FAQ #8: Why should I believe the Bible if it is full of contradictions?

Question: Why should I believe the Bible (especially the four gospels) if they are full of contradictions?

Answer:

1. The existence of contradictions on secondary details does not invalidate the main story a source is trying to tell. For example, Roman histories are full of contradictions. The four accounts of Caesar's assassination are one example. Historians do not reject his assassination based on disagreements in the sources on details. In the same way, disagreement on the secondary details surrounding the death and resurrection of Christ does not invalidate his death and resurrection altogether. 
2. Disagreements on the details of an event are routine in our lives. News articles sometimes provide slightly different information than other news articles. Eyewitnesses of car accidents often report conflicting details. This is another reason that disagreements on minor details does not in any way cast doubt on the larger story that is being reported. 
3. Many supposed contradictions in the four Gospels are really not contradictions. They can be classified as differences between the accounts. Differences take place when there is no explicit disagreement between two sources, but one source omitted certain details that the other included. 
4. For the difficult passages, many attempts at harmonization have been made, with a great deal of success. Some apparent contradictions can be resolved with relatively simple explanations. 
5. Sometimes, existence of contradictions in secondary details actually serves to prove the larger story really happened. Contradictions in the details prove that the sources are somewhat independent, and are not conspiring to create false stories or rumors. 

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FAQ #7: What Do Christians Mean When They Say "Jesus Died for Our Sins?"

Question: What Do Christians Mean When They Say "Jesus died for my sins?"

Answer: 

1. God is a perfect Judge and cannot let any wrong doing go unpunished. Nevertheless, God unlimited in his love. When we humans regularly sin, God is faced with a dilemma. He has to punish every sin, or else he is an imperfect Judge. Nevertheless, God wants to show mercy to every human, or else he would no longer be unlimited in love. God resolves this dilemma by become human and allowing himself to be punished instead of us. He took the punishment for our sins by being crucified as a man.
2. Jesus (like Adam) is a representative for the entire human race. When he sacrifices himself, he provides forgiveness to the human race (or at least those who accept him as a representative). 
3. The arrangement is similar to if you committed a crime, and you received a very large fine as a result. Imagine that the judge issuing the fine were to pay it for you, at great cost to himself. This is very similar to what Jesus did when he died on the cross, paying the penalty for our sins. 
4. My uncle (an attorney) told me that an analogy in our legal system is that of "vicarious liability." This means that a "senior" person can hold themselves liable for the actions of the "junior" in the relationship. For example, employers are liable for the actions of employees. This is analogous to Jesus dying on the cross, where he voluntarily holds himself liable for our actions. 

Credits:

(Thanks to my uncle Kurt Anderson for some of the information in this post.)

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FAQ #6: If there are so many denominations, what is true Christianity?

Question: If there are so many denominations, what is true Christianity?

Answer:

1. The central message of Christianity is the "gospel." The gospel is the message Jesus' disciples and Paul preached to the world in order to gain converts. In the book of Acts, there are many recordings of these gospel speeches. Paul also defines the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15: 1-15 & in Romans 10:8-13.
2. Throughout the New Testament, underlying gospel remains the same. The message has three components: 1) Jesus is the Jewish Messiah 2) Jesus died and was buried to forgive our sins 3) Jesus was resurrected and appeared to many witnesses. Conversion takes place when a listener believes the message.
3. All other Christian beliefs branch off of these core beliefs. Here are a few important examples: 
1. The Jewish Messiah was a figure predicted in the Old Testament. This person was prophesied to conquer Israel's enemies and rule the entire world as King, bringing world peace. Christians believe this will take place at the Second Coming of Christ.
2. Furthermore, some Old Testament passages imply that the Messiah would be the Lord Himself. Hence, the central Christian belief is that the Messiah (Jesus) is both God and man. 
3. Jesus Himself also taught the doctrine of the Second Coming and his own Deity.
4. All other beliefs are connected to the gospel message in a similar way as the examples above. These beliefs come from Old Testament prophecy or Jesus' own teachings, but usually both. The main beliefs have been compiled in various Creeds, such as the Nicene Creed and Apostles Creed.

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ALL Sin Deprives Someone of Their Freedom

The FAQ series continues....but this is not one of them.

I think the concept of "deprivation of freedom" is essential to the concept of sin.

My friend Justin, said this to me once, and I thought it was wrong. After all, don't people who sin exercise lots of freedom to do whatever they want, regardless of morality?

Philosopher Richard Swinburne defines God as a person with only three attributes: perfect power, perfect knowledge....and surprisingly...perfect freedom.

Swinburne derives God's moral goodness from his freedom. According to Kantian ethics, unethical decisions are by nature irrational. God being perfectly free, is not constrained by irrational desires or other persons. This "frees" him up to make only rational decisions. Since God makes only rational decisions every time, he only makes morally good decisions every time.

I think this idea can be extended to people. I will draw a metaphor from political philosophy. According to libertarian political philosophy, depriving a person of their liberties (or freedoms), is the chief evil. If only the government (and people) let us alone, then this would be the ideal.

This makes sense. Any wrong we do to another person effectively deprives them of consent, or the freedom to choose whether or not it happens to them or not.

But what about all those seemingly arbitrary sexual rules in the New Testament that don't affect anyone else? What about various sexual sins, alcoholism, and even witchcraft? How does this relate to the deprivation of freedom?

It's very simple.

All sin hurts at least two parties: God and the offended party. In cases of interpersonal sins, the offended party is someone else. In the case of a "secret" or (so called) "victim-less" sin, the offended party is yourself...

In the case of interpersonal sins, you are depriving someone else of their consent (freedom). In a sin against yourself, you are depriving yourself of consent and becoming more deeply enslaved by it. The test is very simple to determine if a personal act is a sin. Here is the test:

"If, before I was born, I could choose to have or not have this desire or impulse, would I keep it and act on it?"

No one chooses to be an alcoholic someday. No wishes that one day they will become a porn addict or addicted to promiscuous sex. No one wishes that someday, they would be overcome by sexual desire for the same sex, or worse, a sexual desire for children or animals.

This reminds me of a verse on sexual immorality:

"“I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but I will not be mastered by anything." 1 Corinthians 6:12 (emphasis added)

This is where the deprivation of freedom comes in. "Victimless" sins actually victimize yourself, because you are becoming enslaved to desires you do not wish to become enslaved to. They deprive you of the freedom to choose what you do in your life. Giving into desires you do not want actually want causes you to become progressively impaired and mastered by them. This causes you to feel helpless and stuck serving something that even you would consider to be undesirable.

1 Corinthians 6 also implies that sinning sexually is in some way sinning against yourself.

Why is being deprived of freedom such a bad thing? First, it has a very negative effect on the person it affects. Depriving other people's freedom causes them much pain. Depriving yourself of freedom causes yourself a lot of pain, because you are enslaved by desires you don't want.

But depriving yourself or others of freedom has a a worse effect than either of these things. A perfectly rational being would voluntarily try to serve and worship God, the most beautiful and loving being in the universe, because they would find it to be the most satisfying and beneficial thing to do.

Sins entice a person to become slave to something other than God. My litmus test for sin in the Christian ethic can be applied to both interpersonal and isolated sins.


"If, before I was born, I could choose to have or not have this desire or impulse, would I keep it and act on it?"

No one wishes that one day, they would overreact to an insult. No one wishes that one day, money would become so important to them that armed robbery is an option. No one wishes that one day, they would have trouble controlling their temper. No one wishes that one day, other people's stuff would become so important they are consumed by wanting it. 

This comes full circle. Jesus says that everyone who sins is a slave to sin. But He says the Son can set you free. He specifically says he is a "humble" and "gentle" Master, because his "yoke is easy and burden is light."  Whatever other slave-masters we have to give up, Jesus says he is way easier to serve than all of them. They may shout at us to come back and serve them, but serving Jesus will always be less controlling than our sinful desires.

²⁸ “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.³⁰ For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

So basically, if doing something deprives you or anyone else of freedom, it is a sin. Sins don't just hurt you or other people. They hurt God, because sinful desires try to get you to serve a master less worthy than the most perfect, beautiful, and deserving being in the universe: God Himself. 

FAQ #5: Isn't it unfair to be born into a fallen world without our consent?

Question: Isn't it unfair to be born into a sinful and painful world without our consent?

Answer:

1. It isn't unfair for God to let us be born in a fallen and broken world without our consent, because we would have chosen it for ourselves if given the chance. Furthermore, every time we sin, we consent with Adam's choice to live in a fallen world. This is why God let Adam be the representative for the entire human race, instead of making each of us go through a fateful decision. 
2. God allows us to choose to spend eternity either with Him or away from him. However, he knows we will be extremely unhappy if we choose not to be with Him forever, because He is the most loving and beautiful Being in the universe. So when God lets us be born into a sinful condition, it helps us realize how bad and unsatisfying sin really is. It's painful to live in a cruel and violent world of sin separate from God. Furthermore, when we experience unwanted sinful desires and become slaves to sin instead of God, we realize how unsatisfying and controlling sin can be. Both of these things are God's way of persuading us to choose to worship Him forever, instead of being slaves to sin.
3. Being born into a fallen world is painful and seems unfair. Nevertheless, any pain we experience in this life is extremely small compared to an eternity with a loving God. Any unfairness we perceive in this life, God will compensate us for millions of times over in eternity.

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Christianity FAQ Page

Here are the links to the Christianity Q&A series I'm doing.

In regular blog posts, I tend to ramble on and on. For sake of being clear and concise, I am limiting my answers to 250 words.

I will add links as I make more posts. They all should be clickable.

Intro to Christianity Q&A

1) Why should I be a Christian if so many Christians have done evil throughout history?

2) Doesn't the theory of evolution prove that Christians are wrong?

3) Why should I believe the Bible when it is full of silly and impossible stories?

4)  Isn't it crazy to think Jesus really rose from the dead?

5)  Isn't it unfair to be born into a sinful and painful world without our consent?

6)  If there are so many denominations, what is true Christianity?

7) What Do Christians Mean When They Say "Jesus died for my sins?"

8) Why should I believe the Bible (especially the four gospels) if they are full of contradictions?

9) Does the resurrection of Jesus violate the scientific laws of nature? 

10) Is there any compelling reason to worship Jesus as God? 

11)  Why does a good and all powerful God allow suffering?

FAQ #4: Isn't it crazy to think Jesus really rose from the dead?

Question: Isn't it crazy to think Jesus really rose from the dead?

Answer:

1. The resurrection of Jesus arguably has better historical support than the assassination of Julius Caesar. There are about 4 primary sources for Caesar's assassination, whereas the resurrection has 5-6 primary sources. The sources for Julius Caesar's death were all written over 100 years after the assassination happened. The sources for Jesus' resurrection were all written within 70 years after it happened, sometimes even within 5 years. 
2. The facts normally used to support the resurrection of Jesus are accepted by >90% of scholars writing on the subject. This statistic is based on a real survey of all the publications written by Phd's about Jesus. 
3. If a person rejects the resurrection itself, but accepts all of the historically sound facts surrounding his death (i.e the appearances after his death, the burial, the crucifixion, etc.) they will be left with an unsolvable historical puzzle with many unexplained "loose ends."
4. Alternative theories like "the disciples stole the body" or "the disciples hallucinated the resurrected Jesus" make very unbelievable explanations in real life. For example, no one would tell a police officer that they simply "hallucinated" drugs in your car. 
5. Some argue that the resurrection theory itself an unbelievable explanation. It would be, but only if Christians claimed Jesus rose from the dead through natural causes alone. Christians claim God raised Jesus, not that he just naturally rose on his own. On the contrary, skeptics of the resurrection postulate impossible events (i.e. multiple group hallucination) as by natural causes only. 

(Back to Christian Evidence Frequently Asked Questions Page)

FAQ #3: Why should I believe the Bible when it is full of silly and impossible stories?

Question: Why should I believe the Bible when it is full of silly and impossible stories?

Answer: 

1. As I said in a previous post, Christianity has three core beliefs 1) Jesus is the Messiah 2) Jesus died to forgive you 3) Jesus rose from the dead. Even if none of the Old Testament stories were true, it wouldn't make any of those 3 beliefs untrue. Furthermore, the Bible is not really one book. It is an anthology of 66 books written over a 2500 year time span. The truth of each book has to be independently examined. 
2. This objection depends which stories one considers to be impossible and silly. The ones that sound impossible and silly aren't as bad as they sound. Some examples below:
3. Adam and Eve: It makes complete sense that if God existed, he would give humans a choice to trust, love and obey him, or disobey and go their own way. To test our loyalty, God could have made one arbitrary rule in an otherwise pleasant environment. This could have just as easily been a tree in a garden with fruit that God didn't want people to eat.
4. Noah's Ark: It is not crazy to think that someone made a boat and took his family aboard when a big flood came. It is not even crazy to think that the flood killed everyone in the time period. Back then, everyone lived in the Middle East and hadn't migrated to other parts of the world yet. Therefore, the flood wouldn't have to be worldwide in order to kill everyone. If it didn't flood everywhere, we might not even notice its geological effects. This doesn't prove its a true story, but it does show that its not completely crazy idea. 
5. The miracles of Jesus: this will be covered in a future post in more detail. For now, I will say that one miracle (the resurrection) has more and earlier historical sources than some commonly accepted facts of ancient history. 

(Back to Christian Evidence Frequently Asked Questions Page)

FAQ #2: Doesn't the theory of evolution prove that Christians are wrong?

Question: Doesn't the theory of evolution prove that Christians are wrong?

Answer:

1. The core beliefs of Christianity are that the Messiah Jesus died to forgive your sins and then resurrected from the dead. If evolution turns out to be true, then it wouldn't make any of those core beliefs untrue. The statement "evolution is true, therefore Jesus didn't rise from the dead" does not follow.
2. The Bible is not necessarily opposed to evolution. Genesis 1-2 state that God created the world in six days. The sequence of creation events in the story is semi-consistent with an evolutionary narrative.  (i.e sea animals were made before land animals and humans). However, for theological reasons found in those two chapters, the length of each of these "days" is unclear. In addition to this, the Bible doesn't say how God created the world, only that he did it. This means that Genesis 1-2 do not explicitly contradict the theory of evolution. 
3. The above does not mean a person should automatically believe in evolution. They should make their decision based on what they think is actually true. They should not base their decision on whether or not some people or group of people will think they are silly. Truth is vastly more important than social acceptance. 

(Back to Christian Evidence Frequently Asked Questions Page)

FAQ #1: Why should I be a Christian if so many Christians have done evil throughout history?

Question: Why should I be a Christian if so many Christians have done evil throughout history?

Answer: 

1. It doesn't make sense to say that "Some Christians have killed people before, therefore Jesus is not God." It's like saying that "Some Democrats have killed people before, therefore Obama is not President." Facts stay true, no matter how badly people may behave. 
2. Those Christians who have acted evil in history are acting contrary to the teachings of Jesus. This means that Christians who have acted evil before are not behaving consistently with Christianity. Therefore, Christianity itself is not at fault for these evils.
3. Of all the religions in the world, Christianity thinks humans are the most evil. Therefore, the fact that some Christians have been cruel in the past confirms the Christian idea that humans are naturally evil and in need of rescue.
4. If you add up all the numbers, people in other belief systems have killed a lot more people than Christians have (especially atheists of the communist type, like Mao and Stalin). If the truth of a belief was determined by how nice its followers were, Christianity would win regardless. 

(Back to Christian Evidence Frequently Asked Questions Page)

Q&A about Christianity

In an effort to focus on being shorter and more concise, I am making a Q&A series on questions about Christianity. I will I realize there are gazillions of Christian apologetics Q&A websites. However, I am realizing that being short and to the point is much better at communicating than making super long blog posts that try to anticipate every possible objection. In reality, FAQ's give people a chance to look up more information if they do not find an answer satisfactory. I will stay under 250 words per question.

As I said, lots of Christian apologetics Q&A sites exist. But these Q&A's are often in article form. These FAQ's are going to be in bullet form. I am bad at being concise, but I will try.

Also, feel free to ask a question in the comments section. It would make sense for me to focus on the most popular questions, instead of researching questions I "think" people are most concerned with.

I anticipate each Q&A to be a short blog post each. At the end of the post, I will consolidate all of the answers on one page with links to each. This may evolve over time but this is the plan for the time being.