REL228Workshop2

Workshop 2

Truth & Worldview

REL 228 - Defending The Faith

The Impact of a Christian Worldview

Glenn Johnson

14:1Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.

14:2In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.

14:3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.

14:4You know the way to the place where I am going."

14:5Thomas said to him, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?"

14:6Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

BIBLICAL WISDOM & PRAYER

OVERVIEWWS 1: What is Truth?

WS 2: How Did We Get Here?WS 3: What Has Gone Wrong With The World?

WS 4: What Can We Do To Fix Things?WS 5: How Now Shall We Live?

Defending The Faith:The Impact of a Christian Worldview

INDIVIDUAL NEWS ARTICLE PRESENTATIONSINDIVIDUAL NEWS ARTICLE PRESENTATIONS

Include In Your Presentation:-Article Title and Where You Found It

-Brief Summary-Why You Think It Supports/Attacks A Christian Worldview

-Not Everyone Will Be Called Upon To Present In Each Workshop

Defending The Faith:The Impact of a Christian Worldview

HOW WE GOT HERE: CREATIONHOW WE GOT HERE: CREATION

Defending The Faith:The Impact of a Christian Worldview

OR…

Two Primary Views on Creation

Naturalism Christianity

Natural—without God God created all things

No beginning Universe begun by God

Life created by “accident” God created life

Life has evolved God created all species

Leads to humanism Leads to awe & worship of the one true God

Christianity & Science Not In Conflict

1. Nature exists because it was created by God.

2. Love and honor are given to God by understanding his handiwork.

3. God is perfect, thus his work functions in accord with immutable principles.

4. Using our God-given powers of reason and observation we ought to be able to discover these principles.

(Rodney Stark, For The Glory of God, Princeton University Press, 2003)

Myth of Christianity & Science ConflictDenis Diderot & Jean D'Alembert compiledde L'Encyclopedie (1751-72 – fiercely anti-cleric,Promoted concept Dark Ages & Enlightenment)

John William Draper, president University ofthe City of New York – History of the Conflict between Religion and Science (1874)

Andrew Dickson White, founding president ofCornell University - History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896)

Carl Sagan, Astronomer, The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (1995)

Naturalism concludes that humans can achieveThe knowledge needed to become “god” and

Control the universe.

Star Trek: Wrath of Khan“Genesis Project”

1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God

in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has

been made.4In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness

has not understood it.

John 1

The observed basic characteristics of the cosmos appear to be remarkably fine-tuned for producing life.

Anthropic Cosmological Principle

Physical ConstantsPhysical Constants

Magnetic Constant     4π × 10-7 N·A-2 = 1.2566 370 614... × 10-6 N·A-2

Newtonian constant of gravitation     6.6742(10) × 10-11m3·kg-1·s-2

speed of light in vacuum   299 792 458 m·s-1

The premise of the fine-tuned universe assertion is that any small change in the twenty or so physical constants would make the universe radically

different:

The Universe is The Universe is PrecisePrecise

Expansion of the UniverseExpansion of the Universe If larger, no galaxy formationIf larger, no galaxy formation If smaller, universe collapses If smaller, universe collapses

before star formationbefore star formation

In fact, it’s precise to a factor of In fact, it’s precise to a factor of 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000 (one 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000 (one hundred quadrillion)hundred quadrillion)

Dr. Joong “Jonathan” Lee, Centurion (Biochemist)

Strong nuclear force – binds subatomic particles2 percent stronger hydrogen would fuse too easily-no stars

Weak nuclear forces – allows radioactive decay, fission,and fusion possible—slightly stronger and no planets would have existed

Electromagnetic force – binds electrons to nuclei—slightlyweaker electrons would fly away—slightly stronger and electrons couldn’t be shared, thus no molecules

Gravitational force – stronger and stars would be so hotthey’d burn out very quickly—weaker and fusion wouldn’tignite stars and generate planets

Even More Precise

Probabilities for Earth’s Existence

Kind of Way Out There…..: Dr Hugh Ross (Astrophysicist)

He took 123 separate parameters (factors) and calculated the odds that all 123 factors, which had to be present for the earth to exist as we know it, could have come together—“just happened”—on their own

He computed an exact value for:galaxy size, type, location,birth date of the sun,proximity of solar nebula to a supernova eruption,number of moons,mass and distance from moons,tidal force,axis tilt of planet,planetary distance from star,global distribution of continents,thickness of planet crust,atmospheric transparency, pressure, viscosity, carbon dioxide level,amount of chlorine, cobalt, copper, fluorine, nickel, potassium (and many other elements in the earth’s crust),oxygen-to-nitrogen ratio,volcanic activity

Probabilities for Earth’s Existence

Odds of planet that can support life:

The results of his calculation — of finding all 123 of his parameters on a single earth are: “less than one chance in 10 to the 139th power (ten thousand trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion) exists that even one such planet would occur anywhere in the universe.” Dr. Hugh Ross

“The odds against a universe like ours emerging out of Something like the big bang are enormous..I think clearly there are religious Implications whenever you start to discuss the issues of the universe.”

Professor Steven W. Hawking

“A commonsense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super Intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forcesworth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion beyond question.”

Sir Fred Hoyle, Astrophysicist

Conclusions of Prominent Scientists

BREAKBREAK

Defending The Faith:The Impact of a Christian Worldview

Darwinism: The Attack on ChristianityDarwinism: The Attack on Christianity

Inherit The Wind

Ignorant Christians?•Insight into the myth that secularists propagate: conflict between science and religion•Depicts how naturalists view Christians as ignorant•Wm Jennings Bryan: (Brady in movie) read Origin of Species in 1906…and feared it would be used to justify EUGENICS (which found application with Nazi Germany and today)

Inherit The Wind

Principles of DarwinismMutation occurs within all species

Limited resources, disease, and predation creates a struggle for survival

Some mutations increase survivability

Variations that increase survivability are passed on to offspring

These offspring tend to survive better and leave more offspring (this is called natural selection)

Enough mutations result in development of a new species

Forces encourage divergence over time and elimination of Intermediate varieties

Darwin’s Beliefs

Long before having arrived at this part of my work, a crowd of difficulties will have occurred to my reader. Some of them are so grave that to this day I can never reflect on them without being staggered ....….

“.....scarcely a single point is discussed in this volume on which the facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I arrived.

“And to think that the eye could evolve "by natural selection seems, I freely confess, absurd to the highest degree.”

“Why then is not every geological formation full of such intermediate links. Geology assuredly does not reveal any finely graduated organic change, and this is the most obvious and serious objection that can be urged against the theory.”

Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a phantasy

Man in his arrogance thinks himself a great work. worthy the interposition of a deity, more humble & I believe true to consider him created from animals.

The Finch Mistake

Beaks vary from one season to another due to food supply

5% variation between seasons

Finches begin favoring larger beaks but then reverted to smaller beaks

No correlation between beak size and food availability

Indicating this as proof of evolution doesn’t follow science but rather ideology

Peppered Moth DeceitTheoryWhite peppered moths prospered in normal times

Black peppered moths prospered when trees turned black from pollution

Birds were able to see them and preyed on them

Evidence came from experiments

TruthCorrelation doesn’t occur in wild

Moths hide under branches not on tree trunks

Primary predator bats not birds—birds don’t see the same way we do

Pictures are taken by gluing moths on trees

                                         pig

fish chicken

pig

chicken

fish

Haeckel’s Embryo Drawings (1874)

“Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny”

• This has been used to justify elective abortions (that child aborted was in “fish” stage

• Drawings are fraudulent

Fossil Record Doesn’t Support Evolution

Different time periods, different geography, not in order fraud perpetrated by Othniel C. Marsh (1874)

Macroevolution Conference at Chicago in 1980

Paleontologists to Darwinists: There is no evidence ofone species evolving to a new species.

Intelligent Design

1. The universe, earth, and life are so complex and the probabilities against their existence so great that the only reasonable explanation is that they exhibit an intelligent design.

2. An intelligent design can only be the result of an intelligent being.

3. That intelligent being is best explained by the Christian God.

4. This is a wedge that opens a thought process that can be used to challenge the naturalistic worldview.

1. Both artifacts and natural objects display orderly adjustment of constituent parts to each other. 2. Artifacts have this property as a result of being designed. 3. Of two classes of things, x and y, if the members of x and y share some property p1, and members of x have p1 as a result of having a property p2, then, probably, members of y have p1 as a result of having p2. 4. Therefore, natural objects display orderly adjustment of constituent parts to each other as a result of being designed. (Natural objects are designed.) 5. If natural objects are designed, then some god designed them. 6. If some god designed natural objects, then God designed them. 7. If God designed natural objects, then God exists. 8. Therefore, God exists.

Dialogues Concerning Natural ReligionDavid Hume-British Philosopher

Irreducible Complexities in LifeMichael Behe-Darwin’s Black Box

3 billion base pairs on singlehuman DNA molecule

Human eye

Bacterial Flagellum240 distinct proteins

Naturalism and Darwinism are

belief systems or worldviews

and are not science.

Author:Theology and Falsification and The Presumption of Atheism

“I think that the most impressive arguments [for God] are those supported by recent scientific discoveries," he said, even contending that the argument for ‘intelligent design’is enormously stronger than it was when I first met it.”

“I’m thinking of a God very different from the God of the Christian and far and away from the God of Islam, because both are depicted as omnipotent Oriental despots, cosmic Saddam Husseins,” he said. “It could be a person in the sense of a being that has intelligence and a purpose, I suppose.”

Anthony Flew• British Philosopher• Prominent Atheist

Christian Views on Creation

Creation Science

• God created all things

• Young earth—30,000 years or less

• Six literal 24 hour days

• Literal interpretation of Genesis

• Noah and flood explain sedimentation & fossils

• No macroevolution

Christian Views on Creation

Progressive Creationism

• God created all things

• Old earth—4.5 billion years

• Days in Genesis may be millions of years

• Believe in Genesis but some verses must be understood as figurative rather than literal

Christian Views on Creation

Theistic Evolution

• Little or no historical significance to Genesis

• Old earth

• God either created the evolutionary process or guides the evolutionary process

• Some doubt that there were a literal Adam & Eve

• Accept almost all scientific evidence

Implications of Ideas About Creation

• View of God

• Humanity’s Purpose

• Sanctity of Life

• Origin of Sin

• Humanity’s Condition

• Humanity’s place in the universe

Practical Implications• Abortion

• Euthanasia

• Cloning

• Biological Engineering

• War

• Capital Punishment

• Artificial Intelligence

• Computer/Human Interface

• Environmental Concerns

Application of Worldview Lesson

1. The evidence for creation is confirmed by Intelligent Design. Look for complexities and ask the skeptic to provide a natural explanation.

2. Naturalism and Darwinism are nothing more than belief systems. Ask a person that believes these ideas to explain why they must start with the assumption that science must arrive at facts and theories that exclude the existence of God. (This is a belief.)

3. The difference between Christians and their view of creation are less important than understanding that God created the world and everything in it.

At the moment, then, of Man's victory over Nature, we find the whole human race subjected to some individual men, and those individuals subjected to that in themselves which is purely `natural'—to their irrational impulses.

Man's final conquest has proved to be the abolition of Man.

C. S. Lewis

13 He who forms the mountains, creates the wind, and reveals his thoughts to man, he who turns dawn to darkness, and treads the high places of the earth- the LORD God Almighty is his name.

Amos 4

17 Can a mortal be more righteous than God? Can a man be more pure than his Maker?

Job 4

TIME WITH LEWIS12:10-12:45

•Most read Xn apologist of the 20th century

TIME WITH LEWIS

•STEPS INTO ATHEISM

•QUEST FOR TRUE JOY

•ENCOUNTER WITH GOD

TIME WITH LEWIS

•HIS INTELLECT

•ENCOUNTER WITH HOLINESS

•ELECTED TO OXFORD IN 1916

•BECOMING A THEIST

TIME WITH LEWIS

• LEWIS AS AN APOLOGIST….

1. Present the Christian faith to unbelievers2. Defend the Christian faith on behalf of uneducated

believers3. Defend traditional orthodoxy

TIME WITH LEWIS

MERE CHRISTIANITY: Book 1

First Point: a universal moral sense, an agreed-upon standard of morality runs throughout the human race

There are certain things that people have always regarded as honorable or desirable behaviors

TIME WITH LEWIS

MERE CHRISTIANITY: Book 1In 1943 England, he gave a series of

radio addresses focusing on the issues of Christianity.

Spoke of the Law Of Nature(objective right/wrong)

ROMANS 2:14-15; 3:20 and 23-When Gentiles who have not the law do by

nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do

not have the law. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts,

while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or

perhaps excuse them . . . . For no human being will be justified in [God’s] sight by works of the law, since through the law

comes knowledge of sin . . . All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Revised

Standard Version)

TIME WITH LEWIS

MERE CHRISTIANITY: Book 1Lectures later published as 3

books and combined into “Mere Christianity”

C.S. Lewis proves that "at the center of each there is

something, or a Someone, who against all divergences of belief, all differences of

temperament, all memories of mutual persecution, speaks

with the same voice," rejecting the boundaries that

divide Christianity's many denominations.

TIME WITH LEWIS

LEWIS REACTION: WHAT DO YOU THINK?

What about Lewis’ observations of universal Law of Nature?

Do you agree with Lewis when he says that none of us are

keeping that Law of Nature?

How do you think that Lewis would respond to

contemporary moral relativism of today (i.e., that

actions are right or wrong insofar as they benefit me

and “hurt” no one else)

TIME WITH LEWIS

STUDENT-LED DISCUSSION: BOOK 2

Chapters 1-2

Chapters 3-4

Chapter 5

Workshop 3…Next Week

WS 3: The Problem of Evil

1. Write News Article Analysis: What has gone wrong with the world?2. Write Movie Analysis Prepare a 5 minute presentation for Workshop 3. Provide a 2 minute synopsis and then spend 3 minutes comparing

and contrasting the movie’s worldview with a Christian worldview.3. Keep working on worldview interviews. You should have identified a

person to interview by now and made arrangements to conduct the interview.

4. Read: How Now Shall We Live: Chapters 15-215. Read: Mere Christianity: Book Three, Chapters 1-6