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PEP Talk Podcast With Peter S Williams

by Solas

Sometimes we can think of the “new atheists” like Richard Dawkins as the biggest enemies of Christianity today. When we speak about God with our friends, we wonder if they think we’re suffering from a “God Delusion”. How can we respond in a positive way, or even take advantage of the opportunities the new atheism presents? Andy speaks with philosopher Peter S Williams to find out more.

With Peter S Williams – PEP Talk

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Our Guest

British philosopher and apologist Peter S. Williams is ‘Assistant Professor in Communication and Worldviews’ at Gimlekollen School of Journalism and Communication, NLA University College, Norway. Peter is a trustee of the Christian Evidence Society, a Montgomery Trust Lecturer and a Travelling Speaker for the European Leadership Forum. His books include: A Faithful Guide to Philosophy: A Christian Introduction to the Love of Wisdom (Wipf & Stock, 2019) and C.S. Lewis vs the New Atheists (Paternoster, 2013). His papers have appeared in journals including Philosophia Christi, Theofilus and Think. See more at: www.peterswilliams.com

A Beginner’s Guide to the Argument from Design

by Editor

Suppose I discover a Rolex watch lying on the sidewalk in front of the office building where I work. Without hesitation I would pick it up.
My lucky day!
My first inclination would be to keep the watch. But, I would like to think that after the initial excitement of finding such a valuable timepiece, I would make a reasonable effort to find the person who lost the watch.
Apart from a sense of right and wrong, my motivation to find the watch’s owner would ultimately stem from the conviction that the watch didn’t simply come into existence spontaneously from materials in the environment through the outworking of the laws of physics and chemistry. If it did, why should I feel compelled to try to find the watch’s rightful owner?
I also know that the watch probably belonged to someone who purchased it with his or her hard-earned money. More than likely, the merchant got the watch from a distributor; and the distributor from the manufacturer. Ultimately, the watch traces from buyer to manufacturer. The manufacture of the watch, of course, required the work of a watchmaker.

The Watchmaker Argument
The reasoning that would lead me to seek out the watch’s owner undergirds one of history’s best-known design arguments: the Watchmaker argument. This argument was posited by Anglican natural theologian William Paley (1743–1805) in his 1802 work Natural Theology.
For Paley, the characteristics of a watch and the complex interaction of its precision parts for the purpose of telling time were signatures for the work of an intelligent designer. Paley evokes the work of that kind of skilled craftsman in Natural Theology:
When we come to inspect the watch, we perceive—that its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose . . . The inference we think is inevitable, that the watch must have had a maker, that there must have existed, at some time and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers who formed it for the purpose which, we find it actually to answer, who comprehended its construction and designed its use.

The Skeptics’ Challenge
The Watchmaker argument hasn’t fared well over the centuries. Skeptics often point to David Hume’s critical analysis of design arguments, which appeared in his 1779 work Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, as devastating to Paley’s case for the Creator. Hume leveled several criticisms against design arguments. The foremost, however, centered on the nature of analogical reasoning.
Based on Hume’s arguments, skeptics curtly dismiss the Watchmaker argument, maintaining that the two things compared—organisms and watches—are too dissimilar for a good analogy. Hume asserted that the strength of an analogical argument depends on the similarity of the two things compared, insisting that:
Whenever you depart, in the least, from the similarity of the cases, you diminish proportionably the evidence; and may at last bring it to a very weak analogy, which is confessedly liable to error and uncertainty.
The merit of the Watchmaker argument then rises and falls on the question: Do living systems resemble machines made by human beings enough to warrant the analogy between the two? If so, how strong is this analogy and, consequently, the conclusion that can reasonably be drawn from it?

The Argument from Design
Though the Watchmaker argument was advanced over two centuries ago, it’s still relevant today—Hume’s criticisms not withstanding—particularly when applied to biochemical systems.
In Paley’s day, no one knew anything about the complexity of even the simplest cell. But today we have peered into the cell’s inner workings and have discovered complexity, unimagined. For example, a number of protein complexes that perform vital operations for the cell bear an uncanny resemblance to machines made by human designers. This eerie similarity gives new vitality to this old argument.
In my book The Cell’s Design, I describe how some of these biomolecular machines are configured and how they work. Here, I would like to focus on one of these protein machines.
F1-F0 ATPase
This well-studied protein complex plays a key role in harvesting energy for the cell to use. F1-F0 ATPase is a molecular-scale rotary motor.

Figure: ATP Synthase. This cartoon shows the construction of the molecular motor F1-F0 ATPase, including its rotor, stator, turbine, and cam. Image credit: Reasons to Believe
The F1 portion of the complex is mushroom-shaped and extends above the membrane’s surface. The “button of the mushroom” literally corresponds to an engine turbine. The F1-F0 ATPase turbine interacts with the part of the complex that looks like a “mushroom stalk.” This stalk-like component functions as a rotor.
Located in the inner membrane of mitochondria, F1-F0 ATPase makes use of a proton gradient across the inner membrane to drive the production of ATP (adenosine triphosphate), a high-energy compound used by the cell to power many of its operations. Because protons are positively charged, the exterior region outside the inner membrane is positively charged and the interior region is negatively charged. The charge differential created by the proton gradient is analogous to a battery and the inner membrane is like a capacitor.
The flow of positively charged hydrogen ions through the F0 component, embedded in the cell membrane, drives the rotation of the rotor. A rod-shaped protein structure that also extends above the membrane surface serves as a stator. This protein rod interacts with the turbine, holding it stationary as the rotor rotates.
The electrical current that flows through the channels of the F0 complex is transformed into mechanical energy, which then drives the rotor’s movement. A cam that extends at a right angle from the rotor’s surface causes displacements of the turbine. These back-and-forth motions are used to produce ATP.
As a biochemist I’m probably not alone in recognising how the discovery of this remarkable machine energizes the Watchmaker argument. But what about Hume’s criticism?

Nanotechnology Weighs In
The science of nanotechnology provides a powerful rejoinder to Hume. One of the challenges facing nanotechnology centers around the need to generate controlled motion in nanodevices. In an attempt to solve this problem, researchers have proposed interfacing biomolecular machines to nanodevices. For example, Cornell researchers have attached nickel nanopropellers to the F1-F0 ATPase rotor isolated from the cell. Upon the addition of ATP, the F1-F0 ATPase rotor turned the nanopropellers. When the researchers added compounds that inhibit the protein machine, the rotation stopped. In other words, the F1-F0 ATPase rotor turned the nanopropeller because it is a machine.
The key point to bear in mind is that the researchers conceived and then used the F1-F0 ATPase as an actual machine. By demonstrating its function, their work drives home the recognition of the machine-like character of biomolecular motors.
In this way science affirms the Watchmaker argument by showing that, indeed, there must be a Mind who comprehended the construction of F1-F0 ATPase and designed its use.

Dr Fazale ‘Fuz’ Rana is Vice-president of Research and Aplogetics at Reasons to Believe. Prior to joining this ministry, Dr Rana was a biochemist, working in Research and Development for a Fortune 500 company in the USA.

Salisbury, the gospel, curry and questions!

by Editor

The night before our Confident Christianity conference in Salisbury, Andy Bannister spoke at a men’s curry night in the city. Almost sixty guys came to the event, and packed the place, which was really encouraging. The evening was aimed at people who are not Christians, the folks in the local church had invited friends along.
St Paul’s church in Salisbury hosted the event, in a café they own called The Hope Centre, close to the centre of the city. The curry was really great, cooked by a former Army chef – which everyone really enjoyed. Then Andy Bannister addressed the subject of “The Pursuit of Happiness”. It’s a topic that seems to work particularly well in café-style settings, outside the traditional walls of the church.
Our culture encourages us to seek affirmation in things like work, performance, success, sexuality, and so forth. There is nothing inherently wrong with any of these things, but they are not designed to be ultimate; which means that if you make them the ultimate thing then ultimately they will let you down! Partly that’s because they are ephemeral. Food for example, is wonderful, it’s a basic need, which when met provides a level of satisfaction; but doesn’t provide ultimate meaning, significance and satisfaction. It produces a temporary sense of wellbeing, which is good – but not permanent happiness. A parallel with food can obviously be made with sex; as while both are good, neither are ultimate. Finally, we all need something bigger than ourselves as a foundation for happiness, security, identity, and our very selves. That foundation, is of course the gospel – Jesus said “I have come that you may have life, and life in all its fullness (John 10:10).
After Andy’s talk, there was a really open, lively and thoughtful Q&A session – in which it was obvious that people were really thinking the whole issue of happiness through in new ways. The ‘happiness’ topic is particularly helpful in meetings such as this. Christian apologists typically go for subjects such as “Evidence for the existence of God”, or “God and Science”, which are great subjects for people who are thinking about faith and raising objections. However the ‘happiness’ topic is a great one for engaging people who are perhaps agnostic, or even apathetic, because it shows them that ‘the God question’ really matters. In the Q&A in Salisbury, some of the audience raised questions such as “Well, what you’ve said makes sense but what about…….” and then raised objections and apologetic issues. That’s really significant because those people are now ready to engage with the apologetic issues.
Blaise Pascal said, “Preach the gospel in such a way that good people wish that it were true; then show them that it is!” The “Pursuit of happiness” question addresses the first part of that, whereas a lot of our other work at Solas, moves onto those other issues. Confronting the objections of sceptics is really important, but so is arousing the interest of the apathetic by showing them that the gospel has something powerfully relevant to say about aspects of life they already care deeply about.

Did Jesus Actually Exist? | Andy Bannister

by Solas

Was Jesus just a myth, a fiction created by the early church? Or did he really exist as a well-documented figure in the historical record? Wherever we look among professional historians of all faiths or none, Andy Bannister finds there is an overwhelming consensus that Jesus actually existed. Today on Short Answers, he explains why.
For a more in-depth look at this subject, Andy recommends John Dickson’s “Is Jesus History?”, mentioned in this video.

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‘Holy Sexuality’ – Solas in Conversation with Christopher Yuan

by Editor
Gavin Matthews spoke to Christopher Yuan for solas

Solas: Hi Christopher. Let me start by asking how long have you been a theologian, writer and lecturer?
CY: Hi, it’s good to speak to you! Well I’ve been lecturing for about 12 years now, I’ve been an author for 8 years, but I’ve been speaking for about 15 years.
Solas: So, how long have you been a Christian..?
CY: I’ve been a Christian only about 20 years, I didn’t come to faith until I was 29.
Solas: And that was the subject of your first book….?
CY: Correct – my memoir, “Out of a Far Country”
Solas: Where did you first come across Christ, where did you first encounter the Bible’s message. What did you think of it, and how did Christ win you for himself?
CY: Well, I wasn’t raised in a Christian home, I didn’t own a Bible or go to church. But my parents raised me with very traditional Chinese values, strong family values. But I wrestled with my sexuality from a young age. I came across pornography at about 9 years of age, and that was the first time that I realised that I had these attractions but I kept them hidden. Back in 1979, homosexuality was not talked about at all, so I kept those feelings hidden through high school, college even when I was in the Marine Corps, at college.
It was not until I moved to Louisville Kentucky to go start dental school that I “came out of the closet” and after about a year I went home and told my parents. This devastated my Mum and Dad, they weren’t Christians but amazingly God actually used that crisis to bring my mother to faith first, and then a few months later my father as well.
I thought they had lost their minds. I am of the first generation of my family to be born in America to Chinese parents who came to the US to pursue the American dream – and I would say they succeeded in that and yet they were miserable and about to get a divorce – until they became Christians. I went in the opposite direction, I thought “good for you – you’ve saved your marriage” but not for me.
Then, while in dental school, I spent a lot of time in gay clubs. I also started using and selling illicit drugs and was later expelled from dental school. So I moved to Atlanta, Georgia and eventually became a supplier to drug sellers in over a dozen states.
Meanwhile my parents prayed for a miracle. My mother prayed that God would do “whatever it takes” for me to come to surrender my life to Jesus. She prayed and fasted every Monday for seven years, she fasted once for 39 days, and enlisted over a hundred prayer warriors to pray and fast for me. However I remained totally resistant, to the point that once, when my parents came to visit me I kicked them out! As they left, my Dad gave me his Bible, but I immediately threw it in the trash.
The miracle they prayed for started with a bang on my door from twelve drug enforcement officers, a lot of police and two big German Shepherd dogs. So I found myself in jail and I called home. I was dreading making that phone call. My mother’s first words were “Are you OK?” No condemnation, just unconditional love and grace.
In prison, I was diagnosed with HIV, and hit a personal low-point. A few days after that I was walking around the cell block and I passed by a rubbish bin, and what I found on top of the trash was a Gideon’s New Testament! I took it to my cell and began reading it and God began to convict me. The first thing He had to deal with in me was my drug addiction. I would say that within the first few months, God freed me from the bondage of that struggle. God kept dealing with me and my idols – and the biggest one was my sexuality.
I began reading the Bible and I came across these passages that seemed to condemn a core part of who I am – my sexuality. So I went to a prison chaplain and asked him his opinion. Surprisingly he told me the Bible does not condemn homosexuality and even gave me a book. So I took that book, thinking I could find biblical justification for homosexuality. I had that book in one hand and the Bible in the other. And everything inside me wanted to agree with what this book was saying. I look back now and understand it was God’s indwelling Holy Spirit who convicted me that those sources were a clear distortion of God and His word.
So I gave the book back to the chaplain and turned to the Bible alone and I went through every verse, every chapter, every page, of scripture – looking for a justification for homosexuality. I wanted an answer as to what God teaches on this. And I realised that it was really clear. God does not bless monogamous same-sex relationships. Which also meant I was at a turning point, and had to make a decision. I either had to abandon God, abandon His word and live as a gay man in a monogamous same-sex relationship, allowing my attractions to dictate who I was; or abandon pursuing a monogamous same-sex relationship by freeing myself from my sexuality by not allowing my desires to control who I was – and to live as a follower of Christ. My decision was clear and obvious. I followed Jesus.
Solas: You didn’t just talk about being freed from behaviours, you went a stage deeper and talked about being freed from ‘idols’ – tell me why you phrased it like that…?
CY: In my first book, Out of a far Country, I explained that while I was in prison I was dealing with a lot of idols. I am from Chinese culture where Buddhism has many physical idols. Now, I didn’t have any idols that I bowed down to, burnt incense to or whatever. But an idol is really “anything in my life that I can’t live without”. That for me was the drugs, and the party scene, and my sexuality. I realised that I couldn’t live without my sexuality – so that was an idol. It wasn’t just a behaviour pattern – it was who I was.
So in Holy Sexuality and the Gospel, my new book, I begin with personhood.  I don’t know of any other sin-struggle where we have conflated behaviour, or even sinful desires with identity. For example, if you have a friend who is a liar, we don’t view that as who he is but what he does. Yet when it comes to sexuality: gay/straight/bi/homo/hetero we have made it who we are.
As Christians we don’t always recognise that when we talk to our gay friends about sinful behaviour, we are misunderstood. I never (as a gay man) heard that what I was doing was sinful, but what I heard was that the Christian was telling me that my entire person from head to toe was reprehensible before God.
So God needed to separate those issues and show me that sexuality is not who you are, but how you are! When I was able to separate that, then God was able to tell me who I was – that I’m created in His image.  But our fallen nature is inclined towards sin and that we need Christ’s redemption to know the true image of God which is Christ. So that means our identity needs to be in Christ. When I realised that, it was quite radical.
God called me to full-time ministry while I was in prison. My sentence was miraculously shortened from 6 to 3 years. I got out of prison and went right to Moody Bible Institute, and studied biblical languages, finally earning a doctorate and was able to write my book.
Solas: So in the new book, you try to recapture the vocabulary around sexuality into biblical categories, and away from some of the psychological categories, of the normal discourse in our culture.
CY: Yes! Because even among more evangelical/conservative Christians who hold to biblical sexual ethics that marriage is between a man and woman; there’s still diversity and ambiguity.  So, I wanted to do away with some of that ambiguity and be as precise as possible. So for example, the term “gay” today means more than just a person who has enduring patterns of desire towards the same sex, but has come to be conflated with personhood, identity and ontology. I find that a bit problematic because sexuality is not who we are, but how we are.
In an agnostic or atheistic world-view framework, without God to give life purpose meaning and dignity, we have to create value, dignity and purpose for ourselves. So the mid-1800s brought us the Romantic period in which there was an emphasis on emotions. Because if there is no God – then what else is there so we need to be tune with our emotions?
Then there were philosophies like existentialism, in which we have to create our own values by what we do and our experiences in life.  But Romanticism and Existentialism lead to futility and emptiness. How can we create our own value? How can we actually base our true essence in what we feel and do? That ultimately leaves a void into which God’s beautiful, wonderful and biblical truth of who He is and who we are as revealed to us through scripture, comes in.
So it was really important to begin my book with identity—but also to give clear categories, that are biblical and razor-sharp clear, especially when we talking to Christians. Obviously when we are talking to non-Christians, biblical categories don’t make any sense. For example, “attraction”. There is a lot of discussion amongst Christians today about whether attractions, particularly same-sex attractions are sinful or not.
I’ve heard both sides and I believe we can move forward by not using a category difficult to define, but using clearer biblical categories correlated to attraction. I have a chapter on “desire” and one on “temptation” in my attempt to bring more clarity to the topic.
As a matter of fact the cover of my book was very intentional. It may not seem very creative (it’s black and white!) but it was very intentional in that we are living in a world of grey today; fifty shades of it right? A world of grey in which all these various forms of shades are celebrated but biblical sexuality is truly just black and white. And I wanted to bring that clarity and not just redefining the definitions and categories, but actually using biblical categories.
Solas: And you bring up something which is not very popular today – to bring up the old language “the mortification of the flesh”. What does that mean theologically, what does it mean for you..? And why that is such a critical thing in the book..?
CY: Yes, yes! I was relying on the Puritans and the theology of John Owen, he wrote a lot about the mortification of the flesh, using Paul’s words that we need to ‘put to death the deeds of the body’. So I broke it down to ‘temptations’ and ‘desires’ and if I could be very specific, same-sex sexual temptations and same-sex sexual desires.
Same-sex sexual temptations, in and of themselves are not sinful (but rooted in our sin nature). Jesus was tempted in every way, yet was without sin, Hebrews says. So temptation is not sin, but giving in to temptation is sin. Then we come to same-sex desires.
I’ve heard people say that same sex desire is not sin, but lust is sin. But, that’s problematic because if you actually look at the way the Bible uses the word “desire” and “lust”, it’s the same Greek word epithumia and it’s the same Hebrew word we’d translate as ‘covet’ or ‘desire’. So I realised that it’s not that desire turns into lust, it’s that wrongly ordered or wrongly intended desires is lust, is sin. So my same-sex desires are sinful; but the temptation isn’t, therefore I needed to realise that my same-sex desires needed to be ”mortified” – or put to death.
However, in my chapter on desire I also talked about romantic desires. In my love of precision of language I divide desire into three categories, sexual, romantic and platonic desires. When we are talking about interpersonal relationships and desires, same-sex sexual desires are sinful and same-sex romantic desires are sinful, but same-sex platonic desires are not.
This is where I would disagree with those who argue that desires for friendship are part of their sexuality. Those who say their goal is a covenanted friendship or spiritual friendship, they have conflated platonic desires with sexuality. I disagree. If we have broadened non-sexual, platonic, non-romantic desires to be part of our sexuality; then sexuality has no more meaning. Everyone would be “bisexual”.
So with that clarity, I realised that my same-sex attractions needed to be mortified. It wasn’t something I could dress up to look good, or sanctify – it was something that I needed to resist. And that is just a helpful way to think. I don’t think it is a bad thing, because sometimes people think “that is so depressing”, but if you read the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says “if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off”. So we don’t try to dress it up, or hide it behind our back or sit on it. Jesus says if your right eye causes you to sin gouge it out. Now that’s going to be painful. Sanctification is difficult and sometimes painful—but worth it!
However some believe same-sex desires are just a disability, like deafness. As in, something that just needs to be tweaked bit, refined a bit or pointed in the right direction, or maybe just healed a little bit, or sanctified and made better, thus some would say, “my gay-ness – aspects of it are bad, but there are other aspects that can be good. Good can come of me being gay.”
However, if we view this as something which is rooted in our sinful nature, (and Paul and Jesus are very clear about this) – then it is something that needs to be ‘put to death’ or ‘mortified’ and cut off. That is much more helpful because when we mortify the flesh, then we can be more fully submitted to the Spirit. That’s what Paul talks about, there is a battle going on between our sin nature (our sarx) with the Spirit. And that’s a real, true, daily battle for the Christian.
Solas: You talk about what the Spirit wants to ‘cut-off’; but you also have a very positive vision of what the Spirit wants to build in the church, the body of Christ into a family…. Tell us about that. And how it must include single people and how the church has been so terrible at that..
CY: Amen – yes!
Here’s what I saw was missing in a lot of the writings in the past when books addressing the issue of sexuality focused on individuals and orientation change. So I wanted to bring a bit of correction. We get it wrong when it comes to singleness because we don’t understand “spiritual family”.
Spiritual family means the body of Christ, the local church. But the local church wasn’t even discussed when it comes to ministering to the same-sex attracted. There were a lot of support groups and different types of therapies and counselling and then today we have an approach with a lot of emphasis on how to help individuals who have that ‘double-whammy’ of not only experiencing same-sex attraction, but also of being single.
But Christians have often not been good at building intimacy outside of marriage or our physical family. We have totally denigrated healthy intimacy among men, and healthy intimacy among women. Because today if you get too close – people will think that you are gay!
Actually there is not a lot the in the Bible about friendship, but it has a lot to say about family. The Biblical story has a narrative arc. The Old Testament emphasises the physical family, but the New develops the idea of spiritual family – what I like to call the eternal family, which is the body of Christ. The New Testament writers talk about “brothers and sisters”, and we’re known by our love. 1Cor13 – that whole “love chapter”, which has almost exclusively read at weddings (and it works there) and yet when we look at the context, Paul was not talking about husbands and wives, but about how brothers and sisters in the Lord are to love each other in the church.
Where I believe that the “ex-gay” organisations which focus on ‘orientation change’, are off (some have closed, and some have adopted very unbiblical views of sexuality) is that they were untethered to the body of Christ, the local church. But on the other end, are “gay celibate Christians” who form mini-communes in the US where a group of “gay celibates” moved in together. Some of those have then abandoned biblical ethics and have “fallen in love”.
We can’t be untethered from the church. The local church is our family, where we are fed every week. Friends don’t come together and preach to each other. And what about the sacraments? There are reasons why we have the Lord’s Supper. If you want a “covenanted relationship”, the Bible provides that in the spiritual family! What greater symbol of the covenant than baptism? Entrance into the covenanted family! The other great symbol of the covenanted family is communion – that continuous reminder that we are covenanted together! There is also headship. God gave us elders and pastors to be our shepherds in true discipleship and mentoring in the church.
Solas: So, having talked a bit about the content of the book, tell me who you wrote it for, who you hope will read it, and how it will impact them..
CY: I wrote this book first for those who have been personally impacted by this topic of sexual identity, or with a loved one. The younger generation especially have a passion to know, ‘how do we better share Christ with our neighbours who are gay’? But since the book came out our ministry has received countless e-mails from people who read the book to help them share Christ with a gay friend, but were surprised that actually it was helpful for them personally too.
I wrote 4 big chapters, 2 on marriage and 2 on singleness. Books often talk about what marriage is, but few books talk about what marriage is not! There were some corrections I wanted to give to conservative Christians who want to uphold the sanctity of marriage. Some overdo it, and I offered a healthy biblical correction to challenge people. Then there are 4 chapters at the end which give us practical action steps on how to minister to Christians who have same-sex attractions, but also share Christ with loved ones in the gay community.
My first book is for the heart – my story. The second one is for the head and then for the hands to think right before we go and do right.
Solas: And what have reactions to the book been like?
CY: Varied – but very positive! I do get a lot of naysayers. However the criticism seems to have changed. We are no longer accused of just being hateful; now we’re accused of being “harmful”, that Christian perspectives are actually hurting people, and killing people. According to those who oppose us, gay young people are committing suicide today, because of our perspective. That’s a pretty serious claim, which I’ve considered. Am I causing harm? That’s the last thing we want to do. The claim is that Evangelicals who believe that same-sex behaviour is sinful, cause stigma which drives suicide rates up. However, what’s quite interesting is if you go to the Netherlands, one of the most gay-affirming countries in the world, there is very little Evangelical Christian presence, and same-sex marriage has been legal for years – and affirmation of gay relationships amongst young people is normal; you would expect suicide rates to be down. But they are not. In fact, gay teen suicide rates are higher than amongst their counterparts.
Solas: So mixed reactions to the book? Some people loving it, some people pushing back against it?
CY: Yeah – some people thinking I’m killing people! I was at a church this last weekend and the entire pastoral staff read my book, Holy Sexuality and the Gospel, and a lot of people are finding it really helpful. That’s what I wanted to see – a helpful resource for the body of Christ.
Solas: Thank you! This has been a fascinating conversation, which will no doubt cause a lot of discussion. Thanks so much for your time. Will you be back in the UK anytime soon?
CY: No plans, at the moment – but I’ll let you know when I am!
Solas: And perhaps Scotland will be on your agenda next time…?
CY: I hope so!

Dr. Christopher Yuan has taught the Bible at Moody Bible Institute for over ten years and his speaking ministry on faith and sexuality has reached five continents. He speaks at conferences, on college campuses, and in churches. He has co-authored with his mother their memoir, Out of a Far Country: A Gay Son’s Journey to God, A Broken Mother’s Search for Hope (100,000 copies sold and now in seven languages). He is also the author of Giving a Voice to the Voiceless. Christopher graduated from Moody Bible Institute in 2005, Wheaton College Graduate School in 2007 with a Master of Arts in Biblical Exegesis and received his doctorate of ministry in 2014 from Bethel Seminary. Dr. Yuan’s newest book is Holy Sexuality and the Gospel: Sex, Desire, and Relationships Shaped by God’s Grand Story

Christopher Yuan’s books are available here;
Holy Sexuality and The Gospel
Out of a far Country

Several of Christopher’s talks are available online including:
This lecture on Holy Sexuality 
Family testimony: 

Christopher’s website is here.

Book: Gunning for God: Why The New Atheists are Missing the Target, by John Lennox.

by Editor
lennox gunning for god

Gunning for God is John Lennox’ reply to the critique of religion in general and Christianity in particular, which has been so loudly and trenchantly offered by writers such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and the late Christopher Hitchens. In chapter after chapter, analysing different aspects of their work, he finds their arguments flawed, their understanding of Christian belief skewed, and their use of evidence faulty. Lennox’ most significant claim, however is that the New Atheists fail to live up to their own much-vaunted standards of objective enquiry, when it comes to matters of faith. Because they are led by a mistrust of religion which has spilled over into distaste and then blind-prejudice, the New Atheist literature if filled with misquotations, misrepresentations and unsupported assertions, which Lennox exposes and dismantles with some relish.
For his part, John Lennox is a Professor of Mathematics at The University of Oxford, sometime lecturer in the Philosophy of Science, and someone who has publicly debated these issues with Dawkins and Hitchens. He also writes from distinctly Christian convictions – and wishes the reader to know why (contrary to the New Atheist assertions to the contrary) these form part of a seamless worldview with his science – and not in contrast or contradiction to it. This is where the book begins, but soon moves forward to consider things such as Hitchens’ ‘religion poisons everything’ argument. Lennox ably demonstrates the historical silliness of this argument – and counters with the record of atheism, both in government and in the “wildly intemperate” statements about curtailing the freedom of belief and conscience that atheist writers such as a Sam Harris have made.
The latter half of the book focuses more on Christianity in particular, and deals in detail with some of the critiques of Christian theology which have been raised, such as the morality of the Bible and the doctrine of the Atonement (Jesus died in our place to reconcile us to God). Here Lennox finds countless examples of (wilful?) misunderstanding of what Christians believe, and the construction and subsequent demolition of straw-men instead of careful argument, especially in the works of Dawkins, which he lambasts. Finally the book ends with a defence of the historically credibility of the central Christian claim that miracles occurred in Christ’s life (engaging with Hume’s argument), culminating in his resurrection from the dead.
This remarkably combative book pulls no punches, and demonstrates many of the flaws in the writings of Dawkins et al. concisely and aggressively. While no doubt Lennox would listen attentively if Dawkins were to be lecturing in his specialist area of biological research, it soon becomes apparent that he takes a very dim view of Dawkins ability to comment meaningfully in the areas of philosophy or theology.
Gunning for God, makes a strong contribution to this debate which has dominated so much public discourse about faith over the last decade or so. No doubt believers will be heartened by this book, and followers of Dawkins et al, very irritated by it. It deserves to be widely read, especially by people who have embraced the New Atheist worldview. At the very least, serious engagement with Lennox would help them to adjust any serious misrepresentations of Christian faith they have accepted from the New Atheist writers.
This otherwise excellent book would greatly benefit from the addition of a proper index.
Gunning for God by Prof John Lennox is available here (paperback £6.99)

PEP Talk Podcast With Mary Jo Sharp

by Solas 1 Comment

How can we present the gospel through our lives and in our churches when, unlike Christ Himself, we are far from perfect? Navigating the tricky waters of hypocrisy or painful experiences is so important in bringing friends and family to Christ. This time on PEP Talk, Mary Jo Sharp reflects on her own journey from atheism to faith, and how she dealt with these kind of issues.

With Mary Jo Sharp – PEP Talk

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Our Guest

A former atheist, Mary Jo Sharp first encountered apologetics in her own spiritual search while seeking answers. Mary Jo is now an Assistant Professor of apologetics at Houston Baptist University and the founder and director of Confident Christianity Apologetics Ministry. She has been featured in Christianity Today’s cover story “The Unexpected Defenders” and is an international speaker on apologetics, focusing on love and logic to uncover truth. She lives with her husband and family in Portland, Oregon. She serves on faculty with Summit Ministries Student Conferences, and is also the author of the top-selling Bible study, “Why Do You Believe That?” as well as Living in Truth with LifeWay Christian Resources. She recently released her book Why I Still Believe.

A Beginner’s Guide to the Fine-Tuning Argument

by Editor 2 Comments

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In the past few decades a broad consensus has emerged among physicists that a number of aspects of the physical cosmos appear to be ‘fine-tuned’ for life, which is to say, various aspects of its basic structure and of the fundamental laws that govern it are balanced on a knife-edge. If any of them had differed by only a very tiny amount, the universe would not have been capable of supporting life at all. Some of these ‘fine-tuned’ features of the universe are such that had they differed only very slightly, the universe would not even have contained galaxies and stars, let alone complex conscious creatures like ourselves.
There are many specific examples of fine-tuning.[1] Let’s look at just a couple. It’s been estimated by physicists that if the strength of gravity were different by just one part in 1060, there could be no stars and galaxies. A tiny bit stronger and all the matter would have collapsed back in on itself; a tiny bit weaker and the matter would have spread out too quickly for anything like galaxies or stars to be able to form. Another example is what’s known as the cosmological constant. The cosmological constant governs how fast space itself expands or contracts. A tiny bit too strong and the universe would have collapsed back on itself; a tiny bit too weak and the universe would have expanded too quickly for galaxies to be able to form. It’s estimated that the chance of the cosmological constant having a value that would permit life is roughly 1 in 1053.
To be sure, whilst physicists are broadly agreed that the universe exhibits fine-tuning, they don’t agree on the interpretation of this fact. Is it evidence that an intelligent mind stands behind the cosmos? Or does it even call our for explanation at all? These sorts of questions, I would suggest, fall not within the domain of physics but of philosophy.
Here’s one reason that someone might suggest that fine-tuning doesn’t call out for any explanation at all: “If the universe hadn’t been fine-tuned for life then we wouldn’t be here to notice that fact; there’s no other kind of universe we could have observed other than a fine-tuned universe; and so we shouldn’t be surprised to find ourselves in a fine-tuned universe.” The philosopher John Leslie has responded to this objection by way of an analogy.[2] Suppose that you’re about to be executed by a firing squad made up of fifty of the world’s finest marksmen. Each one of them has a live round in his rifle, and each of them has a fantastic aim. They raise their rifles, take aim, and fire, but to your amazement, you’re still alive — every single one of them has missed.
Obviously, you’d think, “this cries out for explanation; there must have been a setup; they must have all missed on purpose.” But suppose someone said to you, “Actually, you shouldn’t be amazed, after all, if the marksmen hadn’t all missed then you wouldn’t be here to wonder about it.” This is a flawed line of reasoning. It’s true that the only scenario you could witness is one in which the marksmen all miss. But the fact that they all missed is very improbable given the hypothesis that they all intended to kill you, and so you should look for another hypothesis to account for what happened. Similarly, it’s true that the only kind of universe we could observe is one which is fine-tuned, but the existence of a fine-tuned universe is very, very improbable given the hypothesis of sheer chance, and so we should look for another hypothesis.
What other hypotheses are on the table? One is that the fine-tuning of the universe is not the result of chance, but rather, the deliberate choice of a rational mind who stands behind the universe. Let’s call this the design hypothesis. But recently another hypothesis has received considerable attention. This is the multiverse hypothesis. The multiverse hypothesis postulates that our universe isn’t the only one, but that instead there exists a whole vast ensemble of universes, differing from one another with respect to their fundamental laws of physics and initial conditions. Given enough universes, the thought goes, at least one of them will have physical laws and initial conditions which make possible the emergence of life.
So the question is: does the multiverse hypothesis account for fine-tuning at least as well as the design hypothesis? The philosopher Robin Collins has written extensively on this question, suggesting that the multiverse hypothesis faces the following dilemma.[3] Either the multiverse is unrestricted — containing every logically possible universe — or it is restricted — containing only some of the logically possible universes. If the multiverse is restricted, then there remains an unanswered question about why the multiverse contains this set of universes rather than any other set, and so the fine-tuning problem is simply pushed up a level. On the other hand, if we appeal to an unrestricted multiverse to explain fine-tuning, this poses serious problems for the very idea of scientific explanation. In a nutshell, the problem is that if the unrestricted multiverse hypothesis is true, then every event that is logically possible is 100% probable — that is, if something is logically possible, then it actually happens somewhere in the multiverse. Suppose you roll a die 100 times and it lands on six every time. Normally, we would regard such an event as calling for an explanation in terms of the die being rigged. But if the unrestricted multiverse hypothesis is true, everything that is logically possible actually occurs, and that includes a fair die landing on six 100 times in a row. It seems like whenever something very surprising happens, the explanation will always just be “oh well, everything that is logically possible actually happens in an unrestricted multiverse, so don’t worry about it.” And that spells the end of scientific investigation. In short, the multiverse hypothesis has serious flaws that render it doubtful whether it really does rival the design hypothesis.
Finally, it’s important to note the limitations of the fine-tuning argument. Just taken on its own, the fine-tuning argument doesn’t show that the God of the Bible exists. But it does, arguably, give a fair amount of support to the hypothesis of an extremely powerful and extremely wise designer, and as such, the fine-tuning argument can form part of a wider cumulative case for Christian theism.


Dr Max Baker-Hytch received his doctorate in Philosophy from Oxford University in 2014. He is Tutor in Philosophy at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford University. He is also Senior Academic Tutor at the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics.

Further reading:

Neil Manson (ed.), God and Design: The Teleological Argument and Modern Science (London: Routledge, 2003)
John Hawthorne and Yoaav Isaacs, “Fine-Tuning Fine-Tuning,” in Knowledge, Belief, and God: New Insights in Religious Epistemology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018)
Robin Collins, “The Teleological Argument: An Exploration of the Fine-Tuning of the Universe,” in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, ed. William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland (Oxford: Blackwell, 2012)

[1] For an overview, see Martin Rees, Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces that Shape the Universe (New York: Basic Books, 2000)
[2] John Leslie, “Anthropic Principle, World Ensemble, Design,” American Philosophical Quarterly, 19 (1982), pp. 141-51.
[3] Robin Collins, “The Teleological Argument: An Exploration of the Fine-Tuning of the Universe,” in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, ed. William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland, (Oxford: Blackwell, 2012)

Confident Christianity in the Cairngorms

by Editor

I’ve been speaking at the church weekend away for Trinity Church in Aberdeen – a really up and coming church. They are currently meeting in a hotel, but they have just bought one of the biggest church buildings in Aberdeen. While there are many churches moving out of the city centre, they are moving back into it! I love what they are doing, they are very missional, have lots of young families, and students and there are lots of obvious signs of growth going on.
Trinity have an annual church weekend away, which they held this year at the Abernethy Centre in Nethy Bridge near Aviemore, deep in the heart of the Scottish Highlands, in the beautiful Cairngorms National Park. I was there speaking for the weekend, and we took the theme “Confident Christianity”. We started on the Friday night teaching people how to use questions and to have natural conversations about their faith – and they were a really enthusiastic and engaged audience! Then, on the Saturday and into the Sunday we looked at various topics such as “Jesus and the failures of the church”. That sessions aims to help people who are drawn to Jesus but are put off by things such as The Crusades, The Spanish Inquisition, and other times in history where the church has gone badly wrong. Then we looked at suffering and how we can believe in God when there’s suffering in the world? Next we looked at what it means to be human, and whether can be reduced to just being atoms and particles, or if we are than that – and that atheism’s answers to that are actually terrible, while Christian answers are brilliant! Then on Sunday morning we looked at the uniqueness of Jesus in a world of faiths.
It was great to be with them, because not only were all the sessions packed – but the engagement levels were very high too. There were loads of questions in the breaks too, in fact I hardly got a break because people wanted to discuss, and ask questions. We had two, hour-long Q&A sessions, but we could have gone on much longer – because we had questions on every topic under the sun.
Then what really made the weekend for me were some non-Christian people there too, who I’m always drawn to at these events! One lady who is new to the church, is really interested in the Christian faith; and asked some brilliant questions in the Q&A around the issues of truth, and how we can know what is actually true. It’s great to see a church which is such a welcoming community for someone who is searching, and is a place where people and their questions are really welcomed.  I also had another really lovely conversation with someone who isn’t yet a Christian, but is very close, which is really exciting. It was really encouraging to this person engaging especially with the talk on the uniqueness of Jesus. The church seemed encouraged by the weekend – and it was a real privilege to be with them.

Andy Bannister Short Answers 13Andy Bannister is the Director of the Solas Centre for Public Christianity

Is There Evidence That There Is a God? | Andy Bannister

by Solas

Do Christians just believe because they believe? Or is there actual evidence that God exists—and more specifically, evidence about which God we’re talking about? In a packed episode of SHORT ANSWERS, Andy Bannister gives a lightning tour of just a few pieces of evidence for God (selected from over a hundred!): evidence from philosophy, from science, from ethics, and from history. For a deeper dive into some of this material, check out our “A Beginner’s Guide to Apologetics” series elsewhere on the Solas website.

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SHORT ANSWERS is a viewer-supported video series: if you enjoy them, please help us continue to make them by donating to Solas. Visit our Donate page and choose “Digital Media Fund” under the Campaign/Appeal button.

Who created human rights? (and why it’s a problem for atheists)

by Editor
It is 72 years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations. Following his Big Conversation debate with Peter Singer, Andy Bannister says the document still poses a significant problem for atheists.
On the 3rd July 1884, four sailors aboard a yacht, the Mignonette, encountered a terrible Atlantic storm. The yacht sank, leaving them stranded in a tiny wooden lifeboat.With little food and no water, by their eighth day adrift they were desperate and so made the fateful decision to kill the cabin boy. For four more days until their rescue, the three surviving sailors fed on the cabin boy’s body.
When they returned to England and the story broke, it scandalised the nation and the survivors were charged with murder and made to stand trial. If you were the judge, what would you do? After all, the story leads to two possible conclusions. The first is purely utilitarian: one person was killed, three people survived. And the cabin boy, unlike the older sailors, had no dependants; his death left no grieving children.
But I suspect few readers would agree with that option. Most of us have a more visceral reaction: what those three sailors did was fundamentally wrong, because they violated the cabin boy’s human rights and dignity.
Free and equal 
Whether it’s a small crime against humanity (the murder of a cabin boy under desperate circumstances) or a major one (the Rwandan genocide or Stalin’s Russia), most people have the same reaction: it is wrong to violate the dignity of another human being. This year is the 72nd anniversary of the document that most famously encapsulates this idea: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which was adopted by the United Nations on 10th December 1948 in Paris.
The UDHR opens with these powerful words: “Recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world…All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.”
We’re passionate about human rights, we award Nobel Prizes for them, but a fairly basic question is often overlooked. These rights, this dignity that human beings are claimed to have – where is it located? What  is its basis, its foundation? In short, however noble the UDHR may sound, is it true?

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights

These are trickier questions to answer than you might imagine, and the options are limited. Perhaps one might suggest that human rights just are; they just exist. This was the route taken by the secular human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell whom I once debated on Premier Christian Radio’s Unbelievable? show. Tatchell is passionate about human rights, but when I pressed him on why we have them, he basically said they exist because they exist. This is hugely problematic, not just because it’s a circular argument, but because the racist can use the same rationale – they can claim to be superior to other races and when we ask why, reply: “I am because I am.”
Another popular secular route is to try to find something special about human beings: perhaps the fact we have speech, or consciousness, or creativity. Again, as part of ‘The Big Conversation’ series from Unbelievable?, I recently dialogued with one of the most famous atheist philosophers in the world who holds this position. Peter Singer is famous, firstly, for his commitment to utilitarianism – we pick our actions based on what causes the least suffering or promotes the greatest happiness (so cabin boy casserole is very much a real option). But in our conversation Singer also said that what gives us rights and dignity is not that we are human, but that we have the ability to have preferences for the future, and that we can act in accordance with those preferences.

There is a grave problem with trying to ground rights and dignity in somebody’s abilities. Even leading atheist Sam Harris has pointed it out: “The problem is that whatever attribute we use to differentiate between humans and animals – intelligence, language use, moral sentiments, and so on – will equally differentiate between human beings themselves. If people are more important to us than orangutans because they can articulate their interests, why aren’t more articulate people more important still? And what about those poor men and women with aphasia? It would seem that we have just excluded them from our moral community.”

Now the options are getting more limited. Maybe we can say that human rights exist because they matter to me; because they’re personally important to us. The problem, of course, is that when Martin Luther King cries “I have a dream!” in his famous civil rights speech, how do we answer the person who says: “I’m glad you care; but personally I don’t.” Isn’t the point about rights and dignity that we should all care? We need more than mere personal preference.
The last option is to appeal to the state: human rights exist because the government grants them. The problem here is that if rights are something the state gives, the state can equally take them away. In 1857, an African-American slave named Dred Scott sued his owner for his freedom. The US Supreme Court ruled against Scott, the Justices stating that as a “negro”, he did not possess rights.
We hear a story like that, 150 years on, and wince with shame at how our ancestors behaved. But if human rights and dignity are just arbitrary inventions that the state confers, then the state can equally arbitrarily take them away. Tax deductions today, rights deductions tomorrow.

Invented or discovered? 
So how do we solve the problem that many of us are committed to human rights but we can’t ground human rights? Well, the first thing to say is we need to get beyond preference. There’s a huge temptation today to see morals, values and choices as just our personal preference.
I was surprised to discover that even Singer drifts this way at times. I reminded him during our conversation of the passage in his famous book, Practical Ethics (Cambridge University Press), where he basically admits there isn’t really a way to differentiate between a life spent stamp-collecting, a life spent watching football, or a life spent helping the poor. If ethics is just something we make up, then I can see why he is stuck here.
But what if ethics, human rights and human dignity aren’t made up? One of the brilliant insights that the world leaders, philosophers and theologians who crafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights had was the assumption that human rights and dignity aren’t invented but discovered. During our conversation, Singer actually admitted this, remarking that he increasingly thinks that moral values and duties exist independently of us, in a “similar way to mathematical truths existing”.

There’s a huge temptation today to define morals as just our personal preference

That’s a massive step for an atheist like Singer to take, for it means that as well as physical things (atoms, particles, tables, chairs, chocolate éclairs etc) you also have invisible, non-physical entities floating around, principles such as “love your neighbour”. For somebody like Singer, who believes human beings are the unpurposed product of time plus chance plus natural selection, this looks remarkably peculiar. As I put it to him in our dialogue: it must have been an interesting day on the Serengeti all those thousands of years ago when one of our ancient hominid ancestors woke up to discover themselves bound not just by the law of gravity, but also by the law of “do not murder”. Was their first thought: “Hoorah! I’m now a moral agent!”, or “Bummer, now I can’t whack the hominid in the next door cave over the head and steal his lunch”?

By contrast, the Christian view of what it means to be a human being and a bearer of rights and dignity starts from a very different place. Christians ground human rights in the incredible truth, proclaimed in texts like Genesis 1:26-27, that human beings bear the image of God, the imago dei. Incidentally, that idea is unique to the Bible. It’s not found in Islam, or Hinduism or Buddhism – it’s a uniquely Judaeo-Christian concept.
Many atheists throughout history have reluctantly recognised this is a far better foundation for human rights than attempting to arbitrarily ground value and dignity in other places. Some of them have also raised the next obvious question of what happens to value and dignity if you pull God out as the foundation. The 19th Century German atheist Friedrich Nietzsche (who hated Christian ethics as he felt it elevated the weak and the poor) was brutally honest: “The masses blink and say ‘We are all equal – Man is but man, before God – we are equal.’ Before God! But now this God has died.”
So, there is a stark choice: one can adopt a Christian understanding of humanity – that we have real value and real dignity, because we are made in God’s image. Or you can reject that narrative, ignore the consequences, refuse to answer Nietzsche and pretend everything is OK.

Where are we going? 

But one last thought. If human beings have dignity, why should that affect how we behave? Suppose you are walking down your local high street when a passer-by trips you up, pokes you in the eye, and steals your Starbucks. “Hey!” you cry. “I have dignity! How dare you!” And they look at you and say: “So what?” How can you compel them to take your rights seriously?
You see, you can’t talk about rights without talking about duties. What is our duty towards a dignity-bearer, towards a fellow human, and why? That question opens a whole new can of worms. Is there a way we are supposed to be? Are some actions really wrong, and some really right? Harvard University law professor, Michael Sandel says: “Debates about justice and rights are often, unavoidably, debates about purpose…Despite our best efforts to make law neutral on such questions, it may not be possible to say what’s just without arguing about the nature of the good life.”
Sandel’s observation gets to the heart of what it means to be a human being. Are we creatures designed to seek justice, goodness and fairness? Or are we just primates that got lucky in the evolutionary lottery and whose genes are purely directed at reproductive success?
This was a topic that Singer and I returned to many times in our ‘Big Conversation’ (see dialogue box above). I remarked to Peter that it’s all very well calling a book Practical Ethics, but that only goes so far. Imagine that I get home from a trip and I say to my wife: “Hey, I just bought this amazing book, Practical Canoeing, at the airport!” Next day I load my wife and children into a canoe and start paddling out into the North Sea. “What precisely is the plan?” my wife begins to ask, increasingly insistently. To which I keep replying: “Honey, stop asking silly questions! Can’t you see how wonderful this canoe is? It’s so practical.” Finally, she shouts at me: “But where are we going?”
Practical ethics, utilitarianism, human rights, and so forth – all these things are all very well, but unless we ask what the purpose of a human life is, what we are supposed to be, what we are supposed to be aiming at, we really will just end up paddling in circles.

If Christianity is true, love is the supreme ethic

As the conversation with Singer shows, if you ultimately believe that the universe is just atoms in motion, that there is nothing intrinsically valuable about human beings, and if some humans have more value than others, because the metric you use to measure ‘worth’ or ‘personhood’ assigns them a greater score, then you have a problem. But by stark, beautiful contrast, if the Christian story is true, then we were made with a purpose. We were made for something. Indeed, made for someone. We were made to discover God’s love, to love God in return, and to love our neighbour. If Christianity is true, love is the supreme ethic – that’s what it means to be human and it gives a value, a purpose, a direction to human life – and a basis not just for human rights but also for our duties to one another.

This is why atheists face such a sharp dilemma. Only if the Christian story is true do humans have dignity and worth. And only on that basis can you talk meaningfully about rights and about responsibilities. Who created human rights? The one who created humans.
Watch Peter Singer and Andy Bannister’s Big Conversation

Dr Andy Bannister

andy-bannister-main_author_line

Dr Andy Bannister is the director of the Solas Centre for Public Christianity. This article first appeared at www.premierchristianity.org

Bible 2020

by Editor

Bible 2020 is an innovative Bible reading programme which enables people to engage with the Bible alongside thousands of others; through a very slick smart-phone app. Bible reading programmes have been around for hundreds of years, and huge numbers of people have used them with varying degrees of success.
Bible 2020 though contains some unique features, which make it stand out. The first is that the readings are not too long; encouraging the reader to think about what they are reading, rather than rush through vast amounts of text. What really makes Word 2020 stand out though is the free smart-phone app. The app doesn’t just contain the day’s reading, but also features recordings of thousands of people who have read it outloud and uploaded a recording of it to the site. You can then do the same – if you want to, and have your face and voice added to the thousands of others reading God’s word aloud. The fact that the app is being used in 99 different countries, and is accessible in over a thousand languages is apparent in the submitted videos. So far there are 11,000  users who have uploaded 5,800 videos.
Elaine Duncan, Chief Executive of the Scottish Bible Society, the organisation who developed Bible 2020, commented on the importance of reading the Bible aloud. “There’s something significant about reading and proclaiming the word of God” she said. “The Bible was, of course, primarily communicated orally for most of its history, before the printing press and mass literacy. What we observe is that whereas silent reading of scripture can be rushed; oral proclamation takes time, demands expression, and helps the reader to internalise the meaning.”
An exciting development has been the number of people who have decided to take up the challenge of reading the Bible aloud – publicly. Users of the app, can watch the videos that these folk have posted up from café’s, trains, parks, streets, shops and buses. Elaine Duncan says she was challenged by these folk to join in the public reading of scripture, on the train on her daily commute. Since then, some of her regular travelling companions on the train, who aren’t Christians – have joined in one or two of the readings. One she recalls, read from Isaiah extremely loudly, so that half the carriage could hear, before uploading the recording of it through the app. Look out too for passers-by photo-bombing the Bible-readers in mid-flow!
“I was initially really anxious about reading the Bible out loud, in public!” Elaine says – perhaps unsurprisingly. Then continues, “But what might God do, if people all over the world openly proclaimed His word?”
Bible 2020 was an idea born in Edinburgh, as a project for Scottish churches; but as Bible Societies around the world expressed an interest, the momentum became unstoppable. The Scottish Bible Society were delighted to share the idea and the software with their partners – and the project went global. One housebound Bible 2020 reader in Scotland said that the project was a “lifeline”, not just in terms of connecting her to the text – but through the video wall making her connected to the global church. Other readers are doing it as families, and taking turns in posting videos to the wall.
The free app is available from Google Play and the Apple store, look for the logo and download and join in. More details are available at https://linktr.ee/bible_2020. The readings videos only last a day, and this project is initially running until the end of the year. Reading the Bible is hugely rewarding, and Bible 2020 makes it just that bit more accessible and easy to do.

PEP Talk Podcast With Meic Pearse

by Solas

Zealots. Fanatics. Terrorists. Religion causes conflict, wars and hatred – it’s a common idea. So how can we remove this great stumbling block when talking about Jesus? This time on PEP Talk we chat about the relationship between war and religion, and what it means for evangelism.

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Our Guest

Our guest is Meic Pearse, who taught church history and theology (to Andy Bannister!) at London School of Theology for 10 years and has over 25 years of experience working with the evangelical church in the Balkans. His work with student ministries and individual churches has covered Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, Germany, Russia, the U.K. and U.S. He is the author of Why the Rest Hates the West and Gods of War. He travels regularly between homes in Croatia and the USA.

A Beginner’s Guide to the Best-Fit Argument, Part Two: The Existence of God

by Editor
Fittingness and the Existence of God

In my previous essay, I discussed the nature of fittingness arguments. I recommended that we think in terms of fittingness in our reasoning about the reality of God. In this essay, I will apply this strategy. I am convinced that there are many features of the universe that fit better with theism than with atheism. Here, I shall discuss three.[1]

  1. A world that is ordered and open to investigation fits better in a theistic universe.

If God exists, the universe is the product of purposeful action. It is made by an intelligent mind for reasons. The fact that the universe is made by a mind for reasons leads us to expect that it will be something that can be grasped rationally. It makes sense that there would be stable laws that allow predictions to be made and inferences to be drawn. A naturalistic universe, however, would not have to be susceptible to rational investigation. It fits perfectly well with a naturalistic universe that it be wildly chaotic. Of course, being susceptible to rational investigation is not incompatible with a universe without God, but the theory that God does not exist allows the universe to exhibit any one of a wide variety of descriptions as far as order is concerned. The fact that our universe is in fact ordered and susceptible to investigation fits better with the claim that God does exist.

  1. A world with consciousness fits better in a theistic universe.

Human consciousness involves several features that are difficult to fit with naturalism. Two of these features are the first-person experience and the intentionality of some of our mental states. The first person experience is illustrated by the fact that I own certain mental states and you own other mental states. More importantly, we seem to have a special kind of access to our own mental states. In the same way, I know that I am thinking about coffee at a particular time. I may not know what you are thinking about. My access to your thoughts is indirect. You can tell me you are thinking about coffee, or I can deduce it from your behavior or your habits but I can know my own thoughts directly. There is an ownership of my own first-person perspective.
The intentionality of mental states is that our thoughts are about things in the world. So right now, we can think about Niagara Falls. We can think about Pickett’s Charge in the battle of Gettysburg, even though it occurred over 140 years ago. We can think about whether Santa Claus has any children, even though there is no Santa Claus. How is it that something inside me, my mental states, can be about something outside of me? This is the puzzle of intentionality. Intentionality sometimes does not seem mysterious to us because we are language users. The fact that language can be about facts in the world is due, however, to the prior activity of conscious minds. We assign meaning to language.
If God exists, then the primary thing that exists is a conscious mind of unlimited power and intellect. This mind has its own first-person perspective and it can think about things. The notion that such a mind, if it creates anything, would create other conscious minds that have their own first-person perspectives and can think about things is not a great mystery. The view that there is no God includes the claim that any complicated living things that exist are the product of a long natural process of development from simpler living things. On this view, it is surprising that there would be any conscious minds. The phenomena of consciousness is not something that fits easily into a naturalistic world. Thus, the existence of conscious beings confirms theism as contrasted with atheism.

  1. A world with objective moral obligations fits better with a theistic universe.

It seems clear that there are moral obligations that are objective in the sense that they hold whether or not one wants them to hold or one wants to fulfill them. A claim such as “It is a moral obligation not to torture a person to death just for fun” seems to be true and the obligation it prescribes seems to be binding on all human beings. It is hard, after all, to imagine that such an obligation is binding only because of the desires or goals of some individual person or of some society. It is, then, at least reasonable to think that objective moral obligations exist.

If God invented human beings, he did so for a reason or reasons. Some of these reasons will ground moral obligations. For example, if God made us with moral ends in mind- if he made us so that we would embody certain virtues, for example- his setting up moral reality the way he did makes a good deal of sense. If God has spiritual purposes for us- that we would find a relationship with him and experience him as our highest good- he may set up moral rules as guidelines for how best to do that. Whatever God’s purposes are, it makes sense that he would make us the kinds of beings that are subject to moral truths and that can understand and act on them.
If there is no God, there is no being or reality that has the authority to invent an obligation that applies to other beings. These real obligations might not be impossible without God, but they do not fit well in a universe that has no mind behind it. They are utterly surprising. Thus, they confirm theism over atheism.
I have identified three features of our universe that fit better with a theistic universe than they do with an atheistic universe. It is true that philosophers have developed theories to show that these features of the universe are compatible with a naturalistic world-view. Some of these strategies are pretty good. Even if these attempts are successful, they do not undermine the strength of my argument. My argument is not some version of a “God of the gaps” strategy.[2] Regardless of the availability of naturalistic explanations, it remains the case that these features still fit better with the view that God exists. Thus, the application of fittingness arguments provides a strong case for the reality of God.

Gregory E Ganssle earned his PhD in philosophy at Syracuse University. He is currently professor of philosophy at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University. He publishes in contemporary philosophy of religion. His latest book is Our Deepest Desires: How the Christian Story Fulfills Human Aspiration Inter Varsity Press, 2017
[1]               This argument was published in more detail in my paper “Dawkins’ Best Argument against God’s existence,” Philosophia Christi, Series 2. Vol 10. No. 1 (2008): 39-56; reprinted  in Contending with Christianity’s Critics: Answering New Atheists and Other Objectors. edited by Paul Copan and William Lane Craig,         Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 2009: 74-87; and in chapter 7 of A Reasonable God: Engaging the New Face of Atheism, Waco: Baylor University Press, 2009.
[2] For more on the God of the Gaps challenge, see my article, “God of the Gaps’ Arguments,” in The Blackwell Companion to Science and Christianity ed., James Stump and Alan Padgett, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2012: 130-139.

Slavery and Salvation

by Editor
A true story of the gospel at work in the midst of the horror of North Korea.

ckturistando-BZt__EOmRnA-unsplash‘Esther’ was so desperate to escape from brutal North Korea that she agreed to be sex-trafficked into neighbouring China. Then she tricked ten of her friends into being sold to traffickers too. Yet today all these lives have been remarkably transformed by the power of the gospel. ‘Esther’ (not her real name) was desperate to make money to feed her parents and family. Eventually she reluctantly chose to be trafficked from North Korea to marry a Chinese husband.
Yet her plan backfired when the broker who fixed the deal reneged on his promise – giving her and her family nothing. Still desperate, she offered to deceive all of her friends inside North Korea into being trafficked as well. She was responsible for ten of them being sold into forced marriage.
‘That was the first time I was personally involved in trafficking women,’ she told one of our partners working in China. ‘I knew it was not the right way to live and I felt guilty, but I needed to earn money and send it back home. I felt the only way I could survive was to step on the heads of others, so I began working with the broker.’
Later, however, Esther was caught by the Chinese authorities and sent back to North Korea, where she was  imprisoned. When the police informed her father, he managed to find the money to pay a bribe to have her released. But when he learned what she had done – even though it was to save her family – he was so ashamed that he told her, ‘From now on, I have no daughter.’
Esther was crushed. She had lost her own dignity, sold her friends to traffickers and now her family had rejected her. She decided to escape again to China and then head on to South Korea in order to make money there and have a better life.
But as her flight began, she came across one of the discipleship bases run by a Release International partner. There she heard about the Lord and was given a Bible.
‘I will never forget the day I received the Bible from them. I was so happy. I kept reading it and writing down the words in my notebook,’ she said. ‘As time went by, I began to understand more about Jesus and what He has done for me. I started to repent of my sin, especially the trafficking work I had done.’
architecture-3329297_1920Esther felt in her heart that God had set her free – and from that point on her life was completely changed. Soon the Holy Spirit powerfully convicted her to go to all of the friends she had tricked, and to share the gospel with them.
‘I searched and found five of the North Korean women I had sold. I wanted to ask for their forgiveness and to share the gospel with them, but I was sure they wouldn’t forgive me,’ she said.
‘To my surprise, no one hated me or had bitterness or anger toward me. They could see that something inside me had changed. They willingly accepted my request for forgiveness and came with me to learn more about the true freedom that I had found. It was a miracle.’
Over time she found the rest of her friends who had been trafficked. All ten became believers, and all ten led their husbands to Christ. These Chinese men had originally bought their wives from traffickers. But now, through the gospel, the homes of all ten families have become locations for house churches that are reaching out to others.
Remarkably, Esther today oversees a number of such locations in China. Despite the constant threat of forced repatriation to North Korea, she bravely takes the gospel into rural villages to minister to North Korean women who, like her, are victims of trafficking.

logo_release_2016_1_0Release International is an international organisation for monitoring and reporting persecution of Christians around the world and helping the victims of that persecution. They supplied this story for Solas.

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