Doug Powell - Holman QuickSource Guide to Christian Apologetics

Chapter 1:
What Is Apologetics?

In charge of the checkout counter is death itself. After your selection is made, you pay with your life. Whether there is anything outside the exit door and what happens there is the big question.

If we have placed our hope in Christ for this life only, we should be pitied more than anyone.

1 Corinthians 15:19

In light of the command to be able to give a defense for the truth that is within us and to love God with all our minds, we must equip ourselves with the facts, evidence, and arguments for Christianity.

Chapter 2: Does God Exist?
The Cosmological Argument

It is possible for God to exist without the universe, but it is not possible for the universe to exist without God.

The Kalam Cosmological
Argument

The Thomist Cosmological
Argument

The Leibnizian Cosmological
Argument

Everything that comes into existence owes its existence to something else.

Thus, the universe needs a driver, an intelligent agent that is capable of choosing whether to create the universe or not.

Chapter 3: Does God Exist?
The Design Argument

For science is indeed watching God work.

Merritt Stanley Congdon

Fine-tuning as Design:
The Anthropic Principle

Information as Design:
Information Theory and DNA

Information is communication between minds

Complexity as Design:
Irreducible Complexity

Chapter 4: Does God Exist?
The Moral Argument

What's true for you is true for you, and what's true for me is true for me, is a familiar refrain of ethical subjectivism

Thus, morals come from a transcendent person who has the power and authority to impose a moral law on us

If we can find the foot that fits, we will find a religion that holds to an accurate view of God

Anyone who claims that all religions are the same betrays not only an ignorance of all religions but also a caricatured view of even the best-known ones

Ravi Zacharia s

Who Chose the Books and
How Were They Chosen?

What About the Books That
Were Left Out?

The writings of the church fathers are important because they quoted so heavily from the writings they considered authoritative because of their apostolic origin

God used the personalities, experiences, and talents of each writer to reveal Himself

Archaeological and Non-Christian
Writings

Is the New Testament the Inspired Word
of God?

The Difference Between the Tanakh
and the Old Testament

Although the Old Testament was written
as long as 3,500 years
ago, its content has
been extremely well
preserved

Does Natural Science Show That
Miracles Cannot Happen?

Does Experience Show That Miracles
Cannot Happen?

Miracles are a less common kind of God's activity in which he arouses people's awe and wonder and bears witness to Himself.

Wayne Grudem

In Buddhism, a miracle's power is not attributed to a transcendent, powerful God, but to the individual performing the miracle

Examples of Prophecy Fulfilled in
the Old Testament

There are many occasions in the Bible where prophecy takes the form of future events that are foretold

Prophecy is very important because it is a miracle that is testable

If Jesus was not resurrected from the dead, then the entire Christian faith is worthless, a waste of time

The Quranic
Account of Resurrection

Chapter 12: Did Jesus Claim to Be God?
Is Jesus the Only Way?

Jesus said to them, I assure you: Before Abraham was, I am.

Jesus does not simply accept worship. He teaches us to pray to God in His name, an absolutely outlandish thing to do if He was not, in fact, God

The Evidential Argument
from Evil

The main answer to the problem of evil is the person of Jesus

The emphasis of classical apologetics is on reason

Just as each method emphasizes different aspects, each is also critical of the other's emphasis to some degree

If these people understood who God really is, his wrath and his love, what he demands and what he offers, they would (or should) break down the doors to worship him.

John M. Frame

Supermarket or Antidote?

Picture yourself in a vast supermarket that is fully stocked. Yet instead of selling food, this supermarket sells religions. The departments are all the same but have taken on symbolic meaning. For example, the meat department sells Judaism, representing the animal sacrifice needed for blood atonement. The cereal aisle is where Hinduism is found since cereal boxes often feature characters. A different God in each box! Collect all 330,000,000! In the baking goods aisle Islam is for sale since all the other foods started with this stuff but became corrupted when it was baked. New Age religion is found in the candy section since the power behind both is in how appealing they are. Dead religions, beliefs no one holds anymore like Greek mythology, Molech worship, and golden calves, are found in the frozen food section. Christianity, with all its scenes in gardens and agricultural parables, is in the produce department. Mind sciences are available in the magazine aisle. There is a person sitting in an empty shopping cart pushing himself around the storea Buddhist, of course.

In charge of the checkout counter is death itself. After your selection is made, you pay with your life. Whether there is anything outside the exit door and what happens there is the big question.

There is another person who can't find anything in the store at allan atheist. Some shoppers are strictly vegetarian, some eat only meat, but all the diets are of equal value. They all basically do the same thingfeed you. In charge of the checkout counter is death itself. After your selection is made, you pay with your life. Whether there is anything outside the exit door and what happens there is the big question.

Is religion really like this, an act of preference where different elements can be mixed and matched at will? Or is religion something entirely different, like an antidote?

Instead of a supermarket, picture yourself in an emergency room with a serious illness. The doctor explains that the illness is 100 percent fatal unless one particular antidote is administered. He then goes on to say that recovery from the illness after taking the antidote has a 100 percent success rate. By this, the doctor is proclaiming that your preferences do not matter at all; they are not a part of the conversation. Whether or not you like to get shots or take pills is irrelevant. This particular ailment has a particular remedy that needs to be administered in a particular way. Do it or die.