In Defense of Scripture

Below is a link to a learning solution using Microsoft Sway on the subject of defending Christian Scripture. If your apologetic method cannot defend Scripture, and certain features of Christian Scripture, then it will not be able to defend Christianity. And if an apologetic method cannot defend Christianity, it should be abandoned. These men who believe that Christianity can survive without the Bible are seriously mistaken. Time will show that such an apologetic method will bow to the idol of autonomous human reason.

Click below to walk through the tutorial.

In Defense of Scripture

Andy Stanley Christianity vs Biblical Christianity

So, Mr. Stanley, I understand that you believe that the foundation of Christianity is not the Bible. Is that correct? 

Yes skeptical baby, that is correct. 

Additionally, Mr. Stanley, you have said that it was a mistake for Christian leaders to teach Christians that they ought to believe the claims that the Bible makes simply on the grounds that the Bible says so. Do you believe it is true that you should not believe something just because the Bible says it? 

Yes, yes I do! 

So, to summarize your position Mr. Stanley, you reject the idea that the Bible is always true in all that it teaches and that Christianity does not need the Bible in order to exist? You believe Christianity existed before the Bible ever came into existence. 

That is correct. If Christianity never had the Bible, it would still exist.

In other words, Mr. Stanley, you believe that if the Bible were proven to be false, it would have no impact on Christianity.

Well, there is no evidence of the global flood, there is no evidence of the exodus, and stories like Sodom and Gomorrah seem far removed from what we know about the loving God who sent his Son to die for the sins of the world and whom God rose from the dead.

I see. For the record can you just answer the question as it is stated to you? Would Christianity continue to exist if it was demonstrated that the Bible was false? 

Yes, skeptical baby, it would exist and here is why; you see, its all about the event of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That is what Christianity is founded on. The historical event of the resurrection is what Christianity is really all about.

I see. Now, Mr. Stanley, I have one more question for you. How do you know that Jesus Christ is in fact the resurrected Son of the Living God?

Well, skeptical baby, all the gospels tell us that Jesus rose from the dead.

Mr. Stanley! You are aware that the gospels are also known as the Bible, aren't you? I asked you a moment ago if the Bible was proven false, would Christianity continue to exist and you said it would. But if the resurrection has to be true in order for Christianity to be true, and the Bible is proven false, and the Bible is your only source for the historical event of the resurrection, how could the resurrection be true and the Bible be false? It's like this Mr. Stanley:

1. If the Bible is reliable, then belief in the resurrection of the Son of God is warranted.
2. The Bible is unreliable.
3. Therefore, Belief in the resurrection of the Son of God is unwarranted
4. And if belief in the resurrection of the Son of God is unwarranted, then Christianity is without justification.
5. Therefore, Christianity is without justification.
6. Now, since you have demonstrated that belief in Christianity is unwarranted, don't you think you should close your church and abandon your belief in Christianity.

Now your just twisting my words.

No, Mr. Stanley. If anyone is twisting someone's words, sir, it is you!

Next witness please.

Biblical Christianity (BC) promises to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

BC, do you believe that the Bible is the foundation of Christianity? 

Yes, skeptical baby, I surely do.

BC, surely you are aware of William Clifford's rigorous view on the ethics of belief: "It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything on insufficient evidence." Do you agree that it is unethical to believe anything without sufficient evidence?

Not always. Clifford is mistaken. You see, skeptical baby, Clifford had lacks evidence for the ethics behind his belief. So on his own belief, his statement is actually self-referentially incoherent. But more important than that is the fact that we do believe all sorts of things without any evidence and if we did not, knowledge would be virtually impossible. Basic beliefs do not require the sort of inferential support that Clifford claims. We would end up asking for evidence for the evidence, and evidence for that evidence, and this would lead to an infinite regress, a chain of evidence without a beginning or anchor.

Be that as it may, BC, do you have any evidence that the Bible is the foundation of Christianity?

Actually, skeptical baby, I do. The apostle Paul wrote in Eph. 2:20; "So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit." There is a lot more than just this evidence, but this is more than sufficient to show that the foundation of the Christian Church is the teachings of the apostles and prophets, which is also what we call in modern vernacular, the Bible.

Objection, your honor! BC is using the Bible as evidence to prove that the Bible is the foundation of the Christian Church. This is circular and therefore logically fallacious.

OBJECTION OVERRULED! BC's use of the Bible to prove the Bible is no more circular than your use of reason to argue for the validity of logic. Continue your cross, skeptical baby.

BC, if the Bible is proven to be false in any way, what happens to Christianity? 

Skeptical baby, if the Bible is proven to be false in any part, in any way, then all decisions to believe the Bible in part or in whole are left to human beings. It then becomes our privilege to judge which parts of the Bible are sound and which parts are spurious. If the global flood is false for lack of physical evidence, and so too is the exodus, then how could I claim that the resurrection is true without ultimately being guilty of being arbitrary. 

But don't we have evidence that Jesus actually did raise from the dead apart from the Bible?

Actually, skeptical baby, no, we don't. What we have is evidence that Jesus' followers believed and claimed that he rose from the dead. That is the best we can do where those external sources are concerned. The actual evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ is only found in the Bible. There is another argument that probably merits mentioning here. That is 1 Corinthians 15. In that text, Paul is arguing for a future resurrection based on the evidence of the resurrected Christ. In that text Paul is basically dealing with a false doctrine that denies any future resurrection from the dead. In order to refute this doctrine, Paul appeals to the established fact that Christ rose from the dead. The foundation for his presupposition of the resurrected Christ is found in 15:3; and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. Paul is appealing to the Scriptures as his proof that Jesus rose from the dead. If the Scriptures are unreliable, they would should not be appealed to as the truth by which such arguments can be refuted and contradicted. 

I see. No further questions.

Wait, I have one question for Andy Stanley. Mr. Stanley, you said that you do not believe in a literal Adam and Eve because the Bible says there was a literal Adam and Eve, but because Jesus believed in a literal Adam and Eve. Jesus said that the Scriptures, that is, the law, the prophets, and the writings, cannot be broken. In other words, Jesus said the Scriptures were true in all that they taught. So here is my question: if you believe in Adam and Eve because Jesus believed in Adam and Eve, why don't you believe that the Bible is true in all that it teaches because Jesus believed that the Bible is true in all that it teaches?

Andy Stanley: Shepherd or Charlatan

Andy Stanley is at it again. Many people are up at arms over Stanley's latest comments concerning the fact that Christianity does not need the Bible. In fact, Stanley implies that there was a "pre-bible" version of Christianity. Stanley insists that Christianity is all about the resurrection of Jesus Christ, not the whole Bible. Stanley says that "the foundation of our faith is not the Bible. The foundation of our faith is something that happened in history." Does this comport with what the Scriptures say about the very household of God, the church? Well, let's take a look at the Scriptures and see what they say about Stanley's claim.

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit. Eph. 2:20

What exactly is "the foundation of the apostles and prophets?" Did Paul mean that the foundation of Christianity is actually men? Of course not! The apostles and prophets stand in the place of divine revelation, the divine message of the God's men. The foundation of the church is not the men, but rather, what the men were: apostles and prophets. Apostles and prophets are sent by God with a message from God. It is that message, the message that has at its center the person and work of Christ, that is the foundation of the church, of Christianity. 

Is the resurrection enough to serve as the foundation of Christianity? Andy Stanley implies that the resurrection of Christ is all the message we need. The foundation of Christianity is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If that is actually the case, why do we have so much more than the message of the resurrection in NT Scripture? Certainly the resurrection of Jesus Christ is a necessary component of the gospel, but the resurrection alone is not sufficient to serve as the foundation of the church. To say that the gospel and the foundation of the Christianity is the resurrection of Jesus Christ is incredibly reductionistic. The gospel does not reduce to "Jesus rose from the dead." Christianity cannot be summed up by saying "Jesus rose from the dead." One thing is for sure, the NT writers thought there was more to the gospel, more to Christ's message, more to the missions of Christianity than resurrection because they talked about a lot more than that. 

The really big problem for Stanley is that he claims that Christianity's foundation rests on an event in history and then he dismisses the very source of that event, attempting to divorce the historical event from the historical record. Yes, it is true that Jesus would have still risen from the dead even if we never had a Bible to read about. But we would have no way of knowing about it then would we. Nor would Stanley. It is difficult to take Stanley serious on this subject because he view seems to be remarkably incoherent. Stanley says he believes in a literal Adam and Eve, but not because the Bible says so, but because Jesus seems to have believed in a literal Adam and Eve. Now, if that doesn't cause you to do the biggest palm slap ever, nothing will. And what book tells us that Jesus believed in a literal Adam and Eve, Mr. Stanley? Oh, yes, it is called the Bible. So you do in fact believe in a literal Adam and Eve because the Bible says so. In fact, you also believe that Jesus rose from the dead because the Bible says it happened. Folks, you can't make this stuff up. On one hand, it is very sad, and on the other hand, it is priceless. 

So, why does Andy Stanley want to say that some things in the Bible should not be believed, like the age of the earth, Noah, the Exodus, and so forth while saying that other things ought to be believed even though their source is the same Bible? I think I understand what Stanley is trying to do. You can hear it in his final plea.

It is no secret that a number of people have left evangelicalism because of the offense of many things found in Scripture. The God of the OT is offensive, judgmental, unloving. The miracles of both testaments are just too hard to believe. The moral standards of Scripture are antiquated and outdated. But the history of evangelicals reveals that they have insisted that their membership take God's word at face value. The idea that the earth is only around 6-7 thousand years old is arcane. The global flood is embarrassing to many. A literal Adam and Eve is absurd. The idea of an eternal hell is over the top. That homosexuals cannot love and marry is hateful. On and on the list goes. Stanley wants these people to reconsider Christ because their view of Scripture and of Christianity was wrong. You can be a Christian without taking the Bible at face value. There is a Christianity that is a pre-bible version, the original Christianity. You can believe things that Jesus said without saying you believe something just because the Bible said it. Somehow,  Jesus saying it and the Bible saying it are not the same thing.

The second reason Stanley is doing this is not because he wants to defend Christianity. No one who says that Christianity can be separated from the Bible is interested in defending Christianity. Let's be serious. Stanley wants to defend his empire. The pressures of the culture are weighing on all of us. Abortion, homosexual marriage, gender dysphoria, and other issues are placing more and more pressure on Christianity to conform to the culture or else. If Stanley can reduce the gospel and Christianity to the resurrection, then perhaps this will free people up to affirm what Jesus says without supposed having to take the Bible seriously everywhere it speaks. This way, we don't quite sound so foolish, you know, like those people who say they believe homosexuality is a sin because the Bible says so. There are so many things wrong with what Stanley is saying and I haven't even scratched the surface. I wanted to point out the "why" Stanley is saying what he is saying more than interact with what he actually said. Stanley wants to stop the bleeding of people leaving Christianity. The best way to do that is to remove those elements of Christianity that offend unbelieving hearts. This way, unbelievers can be Christians too. And this way, Stanley gets to keep his megachurch with its thousands of members. That is really what this is all about folks.