Recovering Christian Confidence: Proclaiming the Gospel in an Age of Skepticism and Cynicism Lecture

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Recovering Christian Confidence Proclaiming the
Gospel in an Age of Skepticism and
CynicismLecture 2

• Alister McGrath

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Points of contact for faith

• What are points of contact?
• How can we explain the attraction of the gospel?
• Its truth?
• Its relevance?
• Its beauty?

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Theological Foundations

• Apologetics is not opportunistic!
• It rests on a rigorous theological foundation,
  grounded in an understanding of the character of
  God, and the nature and destiny of humanity
• Apologetics therefore demands a specifically
  Christian understanding of human nature to
  which we now turn.

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Human Nature

• While Christians believe that humanity is part of
  the created order, this does not mean that we are
  indistinguishable from the remainder of creation.
  We have been set a little lower than the angels,
  and been crowned with glory and honour (Psalm
  85).

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Human Nature

• Men and women are created in the image of God
  (Genesis 127). This brief yet deeply significant
  phrase opens the way to a right understanding of
  human nature, and our overall place within the
  created order.

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Key text

• So God created humanity in his image
• In the image of God he created them
• Male and female he created them.
• (Genesis 127, NRSV)

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Key questions

• What does it mean to say that we are created in
  the image of God
• What difference does it make?

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Three classic approaches to the image of God

• The image of God as affirming divine ownership
  and authority.
• The image of God as a statement about our
  capacity to understand the world, as Gods
  creation
• The image of God as a statement about our ability
  to relate to God

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1 Divine Ownership

• In the ancient near East, monarchs would often
  display images of themselves as an assertion of
  their power in a region (see, for example, the
  golden statue of Nebuchadnezzar, described in
  Daniel 31-7).

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• To be created in the image of God could
  therefore be understood as being accountable to
  God.

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• This important point underlies an incident in the
  ministry of Jesus Christ (Luke 2022-5).
  Challenged as to whether it was right for Jews to
  pay taxes to the Roman authorities, Jesus
  requested that a coin be brought to him.

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• He asked, Whose image and title does it bear?
  Those standing around replied that it was
  Caesars. Christ then tells the crowd to give to
  Caesar what is Caesars, and to God what is Gods.

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• While some might take this to be an evasion of
  the question, it is nothing of the sort. It is a
  reminder that those who bear Gods image that
  is, humanity must dedicate themselves to him.

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2 Rationality

• The image of God can be taken to refer to some
  kind of correspondence between human reason and
  the rationality of God as creator. On this
  understanding of things, there is an intrinsic
  resonance between the structures of the world and
  human reasoning. This approach is set out with
  particular clarity in Augustines major
  theological writing On the Trinity

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Athanasius on the Image of God

• God knew the limitations of humanity and though
  the grace of being made in the image of God was
  sufficient to give them knowledge of the Word,
  and through Him of the Father, as a safeguard
  against their neglect of this grace, God also
  provided the works of creation as a means by
  which the Maker might be known.

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Athanasius on the Image of God

• Humanity could thus look up into the immensity of
  heaven, and by pondering the harmony of creation,
  come to know its Ruler, the Word of the Father,
  whose sovereign providence makes the Father
  known to all.

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3 Relationality

• The image of God means that we have the created
  capacity to relate to God
• Therefore our hearts long for God
• We are unfulfilled until we relate to God
• Human experience is distinguished by a longing
  for God, often mistaken for something else

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C. S. Lewis
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C. S. Lewis

• Develops the idea that nothing created or finite
  can satisfy our longing
• Knowing Gods creatures makes us long to know
  God, as their source and origin
• Therefore the beauty of nature cannot be
  captured it will only lead to dissatisfaction
  and frustration

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Implications of this insight

• Sigmund Freud God is just an illusion we invent,
  a wish-fulfilment. We invent God because we need
  a father-figure.
• C. S. Lewis we are made to relate to God, and we
  are going to be restless until we do so.

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Good book!

• Armand Nicholi, The Question of God C.S. Lewis
  and Sigmund Freud debate God, Love, Sex and the
  Meaning of Life (Free Press, 2002)
• Nicholi is a professor of psychiatry at Harvard
  Medical School

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The Creation of HumanityMichaelangelo, fresco
in Sistine Chapel, 1515-16
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• God made us
• We are created to relate to God
• We have nothing to offer God
• Our ultimate destiny lies with God

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Applying these insights

• Human nature is characterised by being made in
  Gods image, yet being sinful and fallen. We
  never lose Gods image through sin, even though
  it may be weakened or attenuated.
• There is thus a tension between our divine
  origination and intended goal, and our present
  situation as fallen inhabitants of a fallen world

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Three points of contact

• The beauty of nature
• A sense of longing
• Awareness of mortality

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1. The beauty of nature

• The world around us is Gods creation
• In some way, that world reflects the glory of God
• The heavens declare the glory of the Lord
  (Psalm 191)
• So how can we gain a better appreciation of Gods
  glory?

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Basic idea

• Armed with the Christian doctrine of creation, we
  see nature as Gods creation
• Ecologically, this leads us to respect it
• Spiritually, this leads us to gain a deeper
  appreciation of the creator
• Apologetically, it allows us to build on
  someones delight in nature, moving from the
  creation to the creator

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Key points

• Nature can be very beautiful, and evoke our sense
  of wonder
• But it is not nature itself that is the real
  object of our love and longing
• Nature points beyond itself
• The creation points to the creator

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Jonathan Edwards on Nature

• The Son of God created the world to communicate
  himself in an image of his own excellency . . .
  He communicates a sort of shadow of his
  excellencies, so that when we are delighted with
  flowery meadows and gentle breezes, we see only
  the emanation of the sweet benevolence of Jesus
  Christ.

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2. Mortality Fear and Anxiety

• Human mortality is very threatening
• In recent years, many have tried to deny it,
  evade it, or suppress it
• Classic analysis of this in Ernst Becker, The
  Denial of Death

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• Winner of the Pulitzer prize in 1974 and the
  culmination of a lifes work, Ernest Beckers The
  Denial of Death tackles the problem of the vital
  lie the refusal of human beings to acknowledge
  their own mortality.
• So what can we say? And how can we use this point
  of contact wisely?

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C. S. Lewis

• I believe in Christianity as I believe that the
  Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but
  because by it I see everything else.

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Seeing nature The Night Sky
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What does this aspect of the created order say to
us?

• Meaninglessness
• Cosmic vastness
• The brevity of human life
• Being overawed at the immensity of the universe
• Being reassured of the love of God

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MeaninglessnessOmar Khayyam (c. 1250)
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MeaninglessnessOmar Khayyam

• And that inverted bowl we call the Sky,
• Whereunder crawling cooped we live and die,
• Lift not thy hands to It for help for It
• Rolls impotently on as Thou or I.

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MeaninglessnessUrsula Goodenough

• Leading American cell biologist
• Wrote fascinating book entitled The Sacred Depths
  of Nature (1998)

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MeaninglessnessUrsula Goodenough

• As one of North Americas leading cell
  biologists, Goodenough recalls how she used to
  gaze at the night sky, reflecting on what she
  observed. Each of the stars she saw was dying,
  including our own special star, the sun.

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MeaninglessnessUrsula Goodenough

• Our sun too will die, frying the Earth to a
  crisp during its heat-death, spewing its bits and
  pieces out into the frigid nothingness of curved
  spacetime.
• She found such thoughts to be overwhelming and
  oppressive.

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MeaninglessnessUrsula Goodenough

• The night sky was ruined. I would never be able
  to look at it again. . . . A bleak emptiness
  overtook me whenever I thought about what was
  really going on out in the cosmos or deep in the
  atom. So I did my best not to think about such
  things.

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Psalm 8

• When I look at your heavens, the work of your
  fingers, the moon and the stars that you have
  establishedWhat are human beings that you are
  mindful of them, mortals that you care for
  them?Yet you have made them a little lower than
  God, and crowned them with glory and honour.

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3. A sense of longing

• Augustines prayer to God
• You have made us for yourself and our heart is
  restless until it finds its rest in you.
• Blaise Pascal the God-shaped abyss within us

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C. S. Lewis

• Sermon The Weight of Glory
• Title comes from John Donne, who spoke of the
  exceeding weight of divine glory
• Preached in the University Church, Oxford, on 8
  June 1941

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University Church of St Mary the Virgin
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C. S. Lewis

• The books or the music in which we thought the
  beauty was located will betray us if we trust to
  them it was not in them, it only came through
  them, and what came through them was longing.

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C. S. Lewis

• These things - the beauty, the memory of our own
  past - are good images of what we really desire
  but if they are mistaken for the thing itself
  they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of
  their worshippers.

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C. S. Lewis

• For they are not the thing itself they are only
  the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo
  of a tune we have not heard, news from a country
  we have not visited.

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Questions for discussion

• What other points of contact can we identify?
• How can we go about finding them?
• And how could we go about applying them?

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Worldview Apologetics Introducing Francis
Schaeffer as an apologist
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What is apologetics?A brief reminder . . .

• From Greek word apologia, meaning defense or
  argument in favour
• Used in New Testament
• Most famous example 1 Peter 315
• Believers are urged to give a reason for the
  hope that lies within them.

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Two key aspects of apologetics

• Negatively, it is about countering objections to
  the Christian faith
• Positively, it is about explaining the truth and
  vitality of the Christian faith
• Both are necessary parts of our task!

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Worldview Apologetics

• Which big picture is best?
• Not a question of proof all worldviews,
  including atheism, lie beyond rational or
  empirical proof
• Rather, a question of best fit
• Which gives the best account of what we observe
  and what we experience?

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Inference to the best explanation

• Idea developed by Gilbert Harman
• There are many potential explanations of the
  world
• So which offers the best fit?
• The simplest? The most elegant?
• Not a knock-down argument but an important
  attempt to evaluate how we make sense of complex
  situations

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The idea of empirical fit

• What worldview makes most sense of what we
  observe in the world?
• What "big picture" offers the best account of
  what we experience?
• Inference to the best explanation" is about
  working out which explanation is the most
  satisfying

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The idea of empirical fit

• The real question is this does belief in God
  amount to the best explanation of what we
  observe and experience?
• These things cant be proved or disproved

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So who should we learn from?

• Two excellent 20th-century role models
• Francis Schaeffer
• C. S. Lewis
• Weve touched on Lewis already, so lets look at
  Schaeffer.

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Francis Schaeffer
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LAbri Schaeffers base in the Swiss Alps
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Schaeffers approach

• Latent within every non-Christian belief system
  is a fatal contradiction
• Our task is to find that point of contradiction,
  and show that the belief system is unworkable
• This means listening to others, helping them to
  find this fatal flaw, and appreciating its
  significance for their beliefs.

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• Let us remember that every person we speak to .
  . . has a set of presuppositions, whether he or
  she has analysed them or not . . . It is
  impossible for any non-Christian individual or
  group to be consistent to their system in logic
  or in practice . . . A man may try to bury the
  tension and you may have to help him find it, but
  somewhere there is a point of inconsistency. . .
  .

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• He stands in a position which he cannot pursue to
  the end and this is not just an intellectual
  concept of tension, it is what is wrapped up in
  what he is as a man.

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Exposing weaknesses The analogy of the shelter

• It is like the great shelters built upon some
  mountain passes to protect vehicles from the
  avalanches of rock and stone which periodically
  tumble down the mountain. The avalanche, in the
  case of the non-Christian, is the real and the
  abnormal fallen world which surrounds him. The
  Christian, lovingly, must remove the shelter and
  allow the truth of the external world and of what
  man is to beat upon him.

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An Alpine Shelter
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An example of contradiction An incident at
Cambridge University

• A Sikh started to speak strongly against
  Christianity, but did not really understand the
  problems of his own beliefs. So I said, Am I not
  correct in saying that on the basis of your
  system, cruelty and noncruelty are ultimately
  equal, that there is no intrinsic difference
  between them? He agreed. . . .

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The incident . . . continued

• The student in whose room we met, who had clearly
  understood the implications of what the Sikh had
  admitted, picked up his kettle of boiling water
  with which he was about to make tea, and stood
  with it steaming over the Indians head. The man
  looked up and asked him what he was doing, and he
  said with a cold yet gentle finality, There is
  no difference between cruelty and noncruelty.
  Thereupon the Hindu walked out into the night.

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Another example

• Jean-Paul Sartre was one of Frances most trendy
  thinkers in the 1950s and early 1960s
• He held the very radical view that ethics was not
  about the decision you reached it was about
  exercising your freedom in reaching that decision
• The decision is thus ethically neutral the
  important thing is the process of judgement

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Jean-Paul Sartre
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Schaffers response

• This means that ethics is not about right and
  wrong
• But can Sartre live with this view?
• Is it not true that some decisions are good, and
  others evil?
• Is it not true that some things are good, and
  others bad?

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The Algerian Manifesto
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The Algerian Manifesto

• Algeria was formerly a French colony
• Fought for its independence in 1960
• Vicious war, which caused disquiet in France,
  especially amongst intellectuals
• The Algerian Manifesto was a call for ending
  this dirty, immoral war
• Sartre signed it

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Schaeffers MasterstrokeThe Algerian War

• Sartre took up a deliberately moral attitude
  and said it was an unjust and dirty war. His
  left-wing political position which he took up is
  another illustration of the same inconsistency.
  As far as many secular existentialists have been
  concerned, from the moment Sartre signed the
  Algerian Manifesto he was regarded as an apostate
  from his own position, and toppled from his place
  of leadership of the avant-garde.

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Using Schaeffer

• Against relativism
• Against atheism
• Other examples . . . .

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End