What Is Love?

Christians believe in what we might call a "top-down" picture of love. That is, love comes down from the top, because God is love:

1 John 4:7-12—Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.

Naturalism (the view that the natural world is all that exists) rules out such a lofty view of love. Indeed, when we consider the explanatory resources available to the naturalist, we realize that if Naturalism were true, love could only be another feature of organisms that helps us pass on our genetic material. This is what keeps everyone's favorite six-year-old awake at night:

Something to think about.

Evolutionary Morality: Frans de Waal

Frans de Waal, a prominent psychologist and animal behaviorist, has written a new book called The Bonobo and the Atheist in which he argues that morality exists because of evolution.

His main thesis is that young children, chimps, and bonobos all express empathy and compassion--this shows that morality is not something that is learned or given to us by 'religion'.

The main problem with his thesis is that if we know that our morality is simply a survival aid, why should we follow it? I can't see any reason why we would be obligated to follow this morality that is built into our DNA, especially if we come across opportunities to better ourselves by not following it. Evolutionary morality cannot provide a basis for justified obligations.

Good Without God: Is God Necessary for Morality? Kile Jones vs. David Wood

Anyone can perform actions that we normally regard as "moral." In this sense, anyone can be moral, whether God exists or not. But in a deeper sense, we recognize that claims such as "Bob is a good person" and "You ought to help that woman" presuppose objective moral values, moral duties, and responsibility for our actions. Without objective moral values, moral duties, and responsibility for our actions, most of what we mean by "morality" is meaningless or illusory. Hence, only a worldview that is capable of supporting objective moral values can make sense of morality.

Can Atheism support such values? I don't see how, but not everyone agrees with me. In order to stimulate thought on this topic, two student groups at Columbia University (Columbia Faith and Action and the Columbia Humanist Society) hosted a short debate between me and Kile Jones, an atheist with a strong background in theology. Though time was short, we were able to lay out our basic positions. Here's the discussion:

The most interesting aspect of the debate for me was Kile's insistence, in his conclusion, that we shouldn't even ask where morality comes from. In my opening statement, I had pointed out that people often shift their levels of skepticism (I think all human beings do this) in order to reject certain beliefs while retaining others. Kile said that his skepticism level is high, and he is certainly correct when it comes to God, Christianity, etc. But if we can't even ask where morality comes from, how skeptical are we concerning morality? It seems, then, that we must accept the existence of objective moral values by faith, even though we demand hard evidence for the existence of other things.

Do Objective Moral Values Exist?

Many of the 'internet atheists' like to deny the existence of objective morality in order to circumvent the idea of a necessary 'Law-Giver' (God).

The problem is that unless the skeptic can provide an argument against the existence of objective morality, theists (and all who believe in the reality of objective moral values) are justified in their convictions about the existence of objective morality.

In this short clip William Lane Craig argues that any argument made against objective morality can also be used against the reality of the external world. If a skeptic denies the reality of the moral realm, then why not also deny the reality of the physical world? After all, we could just be brains in a giant vat or living in the matrix. If we can't trust our moral experience which leads us to conclude that objective morals exist, then why should we trust our sensory experience which leads us to believe that the external world is real?

Your Brain on Evolution

"The first [problem] concerns the likelihood that the processes of natural selection should have generated creatures with a capacity to discover by reason the truth about a reality that extends vastly beyond the initial appearances…Is it credible that selection for fitness in the prehistoric past should have fixed capacities that are effective in theoretical pursuits that were unimaginable at the time? The goal would be to explain how innate mental capacities that were selected for their immediate adaptive value are also capable of generating, through extended cultural-evolutionary history, true theories about a law-governed natural order that there was no adaptive need to understand earlier."

-Thomas Nagel in Mind and Cosmos

John Lennox: What Is Apologetics?

The Bible commands Christians to be apologists (1 Peter 3:15). However, despite the appearance of the term, apologetics has nothing to do with apologizing. In Greek, apologetics refers to giving a reasoned defense of one's position. Thus, in Plato's Apology, Socrates doesn't apologize to the court. Instead, he gives a defense of his actions.

John Lennox explains apologetics in a Christian context.

Evolutionary Morality

Moral Realism is the view that there are moral truths and facts about the universe. These facts are like other facts:

-They are mind-independent
-They correspond to reality
-They are binding and true regardless of whether or not people agree to them or believe in their existence

For example, the moral realist would say that the statements "rape is wrong" and "torturing infants for pleasure is wrong" actually carry truth, they are factually correct, and they correspond to reality. The moral anti-realist would say that these statements carry no truth or falsity, they simply reflect certain patterns and prejudices of society and culture.

It seems clear, though, that there really are moral facts. The person who thinks that it is fine to torture a 3-month old child for fun is a psychopath. Torturing 3-month old children for fun is not simply socially inconvenient, it is morally abhorrent and reprehensible.

"The man who says it is morally acceptable to rape little children is just as mistaken as the man who says 2+2=5." -Michael Ruse 

There are plenty of atheist philosophers (Thomas Nagel, Lousie Anthony, Shelly Kagan, etc.) who affirm moral realism, that is, they believe that there are objective moral values in place in the world. The problem with this is that it is difficult to provide a basis for objective morality on atheism. The most common way of 'grounding' objective morality in an atheistic worldview is to appeal to evolution.

Philosophers like Kevin Brosnan and Knut Skaursaune argue that evolutionary history has provided humans with the necessary moral tools to survive and these are what drive morality today. Rape is wrong because it hurts human flourishing. Torturing children is wrong because it goes against our natural instincts for empathy and child-rearing. Now, there are major flaws with evolutionary morality and they fall into 2 categories: epistemic and ontological.

Epistemic:

If there are moral facts about the universe, how can we discover them? If evolution has steered us solely towards survival, then what mechanism do we possess that allows us to 'track' and discover these moral facts? Sure there might be moral facts out there somewhere, but if naturalistic evolution is true then we have no way of discovering their existence, much less abiding by them!

Furthermore, even if we did have the ability to discover these moral facts, on what grounds should we abide by them? Suppose that these moral facts existed abstractly somewhere, these abstract concepts cannot stand in causal relations, that is to say that they cannot provide the necessary basis for moral obligations and "oughts".

Ontological:

There are three major problems with evolution providing us with objective morality:

1. Egoism conflicts with Altruism

The primal instinct for individual survival sometimes clashes with the best interests of the survival of the group, and viceversa. Why is there a dilemma between individual well-being and the well-being of the herd? If evolution really is the basis of objective morality then there should be no conflict--the choice that leads to the maximal well-being of the individual should also provide the maximal well-being of the herd, but this is not the case.

2. Prudential values conflict with Moral values

Let's imagine that in 20 years scientists discover that during forcable copulation (rape) an extra hormone is secreted in the semen which kills all the mutated/non-optimal sperm and allows only the healthiest sperm to reach the egg and fertilize it. This will end up with guaranteed healthy offspring, and ultimately a healthier population. Would this new finding then make rape a good thing? Of course not. We already know that rape is wrong, regardless of what advantages it may bring. Thus, even if a course of action is beneficial from an evolutionary perspective, it does not make it the morally correct course of action. But if evolution really did provide the basis for objective morality, then we would expect to see that the prudential choice was always the moral choice, but this is not the case.

3. Evolving morality cannot be trusted

If our morality is subject to evolution then it cannot be trusted, much less be objectively true. At one point in human history slavery was accepted, but now it is not. And yet it is still true that slavery was wrong even back then. Simply because something was accepted does not mean that it is acceptable. Our condemnation of slavery stems not from an enlightened morality that has evolved. Slavery was not objectively acceptable in the past simply because it was practiced in the past. It was and is and will always be objectively wrong. There will never come a point in time where slavery and rape are good actions because the world exists in such a way that there are moral facts that do not allow for slavery and rape to be good things. If our morality is evolving then it is not objective and we cannot trust it for it may tell us something different in the next 100 years. 

Did Isaac Newton Exist?

Skeptics love to compare Jesus to mythical figures like Isis, Mithras, and Dionysis in order to try to show that he, too, was purely mythical. This terribly flawed historical methodology has its adherents all across the internet but is completely absent from serious scholarship. No serious scholar believes that Jesus did not exist.

World-renowned historian and skeptic, Bart Ehrman says this, "I have written an entire book on what Jesus did and didn't say and for him to have said anything at all he must have existed...No serious scholar believes that Jesus did not exist."

But just for kicks, Rob Bowman has used the same standards of the internet atheists who try to disprove Jesus' existence, to show that the same criteria can be used to show that Isaac Newton never existed!

Jesus Christ	Isaac Newton
His birthday has been given both as December 25 and as January 6.	His birthday has been given both as December 25 and as January 4.
His birthday is celebrated by his followers as “Christmas,” and the period between December 25 and January 6 has been called “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”	His birthday is celebrated by his followers as “Newtonmas,” and the period between December 25 and January 4 has been called “The Ten Days of Newtonmas.”
His name is that of a famous figure in the Old Testament (Joshua).	His name is that of a famous figure in the Old Testament (Isaac).
John described him as “the true light that comes into the world.”	He is described as bringing light to the world: “God said ‘Let Newton be’ and all was light” (Alexander Pope).
He was circumcised on the eighth day.	He was baptized on the eighth day.
According to tradition, his grandmother’s name was Hannah (usually Anglicized as Anne.)	His mother’s name was Hannah.
According to tradition, his mother’s husband died when he was young.	His mother’s husband died before he was born.
He never married.	He never married.
He was famous for his knowledgeable exposition of the Scriptures.	He was famous for his knowledgeable exposition of the Scriptures.
He professed the same faith as that of his countrymen, but they regarded him as a heretic.	He professed the same faith as that of his countrymen, but they regarded him as a heretic.
Commenting on the Book of Daniel, he stated that “this gospel of the kingdom must first be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.”	Commenting on the Book of Daniel, he stated that “the Gospel must first be preached in all nations before the great tribulation, and end of the world.”
He rejected the idea that people could determine a date for the end of the world.	He rejected the idea that people could determine a date for the end of the world.
He is regarded by many as one of the greatest men ever to live on earth.	He is regarded by many, in the words of Richard Dawkins, as “one of the truly great men ever to walk the earth.”
He was honored by the use of the Greek titlekurios, which can be translated “Sir.”	He was honored by the use of the title “Sir.”
Portraits of him depict him with strikingly different appearances.	Portraits of him depict him with strikingly different appearances.
Marty McFly used his name in vain in the filmBack to the Future.	Doc Emmet Brown used his name in vain in the film Back to the Future II.

Original post here.

Ravi Zacharias: The End of Reason

Ravi Zacharias responds to the New Atheists.

D. A. Carson: What Is Inerrancy?

The Christian Gospel is primarily a message about Jesus' death, resurrection, and deity. However, Christianity includes a number of other doctrines, such as God's triune nature, a future judgment, and the inspiration of scripture. One common component of the doctrine of inspiration is the doctrine of biblical inerrancy—the position that whenever the Bible makes a truth claim (i.e., a statement purporting to say something about the way things really are), the claim is true.

In this video, D. A. Carson explains the doctrine of inerrancy.