The event was held in Usher Hall, one of Edinburgh’s largest indoor venues and the organisers estimated that there were around 1,400 people attending the debate. The motion to be discussed was: “The New Europe Should Prefer the New Atheism” and the debate was between Christopher Hitchens (Social commentator and author of God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything) and John Lennox (Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University and author of God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?). An initial show of hands was taken at the start of the debate, so that they were able to see what standpoint members of the audience already held in order to compare what change there had been as a result of the debate. This vote showed that the audience was quite evenly split (with perhaps a very slight advantage to those opposing the motion) and that there was a good proportion (perhaps 20%) of people who were undecided.

The format of the debate was 15 minutes for opening statements (with Hitchens going first) followed by 5 minutes each for rebuttals. There was then 30 minutes of questions from the floor followed by a 5 minute concluding remark from each of the speakers (With Lennox going first this time). The debate was moderated expertly by James Naughtie, a well-known radio 4 presenter.

The final result was that Lennox won the debate (the motion was not passed) with a small, but discernible shift, in favour of his viewpoint from the previously undecided camp. To his credit, Hitchens conceded that there were more in favour of John, even though the moderator was initially unsure.

Opening Statements

Hitchens reminded the audience that Edinburgh was one the centres of the enlightenment and he warned that the secularism was under attack in the New Europe from a number of sources. These were:

1. The threat of Islam. He focused upon the demanding of special rights for Islam backed up by violence and used the example of the reaction to the Danish cartoons as showing that freedom of speech was being eroded through fear.
2. The revival of Russian imperialism, founded upon the Christian orthodox faith. He spoke of the conflict in Georgia, as well as the recent flexing of muscles against Poland (for agreeing to the missile defence shield) and the Ukraine (for being more pro-western).
3. The non-scientific ideas being propagated in some schools by Christian fundamentalist teaching.
4. The capitulation of the European churches to Islam (e.g. the pope retracting his comments about Mohammed after there was a backlash, the archbishop of Canterbury suggested sharia law should be recognised in Britain and Prince Charles saying he should be defender of the
“faiths” rather than of the “faith”). He concluded by saying secularism is at the core of our constitution and that he hoped that the fact back started here.

Lennox responded by saying that he agreed with much of what Hitchens had said. He continued that:

1. He too was appalled by extremists, but said that saying “religion poisons everything” is the same as saying “science poisons everything” - it is nonsensical. You can’t blame science for giving you pollution or napalm and therefore you have to distinguish use from abuse.
2. That Jesus spoke of rendering unto Caesar what was Caesar’s and that you have to distinguish between the abuses of Christendom and the teachings of Christ.
3. That Christianity provided the educational establishments and the freedoms upon which new Europe is based, yet the atheist’s want to get rid of it (they are forgetting their history and they can’t have it both ways).
4. That atheists say the world would be better without religion, but the world would have been better without the communist regimes (and that Marxism is underpinned by atheism).
5. That science cannot explain everything (e.g. why are we here?) and that the discipline itself was only possible through the belief in a creator/law giving. He said that atheists have “faith” in the rational intelligibility of the universe, but their worldview gives no basis for believing this. He said it was a false dichotomy to speak of science or faith.
6. That if you do not believe in absolute morality and you think that we evolved from mindless processes then you cannot trust your own rationality (as rationality does not come from irrationality).
7. Likewise you have no grounds for saying something is right or wrong as you are merely “dancing” to your DNA (quoting Dawkins). DNA serves evolutionary pressures not the truth (quoting atheist John Gray). Therefore concepts of good and evil, right or wrong evaporate, as do any notions of justice. If you believe in a creator then you have grounds for saying people have innate morality as they are made in God’s image.

So John concluded by opposing the motion and pointing out that the atheists couldn’t even use the word “should” anyhow (as they are unable to establish the grounds upon which to make a moral statement).

Rebuttals

Hitchens took John’s comment about the basis for morality in good humour. He said he understood the problem with getting an “ought” from an “is” and therefore said that he was changing the motion to the new Europe “must” adopt the new atheism (rather than “should”). His rebuttals were:

1. He didn’t need 5 minutes to rebut the resurrection (but then did not attempt to do so)
2. That Jesus said he came to bring the sword (not peace)
3. That European universities owed a lot to Islam initially (not Christianity)
4. That you used to have to be in a holy order to even study at Oxford
5. That historically many scientists have also held some very wacky superstitious beliefs
6. That religion is totalitarian and that this round-the-clock supervision included condemning you for thought-crimes and continuing to supervise even after you are dead.
7. There is no evidence to believe there is truth in Christianity
8. That Stalin’s regime was a religious one founded upon the previous quasi-religious reign of the tsars
9. That North Korea (thought to be secular) is actually a highly religious regime based upon leader worship
10. That there has been no atheistic regime based upon the teachings of Hume, Spinoza, Jefferson, Bertrand-Russell and others and if there were it wouldn’t be a violent one.

Lennox then responded to Hitchens’ rebuttals as such:
1. Jesus was not referring to a physical sword in that passage and his views on violence were demonstrated by the fact that he even resisted violence at his own arrest.
2. That the idea of a law-giver is not a wacky belief, but it is a serious intelligent theists (Whitehead’s thesis)
3. That the debate was not about certain beliefs about science, but it is about whole worldviews. This is why Francis Collins and Jim Watson (both of whom headed up the human genome project) have differing views. There are scientists on both sides of this debate and therefore it is not about God or science - it is about worldviews.
4. Your view of justice depends on which side of the fence you are on (i.e. the oppressed crave justice). He used the example of marriage to respond to Hitchens’ portrayal of a divine supervisor regulating your behaviour. He said that your wife is someone who watches over you and who regulates your behaviour, yet marriage is not seen as bad thing for that reason, because it is someone who loves you, etc.

Question and Answer Session

The question and answer session was quite mixed with various people (from both sides) making statements which were not questions (e.g. an elderly scot tried to evangelise to Hitchens in a long-winded manner and another person accused Lennox of consigning her to hell because of her beliefs - John responded to this by saying that we are all given a freedom to choose and that God does not want to consign anyone to hell).

One person highlighted the fact that Hitchens had commended secularism rather than new atheism to the audience. He asked how he could he say that the new atheism would not lead to the ramification of old atheism (e.g. the regimes of Stalin, etc). Hitchens responded to this by saying fascism was another name for the Catholic far right.

Someone asked about miracles and John responded by affirming the existence of a creator who had shown himself historically and that he was quite capable of feeding events into the laws of nature. He pointed out that although atheists like to attack the likelihood of the resurrection, he pointed out that some atheists prefer to propagate the “multiverse” theory, where there are supposedly many different parallel universes in which, for example, you and I don’t exist in some or where one of us has a green moustache in another. John pointed out that if you are willing to believe that, then you are willing to believe anything.

Another person asked about whether “Intelligent design” was associated with a “lunatic” fringe. John replied “not necessarily”, which prompted some gasps amongst the audience, but he went on to explain that the words “intelligent design” and “creationism” had been hijacked by some and caricatured by others, when in fact, the idea that there is a creator and that there is intelligence behind the design is a very credible scientific thesis (i.e. it is not one to be dismissed out of hand).

Another person asked whether in fact Christianity had been shaped by society (the prevailing zeitgeist) rather than the other way around (mentioning than Lucretius and Epicurus had not been influenced by Christianity). John responded by pointing out that Greece was not a wonderful utopian society when these ideas were being disseminated and it was Christianity that revolutionised Europe.

A number of people touched upon historical violence in the name of Christianity, which John rebuffed by pointing out that these instances were people disobeying the explicit teachings of Christ. Another person asserted that people were just products of their own religious upbringing and that religions contradicted one another so most of them must be wrong. John denied that people blindly followed their upbringing and he agreed that do of course religions contradict one another and that they couldn’t all be right.

Concluding Remarks

John started by pointing out the difference between the “soft” atheists (Dawkins, Hitchens, etc) and the “hard” atheists (Sartre, Camus, etc). Whereas the soft atheists cling to the things that they cherish in society (morality, justice), the hard atheists were under no illusion as to where their views ultimately led (to the destruction of all values, morality and hope).

1. He challenged the new atheists to justify how they were able to say humans were more significant than just slime, when their views give no basis for this (e.g. Peter Singer saying a human baby has no more value than a piglet).
2. He also reiterated the importance on being able to debate these issues in the public sphere, but that he wasn’t sure that the atheists shared this notion of freedom of expression (given Sam Harris saying that there are some circumstances where you maybe justified in killing someone because of their beliefs).
3. He questioned whether the new atheists should be allowed to decide for everyone what was right and he pointed out that atheism nurtures a need for meaning (and therefore religion).
4. He said the atheists lose their pretension of intellectual credibility when they lump all religion in together.
5. He then pointed out that Christianity played a major role in the creation of the new Europe in the first place (e.g. in helping to overthrow the old atheism in communist East Germany) and he finished by quoting the recently deceased literary nobel prize winner Solzhenitsyn: “if I were called upon to identify briefly the principal trait of the entire twentieth century, here too, I would be unable to find anything more precise and pithy than to repeat once again: Men have forgotten God”.
6. John said he wished they hadn’t forgotten God and finished by saying Christianity helped pull the wall down in Europe, do we really want to build another one?

Christopher Hitchens responded by asking how we know all this and where John was getting all of his information from.
1. He said he didn’t need to call upon an invisible means of support from a totalitarian God who provides divine assurance.
2. He criticised the idea of “vicarious redemption” and said that you shouldn’t want someone else paying your debts for you (as he said it cancels your responsibility).
3. He said that this offer is then backed up by a threat of hell.
4. He asked how we even know about hell when all the religions contradict each other and therefore by definition that most religious thinkers throughout history must have been wrong (assuming that one religion is right). He says this causes moral chaos (as people can’t agree).
5. Finally he concluded with a challenge to name a moral action done by a religious person that couldn’t be done by a non-religious person and then said to think of an evil action done in the name of religion. [He meant to finish by saying that would not be done by a non-religious person, but he didn’t say this, which meant his final point wasn’t quite as he had intended).

General comments about the debate

Debating style:

The debate was an interesting clash of styles, with Hitchens favouring less points, but made very forcefully with humour and quips to strengthen his argument. He did make a couple of isolated “low blows” by interrupting one of Lennox’s points during the rebuttal (by dismissing it as a weak point), as well as saying “he didn’t need 5 minutes to dispel the resurrection” without then attempting to do so.

Lennox by contrast had a huge number of points and quotes (many from atheists) and therefore if you transcribed the debate he would have been the overwhelming victor. However, because of Hitchens’ strong oratory skills, he was able to reduce the gap, in spite of Lennox’s great charisma.

Format:

It seemed that Hitchens going first turned out to be fortuitous because his opening statement focused upon politics and religion and it included much that Lennox could agree with. Lennox was then able to attack the ideas underpinning new atheism, which left Hitchens with only the rebuttal and concluding remarks to reply in kind. However, the format did at least allow Hicthens to have the last say, when it would have been nice to have been able to respond to some of his final comments, particularly those concerning the cross.

Atmosphere:

The other interesting thing to note was the palpable level of aggression and derision from atheists in the audience towards Christianity (e.g. people were vigorously nodding and muttering in agreement with Hitchens’ points, irrespective of whether it was a stronger or weaker point that was made). I found the level of this to be quite surprising and it seemed to me that this refusal to concede any ground to the opposition greatly weakened their case, as this dismissive attitude (possibly based on a perceived intellectual superiority) suggested that they weren’t prepared to engage with the evidence at hand. This also highlighted how important it is for Christian to be different to this (as John was) by being fair with the evidence at hand, in order to properly engage with those who disagree with us (rather than being immediately dismissive). Likewise, it also demonstrated the important challenge of attempting to communicate the gospel effectively and positively to those who - for whatever reason - already have very negative picture of what the Christianfaith is all about.

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For those interested, the DVD of the debate can be pre-ordered from the Fixed-Point Foundation website.

Anyone concerned with these questions and who in fact do believe that there is scope for integration, mutual reinforcement and conflict between science and theology, there are two upcoming events in Auckland in September and October that may be of interest. For Christians, often it is the account of Genesis that provides the flashpoint for this debate, and these two events will focus on the issues thrown up particularly by the creation narrative in the Bible.

“An astrophysicist looks at Genesis” A L’abri Seminar with Dr Frank Stootman.

Saturday, September 6, 1.15pm.

Dr Stootman is associate Professor of astrophysics, computing and mathematics at the University of Western Sydney and the Head of the Australia L’abri (an international apologetics organisation originally founded by Francis Schaeffer). He will be comparing the Genesis account with the prevailing scientific view and examing whether Adam and Eve are historical or mythological figures, among other issues.

The seminar is at 76 Esplanade Rd Mt Eden but places are limited to 40 so registration is absolutely essential. A donation of $20 is suggested ($10 for students). Contact Peter Bowden 09 6304887 or email psbowden@vodafone.co.nz

“Resolving the Creation versus Evolution Controversy”

The first session is on Saturday September 27 and the second is on October 4, both at 9.30am - 12.30pm

The speaker will be Dr Graeme Finlay, Senior Lecturer in cancer biology and scientific pathology. He will be examining the positions of special creationism and intelligent design, different religious/metaphysical perspectives and their relationship with science and how we should reconcile the Biblical doctrine of creation with the claims of science.

The event will be held on the Auckland Uni Campus, Room 336, Level 3, Building No. 810, 1 - 11 Short Street. Places are limited to 35.

For further information and enrollment, you can go to the Auckland University website.

To cut a long story fairly short, we all agreed that, if we could draw as many people as possible under a single banner, it would go a long way toward empowering the apologetics community. The Thinking Matters ministry presents itself as an obvious locus for connecting people in this way. Subsequently, Christian News and the Manawatu Christian Apologetics Society will be joining us under the Thinking Matters banner. They will, like Thinking Matters Tauranga, remain autonomous in their functioning; but we’ll share the same name and resources. This means that Thinking Matters will subsume and expand on the role of the New Zealand Christian Apologetics Society.

What this means for you

Three main things need to be said:

1. The Thinking Matters website is going to change a lot

Since Christian News is being conglomerated into the Thinking Matters domain (thinkingmatters.org.nz), but remaining separate in terms of operation, we’re having to be fairly creative from a technical perspective. Christian News will still be accessible from http://christiannews.co.nz, but will change its primary address to http://news.thinkingmatters.org.nz. News will be aggregated on the main Thinking Matters site, here. This means that a lot of cosmetic changes must take place as well. Fortunately, both sites run Wordpress, so we’ll be adopting a new, commercial Wordpress theme so as to ensure that we have a consistent image, and also to reduce the amount of work required of myself and other Thinking Matters contributors in developing and maintaining the various sites.

2. The Engage New Zealand forums will be shut down

We made this decision because we don’t feel that the forums contribute positively to the purpose of Thinking Matters. While we do want discussion to take place, it seems much more sensible to have it take place here on the main site, in the comment streams of the various articles which are posted. This is a more dynamic and accessible way of having discussions than the monolithic forum structure allows. We want to ensure that this discussion contrasts with and complements Thinking Matters News, so we’ll be rebranding the blog to take on the “Engage” moniker, thus specifically encouraging the view that articles are springboards for discussion.

3. The Thinking Matters Journal will be delayed

The journal is still a strong part of our purpose for Thinking Matters, and our first issue is in fact ready to go. However, to accommodate the changes we’re making to the website, we felt it better to delay publication until things are properly re-organized. The journal will be published at journal.thinkingmatters.org.nz as soon as everything has settled down.

The upshot

The upshot of all this is that we’re going to be under construction for a while. Please bear with us as we go through this transition. We’re confident that it will be for the best.

This months issue of Christianity Today ran a cover article by Christian philosopher, William Lane Craig, entitled “God is Not Dead Yet” (an online version is available on their website), assessing the recent trends within natural theology (the attempt to acquire knowledge about God using only commonly available cognitive resources). Craig addresses the current myths about the perceived intellectual inferiority of belief in God and that contrary to the shrill clamour of the New Atheists, there is a revolution of thought quietly occurring in the academy:

Back in the 1940s and ’50s, many philosophers believed that talk about God, since it is not verifiable by the five senses, is meaningless—actual nonsense. This verificationism finally collapsed, in part because philosophers realized that verificationism itself could not be verified! The collapse of verificationism was the most important philosophical event of the 20th century. Its downfall meant that philosophers were free once again to tackle traditional problems of philosophy that verificationism had suppressed. Accompanying this resurgence of interest in traditional philosophical questions came something altogether unanticipated: a renaissance of Christian philosophy.

Since it was published, Craig’s article has provoked a fair amount of discussion. Among those in disagreement was Nathan Schneider, a freelance writer and blogger. Writing in Religion Dispatches, an online magazine devoted to religious commentary, Schneider was critical of Craig’s assessment of the health of natural theology and particularly New Atheism:

Whispering to his coreligionists in Christianity Today, to his subculture, Craig does not do justice to what the revolution is up against. His bygone atheism is a straw man. A quick look at the religion section in any major chain bookstore shows a whole crop of habitable sequels to the New Atheists’ opening salvos. There are atheism readers, atheist spiritualities, and all the chicken soup an atheist soul could need. Rather than lacking “intellectual muscle,” as Craig puts it, the online community formed around Edge.org shows that some of today’s most dynamic scientific minds all but assume atheism.

Today, on the blog for the Evangelical Philosophical Society, Craig responds:

…Mr. Schneider misunderstands me when he says that my “bygone atheism” is a straw man. What I characterized as “bygone” was not atheism, but the past generation dominated by the sort of scientism and verificationism that still lingers in the so-called New Atheism. The fact that such popularistic drivel continues to pour forth from the presses and to fill our bookstores at the mall does nothing to refute my claim that the New Atheism is in general predicated upon epistemological assumptions that are no longer viable.

You can read the rest of the reply, including Craig’s appraisal of Schneider’s interaction with some of the arguments of natural theology, on the Society’s website here.

An old interview but worth dusting off, if only to see how not to do apologetics. Stephen Colbert, on his show The Colbert Report, engages the agnostic Biblical scholar, Bart Ehrman. Colbert replicates the fundamentalist timbre, retreading the familiar rhetoric and arguments that many Christians can often fall back on too easily. This is Colbert, of course, at his inimitable best - imitating a subculture for deliberate comedic effect. Ehrman however, is not trying to be funny, he actually wants us to take him seriously.

The book he is promoting in the clip went on to become a New York Times bestseller. Misquoting Jesus narrates Ehrman’s own intellectual recourse from Christianity, after encountering problems in the Gospels during his PhD program. In the wake of the Jesus Seminar and the Dan Brown frenzy, Ehrman’s conclusions have captured the attention of the media and popular consciousness. It’s no wonder; questions about the trustworthiness of the Gospels assail at the heart of the Christian faith. If the New Testament documents are inaccurate and an unreliable guide of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus - our Christian footing is infirm, our hope misplaced.

Colbert aside, there have been compelling scholarly responses to Ehrman. While the Biblical self-witness must not be robbed of its place and power in determining its own authority, Christians can confidently argue for the historical reliability of the New Testament documents. Many critics have shown that Ehrman handles the data in a way that exaggerates the significance of the discrepancies in the textual streams. At the Greer-Heard Forum with Dan Wallace in April this year, Ehrman tellingly admitted that no essential belief of the New Testament was compromised by the textual variants. Yet a more controversial side of Ehrman seems to persist and, along with the Jesus Seminar, portray a skewed, idiosyncratic representation of the scholarly world. Such a segment stands in contrast to what has been called the third quest for the historical Jesus. A movement that is substantially more optimistic about reconciling the Jesus of history with the Jesus of the New Testament.

For those interested in a primer on Textual Criticism Paul D. Wegner’s A Student’s Guide to Textual Criticism of the Bibe is a good start. To keep up with the contemporary discussion from the evangelical perspective, the Evangelical Textual Criticism Blog has a fine grouping of contributing scholars.

Some actual reviews of Ehrman’s book (I recommend reading their full appraisals):

Dan Wallace: “He still sees things without sufficient nuancing, he overstates his case, and he is entrenched in the security that his own views are right. Bart Ehrman is one of the most brilliant and creative textual critics I’ve ever known, and yet his biases are so strong that, at times, he cannot even acknowledge them.”

Craig Bloomberg: “What most distinguishes the work are the spins Ehrman puts on some of the data at numerous junctures and his propensity for focusing on the most drastic of all the changes in the history of the text, leaving the uninitiated likely to think there are numerous additional examples of various phenomena he discusses when there are not.”

Ben Witherington: “Time and time again in the book, highly charged statements are put forth that the untrained person simply cannot sift through. And that approach resembles more an alarmist mentality than what a mature, master teacher is able to offer. Regarding the evidence, suffice it to say that significant textual variants that alter core doctrines of the NT have not yet been produced.”

Thomas Howe: “A 92% average stability of the text does not seem to support the idea that the text has been “radically altered.” There is no question that the manuscripts differ from each other … but there is a big difference between saying that the variants make a difference in the theological conclusions we draw from these particular texts, and to claim that the multitude of variants call into question the validity of our theology.”

1. How should it be defined?
2. Is it inherently naturalistic (and if so, why)?
3. What is the relationship between philosophy and science?

This is something I’ve written on in the past, and I think there are clear answers to these questions from a Christian point of view. Because the issue of science and religion is so important to Christians living in the Western world, I’d like to answer Dale’s questions here.

1. How should science be defined?

To answer how science should be defined, it’s helpful to know how science is defined by those who study it. Science is the effort to discover and understand how the physical world works, with observable physical evidence as the basis of that understanding.1 Integral to this effort is the scientific method. Briefly stated, this is (I) the observation of a phenomenon → (II) the formulation of an hypothesis with testable predictions → (III) the experimental testing of the hypothesis → (IV) the reasoning about the new experimental data. If the data can be interpreted to support the hypothesis, it can become a theory; if not, the scientist returns to step (II).

So is this how science should be defined? Is this how we as Christians ought to think of science? Within certain constraints, I think it is. Science, biblically speaking, is what we do in the pursuit of having dominion over creation and subduing it. In this regard, practicing science is a good thing, because it is directly obedient to the command of God in Genesis 1:28. Science is a God-given tool to help us interact with creation and make use of it. That is its place. Of course, this implies that its place is not as a tool for learning ultimate truths about reality. It was not given for that purpose; only God himself can communicate such truths. It cannot answer questions like “what is the purpose of man?” or “is there such a thing as the soul?” It is a tool for learning about and using the physical world. Thus, scientific “truth” is truth about how we interact with creation. It is not necessarily truth about reality as it really is. This leads into the second question—

2. Is science inherently naturalistic (and if so, why)?

Since science is “the effort to discover and understand how the physical world works, with observable physical evidence”, the answer to this is simple: yes, science is inherently naturalistic. That is to say, science is a method or process for learning about the natural (physical) world. It follows what is called methodological naturalism. Questions about the supernatural (spiritual) world are beyond its purview, and so it cannot answer them. This doesn’t mean that they can’t be answered, of course, or that they aren’t meaningful—just that science isn’t the right place to go to for those answers.

So science is characterized by methodological naturalism. When investigating natural phenomena, scientists assume that these have natural causes. This is reasonable as far as it goes, since that is the place and purpose of science. It is not equipped to deal with supernatural causes or ask questions about supernatural things. The problem is that methodological naturalism has led, particularly in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, to philosophical naturalism. This is the view that natural things are the only things which exist. Thus, not only can science only investigate natural things, but natural things are the only things which can be investigated. Obviously, this puts science in a powerful epistemic position. Since the natural world is all there is, and science is the best means we have of learning about it, it becomes the sole standard for truth. Science, under philosophical naturalism, is really the only way we can learn anything about the world. The rise of philosophical naturalism is what has caused science to be held in such high esteem as a means of discovering truth today. Which leads me into the third question—

3. What is the relationship between philosophy and science?

A lot of people would like to say that science has no real relationship with philosophy. Scientists, in particular, are fond of distancing themselves from philosophical questions, and “sticking to the facts”. But, as the example of philosophical naturalism shows, this is a bit of a smokescreen.

Plenty of scientists are happy to affirm that only the natural world exists. They like to say that we can only explain things in naturalistic terms; that only naturalistic theories have explanatory power; and that talk of the supernatural is pointless or even meaningless. But these are obviously philosophical, rather than scientific views. Science doesn’t say that the supernatural world doesn’t or can’t exist, or that we can’t know anything about it. It just doesn’t comment on the matter, because science is the study of the natural world and it can’t answer such questions.

So for someone to say, “there is no evidence for the soul,” when what he means is scientific evidence is really just question-begging. Scientific evidence is always naturalistic, but the soul is supernatural, so obviously there can be no scientific evidence for the soul by definition. That doesn’t mean that no evidence exists whatsoever, unless he’s refusing to admit anything other than scientific evidence in the first place. But on what basis would he refuse to admit any other kind of evidence? He can’t do it on the basis of science—after all, he can’t show experimentally that non-natural evidence is invalid. So he has to make an assumption. He has to make a philosophical commitment to naturalism. In this regard, these sorts of scientists make up the rear guard of a venerable but fairly disrespectable philosophical view called logical positivism.

This is only the tip of the iceberg, though. Logical positivism is a philosophical position which claims to be based on science. But the problem runs much deeper, because science is actually based on philosophy. Science is not merely intimately related to philosophy. Philosophy is the foundation of science.

For example, the scientific method relies on some key assumptions about the universe. One of these is the uniformity of nature. This is the assumption that (a) the future will always be like the past; and (b) the laws of nature are the same everywhere. If this assumption were false, science would be futile. But it isn’t a scientific assumption, is it? It can’t be experimentally verified. We can’t run some empirical test to see whether the future will be like the past, since by definition the future is always out of reach. As soon as we try to test it, it becomes the present, and then when we’re done it’s the past, so whatever data we gathered doesn’t apply any more. Similarly, no one has tested the laws of nature in every part of the universe (or even every part of the earth). So this key assumption of science is a philosophical one. It isn’t itself scientific.

This raises some real problems for secular scientists, and leads me into my conclusion. Because science is based on philosophical assumptions, it is either naive or ignorant for anyone to claim that scientific knowledge is the only kind of knowledge there is; or that scientific truth-claims trump all other kinds of truth-claims (like religious ones). Before you can have scientific knowledge, you first have to have philosophical knowledge. Scientific truth-claims are really nothing special. Furthermore, anyone saying that scientific knowledge is the only “real” knowledge possible is fibbing through his teeth, because he is making a non-scientific statement. If scientific knowledge is the only “real” knowledge, then we couldn’t know that, because it isn’t scientifically verifiable.

So the problem for scientists (and for those who try to use science against Christianity) is that scientific truth-claims can only be as good as their philosophical foundations. If scientists can’t know that their philosophical foundations are sound, then they can’t know that their science is sound. So if the assumption of uniformity is nothing but wild speculation, then any science based on it is no better. This seems particularly problematic when you consider how utterly reasonable it seems that the future will be like the past. Surely if it’s so reasonable, we must be able to prove it? Things which are obviously true are easily proved.

Not so with uniformity. It isn’t a scientifically verifiable principle, and it isn’t logically necessary. The future could, in principle, stop being like the past, and there isn’t any real reason to think that it won’t. The fact that it hasn’t until now doesn’t imply that it won’t in the future unless we’ve already supposed that the future will be like the past. That’s begging the question. So we’re left with a quandary. On the one hand, it seems so entirely reasonable to think that all things will continue as they have from the beginning of creation. But on the other hand, how can we show that this belief is rational? That it is really reasonable? That it is actually true? How can we know it?

Well, the Christian can. The Christian knows that God has created the world, and sustains it moment to moment (Colossians 1:17). He knows that until Jesus comes again, all things will continue as they have from the beginning (2 Peter 3:4). So he knows, because God has revealed it, that nature is uniform and will continue to be. He knows that the world was created for man, and that man was created to have dominion over it. Because of this, Christians can hold a high view of science. Not as high as the their view of the Bible, obviously, since it relies on the Bible—but much higher nonetheless than what non-believing scientists can manage. Our view of science is based on the word of God, which is self-attesting and objectively true.

Secular scientists, on the other hand, ultimately base science on their gut feelings. They don’t have any assurance in the basic assumptions which underly their discipline. Even though they may take a view of science which seems much higher than that taken by Christians, their philosophical beliefs betray them. Science can only be as powerful as its foundations, and its foundations are philosophical. One can either just take these foundations on faith, having no reason to believe them except that they seem reasonable; or one can take it on the testimony of the creator of the universe. This is the relationship between science and philosophy,and it is why Christians should never be afraid of science.

1. Wikipedia, ’science’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science; retrieved July 1, 2008).

In order to whet your appetite until then, here is the planned list of article topics for issue 1:

• Opening address: a brief history of apologetics in New Zealand (Steve Kumar)
• What is apologetics? (Jason Kumar)
• Why does apologetics matter? (Stuart McEwing)
• Principles of practical engagement (Elisabeth Marshall)
• Exposition of 1 Corinthians 2:16 as a basis for apologetics (Dominic Bnonn Tennant)
• Exposition of Acts 17 as a blueprint for apologetics (Sarah Tennant)
• Faith and evidence, and the need for apologetics (Jason Kumar)
• Postmodernism and apologetics: is apologetics relevant in today’s intellectual climate? (Jason Kumar)
• Interview with Christian philosopher and apologist William Lane Craig

Part I: Slogans Related to Truth and Reality

1. Why Not Just Look Out for Yourself?
2. Do What You Want—Just as Long as You Don’t Hurt Anyone
3. Is It Okay to Lie to Nazis?

Part II: Slogans Related to Worldviews

4. Why Is God So Arrogant and Egotistical?
5. Miracles Are Unscientific
6. Only Gullible People Believe in Miracles
7. Don’t People from All Religions Experience God?
8. Does the Bible Condemn Loving, Committed Homosexual Relationships?
9. Aren’t People Born Gay?
10. What’s Wrong with Gay Marriage?

Part III: Slogans Related to Christianity

11. How Can the Psalmists Say Such Vindictive, Hateful Things?
12. Aren’t the Bible’s “Holy Wars” Just Like Islamic Jihad? Part One
13. Aren’t the Bible’s “Holy Wars” Just Like Islamic Jihad? Part Two
14. Aren’t the Bible’s “Holy Wars” Just Like Islamic Jihad? Part Three
15. Was Jesus Mistaken about an Early Second Coming? Part One
16. Was Jesus Mistaken about an Early Second Coming? Part Two
17. Why Are Christians So Divided? Why So Many Denominations?

(source – Parchment and Pen)

In any case, the first lecture was by far the better one for me. Bill talked about whether or not apologetics is necessary for evangelism, arguing that although it is not strictly required, it is very frequently a means used by God to bring about conversions. He strongly criticized those Christians who say that apologetics is not needed, or even is not biblical, pointing out that although God doesn’t strictly need apologetics to convert people’s hearts, practicing it certainly is biblical, and it is one of the primary means that God does use. He further argued that evangelism is not conducted in a vacuum, and that apologetics is necessary to maintain Christianity’s place as an intellectually respectable position in the modern world—particularly in universities, where society’s movers and shakers are largely created.

Having talked about the importance of apologetics for affirming Christianity to non-Christians, he then went on to talk about its importance for affirming Christianity to Christians. This is something particularly close to my heart, as most of my own writing is directed toward believers—and not necessarily with the primary aim of equipping them to defeat non-Christians in argumentation. It is extremely important, to my mind, that Christians have rational, defensible, articulate reasons for their belief. It is tragic to hear about people who come to Christianity on an enormous emotional high, and then crash some time later because they have no more solid foundation for their faith than that emotion.

In this vein, Bill told an anecdote of an evangelist he had met while studying for the final oral exams of his theology degree. She had a natural talent for bringing people to God, not through argumentation, but by her charisma and the earnestness of her belief. She was highly successful, and it disheartened him, since he was forced to wonder if all his hard work with intellectual study was necessary. Was he barking up the wrong tree? His conclusion, provided by a friend at the time, was that no—it was extremely necessary. All those people converted by this woman would be coming to people like Bill a few years down the line, because emotion doesn’t provide reasons to believe.

This lecture meshes very well with the first issue of our journal, which will be published soon. It was very encouraging to hear one of the leading Christian apologists in the world saying the same things that we are, and it made for a truly noteworthy and appropriate launch for Thinking Matters in Tauranga. My particular thanks to Rodney Lake for his excellent work getting the Tauranga group up and running, and for organizing the event.

Susan Wunderink, at Christianity Today, interviews popular evangelical author and speaker, Tim Keller (from Redeemer Presbyterian Church in NYC), about his ministry and the challenges involved in presenting Christianity (HT: Justin Taylor). It’s brief, but worth a read.

Particularly useful is his discussion of relevancy and the importance of truth:

C. S. Lewis says somewhere not to believe in Christianity because it’s relevant or exciting or personally satisfying. Believe it because it’s true. And if it’s true, it eventually will be relevant, exciting, and personally satisfying. But there will be many times when it’s not relevant, exciting, and personally satisfying. To be a Christian is going to be very, very hard. So unless you come to it simply because it’s really the truth, you really won’t live the Christian life, and you won’t get to the excitement and to the relevance and all that other stuff.

If you haven’t run across his book The Reason for God and lack financial impediment (but thats no excuse, really) - grab it. Keller’s book evinces an agile and deeply thought out response to the climate of doubt that abounds today. It has resonated with both believers and those of a skeptical outlook (I believe it rose as high as seventh on the NY Times best seller list in April). Further information about the book, with some useful media and articles, is available at the book’s website.