Jesus commanded us to "go into all the world and preach the gospel" Mark 16:15 and it has always bothered me that as a Christian I have not made much effort to share the gospel. This has been due to not really knowing what to say, not knowing how to make the gospel relevant to the people around me. It's not like you can just share with someone from scripture anymore since the Bible is not overly believed or respected anymore. Yet we are are commanded to share the gospel. What then are we to do?
Well, Paul gives us the answer in 2 Corinthians 10:4-5: "the weapons of our warfare are...mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God." Everybody has an argument against believing in Jesus. It's up to us to find out what that argument is and to cast it down so that person is in a better position to accept Christ.
This is particularly relevant to me because I have just entered into conversation with an atheist. Now, formerly I would have not had a clue how to proceed with sharing the gospel with an atheist and thus would have been too scared to try. But actually, the door of opportunity, the foothold, has been quite simple. We've started talking about origins. See, if he doesn't believe in God then he has no use for Jesus because he is not a well-loved, created in God's image, sinner. In his mind he has no need for a saviour. So to share the gospel with him, I need to start at the beginning, with creation. Now of course, he is an evolutionist and so I need to demonstrate the falisty of that postion in order to pave the way for the truth of God's existence, the veracity of the Bible, God's perfect creation of man, man's fall in sin and death, Jesus' substitutionary atonement and resurrection and man's need to repent. Everything is connected.
I'm glad to have an opportunity to share the gospel that I'm actually taking advantage of.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Logic, Arguments and Critical Thinking
I find the study and use of logic fascinating. Trying to understand the relationship between ideas has been with me since my youth when I wrestled with understanding the doctrines of Christianity. I think that's why I nearly failed math in high school. I would day dream during the lessons, thus not learning the relationships betwen numbers and how they could be used and so when I had assignments and tests I did poorly. I guess I daydreamed because I consider myself to be a slow thinker - sometimes it takes me time to grasp things and when I didn't instsantly grasp mathmatical equations I lost interest, thus not taking the time to learn them. But all that math never had much of a relevancey for my life either then or now so it hasn't had a lasting negative effect.
What has made a difference for me is finding an issue I'm interested in and seeing how logic applies to it. Doing so has helped me to be a more critical thinker. I have a tendancy to just accept things at face value instead of asking questions and the study and practise of logic has helped me to stop doing that.
The issue that has fueled my interest in logic is the debate between creation and evolution. I have always believed in a 6 day recent creation and have either faced or read the many arguments against that belief. In search of answers I have come across the subset of logic that is particularly appealing to me - the detection of fallacious arguments. I suppose it appeals to me because I naturally struggle to think critically, to know what to look for or even what questions to ask.
My greatest resource by far has been reading real-life examples of fallacious arguments and their rebuttals by the organizations Answers in Genesis and Creation Ministries International on their website feedback pages.
Thru their works I have learned, for example, about argumentum ad populum or argumentum ad numerum, meaning "appeal to the masses." It means "if many people believe it is true, it is true." This is frequently invoked in the creation/evolution debate, along the lines of "all scientists accept evolution." This particular argument has a false premise, that "all scientists accept evolution" and so it is an invalid argument. Even the argument "most scientists accept evolution" is invalid because the amount of people that subscribe to a particular belief has no effect on whether that belief is actually true. For example, at one time it could be said that "most biological scientists accept that the appendix is a vestigial and useless organ" but in that case the majorty was wrong as born out by subsequent research.
This is particularly important for Christians who claim the Bible is the final authority in all matters. We may argue that somthing is true because the Bible says that it is, regardless of what other humans think. For example, the Bible teaches that God created in six literal days (according to grammatical usage) and so that may be argued as true regardless of the fact that many people believe God created over a much longer period of time.
What has made a difference for me is finding an issue I'm interested in and seeing how logic applies to it. Doing so has helped me to be a more critical thinker. I have a tendancy to just accept things at face value instead of asking questions and the study and practise of logic has helped me to stop doing that.
The issue that has fueled my interest in logic is the debate between creation and evolution. I have always believed in a 6 day recent creation and have either faced or read the many arguments against that belief. In search of answers I have come across the subset of logic that is particularly appealing to me - the detection of fallacious arguments. I suppose it appeals to me because I naturally struggle to think critically, to know what to look for or even what questions to ask.
My greatest resource by far has been reading real-life examples of fallacious arguments and their rebuttals by the organizations Answers in Genesis and Creation Ministries International on their website feedback pages.
Thru their works I have learned, for example, about argumentum ad populum or argumentum ad numerum, meaning "appeal to the masses." It means "if many people believe it is true, it is true." This is frequently invoked in the creation/evolution debate, along the lines of "all scientists accept evolution." This particular argument has a false premise, that "all scientists accept evolution" and so it is an invalid argument. Even the argument "most scientists accept evolution" is invalid because the amount of people that subscribe to a particular belief has no effect on whether that belief is actually true. For example, at one time it could be said that "most biological scientists accept that the appendix is a vestigial and useless organ" but in that case the majorty was wrong as born out by subsequent research.
This is particularly important for Christians who claim the Bible is the final authority in all matters. We may argue that somthing is true because the Bible says that it is, regardless of what other humans think. For example, the Bible teaches that God created in six literal days (according to grammatical usage) and so that may be argued as true regardless of the fact that many people believe God created over a much longer period of time.
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