Is Jesus Really the Only Way to God/Part 7

By: Dr. John Ankerberg with various Scholars; ©{{{copyright}}}

Is the quality of evidence for the truth of Christianity compelling?

Ed. note: This article is based upon the transcript from programs produced by the John Ankerberg Show. Additional material has been added for this print version.

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Is the quality of evidence for the truth of Christianity compelling?

Christianity is unique in both the evidence upon which it rests and the doctrines it teaches. Dr. Robert A. Morey writes, “There is more than enough evidence on every hand from every department of human experience and knowledge to demonstrate that Christianity is true…. [It is] the faith of the non-Christian [that] is externally and internally groundless. They are the ones who leap in the dark. Some, like Kierkegaard, have admitted this.” Further, no one anywhere can deny that “Christianity stands unique and apart from all other religions by its doctrines.”^[1]

When one examines all the arguments and attacks made against Christianity for 2,000 years, by some of the greatest minds ever, guess what one finds? Not one is valid. And not one, individually or collectively, disproves Christianity. Even regarding the most difficult problems, such as the problem of evil, Christianity has the best answer of any religion or philosophy and the best solution to the problem. If the leading minds of the world have been unable to disprove Christianity, this may explain why many of the other leading minds in the world, including those from other religions, have accepted it. James Sire correctly points out in Why Should Anyone Believe Anything At All?, an argument for belief, religious or other, must be secured on the best evidence, validly argued, and able to refute the strongest objections that can be mustered against it.^[2] In the area of finding God, only Christianity passes the test.

Obviously, if the God of the Bible has revealed Himself and if He is the only God—and if Christ is the only way of salvation—then we would expect convincing evidence in substantiation. Not just some evidence, or inferior evidence—so that a person has a dozen equally valid options in their choice of religion—but superior evidence. As Dr. John Warwick Montgomery asks:

What if a revelational truth-claim did not turn on questions of theology and religious philosophy—on any kind of esoteric, fideistic method available only to those who are already “true believers”—but on the very reasoning employed in the law to determine questions of fact?… Eastern faiths and Islam, to take familiar examples, ask the uncommitted seeker to discover their truth experientially: the faith-experience will be self-validating…. Christianity, on the other hand, declares that the truth of its absolute claims rests squarely on certain historical facts, open to ordinary investigation…. The advantage of a jurisprudential approach lies in the difficulty of jettisoning it: legal standards of evidence developed as essential means of resolving the most intractable disputes in society…. Thus one cannot very well throw out legal reasoning merely because its application to Christianity results in a verdict for the Christian faith.^[3]

If we assume that a God of truth is dedicated to truth and desires that men find Him, then what is the most logical place to begin our search for the one true religion? And is there a religion that God has made stand apart from all others? Logically, the best, and only practical, way to see if one religion is absolutely true is to start with the largest, most unique, influential, and evidentiary religion in the world. It is much more reasonable to determine whether or not this religion is true than to seek another approach to the issue such as examining, one by one, all religions from A to Z, or picking one randomly or by personal preference.

All non-Christian religions are experientially based. As such, they cannot be proven because of their inherent subjectivism. So having profound religious experiences alone cannot prove such a religion is true. And, obviously, to attempt to examine all religions (whether the sequence is random, preferential, or alphabetical) would be a daunting and confusing, if not impossible, task. Regardless, if there is only one God and if only one religion is fully true, then one should not expect to discover sustainable evidence in any other religion. And indeed, no other religion, anywhere, large or small, has sustainable evidence in its favor. If no credible evidence exists for any other religion and only Christianity has compelling evidence, why should any time at all be spent examining religions that have no basis to substantiate their claims? Especially if there may be significant consequences for trusting in false religion, both in this life and the next?

It is much easier, and much more logical, to start by examining probabilities of truth on the highest end of the scale.

In “The Value of an Evidential Approach,” William J. Cairney (Ph.D., Cornell) discusses some of the possibilities that constitute genuine evidence for the fact God has inspired the Bible and the Christianity based on it:

History Written in Advance. We can all write history in retrospect, but an almighty, omnipotent Creator would not be bound by our notions of space and time, and would thus be able to write history before it occurs. Suppose that we encountered a sourcebook that contained page after page of history written in advance with such accuracy and in such detail that good guessing would be completely ruled out.

Prescience. Suppose that in this same sourcebook, we were able to find accurate statements written ages ago demonstrating scientific knowledge and concepts far before mankind had developed the technological base necessary for discovering that knowledge or those concepts. …

Historical Evidence. Suppose that in this same source-book, we were to find historical assertions that time after time were verified as true as historical scholarship continued….

Archaeological Evidence. Suppose that in this same sourcebook, statements that are difficult to verify are made about people and places, but as archaeology “unearths” more knowledge of the past, time after time the sourcebook is seen to be true in its assertions.

Philosophical and Logical Coherence. Suppose that this same sourcebook, even though written piecemeal over thousands of years, contains well-developed common themes and is internally consistent.

And suppose all of these evidences hang together without internal contradiction or literary stress within the same anthology. Collectively, we could not take these evidences lightly.^[4]

Overall, the evidence strongly asserts that Christianity is true, whether that evidence is internal (the documents), philosophical, moral, historical, scientific, archaeological, or when compared with the evidence found in other religions. For example, “The competence of the New Testament documents would be established in any court of law” and “Modern archaeological research has confirmed again and again the reliability of New Testament geography, chronology, and general history.”^[5] Further, as the noted classical scholar Professor E. M. Blaiklock points out,

Recent archaeology has destroyed much nonsense and will destroy more. And I use the word nonsense deliberately, for theories and speculations find currency in [liberal] biblical scholarship that would not be tolerated for a moment in any other branch of literary or historical criticism.^[6]

In essence, only Christianity meets the burden of proof necessary to say, “This religion alone is fully true.” That means Jesus Christ really is the only way of salvation. And no one can argue successfully that Christianity has not been thoroughly investigated. As the fifth edition of Man’s Religions by John B. Noss points out,

The first Christian century has had more books written about it than any other comparable period of history. The chief sources bearing on its history are the gospels and epistles of the New Testament, and these—again we must make a comparative statement—have been more thoroughly searched by inquiring minds than any other books ever written.^[7]

Read Part 8

Notes

1. ↑ Robert A. Morey, Introduction to Defending the Faith (Southbridge, MA: Crowne Publications, 1989), pp. 9-10, 43.
2. ↑ James Sire, Why Should Anyone Believe Anything At All? (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1994), p. 10.
3. ↑ John Warwick Montgomery, “The Jury Returns: A Juridical Defense of Christianity,” in John Warwick Montgomery (ed.), Evidence for Faith: Deciding the God Question (Dallas: Word/Probe Books, 1991), pp. 319-320.
4. ↑ William J. Cairney, “The Value of an Evidential Approach,” in Montgomery (ed.), Evidence for Faith, p. 21.
5. ↑ Montgomery, “The Jury Returns: A Juridical Defense of Christianity,” in Montgomery (ed.), Evidence for Faith, pp. 322, 326.
6. ↑ E. M. Blaiklock, Christianity Today, Sept. 28, 1973, p. 13.
7. ↑ John B. Noss, Man’s Religions, 5th ed. (NY: Macmillan, 1974), p. 417.