Apologetics

In 1990, a graduate student from communist China--raised on atheistic evolution--asked me the following question: "Why should I believe in the Bible God, the Bible is true, and God is fair, when China was never given Bible truth about God to believe?" Simply put, this young man was asking: "Why should I believe in your Bible's God?" and "Why should I believe in your God's Bible?"

Many people have used the tragedies of human suffering as an excuse for rejecting the God of the Bible. Accordingly, skeptics rationalize this rejection by using syllogisms such as this:

"A house divided against itself will not stand" is an easily understood truth.¹ The same concept applies to logic used in debates and arguments. If an argument is self-contradictory, it is clearly wrong. Some accuse Proverbs 26:4-5 of self-contradiction. This is because they fail to comprehend that those twin verses teach related, but not identical, truths about arguing with fools. And arguing with fools is a frequent scenario in origins debates.

Recently I heard a radio talk show host caution, “When it comes to Christian apologetics, we cannot select the questions to be answered.”

Why not? Relying on 1 Peter 3:15, he explained, “Because only unbelievers and doubters may pose faith questions. It is the task of apologists to respond respectfully to their inquiries and their challenges, not to answer questions that are not being asked. It’s like dialogue chemistry: action, reaction. They act; we only react.”

“It doesn’t really matter, in the real world, what you believe about creation or evolution,” the college student glibly challenged me. “Whether the evolutionists are right or whether Genesis is right makes no practical difference in how science works or in how people live their lives.” With a grin and a wave of his hand, the sophomore dismissed the real-world relevance of biblical creation as if it were no more practical than evolutionary myths.

Careful observations define empirical science. When “modern science” experts teach us about nature, we expect to learn about how our world works.

How does snow form and fall? How do birds fly? How do squirrels jump? How do fish swim? The answers require us to look with exacting care and to record what we see with exacting accuracy. Objective observations, carefully reported, qualify such studies as “empirical science,” i.e., seeing the natural world in the present.

Truth and consequences go together—how we handle a test of truth produces a consequence. Think what it must have been like when Joseph of the Old Testament, disguised as an Egyptian leader, put his brothers to the test, setting up Benjamin for potential imprisonment. How did the other brothers react to the crisis Joseph imposed upon them?

Aquaculture expert Jon Steeves recently helped an African community establish a fish farm to supply local food needs—a wonderful example of biblical multitasking through obeying the Genesis mandate while also serving and loving others. But before reviewing that philanthropic project, let’s consider what is commanded in the Genesis mandate, a divine decree also called the dominion mandate.1