Christianity is the best explanation

In a recent podcast on Stand To Reason, Greg Koukl discussed his view of why Christianity is the best explanation for how things are.

My notes:

Xty best way to a coherent world view

Atheism has too much that is counter intuitive and is not possible to affirm rationally.

To say that everything came from nothing, that life came from non-life?

That 'dead stuff' became 'living stuff' by itself? Really?

That consciousness emerged from some re-combination of molecules

That morality is a function of Darwinian evolution? (see 'Street Smarts' book).

None of these things work. Even in the slightest degree. So radically counter-intuitive.

Morality: all NDE can do is give you relativism, where the moral locus is the self. And if relativism is true, there is no 'problem of evil'. In fact, to the individual 'evil' should be undetectable. All one has is personal inconvenience or aversion.

Evil second most salient feature of reality: to all people at all times it is obvious that 'something is not right with the world, let alone 'me' in the world. [cf Paul in Romans 7:14ff)

First is consciousness: not brain or central nervous system. But consciousness itself: your 'who-ness' and by which all perceptions above come and who you know you are.

Your conscious self is the most salient thing about you.

Matter by itself cannot do what consciousness does. thoughts, feelings, experiencing them, having them, acts of will, intentions (itself teleological: about things that do not exist), beliefs: none are features of physical things.

So obvious that atheism and materialism are false.

No equal to Christianity as a world view in its ability to coherently explain the nature of reality and the nature of our experience of reality.

Reality is structured a certain way. You 'bump into it', you cannot make it up and succeed with it.

Individual beliefs are not 'our truths'. If they conflict, someone must be wrong! We can both be wrong, but both cannot be right in the same terms.

Individual truths: just silly. Either sound/factual or not.

Beliefs are either true or false, not always personal truth. There is 'true truth' in Schaeffer's terms. 

When a Muslim asks you to 'submit' to Allah

What to do if your Muslim acquaintance tells you that Jesus ("Issa" in their book, Yeshua in reality) was  Muslim because he  submitted to 'god'; and therefore, so should you?

Your answer: "Submit to who?" And you will be urged to submit to 'god'; you must ask who is this 'god' they mean. It is "Allah" of course.

But you not only 'submit' to Yahweh through Yeshua the Messiah, but are indwelt by his Holy Spirit and follow Messiah. You don't need a fake, made-up god when the creator has brought you into his kingdom through Messiah.

This will possibly lead to a discussion about your terms. But pursue the discussion. How does your acquaintance know that this 'Allah' is the creator and redeemer of fallen mankind?

Does the Quran help? Does Muhammad help?

You will need convincing historical evidence of both, not just vague claims.

But here's the clanger: Muslims are told to submit to Muhammad, not Allah; or is Muhammad actually Allah? 

See Quran 39:53 -- Muhammad speaking to his 'followers'.

Say : “ O my Servants who Have transgressed against their souls ! Despair not of the Mercy Of God : for God forgives All sins : for He is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.

So the Muslims are Muhammad's slaves ( servants is perhaps euphemistic); it reads as though Muhammad is equal to Allah!

But beside all this; we have the Torah and the Gospel and all the prophets! They are our revelation, not yours.

And the Quran shows us that Issa is greater than Muhammad and more than a man!

Quran 3:45

Behold! the angels said “O Mary! God giveth thee glad tidings of a Word from Him: his name will be Christ Jesus the son of Mary held in honor in this world and the Hereafter and of (the company of) those nearest to God. 

The 'word' is a person: Allah's word is eternal: Issa ( Yeshua/Jesus) is an eternal being! 

Quran 4:171

O people of the Book! commit no excesses in your religion: nor say of God aught but truth. Christ Jesus the son of Mary was (no more than) an Apostle of God and His Word which He bestowed on Mary and a Spirit proceeding from Him: so believe in God and His Apostles. Say not “Trinity”: desist: it will be better for you: for God is One God: glory be to him: (for Exalted is He) above having a son. To Him belong all things in the heavens and on earth. And enough is God as a Disposer of affairs.

This passage not only shows that "Issa" is word of god and spirit proceeding from god but reveals Islam's misunderstanding of the Trinity in the same verse as a trinity is described! That is Allah, the word of Allah and the Spirit from Allah! You couldn't make this up. 

BUT THEN

To submit to Allah, you in fact submit to Muhammad!

Surah 4:65

But no, by your Lord, they will not [truly] believe until they make you, [O Muḥammad], judge concerning that over which they dispute among themselves and then find within themselves no discomfort from what you have judged and submit in [full, willing] submission. 

The Bible is Corrupted!

You  might hear this from your Muslim friend.

Don't believe it.

However, it is a different story for the Quran. Not 'corrupted' per se, how can a made-up story book be 'corrupted'? but neither a book that tells about Yahweh, the creator and his incarnated Son (that is of the same substance) Yeshua. In fact the Quran is to a large degree a vehemently Arian diatribe against Christian faith.

But, oddly, the Quran tells us the Bible is NOT corrupted, or even corruptible!. 

See 99.8% of Muslims Don't Know Allah Says THIS about the Bible!

 Surah 29:46 -- the Quran endorses the Bible.

 

Surah 3:3-4 -- The Torah and 'Gospel' revealed before.

 

Surah 18:27 -- the Bible is inviolate.

 

The horns of the dilemma

Horn 1: The prophetic stories are reliable. If that’s true then the Quran is false because it directly contradicts them.

Horn 2: The prophetic stories are unreliable. But in that case, Surah 10:94 is incoherent.

Surah 10:94

The typical Muslim counter to this information is that it is talking about the texts (particularly identified as 'Torah' and 'Gospel') available at Mohammad's time, but they've been corrupted since then.

Spot the problem?

Of course: the Quran, an 'eternal' book doesn't qualify its statements: they are absolute: always, inevitably and inescapably preserved. Or, Allah has no clue about the future of the texts, or no ability to preserve them through time.

So, my Muslim friend, either the Quran is wrong, or...it is wrong. If the text is corrupted, it is wrong because it says that its preserved; if its preserved, it is wrong, because the Quran contradicts both the Torah and the Gospel,  and all the other prophets and all the commentaries (Letters) on the Gospel.

Which is it?

Now we know we have a very secure biblical text, and a very insecure quranic text!

Indeed, all the above aside, we have extant texts from the time of alleged Mohammad that tell us the Bible has not been corrupted post this time.

Early New Testament Manuscripts

Papyrus 52 (P52) (c. 125–150 CE): A small fragment from the Gospel of John, widely considered the oldest surviving New Testament text.

Papyrus 46 (P46) (c. 175–225 CE): An early collection of Pauline epistles.Papyrus 66 (P66) (c. 200 CE): A substantial portion of the Gospel of John

Early Complete Bibles (Codices)

Codex Vaticanus (c. 4th century CE): Housed in the Vatican Library, one of the oldest and most complete Greek Bibles

Codex Sinaiticus (c. 4th century CE): Discovered at St. Catherine's Monastery, containing the oldest substantially complete Christian Bible.

The Syriac Peshitta is the standard version of the Bible used by churches in the Syriac tradition. Most scholars date the Old Testament portion to the 1st or 2nd century AD and the New Testament to the 2nd to 5th centuries AD. The word "Peshitta" means "simple" or "common" in Syriac, which is a dialect of Aramaic 

Your turn, Islam! 

see https://youtu.be/VC9BUwofQ_E for further background 

Church is not business...but

I saw this in a comment on YouTube recently. It's worth repeating.

Now we have a quantified aim! Another one! Oh dear me...[this church had a 'target' of 5% pa growth]

Remember Connect09? That was an aim with a slogan. Even worse!! [This was a campaign in 2009 in the Sydney Anglican Diocese of Sydney under Archbishop Jensen: the bright idea guy, I guess]

Remember 'Evangelism Explosion"; the 4 points of salvation; the 2 ways to live? More of the same! All busy work and no true transformation.

The way out of this cycle of ineffectiveness?

Edwards Deming is known in business circles as the great balloon popper of business hubris. He works here to.

Many of his 14 points of management apply to church life:

[My comments are preceded with ">>"]

+ Create constancy of purpose: Focus long-term on improving products and services rather than short-term profits.

>> Always look long term: no instant fixes, no immediate paybacks. Patience and biblical precepts, not cultural accretions. By biblical I mean Paul, James, Peter; by cultural I mean business, reformation,  priestly castes.

+ Improve constantly and forever: Continually upgrade the system for planning, production, and service.

>> Patience must be informed by continual checking and developing practices in community. Church is not a one man or board led operation. The elders have a job to do, but it is not to 'lead'.

+ Institute training on the job: Provide modern, thorough skills training for all employees.

>> Exactly!!

+ Adopt and institute leadership [alas we have an obsession with 'leadership' and ignore 'discipleship' and 'serving'] : Shift management from mere supervision to coaching people to do a better job.

>> Not leadership as we conceive it today, he means as a mentor. Discipleship I think we say.

+ Drive out fear: Encourage open communication, innovation, and trust so everyone works effectively.

+ Eliminate slogans and targets: Stop giving the workforce empty exhortations or zero-defect quotas without providing methods to achieve them,

+ Eliminate numerical quotas: Remove factory floor quotas and numerical goals for management that compromise true quality.

+ Remove barriers to pride of workmanship: Abolish annual merit ratings and systems that rob workers, engineers, and managers of pride in their work.

+ Institute education and self-improvement: Encourage lifelong learning and personal development for every employee.

>> We need to be always training, studying and learning. Christianity was once an intellectually fueled faith, now it is merely 'feelings' fueled.

+ Put everyone to work on the transformation: Make the company-wide shift to quality the job of every single person.

>> Every saint counts.

He could almost have been 'channeling" Paul.

Hamlet on life (via Shakespeare)

...without Christ

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there's the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause—there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th'unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovere'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.
 

Islam and prayer -- Yeshua's prayer?

If 'Yeshua is God who is he praying to when he prays?

Another misunderstanding based on Islam's monistic beliefs. This leads to inability to understand both the Trinity (yes, a word not in the Bible, but neither is the Muslim word 'Tawhid' or 'tawheed' or the one-ness of allah in the Quran!).

But put that aside; how can God pray to God?

The incarnation of Yeshua as the 'God-man' was the incarnate creator entered into his creation. Yet he maintained the communing intimacy of the God-head (the Trinity) by continuing to speak to the Father.

Part of the confusion may be that for Muslims prayer is a formulaic ritual of 'worship'. Not the means of our communion with the Father. Yeshua was also reflecting the life of the un-fallen sinless man: to be in constant communion with the Father.

The foundation of un-fallen communion is given in Genesis 2:8a, where God walked in the garden with Adam and Eve: in perfect communion until they rejected life with God. Yeshua demonstrates the united-with-God life which we can have through him and in him.  

The irony of this challenge is that Muslims are encouraged to pray to the not-allah Muhammad. See this article by Shamoun.

But it gets worse.

Allah also prays; to whom we are not told; a 'greater' god perhaps? This idea is perhaps a remnant of the paganism that underlies Islam (also suggested in the so-called Satanic Verses). Shamoun also deals with this absurdity. 

See

They are those on whom are the prayers (salawatun) from their Lord and mercy (rahmatun), and it is they who are the guided-ones. S. 2:157

He it is who prays (yusallee) for you and His angels too, to bring you forth out of the darkness into the light, for He is merciful to the believers. S. 33:43 Palmer

Verily, God and His angels pray (yusalloona) for the prophet. O ye who believe! pray for him (salloo) and salute him with a salutation! S. 33:56 Palmer

From Answering Islam.

Surah 33:56 

God and His Angels Send blessings on the Prophet : O ye that believe ! Send ye blessings on him, And salute him With all respect. -- Yusuf Ali

surely Allah and his angels pray over the prophet O ye who believed pray over
him and submit submissively ﴾56) -- Murad's Literal Translation 

This chapter examines the problem of the God and the angels' ṣallāt for Muhammad described in Sūrah 33:56 of the Qurān. Specifically, it addresses the question of whether God, whose transcendence Islam describes as inconceivable, and who cannot be limited, really “prays for” the Prophet, one of his own creatures. It argues that two elements support and ratify, rather than undermine, a literal interpretation of Sūrah 33:56—“God prays for the Prophet”— which is the phrase's most obvious and at the same time its deepest meaning. The first is one of the most essential metaphysical qualities of God (ṣifāt Allāh) as defined by Islam—his self-sufficiency, embodied in the names of al-qayyūm (the self-subsisting) and al-ghanī (the self-sufficing). Second is his reciprocal relationship to the cultic life of Islam, both directly and as mediated by the Prophet.

From 

“God and His Angels Pray for the Prophet”: A Qurʾānic Paradigm

Get access

Kimberley Christine Patton

 

So, you (Christians) can sin all you like

This is the last in this series of Muslim misunderstanding (feigned or genuine?) of Christian teaching.

It is supposed that forgiveness of sin we have through Yeshua's death and resurrection now gives us liberty to sin with complete abandon.

A fundamental confusion in applying Islamic categories and thinking to Christian faith without understanding Christian faith.

Islam is a practice of 'doing'. Do the 5 pillars (6 in some versions) of Shahada (faith), Salah (prayer), and Zakat (almsgiving), along with Sawm (fasting) and Hajj (pilgrimage to the black stone); some add Jihad 

The confusion seems to imagine Christian faith as a game of 'works'.

It fails to understand that in Christ we have new life and as those seeking transformation of our thoughts and lives (Romans 12:1-2) and who seek to show the fruit of the Spirit by his indwelling of our new life (Galatians 5:22-23) and in following Yeshua (Philippians 2:1-4).

It also fails to understand sin. Sin is what is anti-God, that which repudiates our relationship with god and reflects proud selfish disregard -- hate -- of others. We know we are not perfect and do this, but we constantly repent and seek the (willing and loving) forgiveness of our Lord as we continue to grow in our transformed lives.

Ponder on Romans 6; invite your Muslim friend to read it with you.