Institute of Biblical Defense

In line with the previous Q&A with Dr. Fernandes, these videos also confront questions often asked by a skeptical and curious public. The two questions asked here are more “popular” level questions for both new Christians and skeptics:

“How can you know the Holy Spirit is in you?”

“Is There Salvation for Fallen Angels?”

This previous July, Dr. Fernandes sat down for a question and answer session. He was asked a series of common “Bible College” questions. These are questions that almost all Christians at one point or another confront, often without a satisfactory conclusion. We hope these answers help.

The questions answered in this Q&A session include:

• If God is good, why does evil exist?
• If God is three persons, where is the body?
• Is there a difference between belief and faith?
• Calvinism or Arminianism?

Comments are welcome.

For those of you who enjoy the “Christian World View”, this is one you won’t want to miss. Here Matt Coombe and Dr. Fernandes discuss information I’ve been waiting to hear for quite a while. Bert Ehrman is in view here and the dynamic apologetic duo offer a solid apologetic response to his near atheistic hyper-skepticism. The scriptures of God are defended against those who would bring their accuracy into doubt and the historicity of the Jesus of the Bible is given a solid base in fact. Listen, enjoy, learn.

Finally, The Christian World View is back on the air.  Wasting no time, Dr. Fernandes and Matt Coombe get right to the most relevant issues in the apologetics today.  In this episode, the questionable New Testament criticisms of Bart Ehrman Ph.D., chair of the Religious Studies department at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, are analyzed in light of modern scholarship.

Not scared to be honest and tough, Dr. Fernandes and Matt Coombe defend the Christian faith using the latest modern scholarship.  Find out who Bart Ehrman is, why he believes what he believes, where he comes from and how he draws his controversial conclusions. One by one, Ehrman’s criticisms about the unreliability of the New Testament manuscripts are tackled head-on.

Don’t be fooled by those purporting to prove the unreliability of the New Testament manuscripts; They are reliable.

Listen to this entertaining and enlightening episode now, online, click the PodCast icon to the right to use iTunes, or download this in mp3 format now.

As many of you already know, Dr. Fernandes debated Atheist Eddie Tabash at Washington State University recently. As per request, Dr. Fernandes and IBD vice president Matt Coombe took an episode of The Christian World View to discuss their take on the debate.

I found this entire discussion very enlightening, especially when they dealt with the internals of the debate. You’d be surprised what a debate is, and more importantly, what a debate isn’t supposed to be about. The rules, I learned, there for a very good reason.

On a presonal note, I enjoyed hearing Dr. Fernandes’ takes on how well he felt the arguments were carried out. I always enjoy his very honest and sincere views about where his arguments were strong during the debate and where he felt they were weak. This is a must if you plan on debating in an academic forum; there are alot of pitfalls you can avoid through his experience.

As always, there’s more to come!

For those of you waiting patiently for Dr. Fernandes’ latest book, The Atheist Delusion, your time has come. Now available at your favorite book retailers (get it now on Amazon.com), The Atheist Delusion is a straight-forward to powerful response to Dr. Richard Dawkins popular publication, The God Delusion.

The Atheist Delusion

Confronting the new militant atheism, Dr. Fernandes not only refutes Dr. Dawkins, but outlines the worldviews (or non-worldviews) involved in the thought process. If you want to see the real truth behind the modern atheist lies, this is a surprisingly inexpensive must-have.

Want to get a head start while you’re waiting for your copy? Listen to Matt Coombe and Dr. Fernandes discuss the meaning behind the book in the latest episode of The Christian World View. Listen to it from the embedded player now.

Share this with your friends! Confronting and defeating the most popular atheist arguments can definitely help remove the stumbling blocks that keep your friends and family from  the salvation that comes only through Christ. Don’t let baseless popular objections to God keep anyone from listening to the Gospel.

Please, please, post your comments on this book. Post them on Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, post them on this site. Rate it as well! We want to hear from you! What did you find the most useful or helpful? Did the book strengthen your or a friend’s faith? How can it be better? What arguments should be addressed in the future? As faithful stewards of God’s grace, we humbly await your feedback.

Good news! Just what you’ve been waiting for is here.  Dr. Fernandes new book, The Atheist Delusion, is about to be released. As a gesture of love, here are some samples from the first chapter.

THE NEW ATHEISTS

A new breed of atheists has arrived on the scene. No longer content with intellectual dialogue with Christians or others who believe in the existence of God, these new atheists use rhetoric that portrays religious believers as the main cause of the major problems we face today. Implied in their rhetoric is the idea that Christianity and traditional religions need to be silenced or removed for mankind to move forward. They seem to lack patience for “religious people” and believe that it is time to stifle their voices.

Several of these new, militant atheists are Richard Dawkins (author of The God Delusion), Christopher Hitchens (author of God is not Great-How Religion Poisons Everything), and Sam Harris (author of The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation). This book will focus on the work of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. It will not be possible to deal with every nuance of their arguments, but we will try to refute the main points of their atheist polemic. We will also attempt to provide the reader with a general defense of biblical Christianity.

RELIGION POISONS EVERYTHING

The new atheists believe that religion (i.e., belief in God) is the cause for all (or at least most) of the problems that have occurred throughout human history. Religion is the cause of all the wars, violence, and racism. If we want the world to be a peaceful, loving place to live, then we need to silence the voice of religion. “Religion poisons everything.” These atheists stand in judgment on religion and condemn religion as being immoral.6 Apparently Dawkins and Hitchens believe that, if atheism were universally embraced, much of the world’s problems would simply go away.

Hold on for more!

Phil Fernandes/Michael Martin Debate

Fourth Statement: Michael Martin
Dr. Martin’s Closing Statement

As Dr. Fernandes and I conclude our debate I would like to thank him again for his stimulating challenge to my position.

CRITICISMS OF ATHEISM

As I have shown again and again Dr. Fernandes’ objections to atheism are based on either misunderstandings or question begging assumptions. Even though I have pointed out his misunderstandings and directed his attention to more accurate interpretations of atheism he has persisted in them. When I pointed out that he begged the question his defense was that he was merely putting forth hypotheses. But when I insisted that he had given no reasons to believe his hypotheses he was silent. When I countered with objections against theism–recall I brought up epistemological and ethical arguments–Dr. Fernandes managed to avoid them. They are beyond the scope of the debate, he said. When I showed that what he was saying was mistaken or unjustified he claimed he was not really saying it.

Many of these same problems are manifest in his Closing Remarks. Dr. Fernandes now claims never to have maintained that human knowledge was impossible in a Godless universe. But he did. Read his past statements. Now he says that he was just saying knowledge is to be expected if God exists and I did not show that knowledge is to be expected if God does not. But I gave an argument as to why theism does not avoid skepticism (which he never bothered to answer) while he has given no reason why one should expect skepticism in a Godless universe.

Another example: I suggested in my Third Statement that secular ethics can be based on an ideal observer theory. Dr. Fernandes now objects that this confuses “ought” with “is.” However, this is again simply begs the question. The ideal observer theory presents an analysis of “ought” statements in terms of ‘is” statements about an ideal observer and Dr. Fernandes simply assumes without argument that this cannot be done. Moreover, if there is a confusion between is and ought here, surely theists who advocate the Divine Command theory are just as guilty. That theory tries to analyze what ought to be done in terms of factual statements about what God commands. In addition, Dr. Fernandes continues to avoid the problem of how one knows what God commands. Appeal to the Bible must be problematic for Dr. Fernandes since he thinks torturing babies is eternally wrong and yet the Bible says that for rebelling against God “They shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up (HO 13:16).” 1

ARGUMENTS FOR THEISM

I showed in previous statements that all of Dr. Fernandes’ arguments of theism are unsound. However, Dr. Fernandes still persists in calling the idea that the universe arose from nothing “absurd” despite the fact that leading cosmologists take the idea seriously. No argument is used to rebut the theory that the Universe could have been generated from nothing. He tries to answer my argument that it makes no sense that a cause such as God could be outside time but uses an irrelevant example: immaterial sorrow causes tears. But someone’s sorrow is a temporal event and indeed occurs temporally prior to the tears it causes and thus is beside the point. He continues to avoid my criticism of probability arguments for God’s existence: probability statements are meaningful only in certain contexts that do not hold in the case of cosmology. In fact, if we allow probability statements in this context, Dr. Fernandes’ design argument is subject to all of the problems raised by David Hume. For example, it would tend to prove a type of polytheism: finite gods with bodies created the Universe from preexisting material. 2 Dr. Fernandes again appeals to the argument from dependency: An independent Universe as a whole cannot arise from dependent parts. Although I have shown that Dr. Fernandes committed the fallacy of composition in so arguing, he has consistently denied he has committed this fallacy without showing any difference between his argument and obvious examples of fallacious reasoning. One might just as well argue that an army cannot arise from a non-army or that a rational conclusion cannot arise from a non-conclusion. In his Concluding Remarks he again fails to show any difference between his argument and obvious example of fallacious reasoning. 3

ARGUMENTS AGAINST GOD

Dr. Fernandes’ criticisms of my arguments against God in his previous statements have all failed and they continue to do so in his Concluding Remarks. In the Argument from Incoherence I maintained that God cannot know certain things, for example, how to swim, since he has no body and that He cannot have certain knowledge by acquaintance, for example, knowledge by acquaintance of torturing babies since He is all good. But since God is supposed to be all knowing, the concept of God is inconsistent. What is Dr. Fernandes’ reply? He simply asserts without argument that there is no inconsistency “in believing God innately knows all things . . .” With respect to The Argument From Evil, Dr. Fernandes maintains that suffering leads people to God. Perhaps. But it leads many people away from God. Furthermore, it seems reasonable to conclude in the light of the evidence that the amount of suffering that leads some people to God could be much less than it is now. If there is an unknown reason why there is this apparently needless suffering, then why has not God revealed this reason or at least revealed why He cannot reveal it? His failure to do so conflicts with His desire to be loved. How can God reasonably expect His creatures to love Him if it is a mystery why they seem to be suffering needlessly?

With respect to The Argument From Nonbelief I cannot see how Dr. Fernandes’ comments in his Concluding Remarks are even relevant. Recall that the argument was that God desires people to believe in Him. However, God has the ability to bring about more belief without interfering with human free will. So why is there so much nonbelief? After I refuted all of Dr. Fernandes’ rebuttals to this argument, in his Third Statement he produced a new counter argument: God knew from all eternity that some people, for example, 12th Century American Indians, would not have accepted Christ even if Christianity had been attractively presented to them. Consequently they did not deserve to be saved and thus God made no effort to get them to believe. I pointed out this reply fails to explain why a high proportion of American Indians in later centuries did accept Christianity when given the opportunity. What is Dr. Fernandes’ reply? “If a person in a distant land would be willing to accept the theistic God, then the theistic God would have no problem giving a missionary the desire to preach the gospel in that land. Also, counting noses can backfire on atheists, for there are many more theists than there are atheists.” His remark on counting noses is irrelevant since the question is not why there are more believers than nonbelievers but why are there hundreds of millions of nonbelievers. His remarks on “distant lands” is irrelevant since the question is distant times, not lands.

CONCLUSION

In his conclusion Dr. Fernandes boasts of the explanatory power of theism over atheism. However, theistic explanations of the problem of evil and of the existence of hundreds of millions of nonbelievers are problematic. Atheism has no such problems. Moreover, a theory such that is inconsistent and lacks rational support, such as theism, can hardly have great explanatory power. As I have shown, atheism is a consistent and a rationally supported position.

ENDNOTES

1  I owe this point to Cynthia Rubio.

2  See Michael Martin, Atheism: A Philosophical Justification, Chapter 13.

3   In a footnote, Dr. Fernandes tries to show that an Independent Being has all the attributes of a theistic God. But his argument begs the question at many points. For example, he assumes without argument that an Independent Being would have all perfections. However, it is unclear why a independent being would have to be morally perfect (or indeed have any moral properties) and to have the property of being all knowing. An Independent Being only means what it says: its existence is not dependent on anything else. No more should be inferred or smuggled in.

Phil Fernandes/Michael Martin Debate

Fourth Statement: Phil Fernandes
Dr. Fernandes’ Closing Statement

The big bang model and the second law of thermodynamics reveal that space, time, matter, and energy had a beginning. Therefore, the universe had a beginning. Dr. Martin has agreed with me concerning this premise. Still, he entertains the absurd idea that the universe popped into existence without a cause. Cosmologists who accept this idea redefine “nothing” so that it becomes a whole lot of something. But if we acknowledge that the universe had an absolute beginning (as shown by the big bang model), then it is more reasonable to conclude that the beginning of the universe was caused than to assume that it popped into existence out of nothing.1

Contrary to Martin’s criticisms, I see no difficulty with a Being that exists outside of time causing effects in time, just as immaterial causes like sorrow can cause material effects like tears.

I argued for the existence of a totally independent Being to ground the continuing existence of a dependent universe. I have already responded to Dr. Martin’s accusation that I have committed the fallacy of composition. The reader will have to decide for himself who is right on this point. However, even if one agrees with Dr. Martin that part of the universe is totally independent, then the dependent parts of the universe would depend upon the independent part of the universe for their existence. What Martin calls the independent part of the universe would actually be the sustaining Cause of the universe.2

Dr. Martin questions the legitimacy of probability estimates in the design argument. I disagree. The design, order, and conditions for life found in the universe are better explained by the theistic hypothesis (i.e., an intelligent Being designed the universe) than by the atheistic explanation (the universe is the product of random and mindless causes). The universe displays remarkable similarities with what we know to be products of intelligent design. It does not bear a resemblance to what we know to be products of random, mindless causes. The theistic hypothesis makes the design in the universe probable; the atheistic hypothesis makes the design in the universe improbable.3 Therefore, the design argument shows theism to be more probable than atheism.

Dr. Martin misunderstands my argument from human knowledge. I did not state that human knowledge is only possible in a theistic universe. I stated that theism (the belief that a rational God created the universe) better explains the possibility of human knowledge than atheism (the belief that the universe has a non-rational cause or no cause). I explained why human knowledge is to be expected in theistic universe; Dr. Martin never explained why he thinks it should be expected in a universe without God.

Martin’s two arguments for objective moral values completely fail since they both deny the existence of absolute moral laws. First, ethical naturalism reduces moral values to biological or psychological properties (i.e., “whatever is approved by most people” or “whatever is approved by an impartial, ideal observer”). It confuses what ought to be with what is, and reduces moral values to non-moral properties.4 Second, noncognitivist views of ethics reject the notion that moral statements are true or false. Moral statements merely express the speaker’s emotions or issue a command.5 Therefore, the statement “torturing innocent babies is wrong” is neither true nor false. Any worldview that cannot consistently call the action of torturing innocent babies absolutely and always wrong is a worldview that should be rejected. It is self-evidently true that torturing innocent babies is wrong. The dilemma for the atheist is as follows. If he accepts the reality of eternal, unchanging moral values, then they are “just there.” If he denies their reality then he cannot call the torturing of innocent babies wrong in any eternal and absolute sense. In short, atheism is either a non-explanation or it denies eternal, unchanging moral values. A theist can be consistent with his worldview and call rape and incest wrong in an absolute sense. But this option is not open to the consistent atheist, for his world view has no room for eternal, unchanging, prescriptive moral laws that stand in judgment on the actions of all men at all times.

Atheism also fails to adequately explain the existence of eternal, unchanging truths, for it rejects the existence of an eternal unchanging Mind. Atheism cannot offer man any eternal significance. Temporary meaning in life is insufficient, for our accomplishments die with the death of the universe — there is no ultimate purpose in a universe void of God.

Dr. Martin’s three arguments for atheism fail. First, there is no inconsistency in believing that God innately knows all things, whereas finite minds must learn many things through acquaintance and experience. Second, an atheist would have to be omniscient in order to prove that God cannot bring good out of evil and human suffering. In fact, evil and suffering often lead people to God. It may be a greater good for man to learn to trust God despite lacking a full understanding as to why God allows the amount of evil that exists in the world. Dr. Martin assumes that “lessening human suffering is good.” However, this is a prescriptive absolute moral law, implying the existence of an absolute moral Lawgiver. Third, Martin’s argument against God from nonbelief fails. If a person in a distant land would be willing to accept the theistic God, then the theistic God would have no problem giving a missionary the desire to preach the gospel in that land. Also, counting noses can backfire on atheists, for there are many more theists than there are atheists.

In conclusion, Dr. Martin has presented no persuasive arguments as to why one should expect absolute moral values, eternal and unchanging truths, the beginning of the universe, the universe’s continuing existence, the design and order in the universe, ultimate meaning in life, the sanctity of human life, the possibility of human knowledge, and the ultimate defeat of evil in a universe without God. I have shown that these aspects of human experience are predicted by the theistic hypothesis. Martin’s alternatives to my arguments are highly speculative, extremely improbable, and very unconvincing. It is apparent that he is willing to entertain absurdities (such as the universe evolving into existence from nothing, an infinite number of unverifiable universes, the rejection of eternal and unchanging prescriptive moral laws, etc.) in order to escape the conclusion that the theistic God does exist. In short, Martin fails to explain why atheism is a superior hypothesis to that of theism. He is willing to attack theism, but does not even attempt to show that atheism offers a better explanation for the nine aspects of human experience I discussed in my opening statement. Martin unsuccessfully attacks the explanatory power of theism while failing to show that atheism has any explanatory power.6 My thesis remains intact. It is more reasonable to be a theist than it is to be an atheist.

ENDNOTES

1  See William Lane Craig, “In Defense of the Kalam Cosmological Argument,” Faith and Philosophy, vol. 14, April 1997, 236-247.

2  Further argumentation (like that of my opening statement) can show that this totally independent Being has the attributes of the theistic God. For instance, a totally independent Being, by definition, cannot be limited by any other being. Therefore, there can only be one totally independent Being, for two or more would limit one another. Also, a Being without limits must have all perfections to an unlimited degree. However, for two beings to differ, one must lack a perfection that the other being has or have a perfection that the other being lacks. Therefore, there can only be one Being without limits. The design argument proves that this Being is an intelligent Being, and the moral argument shows that this Being must be a moral Being.

3  J. P. Moreland, Scaling the Secular City, 71-75.

4  lbid., 108-113.

5  lbid.

6  Copleston commented on the evasive tactics of atheist thinkers in the following words: “If one does not wish to embark on the path which leads to the affirmation of transcendent being … one has to deny the reality of the problem, assert that things ‘just are’ and that the existential problem in question is a pseudo-problem. And if one refuses even to sit down at the chess-board and make a move, one cannot, of course, be checkmated.” F. C. Copleston, Aquinas (New York: Penguin Books, 1955), 128.