Koukl - Chopra Debate Video

Greg Koukl's debate with Deepak Chopra, which originally aired on Lee Strobel's "Faith Under Fire" (about which I commented here), is now available on Google Video. (HT: Melinda Penner)

An Atheist Interviews Himself

Prompted by repeated questions about his atheism, David Gleeson imagines himself being interviewed by a representative theist in American Chronicle: Part I Part II Part III

On Faith

Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham and Washington Post writer Sally Quinn are the moderators of a new online discussion of religion and its impact called On Faith (HT: The Pearcey Report).

Given that people like Al Mohler, Daniel Dennett, Marcus Borg, Karen Armstrong, John Dominic Crossan, Sam Harris, Rick Warren, and Brian McLaren are among the panel of 50 leaders and scholars who will be participating in the discussion, the conversation is sure to be lively. The moderators pose questions to which panelists respond. Readers are invited to express their thoughts on the question and comment on the panelists' answers.

Here's the first question: "If some religious people believe they have a monopoly on truth, then are conversation and common ground possible? If so, what would be the difficulties and benefits of such a conversation?"

Dealing With Doubt

Dr. Gary Habermas, Distinguished Professor and Chair of Liberty University's Department of Philosophy and Theology, has posted the complete contents of his book Dealing With Doubt here. (HT: Steve Wagner)

Faith and Reason at Harvard

Educators at Harvard have proposed a new requirement for its undergrads - "a course focusing on the interplay between reason and faith—whether in wars of religion or debates over stem cell research."

Kudos to Salvo!

Thanks to friends at the Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity (Thanks, Joe and Danielle!), I finally secured a copy of the premier issue of Salvo Magazine, a quarterly publication of The Crux Project. I first heard about it from Melinda Penner, whose description made me think it was the kind of magazine I'd enjoy. I'm not disappointed in the least. To say that I'm impressed by the quality of this magazine's layout and content is an understatement.

The publishers describe the magazine's mission as:

Blasting holes in scientific naturalism, marveling at the intricate design of the universe, and promoting life in a culture of death.

Critiquing art, music, film, television, and literature, interrupting mass media influence, and questioning the sanity of our consumerist lifestyle.

Countering destructive ideologies, replacing revisionist fictions with undeniable facts, and paring away political correctness.

Debunking the cultural myths that have undercut human dignity, all but destroyed the notions of virtue and morality, and slowly eroded our appetite for transcendence.

Recovering the one worldview that actually works.

The people who put this magazine together not only utilize artistic flair and intellectual sharpness but also hilarious satire. Part of the fun of reading this issue has been finding the mock ads strewn throughout. One of them (for the People for the Ethical Treatment of Insects) made me laugh out loud when I read it while waiting at the barber shop. "STOP THE INSECTICIDE!" reads the caption beneath a magnified picture of an ant. "One million ants are slaughtered every month by careless missteps, cruel young children with magnifying glasses, and newspapers wielded in ignorance and fear. Feeling bugged? To learn what you can do to help stop the insecticide, or to sponsor an orphaned pupae, call...." (It's like The Wittenberg Door meets Philosophia Christi on a popular level.)


In a letter to readers, founder and editorial director, Richard Moselle says something I've believed for some time. The culture war being waged in America cannot be reduced to conflicting political visions. It is the clash of diametrically opposed philosophies of life or worldviews, out of which particular political stances emerge. Here's how Moselle puts it:

About eight years ago, I came to realize that it was these two worldviews-as opposed to, say, political differences-that have led to our current cultural divide. Not that I wasn't previously cognizant of conflicts over "traditional morality" and the like; rather, I saw for the first time that such conflicts ultimately arise from two distinct ways of looking at reality: one predicated on belief in transcendent truth and the other committed to the notion that such truth is a myth.

Unfortunately, there aren't many media outlets for the discussion of the subjects that matter most. Philosophical and theological discourse don't make scintillating programming. Neither can they be easily condensed into talking points and/or sound bites.

Regrettably, it sometimes seems that Christians share this general impatience with and disinterest in such subjects, often preferring political activity over reflecting deeply on the underlying worldview issues. In fact, I sometimes wonder whether American evangelicalism's attitude might properly be summed up by the phrase, "You can tinker all you want with my theology and doctrine but don't go messin' with my politics!" That thought came to mind as I read the recent New York Times article about Greg Boyd's disowning of conservative politics. My reaction was similar to Russell Moore's at Mere Comments:

Evangelicalism has taken on a political identity while shedding a theological one. A thousand people left Boyd's church. They held a "conservative" stance on issues such as the church's role in society. And yet, for years, Boyd has taught that God does not know the future free actions of people. He has preached that the universe is a democracy rather than a monarchy, and that God's purposes are thwarted by human and angelic decisions he didn't anticipate and he can't overturn. He has articulated an egalitarian view of men and women fully in line with the feminist movement and fully out of step with the biblical canon. Where were the thousand "conservatives" then?

But, I digress. Back to Salvo. I showed my copy to our youth pastor a few minutes ago and he agreed that the format and content would be inviting to high school students who might not otherwise engage these topics. From what I've seen of the first issue, I've decided to get a personal subscription and urge our church's library to subscribe as well. I assure you, I have no affiliation with the magazine nor am I on commission to boost sales. I'm just excited about a new resource that has the potential to promote critical reflection about the ultimate issues of life on the part of both Christians and non-Christians. I encourage you to check it out for yourself.

Audios from Alister McGrath and Other Christian Thinkers Across the Pond

Last month Alister McGrath, Professor of Historical Theology at Oxford University, gave St. Paul's Theological Centre's inaugural annual lecture: "Has Science Killed God? Richard Dawkins and the Meaning of Life." Listen here.

Another version of the lecture is available from the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion (HT: New Humanist) whose lecture archive is well worth checking out.

Wasted Faith

Tim Challies reviews and highly recommends Wasted Faith by Jim Elliff, whose article on evangelism I pointed to yesterday. The quote from Elliff echoes Melinda Penner's caution to which I referred in the same post. Tim writes:

Wasted Faith is...a book that challenges those who have made a profession of faith to ensure that their salvation is sure. "What is most alarming is the risky willingness of many professing Christians to gamble eternity on an emotional one-time experience, a 'sinner's prayer' properly prayed, or a feeling of substantial relief at a juncture in time, without ever taking a serious look at what is evident now, at this moment. Is eternal life of so little value that it seems unnecessary to examine ourselves for evidence of it?" Elliff warns that hell is engorged with those who once thought of themselves as Christians.

Sobering. Read the whole review.

What God Has Joined: More on Head and Heart

Well, I told you it wouldn't be easy letting go of the "18 inches between head and heart" thing. Two of my friends have weighed in on the matter in comments but I think the subject is so important I wanted to bring it to the surface here.

Byron said:

Allow me to protest a tad, Keith; I think that it all depends upon what you mean when you speak of a head/heart dichotomy. I use this analogy---hey, maybe I need to give it up---but I think that the way I intend it to be understood isn't necessarily at variance with your point. When I speak of "head", I'm speaking of mere intellectual assent, as opposed to "heart", signifying not so much an opposition to head as a trust in , a commitment to, an obedience in, those things which the "head" rightly understands. In my understanding, then, I wouldn't speak of a head/heart dichotomy, as though the two were opposed in some either/or scenario, so much as I'd think of "heart belief" involving a commitment to, a fulfillment of, those things to which the "head" mentally assents. 'Zat make sense?

Yes, that does make sense. What Byron wants to make clear is that knowledge, assent, and trust are essential to biblical faith. With that I'm in full agreement. I think, however, that there are more biblical ways of communicating that concern than by making a head/heart distinction. For example, James warns us against deceiving ourselves by only hearing the word and not doing it (James 1:22). 


The critical issue is, as Byron noted, one of obedience to that which I assent to and obedience originates in the heart. Paul, for example, is grateful to God that the Roman Christians became "obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which [they] were committed" (Romans 6:17). Throughout the Bible, belief and obedience are intertwined and, at times, used interchangeably. In John's gospel, believing in the Son is contrasted with disobeying Him (3:36). According to Psalm 78, the Israelites in the wilderness "did not believe in God and did not trust his saving power" (v. 22). Again, belief, trust, and obedience are in mind. What was the cause of their unbelief, lack of trust, and disobedience? The answer is given in verse 8. They were "a generation whose heart was not steadfast, whose spirit was not faithful to God." (I take this to be an instance of poetic parallelism demonstrating that heart and spirit are different ways of referring to the same thing.)

I'm a firm believer that we should allow the Scriptures to guide us in our use of biblical terms and concepts. It's much too easy to fall into using biblical vocabulary in unbiblical ways thereby changing its meaning.  A few days ago I picked up Marva Dawn's new book, Talking the Walk, in which she examines a number of key words in biblical faith whose meanings have become distorted or ignored. Dawn, who was an English literature major and teacher, writes in the introduction: "...I am solemnly concerned about the corruption of words in contemporary Christian faith. When we speak bad theology, we live badly theologically. When our theologians and pastors and communities reject or abuse significant words in the heritage of faith, our Christianity is reduced or decimated." Though "heart" is not one of the words she investigates, I think it has been corrupted by being torn from its canonical context.

As Jerry (read with open eyes) pointed out in his comment, the Bible does not ascribe intellectual activity to one part of a person while assigning trust to the heart. I understand that Byron doesn't intend to convey a dichotomy between the heart and head when he speaks of the 18 inches between them, but I think that such language, no matter how well-intended, distances people from a biblical perspective on the unity of the person. 


Another problem is that in our setting people are prone to associate "heart" primarily (if not exclusively) with the emotions. Distinguishing between "head knowledge" and "heart knowledge," and implying that the latter is superior to the former, can also serve to perpetuate and strengthen the misconception that reason, education, and intellectual rigor are inimical to Christian spirituality.

Enough, Yet?

If you haven't had enough about the phrase "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist," (and even if you have) Vincent Cheung's thoughts on the subject deserve a read. [HT: Resource Blog]

I Don't Have Enough Faith...Part III

When I wrote the first post in this thread, I had no intent of making the book by Geisler and Turek my focus. Rather, I wanted to concentrate on what I consider to be problematic with the saying whose popularity among Christians precedes its being used as the title of their book - "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist" (or its variant "It takes more faith to be an atheist than it does to be a Christian"). In hindsight, perhaps I shouldn't have made any reference to the book. Nevertheless, comments from Michael and Tony piqued my curiosity about the book, leading me to do some research.

As I didn't have it in my possession, I checked online in hope of finding an excerpt that might address the distinction between biblical and unbiblical understandings of the nature of faith. Amazon's excerpt didn't contain anything relevant to my question but I did note the following sentence in the book description: "All worldviews, including atheism, require faith. I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist argues that Christianity requires the least faith of all because it is the most reasonable." Faith, as presented here, is obviously unreasonable belief. Unsure of whether this was a description provided by the publisher, I then checked Crossway's site which confirmed this as their chosen promotion of the book. The following is the full text of the description:

I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist argues that Christianity requires the least faith of all worldviews because it is the most reasonable. The authors lay out the evidence for truth, God, and the Bible in logical order and in a readable, non-technical, engaging style. A valuable aid to those interested in examining the reasonableness of the Christian faith, Geisler and Turek provide a firm challenge to the prior beliefs of doubters and skeptics.

As Tony noted in his comment, in the interest of reducing an opponent's position to absurdity, one may, for the sake of argument, adopt his or her assumptions and show their logical consequences. While I don't share the atheist's definition of faith as irrational or unwarranted belief, for example, I may nevertheless say to my atheistic friend, "Even if I did define faith the way you do, it would take more faith to be an atheist and here's why." Wanting to see if this was the stance Geisler and Turek take, I headed off to the bookstore today and at last procured my own copy (thereby disproving any suspicions that I was subtly calling for a boycott). From my reading so far, it seems that the authors are not merely adopting a concept of faith foreign to that of the Bible for the sake of argument, but are stating their own position.


In the book's introduction, after making the claim that "the atheist has to muster a lot more faith than the Christian" (p. 26), the authors explain what they mean:

We mean that the less evidence you have for your position, the more faith you need to believe it (and vice versa). Faith covers a gap in knowledge. And it turns out that atheists have bigger gaps in knowledge because they have far less evidence for their beliefs than Christians have for theirs. In other words, the empirical, forensic, and philosophical evidence strongly supports conclusions consistent with Christianity and inconsistent with atheism (p. 26).

Earlier in the introduction, the authors describe the late Carl Sagan's well-known assertion that "the Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be" as "the ultimate statement of faith in atheistic materialism" (emphasis in the original). They then write: "How did he know that for sure? He didn't. How could he? He was a limited human being with limited knowledge. Sagan was operating in the realm of probability just like Christians are when they say God exists."

My original question remains. Is the concept of faith presented above compatible with faith as described in Scripture? Does one get the impression from the Bible that the amount of faith required is inversely proportionate to the scarcity of evidence? If the answer to this question is "no," which I think it is, is it really helpful to speak in such terms in our apologetic and evangelistic conversations with non-Christians? Wouldn't it be better to explain to them what it is that the Bible is speaking of when it uses the term and how that differs from blind faith? While looking for the quotation from Schaeffer's The God Who is There that I included in a previous post, I came across the following passage in which Schaeffer was determined to make that distinction:

Of course, faith is needed to become a Christian, but there are two concepts concerning faith. The two ideas of faith run like this: One idea of faith would be a blind leap in the dark. A blind leap in which you believe something with no reason (or, no adequate reason), you just believe it. This is what I mean by a blind leap of faith. The other idea of faith, which has no relationship with this, none whatsoever, is that you are asked to believe something and bow before that something on the basis of good and adequate reasons. There is no relationship between those two concepts of faith.

The biblical concept of faith is very much the second and not the first. You are not asked to believe in a blind leap of faith. The Bible teaches that there are good and sufficient reasons to know that these things are true. - Volume I, The Complete Works of Francis Schaeffer, pp. 181-182

None of this is designed to discredit either of the authors or the totality of the volume they authored. I only wish to think with other believers about how we may most faithfully and accurately present a biblical perspective to those to whom we commend and defend the gospel of Christ.

On Faithful Semantics (I Don't Have Enough Faith... Part II)

In response to a recent post advising Christians to refrain from saying things like "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist," Michael at Grace Sublime! commented: "Personally, I think you're making a issue out of a non-issue. I think the title is tongue in cheek to illustrate the irrationality of the atheist."

Although I was tempted to respond immediately, I decided to allow some time to pass in order to seriously consider whether my post was, in fact, picayune. I've decided that it wasn't, so I thought I'd take space here to further develop my thought on the matter.

I agree with Michael that the intent behind using the phrase in question as a title of an apologetics book was most likely to humorously display the irrationality of atheism. But that only serves to illustrate my point. Used in that context, "faith" is that which is required in proportion to the irrationality of a belief. The more irrational the belief, the more faith required. By saying "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist," I may mean "Atheism is irrational and therefore I can't bring myself to believe it," but what I'm actually saying (and what the atheist will understand me as saying) is that faith is the capacity to believe the absurd.

Actually, my purpose wasn't to target the book by Norm Geisler and Frank Turek. I've not read it but from what I've heard from those who have, it's very good. My concern was, and remains, Christians carelessly using biblical terms in unbiblical ways, thereby perpetuating and contributing to misconceptions about biblical Christianity. We often talk about the importance of context for understanding a particular verse. Likewise, a Christian's understanding of the meaning of such words as "faith" should be derived from the usage of that word in the entirety of Scripture. There is, in other words, a canonical context that should govern how we define and use words like "faith." This is a function of biblical authority. When we converse with those whose concept of faith is contrary to that of the Bible, and adopt that usage ourselves, we are neither aiding them in their understanding nor faithfully representing the biblical perspective we are seeking to commend.

Francis Schaeffer frequently noted the ambiguity of the word "god" and the need for Christians to clarify what they mean by it. He writes in The God Who is There:

As Christians, we must understand that there is no word so meaningless as the word "god" until it is defined. No word has been used to reach absolutely opposite concepts as much as the word "god." Consequently, let us not be confused. There is much "spirituality" about us today that would relate itself to the word god or to the idea god; but this is not what we are talking about. Biblical truth and spirituality is not a relationship to the word god, or to the idea god. It is a relationship to the one who is there, which is an entirely different concept. - Volume I, The Complete Works of Francis Schaeffer, p. 159

The point Schaeffer makes about the word "god" is applicable to the word "faith." The Christian's concept of faith is constrained by God's revelation in Scripture. Of course, we can't prevent unbelievers from attaching alien concepts to biblical vocabulary. We can, however, do all in our power not to encourage such unbiblical thinking by refusing to adopt its linguistic practices ourselves.

I Don't Have Enough Faith....

It's not my intent to dissuade anyone from reading the book by the title but I think "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist" is a very unhelpful utterance for Christians to make. While it might make us feel like we've made an effective point in our defense of Christianity, it actually presents the nature of faith in an unbiblical manner. Think about it. "Faith" as used in that catch phrase is synonymous with either wishful thinking or gullibility. It's equivalent to saying, "Yeah, I admit you have to be naive to be a Christian but you have to be even more naive to be an atheist." This substantiates the mistaken notion of faith unbelievers already entertain and portrays faith and knowledge as being unrelated if not in opposition to each other. In a related post on STR's blog, Greg Koukl noted: "In today’s culture, people take 'faith' and 'belief' as religious wishful thinking, not the kind of intelligent step of trust the Bible has in mind when it uses those words."

I just finished reading Geerhardus Vos's Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments in which he offers the following description of biblical faith and its relation to knowledge. He also demonstrates the impossibility of another misleading slogan - "No creed but Christ": 

Faith presupposes knowledge, because it needs a mental complex, person or thing, to be occupied about. Therefore, the whole modern idea of preaching Jesus, but preaching Him without a creed, is not only theologically, not merely Scripturally, but psychologically impossible in itself. In fact knowledge is so interwoven with faith that the question arises, whether it be sufficient to call it a prerequisite, and not rather an ingredient of faith.

The very names by means of which Jesus would have to be presented to people are nuclei of creed and doctrine. If it were possible to eliminate this, the message would turn to pure magic, but even the magic requires some name-sound and cannot be wholly described as preaching without a creed. The vogue which this programme has acquired is to some extent due to the unfortunate, and altogether undeserved, flavour clinging to the term 'creed', as though this necessarily meant a minutely worked out theological structure of belief. That is not meant, but belief there must be before faith can begin to function, and belief includes knowledge. This knowledge may have been gathered gradually, almost imperceptibly, from countless impressions received during a briefer or longer period of time, but epistemologically it does not differ from any other kind of mental act however acquired. To be sure, mere knowledge is not equivalent to full-orbed faith, it must develop into trust, before it is entitled to that name (p. 389).