Biblical Creation and Evangelism

Not so long ago, we would hear people pontificating about two kinds of people, such as, "There are two kinds of people: those who believe the Bible, and those who do not".* It may come as a surprise to some people to learn that there are only two worldviews. Original image before modification: Freeimages / Kenn Kiser Most people have probably not made a study of their worldviews, but they are the basis of how we live our lives, our presuppositions, our epistemology , and so on. Atheists presuppose there is no God, so their misotheistic spectacles impact how they live their lives and interpret evidence. The same with Christians. There are variations within worldviews of course, such as biblical creationists who are Christians, or professing atheists who are not entirely unreasonable. Essentially, there are only two worldviews. Picture two people in a living room. A man puts on green-colored glasses, and a woman puts on red-colored glasses. Everything the man sees has a green t...

Occasionally, apologists encounter discussions that all of reality is imaginary, as envisioned in several science fiction stories. (In one,our reality was the result of another being's dream, and it was waking up. They had to lull it back to sleep.) Sometimes the s elf-refuting Boltzmann Brains thought experiment is used. Another concept is drawn from The Matrix . How do we experience reality? Credit: FreeDigitalImages / Stuart Miles Presuppositional apologists will often ask unbelievers how they know what is real, and how they can account for their epistemology ( the study of knowledge ). How can we know that what we perceive through our senses is real or are we in a Matrix-like reality? Atheists appeal to their senses, but even without those imposed Matrix-illusion scenarios, this is not reliable as a universal principle. For example, someone with a mental illness or other altered state of consciousness may "see" and "experience" things that do not act...

A common way of insulting God is to attack his work (including dysteleology, the idea that things like the human eye were poorly created), and to attack created things. Attacking Christians and creationists is like catnip to atheists and anti-creationists, who deny that we are created in God's image. One mystical belief involves the water drop concept. Credit: Pexels /  Sourav Mishra Similar to the self-refuting Omega Point philosophy , this modified Eastern idea is that drops of water converge and lose their identities in the ocean. It came from Hinduism, which uses evolutionary concepts. However, we know from the Creator God's Written Word that he not only calls each star by name (Psalm 147:4), and he knows his people (John 10:28). Even drops of water have individual characteristics, and we are worth far more than drops; the Creator of the universe took the form of a man, was crucified, died, buried, and bodily arose. For you and for me. When skeptics criticize bibl...

Cowboys riding the long trail usually clam up, but once in a while, someone commences philosophizing. When the subject is met with little more than grunts from the others, silence ensues again. If you study on it, it seems that everybody has a philosophy of some sort. There are many philosophers throughout history, and many are relegated to history books. Le Philosophe by Henri Martin When people talk about philosophers, images of smug intellectuals taking solitary walks and pondering, or discussing their versions of the meaning of life while smoking pipes. I have stated that I find philosophy useless because I have no use for the ideas of Kierkegaard, Rousseau, Kant, and so on. However, I learned a few things about philosophy since then, especially the practice and purpose. Some folks shy away from philosophy as ungodly, referring to Colossians 2:8. Context, people! Chasing after worldly  philosophies can be very harmful, but the Bible is actually loaded with philoso...

An axiom  is a statement that is assumed to be true without evidence, and often used as a starting point in arguments or discussions. We all use them whether we know it or not, and they make up our worldviews. They are important in logic and mathematics. The word is based on the Greek for value or worth, and the area of philosophy called axiology  can be traced back to the same word. Garden of Eden image credit: Free Christian Illustrations Jaco Gericke, an Old Testament scholar, took a notion to do some axiology on Genesis 1. God called everything good , and he seemed to take exception to that. He says it makes no sense to call something good without an axiological frame of reference. Philosophy (and its related categories of logic and ethics) is good to study in principle, but the "great thinkers" and their philosophies are brought to nothing by the Word of God (1 Cor. 1:19-25). Christians should know that there is no one greater than God. When we take an oath, we swe...

by Cowboy Bob Sorensen People who want to slap leather with biblical Christianity may think they have some new concepts, but they are actually reworking old false teachings. This applies not only to those things that have been condemned as heresies, but the remarks of mockers and "skeptics" are often rehash hoary thinking from past centuries. Fausto Sozzini (Faustus Socinus) was cracked Derived from a public domain image at Wikimedia Commons Before I go further, I must say that I'm doing something I've done before: taking material from smarter people and adding thoughts that pertain to my own areas of study. This article was heavily influenced by Phil Johnson's series on five major heresies (linked below). I hope you'll ride the trail with me and you'll see how some things come together. There have been several times in Christian history when the faith appeared to be on its way to becoming hopelessly corrupted. God raised up faithful men to uph...

by Cowboy Bob Sorensen No, I'm not the one seeking challenges for my beliefs. Someone was asking what people read that challenge their "deeply held beliefs". The inquirer (who shall remain unidentified as well as my source) does not want to be pigeonholed as someone who believes because he or she was told to believe, and commenced to reading books by atheists. Other folks chimed in and said it was a good idea. Image credit: Freeimages / Stephen J. Sullivan Before I continue, ever have a situation where you explained something correctly, then found out that the person receiving the explanation didn't need it? That's how I feel here. What I'm about to say is valid, but I don't know if the one doing the asking even needs this information, but I'm doing it for someone who may need it. Hope that makes sense. Why seek out challenges to your faith? A Bible-believing Christian gets those on a regular basis from temptations, media, social media, frie...

by Cowboy Bob Sorensen Pastor Chris " Fighting for the Faith " Rosebrough presented a lecture that I used as a springboard for this article. First, some background on the spiritual condition. Western society has never had morality that we can be proud of, since it has been in a decline for quite a spell. And it's getting worse. Increasing violence, sexual immorality, atheism and other false religions, mental illness, abortion, defamation, lying, corruption at many levels, and so much more. How did we get in such a state? Image credit: David Castillo Dominici / FreeDigitalPhotos.net The simple answer is sin, which began in Eden. It escalated (Gen. 6:5) and God judged the world with the Great Flood (Gen 7:23). It didn't take long for man's sinful nature to rear it's ugly head afterward, but God promised never to flood the entire world again (Gen. 9:14-15). Don't think we're getting out of this easily, because the next Judgement will be by ...

A common occurrence for Christians and creationists is to have a smug atheist issue the demand, "Prove to me that God exists using science". These people who claim to believe in science and "reason" are arguing from their naturalistic presuppositions, but demonstrate not only their ignorance of the nature of God, but are also committing the formal logical fallacy known as the category error . That is, it's impossible to use man-made science philosophies and methods to "prove" the existence of God, who exists outside the confines of time, space, and matter. Then the owlhoots claim victory over the stupid Christian and proclaim that God does not exist, then try to prove evolution. However, there is abundant evidence for the existence of God, beginning from inside the questioner (Romans 1:18-23, Psalm 53:1 ESV). Image of God by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, painted in the 1500s, modified by a graphic from Clker clipart Similarly, a...

Adam and Eve were still new in Eden when Satan appealed to Eve's pride. "What's that you say? I can be like God? And that fruit sure looks mighty tasty..." according to my paraphrase. Even though they had direct communication with God the Creator in the very good  creation, they chose to disobey. Evolutionary philosopher Epicurus image credit: Wellcome Images   CC BY 4.0 Since mankind doesn't fancy being accountable to anyone, he has sought to disregard the authority of Scripture, even to the point of pretending that God does not exist. People are arrogant, and are passionate about human "wisdom" and their philosophies. Science is elevated to a supreme authority position, and yet it is a philosophy as well, a means of interpreting observations. Many things that have been considered scientific facts have changed through the years, and the "facts" of evolution are based on tendentious interpretations as well as conjectures asserted as scie...

Since way back yonder, people have been dreaming up various philosophies to follow. Sometimes they make their own, and other times, they dominate Western culture itself and get labeled. Premodernism began somewhere around 1650, but I doubt that people said, "Why yes, these are premodern times and I'm fully supportive of premodern philosophy". Modernism began to take hold, and lasted about 300 years. Assembled at SignGenerator.org About 1950, the philosophy called postmodernism began to take hold, and it's mighty depressing. One of its key points is one certainty: nothing is certain. While postmodernism contributes to atheism, a consistent postmodernist has disdain for the faiths both atheism and Christianity. To deepen the waters, not only are Christians certain of the existence of God, creation, the deity of Jesus Christ, his death, burial, and bodily resurrection, his return, the Final Judgement, and more, but we have faith. Now, some atheopaths malign...