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An intelligent faith

Are faith and

reason in

conflict?

Can Christianity

stand up to

rigorous

scrutiny?

Is there an

intellectual

basis for faith inJesus Christ as

the Son of God?


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Oxford University

Oriel College, 07


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In a relativistic world,

how do we attempt to

clarify truth?


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An Intelligent Faith - LHCi

Responding to cultural assumptions:

April 2: Christian faith is a blind act of the will

April 9: There is no such thing as absolute truthApril 16: All religions are basically equal

April 23: The Bible as we know it has been altered

April 30: Was the Resurrection literal or symbolic?


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Christian Worldview


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Apologetics


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Apologetics

A reasoned defense [apologia] ofChristianity

Peter 3:15 (Amplified Bible)

But in your hearts set Christ apart asholy [and acknowledge Him] as Lord.Always be ready to give a logical

defense to anyone who asks you toaccount for the hope that is in you, butdo it courteously and respectfully.


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Prerequisites

Know what you believe in

Know why you believe it

Love others


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Tasks of Apologetics

Begin to neutralize objections to faith

Strengthen the believers confidence to

engage

Understand and appropriate the grace and

love of God.


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Why it Matters

A gospel that does not deal with the issues

of the day is not the Gospel at all.--

Martin Luther


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http://www.flickr.com/photos/gunnerpress/2104398483/


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Worldview
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All worldviews must answer:

Origin:

Meaning: Morality:

Destiny:

Elements of World Views


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All world views must answer:

Origin: Where did I come from?

Meaning: Why am I here? Morality: How should I live?

Destiny: Where am I going?

Elements of World Views


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Postmodern World View

Not that there are new answers to lifes bigquestions, but there are no answers tolifes big questions.

General disillusionment

with our materialisticculture

Deconstructionist mentality Seen most clearly in

student revolt in Paris in60s

Backlash againstConsumerism of the Westand communism of theEast which both failed todeliver

Rejection of Biblical

Christianity


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True or False?

Christian faith involves a blind act of the will


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What do these 3 people

have in common? 1# Set of parents who take

their son who is dying ofcancer to a shaman faith

healer

#2 An atheist who believes inonly what he can empirically

prove

#3 Christian tries to makehimself believe in the gospel

despite a lack of evidence

They all take a

giant leap of

Faith
http://www.flickr.com/photos/annedehaas/109083095/


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Is this faith?

Faith means blind trust, in the absence ofevidence, even in the teeth of evidence

(Dawkins, the Selfish Gene)

Faith is about evading thinking, running awayfrom evidence(Hitchens)

"Faith is believing what you know ain't so.(Mark Twain)


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Michael Ramsden


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Richard Dawkins

Zoologist and former Director of the HumanGenome Project Voted to be Britain's #1 public intellectual One of most widely read popularizing

scientists (most take negative view ofreligion)

One of the Brights

Authored:

The God Delusion (2007)

The Selfish Gene (1976)

The Extended Phenotype (1981)The Blind Watchmaker(1986)

River out of Eden (1995)

Climbing Mount Improbable (1996)

Unweaving the Rainbow(1998)

A Devils Chaplain (2003)

The Ancestors Tale (2004)

What he is stating is:

Truth = explicit proof; empiricalstudy

Faith = mysticism, a belief despite

the evidence


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Despite the Evidence?

Early Scientists were committed Christians

Historic Galileo Galilei

John Newton Blaise Pascal

Current Francis Collins

John Polkinghorne John Lennox

Alistair McGrath


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The real relationship between Faith

and Evidence

Atheism is a faith

We cannot prove with 100% absolute certainty that

there is a God

Our atheist friends cannot prove with 100% absolutecertainty that there is not a God

Both are positions that go beyond the available

evidence I am an atheist who has lost his faith.

Boris Pastenack, Dr. Chivago, after Russian revolution

S i d t t ll l d t


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Science doesnt naturally lead to

Atheism

Science simply cannot (by its

legitimate methods) adjudicate the

issue of Gods possible

superintendence of nature. We

neither affirm nor deny it; we simplycant comment on it as scientists.

Either half my colleagues are

enormously stupid, or else the

science of Darwinism is fully

compatible with conventional

religious beliefs and equally

compatible with atheism.

The most science can do is lead

you to agnosticismThe scientific method cannot

determine whether there is a God,

or whether there is not a God

Stephen Jay Gould:


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Stephen Jay Gould

Science doesnt prove or disprove God Reviews all the big names he can think of, list, its

about half and half Christian

Nothing about science compels you to anyconclusion, but it is consistent to either a Christian

view, or Atheism

Significant writer and worth quoting when someone

claims that Sciences lead to atheism


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Are science & religion in conflict?

Science seeks to answer the questions of

How and What

Faith seeks to answer the questions ofWhy


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The Reasonableness of Faith

Faith is a response to a God who is real Grounded in converging lines of evidence

(historical, eye witness, testimony, etc.)

[Faith] affects the whole of mans nature. Itcommences with the conviction of the mind basedon adequate evidence; it continues in theconfidence of the heart or emotions based on

conviction, and it is crowned in the consent of thewill, by means of which the conviction andconfidence are expressed in conduct.

W. H. Griffith-Thomas on Faith


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God has put enough into the world to

make faith in him a most reasonable thing,

and he has left enough out to make it

impossible to live by sheer reason orobservation alone. Ravi Z.


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True or False?

Christianity is an ideology, not a Gospel


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Finality of Christ

I am the way, and the truth

And the life,

No one comes to

the Father unless

Through me.

- Jesus of NazarethJohn 14
http://www.flickr.com/photos/conte/511178995/


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Scriptures are remarkably clear

1. 'Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no othername under heaven given to men, by which we mustbe saved' ( Acts 4:12).

2. 'For there is one God and one mediator between Godand men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as aransom for all men' (I Timothy 2:5).

3. 'For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith -

and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - notby works so that no one can boast' (Eph.2:8-9).


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Postmodern Agenda

Just different paths up

the same mountain Religious pluralism &

relativism is not new:Jews, Greeks, Romans all

inhabited Jerusaleum

Implication: Christians are arrogant,

intolerant, exclusive

What is the Christian response?


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Maybe we need a new

approach?.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/upyerbum/112117603/


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Reframe the way we think

Ask questions first

Jesus sets the example Opens up the questioner within their own assumptions

Clarifies truth claims

Exposes faulty logic, contradictions

Understand their worldview How do they define truth? Faith?

Intentbefore content

Giving the right answer to the wrong question is always wrong Christianity raises the level of every individual

Every human being is of essential worth & dignity


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Lead with love:Conviction that is not ungirded by love makes the

possessor of that conviction obnoxious and the dogma ofthat conviction repulsive.

Ravi Zacharias

Do the work: Study to show thyself approved

If we dont know Gods truth claims, then well take on thetruth claims of the world

Dont pretend to know things we dont

Only 2 rules in Apologetics


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Religious Pluralism

too Confusing?

Reframe our

thinking
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lenaah/1438144317/


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Epistomologically in thinking

Existentially in feeling

Pragmatically in doing

Most religious and philosophical

systems are rooted or grounded in

1 of 3 distinct ways

C


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Christianity: Rooted and

grounded in.?

Christs very being


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Words are tools of thought

John 1: The Word has become flesh,

and has dwelt among us A revelation of God and everything

He knows and who He is

1. Thinking (system of thought)


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Seeking experiences that transform

But experiences in life are temporary

John 3:36 Jesus defines life in terms ofknowing Him

Coming to know him is not so much a momentin life, but is the moment of life itself.

2. Feeling (set of experiences)


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John 6: What must we do to do the works

God requires?

Answer: The work (singular) of God is this:

to believe in the One He has sent

I AM

You cannot take Christ out of Christianity

3. Doing (Way of Life)


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Rooted in being

Incarnation: Jesus didnt come simply to give us amessage about God, but he came as God himself

John 14:9 If you have seen me, youve seen the Father. Jesus claimed to be in very nature, God

John 1: In the beginning was the Word Anyone can claim to be God, but how can you meaningfully

sustain it? Salvation: Christ himself came into this world to save us

II Cor. 5: God made him who had no sin, to be sin for us, sothat in him we may have the righteousness of God.

He bore our sins and conquered the grave

Transformation John 3: Jesus said that if anyone wants to enter the kingdom ofheaven they must be born again

II Cor 5:17 Paul says that if anyone is in Christ they are a newcreation, the old is gone and the new has come


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Uniqueness of Jesus

But Dont All Religions Lead To God?(2002). Dr. Michael Green argues:

No other teacher than Jesus ever claimed

to bring God to us No other teacher dealt radically with the

problem of human wickedness

No other teacher broke the barrier ofdeath

No other teacher offered to actually live"within" his followers


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The end points in apologetics is

not to ask someone to accept a

system of thought, to have somekind of strange new experience,

or to do something differently,

but its to accept who Christ is.

Why is this important?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gunnerpress/2104398483/


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Intelligent Faith
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The problem with Christianity

is not that it has been tried

and found wanting, but that it

has been found

difficult, and left

untriedG.K. Chesterton
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