I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (Foreword by David Limbaugh)

Norman L. Geisler, Frank Turek

• Publisher: Crossway
• Year: 2004
• ISBN:
  9781433517037
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christianity

To some, the concept of having faith in a higher power or a set of religious beliefs is nonsensical. Indeed, many view religion in general, and Christianity in particular, as unfounded and unreasonable.

Norman Geisler and Frank Turek argue, however, that Christianity is not only more reasonable than all other belief systems, but is indeed more rational than unbelief itself. With conviction and clear thinking, Geisler and Turek guide readers through some of the traditional, tested arguments for the existence of a creator God. They move into an examination of the source of morality and the reliability of the New Testament accounts concerning Jesus. The final section of the book deals with a detailed investigation of the claims of Christ. This volume will be an interesting read for those skeptical about Christianity, as well as a helpful resource for Christians seeking to articulate a more sophisticated defense of their faith.

1

Can We Handle the Truth?

“Men stumble over the truth from time to time, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened.”

—WINSTON CHURCHILL

IN THE MOVIE A Few Good Men, Tom Cruise plays a Navy lawyer who questions a Marine colonel, played by Jack Nicholson, about the murder of one of Nicholson’s men. The dramatic courtroom scene turns into a shouting match as Cruise accuses Nicholson of being complicit in the murder:

Cruise: “Colonel, did you order the Code Red!”
Judge: “You don’t have to answer that question!”
Nicholson: “I’ll answer the question . . . you want answers?”
Cruise: “I think I’m entitled to them.”
Nicholson: “You want answers!”
Cruise: “I want the truth!”
Nicholson: “You can’t handle the truth!”

Nicholson might as well have been yelling at all of America rather than Cruise because it seems that many in our country can’t handle the truth. On one hand, we demand truth in virtually every area of our lives.

For example; we demand the truth from:

loved ones (no one wants lies from a spouse or a child)

doctors (we want the right medicine prescribed and the right operations performed)

stock brokers (we demand that they tell us the truth about companies they recommend)

courts (we want them to convict only the truly guilty)

employers (we want them to tell us the truth and pay us fairly)

airlines (we demand truly safe planes and truly sober pilots)

We also expect to be told the truth when we pick up a reference book, read an article, or watch a news story; we want the truth from advertisers, teachers, and politicians; we assume road signs, medicine bottles, and food labels reveal the truth. In fact, we demand the truth for almost every facet of life that affects our money, relationships, safety, or health.

On the other hand, despite our unwavering demands for truth in those areas, many of us say we aren’t interested in truth when it comes to morality or religion. In fact, many downright reject the idea that any religion can be true.

As we’re sure you’ve noticed, there’s a huge contradiction here. Why do we demand truth in everything but morality and religion? Why do we say, “That’s true for you but not for me,” when we’re talking about morality or religion, but we never even think of such nonsense when we’re talking to a stock broker about our money or a doctor about our health?

Although few would admit it, our rejection of religious and moral truth is often on volitional rather than intellectual grounds—we just don’t want to be held accountable to any moral standards or religious doctrine. So we blindly accept the self-defeating truth claims of politically correct intellectuals who tell us that truth does not exist; everything is relative; there are no absolutes; it’s all a matter of opinion; you ought not judge; religion is about faith, not facts! Perhaps Augustine was right when he said that we love the truth when it enlightens us, but we hate it when it convicts us. Maybe we can’t handle the truth.

In order to resolve our cultural schizophrenia, we need to address four questions concerning truth:

1. What is truth?

2. Can truth be known?

3. Can truths about God be known?

4. So what? Who cares about truth?

We’ll cover these questions in this chapter and the next.

WHAT IS TRUTH? THE TRUTH ABOUT TRUTH

What is truth? Very simply, truth is “telling it like it is.” When the Roman governor Pilate asked Jesus “What is truth?” nearly 2,000 years ago, he didn’t wait for Jesus to respond. Instead, Pilate immediately acted as if he knew at least some truth. Concerning Jesus, he declared, “I find no fault in this man” (see John 18:38). By exonerating Jesus, Pilate was “telling it like it is.”

Truth can also be defined as “that which corresponds to its object” or “that which describes an actual state of affairs.” Pilate’s judgment was true because it matched its object; it described an accurate state of affairs. Jesus really was innocent.

Contrary to what is being taught in many public schools, truth is not relative but absolute. If something is true, it’s true for all people, at all times, in all places. All truth claims are absolute, narrow, and exclusive. Just think about the claim “everything is true.” That’s an absolute, narrow, and exclusive claim. It excludes its opposite (i.e., it claims that the statement “everything is not true” is wrong). In fact, all truths exclude their opposites. Even religious truths.

This became comically clear when a number of years ago I (Norm) debated religious humanist Michael Constantine Kolenda. Of the many atheists I debated, he was one of the few who actually read my book Christian Apologetics prior to the debate.

When it was his turn to speak, Kolenda held up my book and declared, “These Christians are very narrow-minded people. I read Dr. Geisler’s book. Do you know what he believes? He believes that Christianity is true and everything opposed to it is false! These Christians are very narrow-minded people!”

Well, Kolenda had also written a book which I had read beforehand. It was titled Religion Without God (which is sort of like romance without a spouse!). When it was my turn to speak, I held up Kolenda’s book and declared, “These humanists are very narrow-minded people. I read Dr. Kolenda’s book. Do you know what he believes? He believes that humanism is true and everything opposed to it is false! These humanists are very narrow-minded people!”

The audience chuckled because they could see the point. Humanist truth claims are just as narrow as Christian truth claims. For if H (humanism) is true, then anything opposed to H is false. Likewise, if C (Christianity) is true, then anything opposed to C is false.

There are many other truths about truth. Here are some of them:

Truth is discovered, not invented. It exists independent of anyone’s knowledge of it. (Gravity existed prior to Newton.)

Truth is transcultural; if something is true, it is true for all people, in all places, at all times (2+2=4 for everyone, everywhere, at every time).

Truth is unchanging even though our beliefs about truth change. (When we began to believe the earth was round instead of flat, the truth about the earth didn’t change, only our belief about the earth changed.)

Beliefs cannot change a fact, no matter how sincerely they are held. (Someone can sincerely believe the world is flat, but that only makes that person sincerely mistaken.)

Truth is not affected by the attitude of the one professing it. (An arrogant person does not make the truth he professes false. A humble person does not make the error he professes true.)

All truths are absolute truths. Even truths that appear to be relative are really absolute. (For example, “I, Frank Turek, feel warm on November 20, 2003” may appear to be a relative truth, but it is actually absolutely true for everyone, everywhere that Frank Turek had the sensation of warmth on that day.)

In short, contrary beliefs are possible, but contrary truths are not possible. We can believe everything is true, but we cannot make everything true.

This seems obvious enough. But how do we deal with the modern assertion that there is no truth? A couple of cartoon characters can help us.

The Road Runner Tactic

If someone said to you, “I have one insight for you that absolutely will revolutionize your ability to quickly and clearly identify the false statements and false philosophies that permeate our culture,” would you be interested? That’s what we’re about to do here. In fact, if we had to pick just one thinking ability as the most valuable we’ve learned in our many years of seminary and postgraduate education, it would be this: how to identify and refute self-defeating statements. An incident from a recent talk-radio program will demonstrate what we mean by self-defeating statements.

The program’s liberal host, Jerry, was taking calls on the subject of morality. After hearing numerous callers boldly claim that a certain moral position was true, one caller blurted out, “Jerry! Jerry! There’s no such thing as truth!”

I (Frank) scrambled for the phone and began to dial furiously. Busy. Busy. Busy. I wanted to get on and say, “Jerry! To the guy who said, ‘there is no such thing as truth’—is that true?”

I never did get through. And Jerry, of course, agreed with the caller, never realizing that his claim could not possibly be true—because it was self-defeating.

A self-defeating statement is one that fails to meet its own standard. As we’re sure you realize, the caller’s statement “there is no truth” claims to be true and thus defeats itself. It’s like saying, “I can’t speak a word in English.” If someone ever said that, you obviously would respond, “Wait a minute! Your statement must be false because you just uttered it in English!”

Self-defeating statements are made routinely in our postmodern culture, and once you sharpen your ability to detect them, you’ll become an absolutely fearless defender of truth. No doubt you’ve heard people say things like, “All truth is relative!” and “There are no absolutes!” Now you’ll be armed to refute such silly statements by simply revealing that they don’t meet their own criteria. In other words, by turning a self-defeating statement on itself, you can expose it for the nonsense it is.

We call this process of turning a self-defeating statement on itself the “Road Runner” tactic because it reminds us of the cartoon characters Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote. As you may remember from Saturday morning cartoons, the Coyote’s one and only quest is to chase down the speedy Road Runner and make him his evening meal. But the Road Runner is simply too fast and too smart. Just when the Coyote is gaining ground, the Road Runner stops sh...