Sunday Quote: Richard Lewontin on Materialism

"We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.

It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door."1

- Richard Lewontin

1 Richard Lewontin, Billions and billions of demons, The New York Review, p. 31, 9 January 1997.

Thomas Arnold on the Evidence for the Resurrection

“I have been used for many years to study the histories of other times, and to examine and weigh the evidence of those who have written about them, and I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort, to the understanding of a fair inquirer, than the great sign which God hath given us that Christ died and rose again from the dead.”

—Thomas Arnold, Professor of History Oxford

Author of the three-volume History of Rome

Christian Life, Its Hopes, Its Fears, and Its Close, 6th ed. (London: T. Fellowes, 1859), pp. 15-16.

Lee Strobel on Apologetic Engagement

"The average Christian in the pew is not reading books by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, but their neighbors and coworkers are. I think congregations are putting pressure on churches to equip them better, educate them more and give them opportunities to grow in this area. Churches that have relied in the past on a lifestyle evangelistic approach that lacks intentionality need to be a little more intentional in reaching people and bringing answers to their questions. I’m all for lifestyle evangelism, but I’m also in favor of intentionality, where we seek out opportunities for spiritual conversations and are equipped to explain the gospel and why we believe it."

—Lee Strobel
From What's Trending in Apologetics Today

Sunday Quote: Frank Tipler on Cosmology

"When I began my career as a cosmologist some twenty years ago, I was a convinced atheist. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that one day I would be writing a book purporting to show that the central claims of Judeo-Christian theology are in fact true, that these claims are straightforward deductions of the laws of physics as we now understand them. I have been forced into these conclusions by the inexorable logic of my own special branch of physics."

- Frank Tipler

(The Physics of Immortality, Doubleday, New York, 1994, Preface)

Jaroslav Pelikan on Christian Education

"The church is always more than a school…. But the church cannot be less than a school."

— Jaroslav Pelikan
The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971), 1.

Sunday Quote: Johannes Kepler on Jesus Christ

"I believe only and alone in the service of Jesus Christ. In him is all refuge and solace."

- Johannes Kepler (Discoverer of the laws of planetary motion)

Sunday Quote: Ravi Zacharias on Evidence

"Ultimately, the problem with man is not the absence of evidence, it is the suppression of it."

- Ravi Zacharias

Sunday Quote: Francis Bacon on Study

"Let no one think or maintain that a person can search too far or be too well studied in either the book of God's word or the book of God's works."

- Francis Bacon

Sunday Quote: Francis Schaeffer on Truth

"If Christianity is really true, then it involves the whole man, including his intellect and creativeness. Christianity is not just 'dogmatically' true or 'doctrinally' true. Rather, it is true to what is there, true in the whole area of the whole man in all of life."

- Francis Schaeffer

R. Douglas Geivett on the Hiddenness of God

"We cannot foreclose on the question of God’s willingness to disclose himself and his purposes in some concrete, particularized way without first looking into the evidence for the authenticity of an alleged revelation from him; even if a quest for some particular truth of the matter is scandalous by today’s ephemeral standards, It will hardly do to accuse God of hiding from us if we have not sincerely sought him in appropriate ways, or if we have insisted on prescribing for God the conditions under which we would approve a revelation of himself."

—R. Douglas Geivett

[HT: Truthbomb Apologetics]

1. "IS JESUS THE ONLY WAY?" IN JESUS UNDER FIRE, EDS. MICHAEL J. WILKINS AND JP MORELAND (GRAND RAPIDS: ZONDERVAN PUBLISHING HOUSE, 1995), 194.

R. T. France on the Historicity of the Gospels

"At the level of their literary and historical character we have good reason to treat the gospels seriously as a source of information on the life and teaching of Jesus, and thus on the historical origins of Christianity. Ancient historians have sometimes commented that the degree of scepticism with which New Testament scholars approach their sources is far greater than would be thought justified in any other branch of ancient history. Indeed many ancient historians would count themselves fortunate to have four such responsible accounts, written within a generation or two of the events, and preserved in such a wealth of early manuscript evidence. . . . Beyond that point, the decision as to how far a scholar is willing to accept the record they offer is likely to be influenced more by his openness to a ‘supernaturalist’ world-view than by strictly historical considerations."

—R. T. France
“The Gospels as Historical Sources for Jesus, the Founder of Christianity,” Truth 1 (1985): 86. (link)

Sunday Quote: Martin Luther on the Gospel

"If the devil were wise enough and would stand by in silence and let the gospel be preached, he would suffer less harm. For when there is no battle for the gospel it rusts and it finds no cause and no occasion to show its vigor and power. Therefore, nothing better can befall the gospel than that the world should fight it with force and cunning."
- Martin Luther

Ken Boa on Two Kinds of People

"There are two kinds of people in the world: those who seek God and those who seek to avoid him... and both will be successful."

- Ken Boa

James W. Miller on the Need for Apologetics

"There are those who wholly question the enterprise of Christian apologetics. They assert that God will call those whom he choses, and apologetics is just a distraction to the work of the Holy Spirit and the revelation of God. [...] The idea is prima facie nonsense. When a missionary travels to another country to proclaim the gospel, she learns the language of the people so as to communicate in terms that they understand. Apologetics is simply the language the secular world uses to talk about God. To say we shouldn’t practice a rational defense of the Christian faith is like saying the missionary need not study language, because the Holy Spirit can do whatever [He] wants." (1)

—James W. Miller
Author of Hardwired: Finding the God You Already Know

William Abraham on Christianity and Worldview

"Religious belief should be assessed as a rounded whole rather than taken in stark isolation. Christianity, for example, like other world faiths, is a complex, large-scale system of belief which must be seen as a whole before it is assessed. To break it up into disconnected parts is to mutilate and distort its true character. We can, of course, distinguish certain elements pin the Christian faith, but we must still stand back and see it as a metaphysical system, as a world view, that is total in its scope and range."

—William Abraham

"Soft Rationalism," in Philosophy of Religion: Selected Readings, 2nd ed., ed. Michael Peterson et al., p. 99.

Jill Carattini on Apologetics for Whom

“...When apologetics becomes something aimed to help us fight, or to help us feel secure, the gospel itself seems somehow lost in the battle. Sadly for many, the work of apologetics remains far more about ourselves than our neighbors, far more about the Christian arsenal than the love of God and creation. Subsequently, the gospel is not presented as good news, or even average news. On the contrary, the gospel is presented as something that proves: I am right."
(read more here...)

—Jill Carattini
Managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia. Excerpt from this article.

James Beilby on Apologetic Success

"Apologetic success, however, is neither strictly a matter of the quality of one's arguments nor the apparent response of your interlocutor...apologetic success is best understood as faithfulness to Jesus Christ. In our apologetic endeavors, we are called to be faithful to Christ in at least three senses. First, what we say should accurately represent who Jesus is, what he taught and, specifically, the good news he brought to the world. Second, the way we do our apologetics should augment our arguments, not detract from them. We must defend Christ in a way that fits with Christ's message. Finally, we must be faithful to God's purposes in specific situations. In some cases, apologetics appropriately and naturally leads to an offer for a person to commit her life to Christ, but in the vast majority of cases, our apologetic endeavors are a small step in a person's long and winding journey that one hopes will culminate in relationship with Jesus Christ."

—James Beilby

1. Beilby, James K. Thinking About Christian Apologetics. Pages 22-23. [HT: TruthBomb]

John Stott on the Role of Knowledge in the Christian Life

“Knowledge is indispensable to Christian life and service. If we do not use the mind that God has given us, we condemn ourselves to spiritual superficiality and cut ourselves off from many of the riches of God's grace.”

—John Stott
Your Mind Matters – The Place of the Mind in the Christian Life

William Lane Craig on a Universe Without God

"If there is no God, then man and the universe are doomed. Like prisoners condemned to death, we await our unavoidable execution. There is no God, and there is no immortality. And what is the consequence of this? It means that life itself is absurd. It means that the life we have is without ultimate significance, value, or purpose.”

—William Lane Craig
Reasonable Faith

C.S. Lewis on Progress

"We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man."

—C. S. Lewis
Mere Christianity pp. 28-29