putting together,) involves possibility of separation. But this would involve destructibility, and changeableness, each of which is inconsistent with absolute perfection and necessary existence.

2.	Composition involves a time of separate existence of the parts compounded. If so, then there was a time when God did not exist, because the parts of his nature had not been united, or, when he existed imperfectly, not having yet received to his essential nature the additions subsequently made; all of which is inconsistent with absolute perfection and necessary existence.

3.	If the parts have been compounded, it has been done by some force from without, or has been a growth in his nature. They have not been added from without, because God is independent, and therefore cannot be affected from without. Besides all outward form and all else than God had its origin in him, and he existed as God before it. They have not been a growth in him, for, if so, he is not unchangeable. Any such addition to God or growth in him is also inconsistent with absolute perfection and necessary existence.

4.	In ascribing simplicity to God, therefore, we declare that his nature is so purely or simply one as not to be compounded of separate substances, as matter and spirit, or even of the same substance, in different forms, or of a substance with separable attributes; and we assert that even his attributes are one with his essence, and that he is not only essentially spiritual, but also essentially wise, and good, and holy, and just, and true, and almighty, and omnipotent.

There are many different religions in the world that deviate from Christianity on this particular attribute of God.  Some religions do not believe in the unity or simplicity of God.  Thinking specifically of his unity, here is quick list of religions with their different views on the subject:
Monotheism
•	Judaism
•	Islam
•	Christianity (?)
Polytheism
•	Hinduism
•	Pantheism (?)
•	Paganism (?)
Bitheism
•	Zoroastrianism
Tritheism
•	Christianity (?)
Impersonal Deities
•	Animism
•	Pantheism (?)
•	Paganism (?)
•	Marxism (?)
God is Genderless
Is God male or female?
God is Personal
Thirdly, we may conclude that God is personal.  From the Kalam cosmological argument, we see that it is necessary that God be personal if he is to be attributed with causing the beginning of the universe.
God is Omniscient
God is normally conceived of as having all knowledge – past present and future.  But there are certain problems with this view.   If God knows that I am going to do something in the future – and by his knowing it, it cannot be falsified – I am thereby precluded from making a different choice than the one God presently knows me to make in the future.  Thus, I am not free to choose.

Some have argued, then, that limitations be placed on God’s knowing of the future.  Others have argued that because God is atemporal (outside of time), he doesn’t know anything in the future – he only knows in the present – yet all points in time are present for him.
God is Omnipotent
Is God all-powerful?  Can he literally do anything?

The correct answer is no.  There are things God cannot do.  He cannot cut a slice of bread so thin it only has one side.  He cannot make a square circle  or a round triangle.  In these cases, we are demonstrating that God cannot do the logically impossible – so certain things are impossible for God to do.

Then there are more subtle questions.  Can God create a stone so heavy even he cannot lift it?  If he cannot create such a stone, his omnipotence would seem to be denied.  However, if he can create such a stone, his omnipotence is again denied because he now cannot lift the stone.

There are two problems in understanding God’s omnipotence and they both stem from the same root: a misunderstanding of what the work omnipotence means.  The first problem is the common Christian belief that because God is omnipotent, God can do anything – when in fact he cannot.  The second problem is the common atheistic attack that demonstrates God cannot do everything and is therefore not omnipotent.  It really all comes down to the careful understanding of what it means for God to be omnipotent.

C. S. Lewis argues that God’s omnipotence does not mean that God can do anything.  Once God has opted to do certain things, or to behave in a certain manner, then other possibilities are excluded.

Lewis first notes as we have earlier that God cannot do the logically impossible.  But then he further argues that God cannot do those things that contradict the divine nature – such as lying or perverting justice.

Thomas Aquinas brings this to light in his discussion of whether God can sin:

It is commonly said that God in almighty.  Yet it seems difficult to understand the reason for this, on account of the doubt about what is meant when it is said that “God can do ‘everything’”….If it is said that God is omnipotent because he can do everything possible to his power, the understanding of omnipotence is circular, doing nothing more than saying that God is omnipotent because he can do everything that he can do…To sin is to fall short of a perfect action.  Hence to be able to sin is to be able to be deficient in relation to an action, which cannot be reconciled with omnipotence.  It is because God is omnipotent that he cannot sin.

William of Ockham, in discussing the opening lines of the Apostles’ Creed asks precisely what is meant by the word “almight” (omnipotens).  It cannot, he argues, mean that God is presently able to do anything.  But that at one time he was able to and subsequent to making certain decisions, certain things became impossible to do.
God is Omnibenevolent
How do we know God is good?  God is merciful?  God is just?  God is truthful?  God is faithful?

In thinkingg about the goodness of God, we must consider several issues.  First, on the positive, if God is the creator and sustainer of all things, there are certainly many good things he has done.  Justice, love, mercy, compassion, honesty, courage, and all the virtues that humanity has uniformly lauded and praised are a part of God’s creation.  Surely this supports the belief in a benevolent God.

On the other hand, though, are the many evil things in the creation – murder, hatred, prejudice, war, hunger, famine, selfishness and on and on the list goes.  Can whatever God exists truly be good in the face of such evil?

In a sense, we have answered this question merely by its asking.  Referring to the earlier discussion of the argument for God’s existence from the existence of morality, the sheer sense humanity has of good and evil is evidence that a creator who desires good exists. 
God is Immutable
Why doesn’t God change?  Because you can’t improve on perfection!
The Case for the Special Revelation and the Bible
All of the characteristics we have described thus far are capable of having some basis strictly from general revelation, reason and logic – and common understanding of what the requisite terms entail.

Beyond these features, however, we must diverge into the realm of special revelation to build further upon the character and nature of God from the Christian perspective.
Why is it necessary?
God is personal and therefore desires communication
If God is a personal being as we have argued and believe, and if he is good – as we have also argued and believe – then it seems rational and logical to suppose God would desire to communicate with us as intelligent, sentient beings.
God is good and therefore desires others to understand
If there is really some greater good, some higher purpose to our existence – as would seem defensible to conclude if we believe in an all-powerful, loving God – then it would be incumbent upon the Being behind all of Creation – if He is good and loving – to communicate these ideas of goodness, purpose and destiny to the sentient creatures living under His creation.
God is love and therefore desires to be loved and to express his love
If God is loving, it is to be expected that he desires to be loved.  It seems from our experience as emotional creatures, that the capacity for love is wrapped up in the need to be loved. 
How would it occur?
So how would God speak to us?  Would his mode of communication change?
Direct revelation to humanity
If there is a God as we suppose there is, and if he is like we have argued him to be, certainly he could simply speak to us in such a way that we would have no doubt as to who he is and what he is saying.

There are three approaches to this question that must be considered.  Certainly what we have said is true.  God could directly reveal himself to us.  And many unbelievers feel that if there were a God, this is certainly what he or she would do.  

But let’s think about this for a moment.  Do you remember the statements in the Old Testament about “seeing God”?  God’s presence is considered to be so powerful – so overwhelming – that a human being can simply not stand his presence.   Now, supposing God to be like we think he is, this seems plausible.

God’s direct revealing of himself to us – as opposed to some manifestation such as a miracle – may simply be too much for us to bear.  Secondly, it may be that his direct revelation of himself to us would so devastate us as to remove our free will to believe and love him – thus thwarting what we believe to be his motivation in seeking to communicate with us at all.

So direct revelation may be (1) physically impossible without harm and/or (2) psychologically counter to God’s desires and intentions toward us.

The second way to view God’s direct revelation to us is to look at the Christian experience.  Many Christians claim to know God.  The presuppositionalist argues that everywhere he looks, he sees evidence of God – God’s fingerprints and footprints throughout the created order – whereas the unbeliever can see none of this because of their unbelief (and their presuppositions about God not existing, of course). 

So direct revelation may be seen to actually occur and we are simply too blinded by our fallenness and sin to see it.

Finally, thirdly, there is the idea that God would take a form that is less than his full presence in order to directly communicate with us. [Story of farmer attempting to guide birds into the warmth of his barn during a blizzard – the birds see him as a great, otherworldly threat – he cannot convince them to trust him.  He ponders, “If only I could become like them, they would trust me and I could save them.”]  If God could take the form of  something we could see without perishing – and come to trust and love of our own free will, this would still be direct communication without the pitfalls described above.  See Colossians 1.
Indirect revelation through humanity
The alternative means of communication is, then, indirect.  By this we mean some form of communication from God to humanity other than a direct confrontation.

Why would God do this?  Well, ultimately for the reasons we discussed above that motivate communication at all.  In the indirect form because of the limitations or problems with the direct approach.

What kind of indirect communication is there?  From most sacred writings, we see two (1) direct revelation to a chosen person or people who then spread the message using human means – speaking and writing and (2) inspiration of a person or people who communicate the message via human means – usually accompanied by some miraculous sign to authenticate the source of their message.
Arguments for the Bible to be considered special revelation
The Argument from the Person of Christ
Ultimately, the best argument for the Bible is the person of Jesus Christ.  He is also, ultimately the best argument for God and for the kind of God Christians believe in.

That he lived, preached, taught and died is an unquestionable fact of history – more sure than the life of Thomas Jefferson.
Prophecies
The Bible is filled with predictions written hundreds of years prior to their fulfillment.  Certainly, this must lead us to consider it as something different from other writings.
Authorship & Continuity
The Test of Time
External Testimony
Historical Veracity
Comparative Superiority
How reliable is the Bible?
What are the different views?
•	Completely inerrant in present form
•	Completely inerrant in original form
•	Completely inerrant in original inspiration
The Historical Reliability of the New Testament
If the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, their authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt. - F. F. Bruce
The intent of this section is not to prove that the Bible is God’s word based on historical argument.  This is not possible.  However, it is possible to show that considering all the evidence the probability that the biblical texts we have today accurately reflect the original authors writings.

Just how reliable is our New Testament?  Does what we read today reflect what was originally said, done and written all those hundreds of years ago?  It has occurred to many of us that we are removed from the original writers of the New Testament by nearly two thousand years. It's only natural to wonder if we are reading just exactly what they wrote. 
COMPARISON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT WITH CLASSICAL HISTORIES
Due to the manuscript evidence, we are in a better position to answer that question for the New Testament than we are for the great classical histories. The late Sir Frederick Kenyon, who served as director and librarian of the British Museum, has stated:
Besides number, the manuscripts of the New Testament differ from those of the classical authors, and this time the difference is clear gain. In no other case is the interval of time between the composition of the book and the date of the earliest extant manuscripts so short as in that of the New Testament. The books of the New Testament were written in the latter part of the first century; the earliest extant manuscripts (trifling scraps excepted) are of the fourth century-say from 250 to 350 years later . . . . This may sound a considerable interval, but it is nothing to that which parts most of the great classical authors from their earliest manuscripts.
In order to appreciate the enthusiasm with which Professor Kenyon made that statement, we only need to consider a few examples for testing the reliability of the classical histories and then compare the evidence for the New Testament by that same test.

Classical Attestation
Much of our knowledge of the Caesars is dependent upon the writings of the Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus, who wrote about A.D. 100-115. We have no originals from his hand and only half of the thirty books of histories which he wrote have survived the ravages of time in the form of two manuscript copies. One of these manuscripts is from the tenth century and the other from the eleventh century. That means that there are time gaps of 800 to 1000 years from the originals written by Tacitus himself to the only two copies of his work that we presently possess. Now, while that is quite a distance in time removed from the original writings, this kind of manuscript evidence does not cause undue concern among our classical scholars.

About this same quality of manuscript evidence is characteristic of all the classical histories. Consider Julius Caesar's account of his Gallic Wars, which he wrote between 58 and 50 B.C. While there are several good manuscript copies, the oldest is about 900 years removed from Caesar. Quite a gap! Then, there are two historians from deep antiquity, Thucydides and Herodotus, who wrote during the fifth century before Christ. Of the eight manuscript copies from Thucydides, the earliest is about A.D. 900. That leaves a gap of some 1300 years from the original history to our best copy! And the manuscript attestation for Herodotus is said to be about the same. Yet there is not a classical scholar who would yield a single manuscript copy simply because they are removed by such a gap of time from the originals. 

New Testament Attestation
A striking contrast exists between the abundance of New Testament manuscripts and the comparative poverty of the classical copies. There are right now some four thousand copies of the Greek New Testament. Some of these are very ancient, two of them dating back to A.D. 350, leaving a time gap of only 250 years from the original writers to our copies. These two oldest and best copies (each in a book form called a codex) are the Codex Siniticus (so called since it was found in 1844 in the monastery of St. Catherine at the foot of Mt Sinai by the German Bible scholar Constantine Tischendorf) and the Codex Vaticanus (so named because it is kept in the Vatican in Rome). This evidence alone is superior to that for Tacitus' writings. Then there is the Codex Alexandrinus, which is displayed along with the Sinaiticus in the British Museum, and the Codex Bezae from the fifth or sixth century, now located at Cambridge University. And in addition to these, there are hundreds more copies of the quality of the classical manuscripts.

Inasmuch as the classical writings are received as authentic histories on a manuscript basis, which is not nearly as qualitative as that for the New Testament, then how much more should we be confident of the authentic nature of the New Testament. Professor Bruce makes an observation from this basis, apparently with tongue-in-cheek, that "If the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, their authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt."  Also, the Jewish scholar, J. Klausner, said, "If we had ancient sources like those in the Gospels for the history of Alexander or Caesar, we should not cast any doubt upon them whatsoever."
EVIDENCE FROM THE SECOND CENTURY
Besides the codices, there is still more evidence for the New Testament's reliability from yet another source of an earlier date. 

From the Apostolic Fathers
There is a collection of writings nearly as old as the New Testament itself, having come down to us through the efforts of copyists, originally dating from about A.D. 90-160. This collection, written by early Christians, contains quotations from the New Testament in such quantity as to very nearly reproduce it. It is referred to as the writings of the apostolic fathers. This is an unofficial designation attributed to these particular writers since they either had a personal acquaintance with one or more of the apostles or sat at the feet of those who did. Their quotations from the New Testament, then, were very close in time to the original documents. The writings have been translated published and are readily available in libraries and book stores.

Their Values to Us Today
These writings reveal to us how confident those early Christians were that the New Testament contained nothing but the truth, and that it contained an authentic account of the life and teachings of Jesus. At the close of the first century and during the first part of the second, there were thousands of Christians who put their lives on the line for their faith in the Christ of the New Testament. To them, it was not a matter of conjecture whether the New Testament reported the truth; it was the testimony of history not too far removed from the actual events it described, and some of them, still alive at the end of the first century, had even participated in some of those history-making episodes. Some of them still living in the early second century could tell what the apostles themselves had said, as in the case of Ignatius (70-110) and Polycarp (70-156), who knew the apostles. To them, there was no gainsaying the truth of the New Testament. And for that conviction, most of them suffered hardship and some paid the supreme price.

It is also clear from these early documents that Bible readings from the New Testament became a regualr part of the Christian life in the second century. Both Clement of Alexandria (who died about 220) and Tertullian (who died about 230) agreed that married people should read the Scriptures together before the chief meal of the day.  From another epistle (falsely attributed to Clement) we Christians had purchased Bibles for reading Scriptures aloud. Origen (about 185-254) recalled daily Bible readings and Scripture recitations as a child.  And Irenaeus (about 120-202) encouraged Christians to be nourished from the Scriptures.32 

From Heretics
Even heretics furnish proof that the New Testament had been long written by A.D. 150, and had already attained a place of authority in the church. The writings of the heretical school of Gnosticism headed up by Valentinus (about 130-150) quotes extensively from the New Testament.  And a list of several New Testament books which he considered acceptable were drawn up by the heretic, Marcion, about the year 140, furnishing more proof that the New Testament was in circulation by this time.

From a Recently Discovered Fragment
In the John Rylands Library in Manchester, England, there are collections of papyrus fragments which have been catalogued. Among them is one of the most outstanding biblical discoveries of this century. In 1934, Mr. C. H. Roberts, a papyrology student at Oxford,was sorting a group of papyri, which had been acquired from Egypt in 1920, and found a small papyrus scrap quoting John 18:31-33 on one side and verses 37-38 on the other side. This papyrus fragment was dated by the highly-sophisticated method of paleography (determining dates and oringin by the style of writing) at about A.D. 125! That is easily the oldest fragment of a copy of the New Testamnent in our possession. Of course, the original document, or a copy of it, from which this fragment was made, came first. This shoves the original writing back into the first century into the hands of the apostle John, and forever refutes liberalism's accusation that the Gospel of John was not written until the second century.

Such an accumulation of evidence (and we have barely called attention to the great mass of material evidence) is more than sufficient to confirm that the New Testament, just as we have it now, is a near-perfect reproduction of the original apostolic writings. This is the quality of evidence which led Professor Kenyon to announce:

The interval then between the dates of original composition and the earliest  extant evidence becomes so small as to be in fact negligible, and the last  foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down to us  substantially as they were written has now been removed. Both the  authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament  may be regarded as finally established.

There is just no book from the past which has been given such a thoroughgoing testimony to its total reliability. And remember that this reliability embraces the two areas that people want to know about most: that the New Testament, as we have it now, is exactly what was originally written by the apostles and that its statements are historically reliable.

A Great Historian's Recommendation
The testimony of Sir William Ramsay is very applicable just here. During the greater part of his life, Sir William was professor of Humanity at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. He became acknowledged as a historian and an outstanding authority on the life of Paul and of the history of the early church, and he carried on extensive archaeological research in Asiatic Turkey and the Bible lands. His defense of the historical Jesus as the son of God is particularly convincing when we consider that Ramsay did not begin researching with the same conviction that he later acquired through his research. Ramsay's archaelolgical studies drove him to have confidence in the New Testament. W. Ward Gasque, in an excellent little biography of this truly great scholar, stated: "It is of great significance that Sir William Ramsay came to the study of the New Testament as a Roman historian rather than as a theologian."36 Indeed, this was significant inasmuch as Ramsay had earlier held the liberal view of the modernistic Tubigen school that the book of Acts was a second-century production. But his archaeological findings convinced him of the total reliability of that book. He wrote of the matter in the following way: 
I may fairly claim to have entered on this investigation without any prejudice in favor of the conclusion which I shall now attempt to justify to the reader. On the contrary, I began with a mind unfavorable to it, for the ingenuity and apparent completeness of the Tubigen theory had at one time convinced me. It did not lie in my line of life to investigate the subject minutely; but more recently I found myself often brought in contact with the book of Acts as an authority for the topography, antiquities, and society of Asia Minor. It was gradually borne in upon me that in various details the narrative showed marvelous truth. 
In another book, Ramsay said that "Luke's history is unsurpassed in respect of its trustworthiness."  In still another book reporting New Testament reliability resulting from his archaeological research, he wrote, "Luke is a historian of the first rank; not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy; he is possessed of the true historic sense . . . this author should be placed along with the very greatest of historians."

Ramsay's faith spread to the whole of the New Testament due to the overwhelming evidence which he found in its behalf.
CONCLUSION
How can we know that Jesus is the son of God? We might ask how we can know of anything which we have not seen? The answer is testimony. Someone told us in either words or works left behind. Do we accept as true the outstanding exploits of Alexander the Great and of Julius Caesar?  Of course.  But why? The answer is always the same-history. But when we refer to history are we not referring to the testimony left by yet others? Who doubts that Wellington defeated Napoleon at Waterloo? That Columbus sailed to the Americas in the fifteenth century? That Luther nailed his ninety-five theses to the door of the Wittenberg church in 1517? There is no good reason for doubting these men and these events. The testimony in our possession is absolutely convincing. By the same token, we cannot reject the superlative testimony of the New Testament on any grounds of historical evidence. By the very same methods used to attest the reliability of other ancient writings, the New Testament is confirmed to be every bit as reliable as the classical histories.

The case for belief in Christ as our Savior-God is the written testimony of the New Testament writers. It is a mistake to think that these men merely asserted that Jesus is the son of God without proof. They have pointed us to the weight of the historical evidence. They have appealed to our intelligence and our ability to weigh the evidence and deduct a logical conclusion and, withour fear of contradiction, have offered their testimony in the verifiable context of a space-time dimension. They have only requested that we examine their testimony and honestly weigh the evidence as they have presented it. It then becomes ours to make a decision on the basis of that evidence. 
God as Creator

JESUS CHRIST, HIS ONLY SON, OUR LORD; CONCEIVED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, BORN OF THE VIRGIN MARY
Christianity is not a philosophy dealing with ideas, it is a relationship dealing with persons.  And the central person is Jesus Christ.  Christianity affirms belief that Jesus Christ is the center of all things – that he is the way, the truth and the life. 

But what do we believe about Jesus?  Why do we believe these things?  These are the issues we will discuss in this section.
Key doctrines relating to Jesus
Deity - pre-existence, creative role, miraculous power, authority
The deity of Jesus Christ is revealed clearly:
I.	By the divine names and titles assigned Him in the Word:
A.	"God." In Hebrews 1:8, the Father called Christ "God."
1.	(See also John 20:28 where Thomas cried, "My Lord, and my God.") In Titus 2:13, all believers are to be found "looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God . . . . our Saviour Jesus Christ."
B.	"The Son of God." Peter astutely observed, "thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Mt 16:16-17). This name is used to designate Him some 40 times in the Bible. (See it, for instance, in Mt 27:40; 27:43; Mk 14:61-62; Lk 22:70; Jn 5:25; 10:36; 11:4; and Mt 8:29)
C.	"The First and the Last." Shown in Revelations 1:8 as indicative of the fact He is the source and cause of all and the sustainer of all as well. (Compare with Isa 41:4 and also see Col 1:16-19).
D.	"The Alpha and Omega" (Rev 1:8). "Alpha and Omega" being the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. Therefore He is all (and more) that can be expressed by the joining together of the letters of the alphabet to form good words."
E.	"The Beginning and the Ending" (Rev 1:8). This reminds us He is "The author and finisher of faith" (Heb 12:2).
F.	"The Holy One and the Just" (Acts 3:14). While all mere men "have sinned an come short" (Rm 3:23), He is the Holy and Just One.
G.	"The Lord." Acts 9:17 records that Ananias said to Saul, "Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, . . . . hath sent me." Hence Paul told the jailer at Phillipi, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved" (Acts 16:31).
H.	"Lord of all and Lord of Glory" (Acts 10:36). Peter preached "peace by Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all)." Paul affirmed that had the princes of this world really known Him, "they would not have crucified the Lord of glory."
II.	By the fact that He received and deserved divine worship:
A.	The Bible insists that worship is due to deity only!
1.	Christ said to Satan, " . . . . thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve" (Mt 4:10).
2.	Note examples of men who accepted worship and were punished for it. (See Herod in Acts 12:20-25 and Nebuchadnezzar in Dan 4:29-33).
3.	Peter refused to allow men to worship him in Acts 10:25-26, as did the angels in Revelations 22:8-9.
4.	Yet Jesus unhesitatingly accepted worship and commended men for it. In John 13:13, He said, "Ye call me master and Lord; and ye say well; for so I am." (Look up Mt 14:33; Lk 24:52; Jn 4:10; 20:27-29) He was either God or a tremendous liar!
B.	God the Father instructed "all the angels of God to worship" Christ (Heb 1:6).
III.	By the divine offices that are assigned to Him:
A.	He is the Creator of the universe (Jn 1:3; Heb 1:10; Col 1:16).
B.	He is the Preserver of all things. In Hebrews 1:3, He is seen to "uphold all things by the word of his power."
C.	He is the Forgiver of sins (Mk 2:5, 10-11). " . . . . The Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins."
D.	He will bestow immortal life at His return (Phil 3:21). "Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like his glorious body." He promised this in John 5:28-29 and John 6:39-40 and 44.
E.	He is called "The judge of the quick (living) and the dead" at His appearing and Kingdom in II Timothy 4:1.
F.	He is "the giver of eternal life" according to John 17:2 and John 10:28.
IV.	By His Character and Holiness:
A.	He was absolutely without defilement of any sort. I John 3:5 says, "in him is no sin." Hebrews 4:14-15 states that He was "without sin." II Corinthians 5:21 adds He "knew no sin."
B.	Thus is He seen to be immaculately pure as in I John 3:3, " . . . . even as he is pure." I John 1:5 assures "that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." Jesus said, "I am the light . . . . of life" (Jn 8:12).
C.	Even unclean spirits bore testimony of it as in Mark 1:23-24, " . . . . thou art the Holy One of God."
D.	Likewise Judas Iscariot admitted, " . . . . I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood" (Mt 27:3-4).
E.	Pilate testified, saying, " . . . . I find in him no fault at all."
F.	Pilate's wife warned him, " . . . . have nothing to do with that just man" (Mt 27:19).
G.	The believing thief on the cross said, " . . . . this man hath done nothing amiss" (Lk 23:41).
H.	The Roman Centurion concluded, "this was a righteous man" (Lk 23:47). Many other testimonies could be gathered in the Bible but this should suffice to make the point.
I.	Note His attitude toward sin and righteousness in Hebrews 1:9.
J.	He said, "I do always those things that please" my Father (Jn 8:29).
K.	He demanded holiness in others. (See Mt 5:48; Jn 5:14; 8:11)
L.	He gave Himself to save men from sin's penalty (II Cor 1:9-10; I Pet 2:24).
V.	By the love He manifested:
A.	He loved the Father (Jn 14:31).
B.	He loved the church (Eph 5:25).
C.	He loved me (Gal 2:20).
D.	He loved His own (Jn 13:1). This primarily speaks of Israel. Compare this text with John 1:11. "He came unto his own" etc. Who would affirm this to be the saved? Think about it. Why does it say in John 13:1 "to the end" or "to the death?" Did His love for the saved end at the cross? I think not! But His current affection for Israel, illustrated by the kingdom He offered them but, which at Calvary He took from them and gave to His church (His little flock), did end at the cross. Now "He loves the church." (Compare Mt 21:43 with Lk 12:32).
E.	He also loves obedience in His children (Jn 14:21).
F.	Unlike any other, He loved His enemies. Luke 23:34 reveals His prayer on the cross, "Father, forgive them . . . ." Romans 5:6-8 testifies that "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." 
Physical existence – virgin birth, temptation, suffering
Many struggle with the idea that Jesus – if he was fully God, could become fully human.  The idea of a limited God – of a God subject to athlete’s foot and acne – is simply incomprehensible to those who would keep God on his throne – distant and in charge.

But, on a different level, a God who became one of us is the most daring and powerful of Gods.  To submit to such risk; to such humiliation!

But the human side of the equation is important, too.  No more can we say that God doesn’t “get it” or he doesn’t “understand” what our life is like.  He has lived it!

Listen to the words of Tori Amos:

Although He is "without beginning of days or ending of days," as God, "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us . . . . the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth" (Jn 1:14). Now something "was made flesh" and was "begotten of the Father" but it was not the eternal and Divine nature of the Son of God!

Nevertheless, it is written, Jesus speaking to the Father, "a body hast thou prepared me" (Heb 10:5). Still, the Holy Spirit is careful in His Divine inspiration of the holy men chosen to put down the words of God on parchment, not to say God created Christ or the Son of God was born in Bethlehem or any such statements.

The fleshly body in which the son of God lived on earth and walked among men for over 33-years was prepared by the Father and miraculously conceived in the womb of Mary by the Holy Spirit (Lk 1:28-35). Note especially the words "that holy thing" which shall be born of thee in verse 35. This is a reference to the flesh but not to the eternal "Word of God" (Jn 1:1-2). As the second person of the Triune God, He had always been. But now, a body was prepared by God and born into this world through the power of God in order that "the Word" could indeed become "flesh" and dwell among men.

Observe how carefully the Scriptures deal with the twin subjects of the absolute humanity and the absolute deity of Christ. Romans 1:3-4, "Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord . . . . was made of the seed of David according to the flehs; and delcared to be the Son of God with power." While the flesh "was made" then conceived and born, the eternal "Son of God" was never made, conceived or born! The deity was merely "declared" since there was never a time when He was not!

Notice the truth of this in Isaiah 7:14, "A virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel" (God with us). Then in Isaiah 9:6, "For unto us (to Israel) a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace."

While "a child" was born (speaking of the human body), "a son" was not. Rather, "a son" was "given." God gave His Son to come to earth and indwell "that holy thing"--"that child" born of Mary. 

The Son is eternal and is the same source and essence which originated and created all things. He was never born. Yet, that "tabernacle" or earthly house in which He lived and walked on earth for 33-plus years was born, and then died and rose again.
I.	The fact human parentage is claimed for him:
A.	The Word of Truth then points out initially that He was "made of a woman."
1.	Galatians 4:4 states, "God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law."
2.	Matthew 1:18 adds, "Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: when as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit."
3.	Matthew 2:11 continues, "And when they (wise men) were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother." No place is Joseph said to be his father.
4.	Matthew 12:47 affirms, "Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee." He had a mother, a step-dad, and half-brothers and sisters. In spite of the error taught by Roman Catholicism, Mary gave birth to a number of sons and daughters by Joseph after the birth of Jesus. She is not "the Queen of heaven" and is not "the mother of God." She was the mother of a body prepared by God and in-which Christ lived on earth for 33-plus years.
B.	Next the Scriptures reveal He was "made of the seed of David." Mary, being of the line and lineage of David, assured this. (See Romans 1:13 and also read Acts 13:22-23 and Luke 1:31-33)
II.	The truth that His growth and development was natural:
A.	Luke 2:40, "and the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him." Then in verse 46, "after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions."
B.	Verse 47 adds, "And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers." Finally verse 52 provides this summation. "And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man."
III.	The observation of His personal appearance:
A.	In John 4:9, the woman of Samaria instantly saw that He was "a Jew."
B.	In John 21:4-5, "Jesus stood on the shore: but the disciples knew not that it was Jesus. Then Jesus saith unto them, Children, have ye any meat? They answered Him, "no."
C.	In John 20:15, when He appeared to Mary after His resurrection, ". . . . she supposed him to be the gardener." Thus the appearance of a man.
D.	Then in John 19:5, "Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man."
E.	Again in I Timothy 2:5, Paul writes "there is one God, and one mediator between god and men, the man Christ Jesus."
IV.	His possession of a human, physical nature, including body, soul and spirit:
A.	His was a physical human body according to Matthew 26:12 because in this text a woman literally poured ointment on His body.
B.	He experienced all of the emotions of the human soul. Thus Matthew 26:38 records His statement: "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death."
C.	He possessed a spirit that comprehended or understood. Luke 23:46, "When Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit."
V.	He possessed real human limitations:
A.	He was subject to bodily weariness. John 4:6 records, "Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus, therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well."
B.	He required sleep for the body. Matthew 8:24, "Behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: but he was asleep."
C.	He knew the reality of hunger. Matthew 21:18, "Now in the morning as he returned into the city, he hungered."
D.	He also experienced thirst. John 19:28, "After this, Jesus knowing that all things were no accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled saith, I thirst."
E.	He endured physical pain and suffering. Luke 22:44, "And being in agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground."
F.	In the life of the body, He was capable of death. I Corinthians 15:3, " . . . . Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures."
VI.	His condescending humiliation enabled Him to subject Himself (in the flesh) to intellectual limitations:
A.	Luke 2:52 proved He "increased in wisdom and stature."
B.	Mark 11:13 reveals He was (in the flesh) capable of gaining knowledge by observing.
C.	Mark 13:32 declares that, while in the flesh, He could and did restrict His knowledge. "But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father."

Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried, On the third day He rose again from the dead He ascended into heaven and sits on the right hand of God the Father Almighty From there He shall come to judge the Quick and the dead
The belief that Jesus died for our sins is central to the teachings of Christianity.  The scheme of redemption – God’s plan to make a way to restore the relationship between God and man – and the doctrine of the atonment – the way in which God ultimately accomplished this restoration – are the cornerstones of Christian teaching and belief.

THE doctrine of the Atonement lies at the very foundation of the Christian religion. Having thus the most important place in theology, a clear understanding of this subject is very essential, and this is generally conceded amongst Christian people. Nevertheless, the Atonement, though believed in, is little understood; the various ideas and theories respecting it are disconnected as well as vague; and faith built upon these disconnected and vague views of the foundation doctrine must, of necessity, be proportionately unstable, weak and vague. 

On the contrary, if this important subject be clearly seen, in all the grandeur of the proportions accorded it in the Word of God, as the foundation of the divine plan of salvation, it not only will firmly establish faith, rooting and grounding it upon correct principles, but it will serve as a guide in discriminating between truth and error in connection with all the minutiae of faith. When the foundation is well established and clearly discerned, and every item of faith built upon it is kept in exact alignment with the foundation, the entire faith superstructure will be perfect. As we shall show later, every doctrine and theory may be brought in contact with this touchstone, and have its proportion of gold or of dross quickly determined thereby. 

There are two general views of the Atonement: 

(1)	What is known as the orthodox view, namely, that man, as a transgressor of the divine law, came under divine condemnation--"under wrath"; and that God, while hindered by Justice from exonerating the sinner, has provided a just redemption for him, and thus provided for the forgiveness of his sins, through the sacrifice of Christ. This entire work of satisfying the claims of Justice and making the sinner acceptable to God, is denominated the work of Atonement. 

(2)	 What is known as the unorthodox view of the Atonement (at one time represented chiefly by Unitarians and Universalists, but which has recently been spreading rapidly and generally in every quarter of Christendom), approaches the subject from the opposite side: it presupposes no requirement on the part of divine justice of a sacrifice for the sinner's transgression; it ignores the wrath of God as represented in any special sentence of death; it ignores "the curse." It holds that God seeks and waits for man's approach, placing no hindrance in the way, requiring no atonement for man's sin, but requiring merely that man shall abandon sin and seek righteousness, and thus come into harmony with God--be at-one with God hence this view is generally styled at-one-ment, and is understood to signify harmony with righteousness regardless of the methods by which mankind may be brought into this state: atonement for sin being considered from the standpoint of expiation by the sinner himself, or else as unconditional forgiveness by God. From this standpoint our Lord Jesus and all his followers have part in the at-one-ment, in the sense that they have taught and exhorted mankind to turn from sin to righteousness, and in no sin-offering or ransom sense. 
(3)	The view which we accept as the Scriptural one, but which has been overlooked very generally by theologians, embraces and combines both of the foregoing views. 

The Bible doctrine of the Atonement, as we shall endeavor to show, teaches clearly: 

(a)	That man was created perfect, in the image of God, but fell therefrom, through wilful disobedience, and came under the sentence of wrath, "the curse," and thus the entire race became "children of wrath." `Eph. 2:3` 
(b)	While God justly executed against his disobedient creature the sentence of his law, death, and that without mercy, for over four thousand years, yet, nevertheless, blended with this justice and fidelity to principles of righteousness was the spirit of love and compassion, which designed an ultimate substitutional arrangement or plan of salvation, by which God might still be just and carry out his just laws against sinners, and yet be the justifier of all who believe in Jesus. (`Rom. 3:26`) By this plan all the condemned ones might be relieved from the sentence without any violation of Justice, and with such a display of divine love and wisdom and power as would honor the Almighty, and prove a blessing to all his creatures, human and angelic --by revealing to all, more fully than ever before seen, the much diversified wisdom and grace of God. `Eph. 3:10` Diaglott 
(c)	It was in the carrying out of this program of Atonement to the divine law for its transgression by father Adam, that our dear Redeemer died, "a ransom for all, to be testified in due time," `1 Tim. 2:6` 
(d)	But the sacrifice for sins does not complete the work of Atonement, except so far as the satisfaction of the claim of Justice is concerned. By virtue of the ransom paid to Justice, a transfer of man's account has been made, and his case, his indebtedness, etc., is wholly transferred to the account of the Lord Jesus Christ, who paid to Justice the full satisfaction of its claims against Adam, and his race. Thus Jesus, by reason of this "purchase" with his own precious blood, is now in consequence the owner, master, "Lord, of all." `Rom. 14:9` 
(e)	One object in this arrangement for Adam and his race was the annulment of their death sentence, which, so long as it remained, estopped Love from any efforts to recover the condemned, whose privileges of future life under any circumstances were wholly abrogated--destroyed. 
(f)	Another object was the placing of the fallen race beyond the reach of divine Justice, and under the special supervision of Jesus, who as the representative of the Father's plan proposes not only to satisfy the claims of Justice, but also undertakes the instruction, correction and restitution of so many of the fallen race as shall show their desire for harmony with Justice. Such he will ultimately turn over to the Justice of the divine law, but then so perfected as to be able to endure its perfect requirements. 
(g)	Though originally the only separating influence between God and man was the divine sentence, now, after six thousand years of falling, degradation and alienation from God through wicked works--and because of ignorance, superstition, and the wiles of the Adversary--and because the divine character and plan have been misrepresented to men, we find the message of grace and forgiveness unheeded. Although God freely declares, since the ransom was accepted, that he is now ready to receive sinners back into harmony with himself and to eternal life, through the merit of Christ's sacrifice, nevertheless the majority of mankind are slow to believe the good tidings, and correspondingly slow to accept their conditions. Some have become so deluded by the sophistries of Satan, by which he has deceived all nations (`Rev. 20:3`), that they do not believe that there is a God; others believe in him as a great and powerful adversary, without love or sympathy, ready and anxious to torment them to all eternity; others are confused by the Babel of conflicting reports that have reached them, concerning the divine character, and know not what to believe; and, seeking to draw near unto God, are hindered by their fears and by their ignorance. Consequently, as a matter of fact, the number who have yet availed themselves of the opportunity of drawing nigh unto God through Christ is a comparatively small one--"a little flock." 
(h)	Nevertheless, the sacrifice for sins was not for the few, but for the "many," "for all." And it is a part of the divine program that he who redeemed all with his own precious blood shall ultimately make known to all men, "to every creature," the good tidings of their privilege under divine grace, to return to at-one-ment with their Creator. 
(i)	Thus far only the Church has been benefited by the Atonement, except indirectly; but the teaching of the Scriptures is that this Church shall constitute a priestly Kingdom, or "royal priesthood," with Christ the Royal Chief Priest, and that during the Millennial age this Heavenly Kingdom class, this royal priesthood, shall fully and completely accomplish for mankind the work of removing the blindness which Satan and error and degradation brought upon them, and shall bring back to full at-one-ment with God whosoever wills, of all the families of the earth. 
(j)	In harmony with this is the Apostle's statement that we, believers, the Church, have received the Atonement. The Atonement was made, so far as God was concerned, eighteen centuries ago, and that for all; but only believers have received it in the sense of accepting the opportunity which the grace of God has thus provided--and the rest of mankind are blinded. "The god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them." `2 Cor. 4:4`
(k)	The Atonement, in both of its phases--the satisfaction of Justice, and the bringing back into harmony or at-one-ment with God of so many of his creatures as, under full light and knowledge, shall avail themselves of the privileges and opportunities of the New Covenant--will be completed with the close of the age, when all who shall wilfully and intelligently reject divine favor, offered through Christ, "shall be destroyed from among the people," with "an everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power"--with a destruction from which there will be no hope of recovery by future resurrection. `Acts 3:23`; `2 Thess. 1:9’
(l)	Then the great work of the Atonement will be completed, and all things in heaven and in earth will be found in harmony with God, praising him for all his munificence and grace through Christ; and there shall be no more dying and no more sighing, no more pain there, because the former things shall have passed away--as the result of the work of the Atonement, commenced by the propitiation of Justice by our Redeemer's sacrifice, concluded by the full reconciliation of all found worthy of eternal life. 

However the word atonement may be viewed, it must be conceded that its use at all, as between God and man, implies a difficulty, a difference, an opposition, existing between the Creator and the creature -otherwise they would be at one, and there would be no need of a work of atonement, from either standpoint.

Appendix A – Terms & Concepts in Presuppositional Epistemology
REVELATION 
According to Scripture, God has created the "universe." God has created time and space. God has created all the "facts" of science. God has created the human mind. In this human mind God has laid the laws of thought according to which it is to operate. In the facts of science God has laid the laws of being according to which they function. In other words, the impress of God's plan is upon his whole creation. 

We may characterize this whole situation by saying that the creation of God is a revelation of God. God revealed himself in nature and God also revealed himself in the mind of man. Thus it is impossible for the mind of man to function except in an atmosphere of revelation. And every thought of man when it functioned normally in this atmosphere of revelation would express the truth as laid in the creation by God. We may therefore call a Christian epistemology a revelational epistemology. 
ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS 
We must now seek to define this revelational epistemology more closely by relating it still more definitely to the conception of him who gives the revelation. The all-important question is what kind of a God reveals himself. Pantheistic thinkers also speak of God revealing himself, and might therefore also speak of a revelational epistemology if they desired. But for the sake of clearness, the term revelation should really be reserved for biblical thought. According to this view God has been, and is, eternally self-conscious. There is no fringe of ignorance or darkness in him. 
CORRESPONDENCE 
It is this concept of a completely self-conscious God that is all-important in epistemology. This appears at once from the implications of such a concept for the fact of human knowledge. 

True human knowledge corresponds to the knowledge which God has of himself and his world. Suppose that I am a scientist investigating the life and ways of a cow. What is this cow? I say it is an animal. But that only pushes the question back. What is an animal? To answer that question I must know what life is. But again, to know what life is I must know how it is related to the inorganic world. And so I may and must continue till I reach the borders of the universe. And even when I have reached the borders of the universe. I do not yet know what the cow is. Complete knowledge of what a cow is can be had only by an absolute intelligence, i. e., by  one who has, so to speak, the blueprint of the whole universe. But it does not follow from this that the knowledge of the cow that I have is trot true as far as it goes. It is true if it corresponds to the knowledge that God has of the cow. 

From this presentation of the matter, it is clear that what we mean by correspondence is not what is often meant by it in epistemological literature. In the literature on the subject, correspondence usually means a correspondence between the idea I have in my mind and the "object out there." In the struggle between the "realists" and the "subjective idealists" this was the only question in dispute. They were not concerned about the question uppermost in our minds, i.e., whether or not God has to be taken into the correspondence. We may call our position in epistemology a Correspondence Theory of Truth, if only we keep in mind that it is opposed to what has historically been known under that name. 
COHERENCE 
In opposition to the historical correspondence theory of truth there arose in the Kant-Hegel tradition the so-called Coherence Theory of Truth. The idealists argued in the way that we have argued above about the cow. They said that true knowledge cannot be obtained by a mere correspondence of an idea of the mind to an object existing apart from the mind. The mind and the object of which it seeks knowledge are parts of one great system of reality and one must have knowledge of the whole of this reality before one has knowledge of any of its parts. Accordingly. the Idealists said that the thing that really counted in knowledge was the coherence of any fact with all other facts. To know the place of a fact in the universe as a whole is to have true knowledge. This position, as we shall see more fully later, approaches, in form, what we are after in our position. Yet it is only in form that it approaches our position. That this is true can be seen from the determining fact that the Absolute to which the idealist seeks to relate all knowledge is not the completely self-conscious God of Christianity. We cannot prove this point here. We only state it as our conviction here in order to clear the ground. The Absolute of idealism, we believe, is not really an absolute because he exists as merely correlative to the space-time world. Accordingly there are new facts arising for him as well as for us. God becomes a primus inter pares, a One among others. He can no longer be the standard of human knowledge. 

It is our contention that only the Christian can obtain real coherence in his thinking. If all of our thoughts about the facts of the universe are in correspondence with God's ideas of these facts, there will naturally be coherence in our thinking because there is a complete coherence in God's thinking. On the other hand we hold that the idealistic coherence theory of truth cannot lead to coherence because it omits the source of all coherence, namely, God. 

In a way it might be well for us to call our position the Coherence Theory of Truth because we claim to have true coherence. Whether we call our position a correspondence theory or whether we call it a coherence theory, we have in each case to distinguish it sharply from the theories that have historically gone by these names. Accordingly, the determining factor must be a consideration of that which is most fundamental in our theory of correspondence or of coherence. Now this depends upon the question whether we have God's knowledge in mind first of all, or whether we begin with human knowledge. For God, coherence is the term that comes first. There was coherence in God's plan before there was any space-time fact to which his knowledge might correspond, or which might correspond to his knowledge. On the other hand, when we think of human knowledge, correspondence is of primary importance. If there is to be true coherence in our knowledge there must be correspondence between our ideas of facts and God's ideas of these facts. Or rather we should say that our ideas must correspond to God's ideas. Now since we are dealing with opponents who speak of human knowledge almost exclusively, we can perhaps best bring out the distinctiveness of our position by calling it the Correspondence Theory of Truth. An additional reason for this choice is that at the present time the old correspondence theory has pretty well died down, leaving the coherence theory in control of the field. Hence we have the advantage of a different name from the current name, since we are interested in making it clear that we really have a different theory from the current theory. 
OBJECTIVITY 
Another term that needs description before we can proceed with our historical survey is that of "objectivity." In ordinary speech we understand by an "object" anything that exists "out there," that is, independently of the human mind. We then claim to have objective knowledge of something if the idea that we have in our minds of that thing corresponds to the thing as it exists independently of the mind. We may have false ideas about a thing. In that case we say that it is only subjective and does not correspond to reality. The controversy between Berkeley and his opponents hinged on the point whether or not there are objects "out there" to which our knowledge corresponds. Berkeley said that to be is to be perceived. He said, therefore, that all knowledge is subjective only. His opponents maintained the contrary. Johnson is said to have tried to refute Berkeley by kicking against a stone. 

The coherence theory of truth implied a new conception of objectivity. For it, objectivity no longer was the correspondence of an idea to a certain  object supposed to exist in total independence of the mind. For it, objectivity meant a significant reference to the whole system of truth. One would have a true idea of a cow not by having a replica of the cow in one's mind, but by understanding the place of the cow in the universe. 

Now it will be readily understood that as far as the form of' the matter is concerned the Christian conception of objectivity stands closer to the latter than to the former position. For us, too, the primary question is not that of the out-thereness of the cow. What we are chiefly concerned about is that our idea of the cow shall correspond to God's idea of the cow. If it does not, our knowledge is false and may be called subjective. But the exact difference between the idealistic conception of objectivity and ours should be noted. The difference lies just here, that for the idealist, the system of reference is found in the Universe inclusive of God and man, while for us, the point of reference is found in God alone. 

When therefore we examine the various epistemological views with regard to their "objectivity." we are interested most of all in knowing whether or not these views have sought the knowledge of an object by placing it into its right relation with the self-conscious God. The other questions are interesting enough in themselves but are comparatively speaking not of great importance. Even if one were not anxious about the truth of the matter, it ought still to be plain to him that there can be no more fundamental question in epistemology than the question whether or not facts can be known without reference to God. Suppose for argument's rake that there is such a God. And surely the possibility of it anybody ought to, be willing to grant unless he has proved the impossibility of God's existence. Suppose then the existence of God. Then it would be a fact that every fact would be known truly only with reference to him. If then one did not place a fact into relation with God, he would be in error about the fact under investigation. Or suppose that one would just begin his investigations as a scientist, without even asking whether or not it is necessary to make reference to such a God in his investigations, such a one would be in constant and in fundamental ignorance all the while. And this ignorance would be culpable ignorance, since it is God who gives him life and all good things. It ought to be obvious then that one should settle for himself this most fundamental of all epistemological questions, whether or not God exists. Christ says that as the Son of God, he will come to judge and condemn all those who have not come to the Father by him. 
METHOD
Finally we must discuss the question of method. At this stage we are interested only in seeing what sort of method of investigation is involved in Christianity. At the outset it ought to be clearly observed that every system of thought necessarily has a certain method of its own. Usually this fact is overlooked. It is taken for granted that everybody begins in the same way with an examination of the facts, and that the differences between systems come only as a result of such investigations. Yet this is not actually the case. It could not actually be the case. In the first place, this could not be the case with a Christian. His fundamental and determining fact is the fact of God's existence. That is his final conclusion. But that must also be his starting point. If the Christian is right in his final conclusion about God, then he would not even get into touch with any fact uniess it were through the medium of God. And since man has, through the fall in Adam, become a sinner, man cannot know and therefore love God except through Christ the Mediator. And it is in Scripture alone that he learns about this Mediator. Scripture is the Word of Christ, the Son of God and Son of man. No sinner knows anything truly except he knows Christ, and no one knows Christ truly unless the Holy Ghost, the Spirit sent by the Father and the Son, regenerates him. If all things must be seen "in God" to be seen truly, one could look ever so long elsewhere without ever seeing a fact as it really is. If I must look through a telescope to see a distant star, I cannot first look at the star to see whether there is a telescope through which alone I could see it. If I must look through a microscope to see a germ, I cannot first look at the germ with the naked eye to see if there is a microscope through which alone I can see it. If it were a question of seeing something with the naked eye and seeing the same object more clearly through a telescope or a microscope, the matter would be different. We may see a landscape dimly with the naked eye and then turn to look at it through a telescope and see it more clearly. But such is not the case with the Christian position. According to it, nothing at all can be known truly of any fact unless it be known through and by way of man's knowledge of God. 

But if it be readily granted that a Christian begins with a bias, it will not so readily be granted that his opponents also begin with a bias. Yet this is no less the case. And the reason for this is really the same as that given above in the case of the Christian. We may again illustrate with our telescope analogy. The antitheist is one who has made up his mind in advance that he will never look through a telescope. He maintains steadfast in his conviction that there are some facts that can be known truly without looking through a telescope. This much is implied in the very idea of starting to see whether there is a God. It will he observed that even to say that there are some facts that can be known without reference to God. is already the very opposite of the Christian position. It is not necessary to say that all facts can be known without reference to God in order to have a flat denial of the Christian position. The contention of Christianity is exactly that there is not one fact that can be known without God. Hence if anyone avers that there is even one fact that can be known without God, he reasons like a non-Christian. It follows then that such a person in effect rejects the whole of the Christian position, the final conclusions as well as the starting point. And that means that such a person has at the outset taken for granted that there is no God in whom alone "facts" can be known. In other words, such a person has taken for granted that God is at least not such a "fact" that he is related to every other "fact" so that no other fact can be understood without reference to the "fact" of God. It was needful to make this point that every human being must necessarily begin with a "bias" clear, at this stage, because it is often assumed that the real difference between the traditionally Christian position and the ordinary philosophical and scientific methods exists in the fact that the traditional position alone is prejudiced, while all others are open-minded. It was necessary, too, to emphasize the universality of "prejudice" at this point because it will thus become clear that when the Christian and his opponent use the same terminology they do not mean the same things. Both speak of inductive, deductive and transcendental methods, but each of them presupposes his own starting point, when he uses these terms, and that fact gives these terms a different meaning in each case. It follows from this too that what the Christian is opposing is not these methods, as such, but the anti-Christian presuppositions at the base of them. 
 KNOWLEDGE 
Which method fits with a certain system of thought depends upon the idea of knowledge a system has. For the Christian system, knowledge consists in understanding the relation of any fact to God as revealed in Scrip ture. I know a fact truly to the extent that I understand the exact relation such a fact sustains to the plan of God. It is the plan of God that gives any fact meaning in terms of the plan of God. The whole meaning of any fact is exhausted by its position in and relation to the plan of God. This implies that every fact is related to every other fact. God's plan is a unit. And it is this unity of the plan of God, founded as it is in the very being of God, that gives the unity that we look for between all the finite facts. If one should maintain that one fact can be fully understood without reference to all other facts, he is as much antitheistic as when he should maintain that one fact can be understood without reference to God. 
 IMPLICATION 
From this conception of knowledge it will appear which method a Christian would naturally be bound to use. That method we may perhaps best designate as the method of implication. What we seek to do in our search for understanding the universe is to work ourselves ever more deeply into the relations that the facts of the universe sustain to God. That is, we seek to implicate ourselves more deeply into a comprehension of God's plan in and with every fact that we investigate. Suppose that I am a biologist, studying the color of certain frogs. In order to do so, I must seek to know all about frogs in general. I must have some conception about the species as a whole, before I can intelligently study the individual. Or if I am studying some animal about which no information is available from the records of science, it is still necessary that I have a theory about animal life in general, in order to engage in fruitful research. Thus in starting any investigation the general precedes the particular. No one without any general notion about animal life would ever think of investigating a point of detail. Then when I continue my investigation, I must seek to relate this particular frog to other frogs, then the frogs to other animal life, and then animal life as such to human life, and human life to the conception of God that I have. Now this approach from the bottom to the top, from the particular to the general is the inductive aspect of the method of implication. The greater the amount of detailed study and the more carefully such study is undertaken, the more truly Christian will the method be. It is important to bring out this point in order to help remove the common misunderstanding that Christianity is opposed to factual investigation. That the opponents of Christianity are still seeking to spread this misunderstanding may be seen, for instance, from such a book as that of Stewart G. Cole, The History of Fundamentalism. Throughout the book it is stated time and again that the believers in the traditionally Christian position are opposed to the spread of the knowledge of all the facts discovered by science. Now it were a great deal belter for Liberalism itself if it were willing to fight openly and admit that the whole fight is one about two mutually opposite philosophies of life, instead of about the hiding or non-hiding of certain facts. 
 DEDUCTION AND INDUCTION 
      Then, corresponding to the inductive aspect of the method of implication is the deductive aspect We may define this as the control of the general over the particular. Our conception of God controls the investigation of every fact. We are certain, as certain as our conviction of the truth of the entire Christian position, that certain "facts" will never be discovered. One of these, for example, is "the missing link." The term "missing link" we take in its current meaning of a gradual transition from the non-rational to the rational. As such, it is an anti-Christian conception, inasmuch as it implies that the non-rational is more ultimate than the rational. At least the anti-Christian wants to leave the question of the relative ultimacy of the rational to the non-rational an open question, while the Christian can never afford to do this. For the Christian, it is a settled and not an open question. And this difference between the Christian and his opponents comes to the fore in the method of investigation of facts. The anti-Christian holds that any sort of fact may appear. He thinks this to be one of the most important requirements of a truly scientific attitude. On the other hand, the Christian holds that no fact will appear that could disprove the ultimacy of the fact of God, and therefore of what he has revealed of himself and his plan for the world through Christ in the Scriptures. We may illustrate this point by the example of a mathematician who finds that three points are related to one another by the are of a circle. Then when he proceeds to draw the circle he follows a definitely "prescribed" courser even if he has made no mark on his paper yet. If it is the circle that relates the points, and if the circle exhausts the relation of the points, the mathematician cannot reasonably expect to find other points on a tangent to the circle that are nevertheless related to the points of the circle. Now we may compare the circle of the mathematician to the Christian concept of God. We hold that the meaning of any one finite fact is exhausted by its relation to the plan of God. Hence this same thing will hold for any two or three facts. And it follows that no other facts can stand in any possible relation to these facts unless they too are related to this one comprehensible plan of God. In other words, only Christian facts are possible. For any fact to he a fact at all, it must be what Christ in Scripture says it is. This is the main point in dispute between Christians and non-Christians. The difference between the two does not only appear in the interpretation of facts after they have been found, but even in the question what facts one may expect to find. And it does not go without saying, as is all too often assumed, that the non-Christian is right in looking for any kind of fact. If the Christian position should prove to be right in the end, then the anti-Christian position was wrong, not only at the end, but already at the beginning. 

From the description given of the deductive and the inductive aspects of the method of implication, it will now appear that what has historically been known by the deductive and inductive methods are both equally opposed to the Christian method. By the deductive method as exercised, e.g., by the Greeks, was meant that one begins his investigations with the assumption of the truth and ultimacy of certain axioms, such as, for example, that of causal relation. The question whether these axioms rest in God or in the universe was in that case not considered to be of great importance. Not as though the question was not raised. Plato did consider the question whether God was back of the ideas or whether the ideas were back of God. Yet this question was not given the importance that we give to it. We must put the point more strongly. The question was, in effect, given the wrong answer. It was assumed that the true, the beautiful and the good rest in themselves, and that God is subordinate to them. For us the question is all-important. If the axioms on which science depends are thought of as resting in the universe, the opposite of the Christian position is in effect maintained. The only rationality they know of in the universe is then the mind of man. Hence the alternative may be stated by saying that according to the Christian position, the basis of human investigation is in God, while for the antitheistic position the basis of human investigation is in man. 

Similarly with the more modern method of induction. What is meant by induction as a method of science is the gathering of facts without reference to any axioms, in order to find to what these facts may lead us. Many scientists claim this method to be the method of science. But we have already seen that the usual assumption underlying this method is the antitheistic one, that there may be any kind of fact. Hence the difference between the prevalent method of science and the method of Christianity is not that the former is interested in finding the facts and is ready to follow the facts wherever they may lead, while the latter is not ready to follow the facts. The difference is rather that the former wants to study the facts without God, while the latter wants to study the facts in the light of the revelation God gives of himself in Christ. Thus the antithesis is once more that between those for whom the final center of reference in knowledge lies in man, and those for whom the final center of reference for knowledge lies in God, as this God speaks in Scripture. 

Accordingly, we pay scant attention to the historic quarrel between the apostles of deduction and the apostles of induction. Our quarrel is not with either of them in particular but with both of them in general. To us the only thing of great significance in this connection is that it is often found to be more difficult to distinguish our method from the deductive method than from the inductive method. But the favorite charge against us is that we are still bound to the past and are therefore employing the deductive method. Our opponents are thoughtlessly identifying our method with the Greek method of deduction. For this reason it is necessary for us to make the difference between these two methods as clear as we can. 

From our discussion it will also appear that even the method of implication, as employed by idealistic philosophy, is quite the opposite of ours. Here especially it is of paramount importance to distinguish clearly. We have purposely chosen the name implication for our method because we believe that it really fits in with the Christian scheme, while it fits in with no other scheme. Hence we must take particular pains to note that the method of implication as advocated especially by B. Bosanquet and other Idealists, is really as fundamentally opposed to our method as is the method of ancient deductivism and of modern inductivism. The difference is once more that we believe the Idealists to have left God out of consideration. 
 A PRIORI AND A POSTERIORI 
Closely related to the terms inductive and deductive are the terms a posteriori and a priori. The literal meaning of these terms is "from that which follows or is subsequent," and "from that which is before" respectively. An a posteriori method is one that is practically identical with the empirical or inductive method. The a priori method is usually identified with the deductive method. We need only observe that a priori reasoning, and a posteriori reasoning, are equally anti-Christian, if these terms are understood in their historical sense. As such they contemplate man's activity in the universe but do not figure with the significance of God above the universe. 
 TRANSCENDENTAL 
One more point should be noted on the question of method, namely, that from a certain point of view, the method of implication may also be called a transcendental method. We have already indicated that the Christian method uses neither the inductive nor the deductive method as understood by the opponents of Christianity, but that it has elements of both induction and of deduction in it, if these terms are understood in a Christian sense. Now when these two elements are combined, we have what is meant by a truly transcendental argument. A truly transcendental argument takes any fact of experience which it wishes to investigate, and tries to determine what the presuppositions of such a fact must be, in order to make it what it is. An exclusively deductive argument would take an axiom such as that every cause must have an effect, and reason in a straight line from such an axiom, drawing all manner of conclusions about God and man. A purely inductive argument would begin with any fact and seek in a straight line for a cause of such an effect, and thus perhaps conclude that this universe must have had a cause. Both of these methods have been used, as we shall see, for the defense of Christianity. Yet neither of them could be thoroughly Christian unless they already presupposed God. Any method, as was pointed out above, that does not maintain that not a single fact can be known unless it be that God gives that fact meaning, is an anti-Christian method. On the other hand, if God is recognized as the only and the final explanation of any and every fact, neither the inductive nor the deductive method can any longer be used to the exclusion of the other. That this is the case can best be realized if we keep in mind that the God we contem-  plate is an absolute God. Now the only argument for an absolute God that holds water is a transcendental argument. A deductive argument as such leads only from one spot in the universe to another spot in the universe. So also an inductive argument as such can never lead beyond the universe. In either case there is no more than an infinite regression. In both cases it is possible for the smart little girl to ask, "lf God made the universe, who made God?" and no answer is forthcoming. This answer is, for instance, a favorite reply of the atheist debater, Clarence Darrow. But if it be said to such opponents of Christianity that unless there were an absolute God their own questions and doubts would have no meaning at all, there is no argument in return. There lie the issues. It is the firm conviction of every epistemologically self-conscious Christian that no human being can utter a single syllable, whether in negation or in affirmation, unless it were for God's existence. Thus the transcendental argument seeks to discover what sort of foundations the house of human knowledge must have, in order to be what it is. It does not seek to find whether the house has a foundation, but it presupposes that it has one. We hold that the anti-Christian method, whether deductive or inductive, may be compared to a man who would first insist that the statue of William Penn on the city hall of Philadelphia can be intelligently conceived of without the foundation on which it stands, in order afterwards to investigate whether or not this statue really has a foundation. 

It should be particularly noted, therefore, that only a system of philosophy that takes the concept of an absolute God seriously can really be said to be employing a transcendental method. A truly transcendent God and a transcendental method go hand in hand. It follows then that if we have been correct in our contention that Hegelian Idealism does not believe in a transcendent God, it has not really used the transcendental method as it claims that it has. 

Now at this juncture it may be well to insert a brief discussion of the place of Scripture in all this. The opponent of Christianity will long ago have noticed that we are frankly prejudiced, and that the whole position is "biblicistic." On the other hand, some fundamentalists may have feared that we have been trying to build up a sort of Christian philosophy without the Bible. Now we may say that if such be the case, the opponent of Christianity has sensed the matter correctly. The position we have briefly sought to outline is frankly taken from the Bible. And this applies especially to the central concept of the whole position, viz., the concept of an absolute God. Nowhere else in human literature, we believe, is the concept of an absolute God presented. And this fact is once more intimately related to the fact that nowhere else is there a conception of sin, such as that presented in the Bible. According to the Bible, sin has set man at enmity against God. Consequently it has been man's endeavor to get away from the idea of God, that is, a truly absolute God. And the best way to do this was to substitute the idea of a finite God. And the best way to accomplish this subordinate purpose was to do it by making it appear as though an absolute God were retained. Hence the great insistence on the part of those who are really anti-Christian, that they are Christian. 

It thus appears that we must take the Bible, its conception of sin, its conception of Christ, and its conception of God and all that is involved in these concepts together, or take none of them. So also it makes very little difference whether we begin with the notion of an absolute God or with the notion of an absolute Bible. The one is derived from the other. They are together involved in the Christian view of life. Hence we defend all or we defend none. Only one absolute is possible, and only one absolute can speak to us. Hence it must always be the same voice of the same absolute, even though he seems to speak to us at different places. The Bible must be true because it alone speaks of an absolute God. And equally true is it that we believe in an absolute God because the Bible tells us of one.

And this brings up the point of circular reasoning. The charge is constantly made that if matters stand thus with Christianity, it has written its own death warrant as far as intelligent men are concerned. Who wishes to make such a simple blunder in elementary logic, as to say that we believe something to be true because it is in the Bible? Our answer to this is briefly that we prefer to reason in a circle to not reasoning at all. We hold it to be true that circular reasoning is the only reasoning that is possible to finite man. The method of implication as outlined above is circular reasoning. Or we may call it spiral reasoning. We must go round and round a thing to see more of its dimensions and to know more about it, in general, unless we are larger than that which we are investigating. Unless we are larger than God we cannot reason about him any other way, than by a transcendental or circular argument. The refusal to admit the necessity of circular reasoning is itself an evident token of opposition to Christianity. Reasoning in a vicious circle is the only alternative to reasoning in a circle as discussed above. 

Appendix B - Science, Metaphysics, and Worldviews
In his book, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, Nicholas Copernicus says,

In the center of all rests the sun. For who would place this lamp of a very beautiful temple in another or better place than this wherefrom it can illuminate everything at the same time? As a matter of fact, not unhappily do some call it the lantern; others, the mind and still others the pilot of the world, [a visible god, and that which gazes upon all things]. And so the sun, as if resting on a kingly throne, governs the family of stars which wheel around. Moreover, the Earth is by no means cheated of the services of the moon; but, as Aristotle says...the earth has the closest kinship with the moon. The Earth moreover is fertilized by the sun and conceives offspring every year. (Book I, sec. 10)

This is not exactly the kind of argument we expect to find in the book whose publication date defines the rise of modern science. Of course Copernicus also employs empirical data in arguing for his position, but in the end, his new theory did not fit the available data any better than the Ptolemaic theory did. What is it then that allowed him to make his bold shift to the heliocentric universe? And what role did such metaphysical speculations play in the development of scientific theory? It is in discussing these questions that I offer my answer to the topic of this conference: What difference does Christianity make in our thought processes?

 Briefly, my argument will proceed as follows: Using the case of Copernicus as my paradigm, I will first argue for the premise that the picture one has of his world, the weltanshauen or worldview, is the final controlling factor for thought. I build up my concept of worldview from the inside out: first arguing for the constitutive role of metaphysics in the development of science, and the consequent influence of science on the acceptance of metaphysical principles. I call this the dialectic between science and metaphysics. Then at a second level, I will argue that all beliefs — whether scientific, metaphysical, political, religious, etc. — are interconnected in a web of beliefs which provides the context for the first-level dialectic between them. It is this context that I call a worldview. The deeper level of my dialectic thesis, then, is that the worldview regulates the thought of a person, while at the same time evolving in response to the elaboration of the thought which it regulates.

 To round out my argument for this conference, then, I must add the premise that Christianity is a worldview, thus generating the conclusion that Christianity affects one’s thought. In conclusion I will note and briefly discuss three objections to my hypothesis.

 I begin the argument in earnest, then, with my first premise which comes from a quote in a book that was highly influential in the developing field of the history of science in the first half of this century: E. A. Burtt’s, The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science: 

In the last analysis it is the ultimate picture which an age forms of the      nature of its world that is its most fundamental possession. It is the      final controlling factor in all thinking whatever. (p.17)

The worldview is the "final controlling factor in all thinking whatever". These are strong words. I turn to the history of science for their defense. 

 A study of the history of physical theory provides ample data for establishing the existence of a dialectical movement between science and metaphysics. The direction of new scientific theories was influenced by and justified by a metaphysical framework that had already been in place. But then with the advance of the wildly successful science, this metaphysical framework underwent revision. This revision, in turn, altered the constraints imposed by metaphysics and allowed for further development in the science — which again affected the metaphysics... and so on. Science and metaphysics are seen to advance hand-in-hand, reciprocally influencing each other. Here I can give only a highly summarized account of this dialectic culled from the situation of Copernicus. A more detailed version brings out in greater relief this intercourse between science and metaphysics, but it can be seen well enough in the following story.

 The beginnings of the old system from which Copernicus turned can be found in common sense observation — of which science is only an extension and classification. It seems to us that the earth does not move; rather it is the sun that rises in the east and moves across the sky to where it sets in the west; it is the moon that moves through the night sky on its monthly trek; it is the sphere of fixed stars that moves around us in slightly less time than the sun takes; and it is the planets that wander in their various courses through these stars. It can only be seen as a natural impulse to place an immovable earth in the center of these other moving bodies. Besides, the earth is much too large to be caused to move. It is made of the element of earth which we see always tends to find its natural place down beneath the elements of water, air, and fire; and earth can only be moved and kept away from this natural place with some effort. The heavenly or celestial bodies, then, must be made of a different kind of stuff, of a fifth element (or quintessence). The heavens are the realm of God and perfection. Accordingly, the heavenly bodies must be made of perfect, incorruptible stuff. And they are, as we can plainly see, the perfect shape: spheres. And they must be immutable as God is immutable, incapable of change. The only kind of movement reconcilable with immutability is movement in a perfect circle with uniform speed; thus there is no beginning or end or change to the movement.

 Here we begin to see the dialectic of which I spoke: we start with common sense observations (or rudimentary science), and from these observations possible explanations are posited; such explanations are not directly testable themselves, but they seem to be corroborated by other observations; thus they become established metaphysical principles which constrain further inquiry. A few of the more significant principles that became canonized in ancient and medieval times were: 

1.	The earth is stationary and at the center of the universe.
2.	Heavenly bodies are perfect: they are spheres, move only in circles, and at uniform speeds.
3.	There is thus a qualitative distinction between the bodies and the governing  laws in the celestial realm vs. the bodies and laws in the terrestrial realm. 

Let us continue the story and watch how these metaphysical principles are used and altered in the dialectic with science. 

The metaphysical principles constrained any possible further scientific developments as follows: More careful observation of the heavens led to more precise plotting of the paths of the planets as they wandered in their irregular paths through the fixed stars. But while the movements appear irregular, we can be assured that this is an illusion because these are perfect celestial bodies — otherwise, if they were made of the corruptible element earth, they would fall to the center of the universe or be whirled apart in their rapid motions. The precise science of epicycles was developed, then, to save the phenomenon by demonstrating how these seemingly irregular movements can be resolved into combinations of perfectly circular motions. Briefly epicycles were used as follows:

The simplistic version of the ancient picture of the world, in which the planets moved in perfect circles around the earth, could not account for the times when a planet appeared to pause or even move in reverse in its circular orbit through the stars. As early as the fourth century BC it was demonstrated how the irregular movements of the planets could be represented by a combination of different circles: a second moving circle is posited which has its center on the first moving circle. The planet then rides on this second circle, or epicycle. Using the right combination of size and speed of rotation for the epicycle, from the perspective of the observer on earth, it could be seen how the planet would seem to stop and reverse its course, all the while moving continuously in circles at a uniform speed. The phenomenon was saved and the metaphysical principles were still intact.

But because of greater precision in astronomical observation, this science became increasingly complex by the time of Ptolemy in the 2nd century AD. Epicycles riding on epicycles had to be added. They ended up with a system of some 80 separate circles to account for the motion of the sun, moon, and five planets around the earth. Another mathematical device, called the equant, had to be added to account for the observed non-uniform speed of the planets. This was a point outside the center of the main circle with reference to which the planets were supposed to move with uniform speed (rather than with reference to the earth). Through such contrivances the medievals were able to construct a very precise and reliable system for predicting the motions of the heavenly bodies. But the system was monstrous. The influence that the metaphysics exercised on the development of science here is unmistakable.

It was the violation of uniform speed that offended Copernicus the most in this system. So, upon discovering that a 4th century BC Greek, Aristarchus, had postulated that the sun was the center of the universe and that all revolved around it against the backdrop of a fixed sphere of stars, Copernicus set to work on such a system to see if he could explain celestial phenomena more simply and without violating the metaphysical dogma of uniform speed. He showed how the apparent retrograde movement of the planets could be explained by making the planets orbit the sun and putting the observer’s point, our earth, in orbit also around the sun in between the orbits of Venus and Mars. Using essentially the same astronomical instruments and tables as Ptolemy did 1300 years prior, Copernicus constructed this new, simpler system and seemingly overhauled the old.

But consider the ways in which Copernicus was still deeply entrenched in the old metaphysical system. He had rejected the use of the equant because it seemed to him as cheating or sleight of hand in getting around the requirement that perfect bodies must move with uniform speed with regard to their centers. Because of this, Copernicus still had to employ systems of epicycles to account for the apparent non-uniform movement. Furthermore, he had to use another device, the eccentric, to account for the actually elliptical orbits because he would only use circles. In the end, without increasing the predictive power over the Ptolemaic system, he could claim only to have reduced the number of circles needed from 80 to 34. He provided a marginally less complicated geometry of the heavens, but in so doing he raised many new questions and made nonsense of many of the explanations that had worked before. Consider some of the new problems his system generated.

First there were a couple of physical implications that his critics correctly noted: the planet Venus, since its orbit was postulated to lie between the earth’s and the stationary sun, should show phases like the moon shows phases. Also, because the earth moves in space, the appearance of the fixed stars should change with our perspective on them as we move from one side of the sun to the other; this is called stellar parallax. Copernicus could only claim that we can’t see these things well enough to be able to detect them. He was right of course: soon Galileo’s telescope would show the phases of Venus, and in the 1800’s we finally had powerful enough instruments to detect stellar parallax. But his solution was hardly justifiable by the evidence he had, and it could only sound ad hoc to his critics.
 Copernicus offered even less satisfactory answers to a second class of objections. One of them was: Why is there not a tremendous wind caused by the daily rotation of the earth? Copernicus could only offer an answer within the old metaphysical system that he still largely espoused: he said that the air must partake slightly of the earthy element and so revolve in sympathy with it. But why does the earth rotate? Well, it is of the nature of all earthy matter to collect together into a sphere, and it is of the nature of a sphere to rotate. He thought if you take any sphere and place it in space, it would of its own accord begin to rotate.

Copernicus’ answer to another objection illustrates my thesis precisely. Why doesn’t the earth doesn’t whirl apart if it is rotating and flying through space in a circle at the kind of speed demanded by the system? First, Copernicus tried again to justify his theory within the older framework of accepted metaphysical principles. He argued that evil effects could not follow from natural movement; since rotation is the natural movement of spheres, it could never have the effect of destroying the nature of that body. But somewhat frustrated by not being able to convince his critics, he in turn asked them why on their system the stars and the heavens don’t whirl apart when they fly through space. In this somewhat rhetorical move by Copernicus, we see perhaps his greatest advance. For it is here that he intimates that the physics of the terrestrial and celestial realms needs to be accounted for by one and the same set of laws. He could not do it yet as he was still working largely within Aristotelian physics and metaphysics, but we see in him an advancement in scientific theory and the consequent development of metaphysical principles.

Of the three important metaphysical principles I listed earlier, Copernicus’ theory violated two of them. At first this was evidence against the theory, but the theory came to be accepted in spite of these violations, and consequently altered the metaphysical framework. This illustrates the second direction of movement of my dialectic: not only is the range of acceptable scientific explanations constrained by the metaphysics, but also, the range of accepted metaphysical principles is constrained by successful science. 

The question to which we must now turn for understanding the concept of worldviews is, "Why would Copernicus and his followers accept this new system and its implications while his critics would not?" Because of the different sets of metaphysical principles accepted, we can highlight in the "whirling" debate alternative pairs of internally consistent beliefs: Copernicus’ critics thought the heavenly bodies were made of a different element than earth; and therefore they would not whirl apart when rotating like the earth would. Copernicus postulated that the heavenly bodies and the earthly bodies were made of the same kind of stuff, so both would behave similarly when rotating.

These pairs of beliefs point on a small scale to a central feature of belief systems as I understand them: the interconnectedness of our beliefs. To use Quine’s web metaphor, all our beliefs are connected and mutually dependent on one another. Because of this interconnectedness, revisions in one part of the web necessitate revisions in other parts. When Copernicus made the earth move through space, he had to revise some of the accepted metaphysical principles in order to accommodate this new belief. Also, some beliefs are more firmly held than others. These we can say lie metaphorically closer to the center of the web where there are more beliefs depending on them. Also, beliefs cannot be isolated and tested against experience individually. Rather, the web confronts experience as a whole. Furthermore, the beliefs gained directly from experience must be weighed against the background of the more firmly held beliefs at the core of the web and interpreted accordingly. E.g., even though experience testifies that planets move irregularly, if there is a core belief that they cannot do so, those movements are resolved into combinations of acceptable movements. So the web functions not only as a framework for existing beliefs, but also as a kind of filter through which experience must pass.

There is thus a wider context in place and presupposed by any belief we hold. It is this context, and the core beliefs of the web in particular, that forms what I call a worldview. My first premise then, that a worldview regulates thought, can be seen. Any new belief that I wish to entertain must pass the test of conforming to my context of beliefs. If it is not consistent with this, then I must reject it. Or alternatively, as Copernicus did, I could reject enough of that context so the new belief will not be inconsistent with it. It is the revolutionary periods in science, then, that are characterized by the rejection of large or central portions of this web, rather than rejecting the new beliefs. 

So, what was it about Copernicus’ worldview that caused him to reject the Ptolemaic system and some of its metaphysics and embrace a different model of the heavens? Very briefly, consider some of the influences on his thought that could have lent themselves toward this end: 

The shift from the earth to the sun as the center of the universe was perhaps foreshadowed and made more plausible by similarly radical shifts that had recently taken place: the commercial revolution in trade with far away lands and even the circumnavigation of the globe greatly enlarged man’s picture of the world. No longer could he blindly assume that the Mediterranean region was the center of all human affairs. Also, through the Protestant reformation and its prior developments, the center of religious authority had shifted from Rome to France and ultimately to individuals.
 But we must highlight as most important for Copernicus, the availability of an alternative framework besides the Aristotelian. The rise to dominance of Aristotle in the 13th century surpassed, but did not obliterate the syncretism of Plato and Christianity which had been so important in the first few centuries AD. Especially the Pythagorean variety of Platonism was crucial for Copernicus. This included the importance of numbers and of the exact match between mathematical descriptions and the real world. So since Copernicus’ system was mathematically simpler, it made sense that this system was in fact the way the world really was. For an Aristotelian, logic — not mathematics — is the key to the highest knowledge. To set aside a whole worldview because of mathematics would be absurd. For the Platonist, though, it was a natural step. The transformation to the new worldview was for him largely a mathematical reduction. It is significant to note that for the first few decades after Copernicus, it was primarily the mathematicians that were convinced of the new theory. These influences on the thought of Copernicus can be seen to provide a guiding context of thought in which the heliocentric universe made sense. Lacking these, especially the Pythagorean framework, his critics could not view this move as rational.

Notice now that one of characteristics of a worldview as I have defined it is its capacity for developing itself. It is not the case that a worldview is a static collection of beliefs about the nature of the world and our place in it. Rather, because the worldview comes from that web of interconnected beliefs, it changes with the alteration of those beliefs. When the beliefs towards the periphery of the web change, this does not necessarily affect the core beliefs and consequently the worldview. But for core, worldview-defining beliefs such as the centrality of the earth, or age of the universe, or the constancy of the speed of light in all frameworks, if these are caused to be revised, then the worldview, that set of beliefs against which other beliefs are accepted and held to be rational, is caused to shift. With such a shift, then, there is a different range of acceptable beliefs that can be accommodated by the web. 
 I have argued so far that a worldview regulates one’s thought. To conclude that Christianity regulates one’s thought, I must add to my argument the premise that Christianity is a worldview. I think for the majority of Christians, this is relatively uncontroversial. The Christian faith for them comprises many of their most cherished and firmly held beliefs, and thus the range of theories that can be accepted, whether scientific, philosophical, or other, is constrained by these beliefs. 

A good gage to use in testing how firmly a belief is held is the kind of evidence it would take to give up that belief. What would it take for a Christian to give up beliefs like Jesus is the son of God? If a story were printed on the front page of the New York Times that it has been discovered and confirmed that Jesus was not really the son of God, you would cease to believe in the credibility of the New York Times. If a group of archeologists claimed that they discovered Christ’s bones, thus proving that he did not resurrect from the dead, you would question the reliability of this group of archeologists. In short, almost anything that could be posited as contradicting the central claims of Christianity would be explained away so that the core beliefs could be held.

Accordingly, even experience is interpreted in light of these beliefs. The splendor of these mountains around us here in Colorado is evidence of God’s handiwork. Instances of loved ones recovering from sickness are answers to prayer. Instances of loved ones failing to recover in spite of prayers are interpreted as the hidden will of God.

Do these examples mean that our faith is unfalsifiable? Not necessarily any more than the theory of evolution is unfalsifiable for its ardent adherents. In both cases there is a set of beliefs that can be held come-what-may by revisions in other parts of the web. It is in this sense that I claim that Christianity regulates one’s thought: there is a central core of beliefs resistant to revision, and so other beliefs must be made consistent with these. But still, there are converts into and out of Christianity (and evolutionary theory). No theory is completely immune from revision. The anomalies — be they intellectual or emotional — can mount up to a critical mass and effect sweeping changes throughout the web.

At this point, objections concerning circularity, objectivity, and self-referential incoherence may be suggested. First, two central features of my description of worldviews seem to involve me in a circle: all thinking is regulated by a worldview, and worldviews evolve in response to that regulated thinking. This sounds like a viciously circular affair. It must be asked how it is even possible that a worldview could evolve under the conditions as I have given them: Would not the regulative function of a worldview disallow any anomalous information to enter that would question or alter part of the worldview itself? I believe the reason that this is not the case must be that the regulative function of the worldview is not complete. Worldviews do not completely determine the thought that takes place under them, but rather they only govern or constrain that thought. This is parallel to the role of metaphysics in the first level of the dialectic. Science is not somehow deduced from the metaphysical principles, so too the thought issuing from a particular worldview is not deduced from it. Hence, though being guided by a worldview, there is always an openness to the system of thought and this allows for development to take place. As I understand the process then, it is not a circle, but rather a kind of spiral that takes place. Theories are presupposed which constrain the kind of observations and evidence that is gathered; but the weight of certain evidence and the holes in the theory can sometimes allow for those presuppositions to be altered, which in turn allows for slightly different kinds of observation and evidence, etc.

A second objection to my theory deals with objectivity. If all thought is regulated by one’s worldview, to what extent can we claim objectivity in our beliefs? Where are the objective reference points from which we can judge? Put in another way, how can we know that we are correct in our beliefs? My position forces me to admit that there are no such objective reference points if these are meant to be pre-theoretic observations or thinking that is done under the influence of no worldview at all. But I do not think this admission must lead to relativism. Consider the case of the development of science. In retrospect we can see a clear direction in the development of worldview disputes there: Copernican over Ptolemaic, Newtonian over Aristotelian, the electromagnetic over the mechanical. There is something going on here besides a whimsical preference of one way of thinking to another. Can we say then that even if these theories do not match objective reality itself we are at least getting closer to the objectively true picture of reality? We cannot but feel that we know more about this ultimate underlying reality than did Aristotle or Ptolemy, but can we prove this in a non-circular way, i.e., without assuming the superiority of our own worldview? Ultimately I cannot claim to be able to demonstrate that our theories are closer to the truth than their predecessors — this would require the direct comparison with objective reality that I have deemed impossible. But I do claim that it is plausible to believe that scientific theories on the whole are getting closer to the truth. A fruitful comparison here is found in William Alston’s work on the reliability of sense perception. We cannot prove that our sense perception is a reliable guide to information about the world without in some way assuming that it is reliable. But this inherent epistemic circularity does not prohibit us from feeling strongly that it is reliable, and it certainly does not mean that it is not reliable. It only means that we can’t prove that it is reliable. So too our inability to prove that our theories better portray some objective reality than our predecessors’ do does not mean that they really aren’t better in this way.

Finally, to be consistent, I must admit that my thought too, even in the present examination of worldviews, has been guided and regulated by my own worldview. An objection will be raised, then, concerning the applicability of my analysis to those outside of my own worldview or perspective. That is, in admitting the role that my worldview plays in my study and analysis here, have I limited the validity of my conclusions to only those who share my worldview? Or, have I separated intellectual activity into different, incommensurable post-modern islands and put myself on one of them?

I think the answer to this question is ‘no’. To answer ‘yes’ misses the central point of my thesis, viz., that this worldview is not arbitrarily chosen, but is itself the product of the dialectic that has preceded it. If worldviews were arbitrarily chosen and maintained, my admitting that all I do is regulated by a worldview would have grave implications for the applicability of my perspective outside of my own worldview. But since I have argued that this worldview itself is a dynamic structure that evolves in response to criticism and examination, it can enter into cross-perspectival dialogue with others; it can make value judgments; it can claim to have correct answers — though of course all these are done from within the perspective of one’s worldview, and so are not capable of irrefutable proof. But this does not mean that such worldview-laden conclusions are wrong; it means that they are not final, that they must be critically examined, that they are capable of development. 

In conclusion, then, our Christianity does come to bear in our thought processes. It forms a central part of our worldview and is an organizing principle of experience. But again, this commitment is not free from critical examination or development itself. Indeed it is a task of the utmost importance for the intellectual Christian to develop and to show the consistency of a Christian worldview which can dialogue with modern science and which reflects the timeless, absolute truths of the Gospel in our unique culture and generation.

Appendix C - Criticisms of Theism
Christianity and Myth 
Often, critics of Christianity will point to the similarities between the Christian religion and other religions which exist or have existed in the past. Their implication is that similarity indicates dependence. The Christian story, in their view, is a hodgepodge of stories drawn from many pagan sources. This is the Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyer perspective on the Bible. This perspective, of course, is not new and can be seen reflected in many of the articles at the Internet Infidel's web page. 

G.K. Chesterton, the Englishman, wrote at a time when many were making these same arguments, comparing Christianity to the various myths which mark human history. Chesterton, in his book Everlasting Man counters this argument with a surprising response -- those who compare Christianity to myth and then conclude from the untruthfulness of myth that Christianity is also untrue not only demean Christianity, but they demean myth! What a thinker! See the excerpt below from his wonderful book.

 "...he who has no sympathy with myths has no sympathy with men. But he who has most sympathy with myths will most fully realise that they are not and never were a religion, in the sense that Christianity or even Islam is a religion. They satisfy some of the needs satisfied by religion; and notably the need for doing certain things at certain dates; the need for the twin ideas of of festivity and formality. But though they provide man with a calendar, they do not provide  him a creed. A man did not stand up and say 'I believe in Jupiter Juno and Neptune,'etc. as he stands up and says 'I believe in God the Father Almighty' and the  rest of the Apostle's Creed....The substance of all such paganism may be summarised thus. It is an attempt to reach the divine reality through the imagination alone; in its own field reason does not restrain it at all. It is vital to the view of all history that reason is something separate from religion even in the most rational of these civilizations. It is only as an afterthought, when such cults are decadent or on the defensive, that a few Neo-Platonists or a few Brahmins are found trying to rationalize them, and then only by trying to allegorise them. But in reality the rivers of mythology and philosophy run parallel and do not mingle till they meet in the sea of Christendom. Simple secularists still talk as if the Church had introduced a sort of schism between reason and religion. The truth is that the Church was actually the first thing that ever tried to combine reason and religion. There had never before been any such union of the priests and the philosophers. Mythology, then, sought God through the imagination; or sought truth by means of beauty, in the sense in which beauty includes much of the most grotesque ugliness....So mythological imagination moves as it were in circles, hovering either to find a place, or return to it. In a word, mythology is a search; it is something that combines a recurrent desire with a recurrent doubt, mixing a most hungry sincerity in the idea of seeking for a place with a most dark and deep and mysterious levity about all the places found. So far could the lonely imagination lead, and we must turn later to the lonely reason. Nowhere along this road did the two ever travel together....Nobody really thought of Isis as a human being; nobody really thought of Demeter as a historical character; nobody thought of Adonis as the founder of a Church. There was no idea that any one of them had changed the world; but rather that their recurrent death and life bore the sad and beautiful burden of the changelessness of the world. Not one of them was a revolution, save in the sense of the sun and moon. Their whole meaning is missed if we do not see that they mean the shadows that we are and the shadows we pursue. In certain sacrificial and communal aspects they naturally suggest what sort of a god might satisfy men; but they do not profess to be satisfied. Anyone who says they do is a bad judge of poetry....We know the meaning of all the myths. We know the last secret revealed to the perfect initiate. And it is not the voice of a priest or a prophet saying 'These things are.' It is the voice of a dreamer and an idealist crying, 'Why cannot these things be?' "
-	G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man (101-118, Doubleday, 1955).