Jesus Christ: Liar? Lunatic? Legend? or God?/Program 6
| September 27, 2013 |
By: Dr. John Warwick Montgomery; ©1988 |
Dr. Montgomery answers the person who says: āListen, I donāt believe that there is any evidence that even suggests that God exists. But Iām not an `orneryā atheist, Iām an `ordinaryā atheist who is open to hearing the evidence |
Contents
Introduction
Recent surveys and polls show that 98% of Americans believe in God. But these same polls reveal many do not believe that Jesus Christ is the God they believe in. Tonight, John Ankerberg will examine the evidence and the claims of Christianityās central figure to answer the question, āWas Jesus Christ a liar, a lunatic, a legend, or God?ā
Johnās guest is attorney John Warwick Montgomery, Dean of the Simon Greenleaf School of Law in the state of California and a practicing trial lawyer both in England and America.
During tonightās program we will ask:
- If a lawyer were to argue the claims of Jesus Christ in a court of law, what real evidence would he point to?
- Are the biographies concerning Jesusā life nothing more than legends that were written several hundred years after Jesus lived, or real historical documents written by eyewitnesses?
- How would a lawyer determine whether the witnesses concerning Jesusā life, namely Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, James and Peter, are lying or telling the truth?
- How do the New Testament documents compare with other well-attested historical documents in the ancient world?
- Is there any reason to believe we have a distorted view of what Jesus said and did because it happened so long ago?
- If there is accurate historical information about Jesus Christ, is there any proof that Jesus actually claimed he was God?
- Is there any evidence that Jesus ever offered proof to the people of his day to verify his claim that he was God?
- What does a trial lawyer think about the evidence Christ presented to prove his claim of deity?
All of these questions and more will be answered during our program tonight. We invite you to join us.
- Ankerberg: Thank you for joining us tonight. Weāre talking about the evidence for God. We have had a series of programs where we have talked about the historical reliability of the information concerning Jesus Christ, and then what Jesus Christ himself said, and then capping it off by his own resurrection. Weāve examined Humeās argument concerning the miraculous, that the resurrection; āEven if it did take place, we know that it couldnāt take place because we donāt accept miracles.ā Weāve defused that, and we have come to the conclusion that intellectually the evidence pushes you to the wall that you should invite Jesus Christ to forgive you of your sins and dedicate your life to him.
- But we want to go back to an area that we havenāt covered and that is, for those of you who say, āI donāt believe there is any evidence for God to start with. I am one of the few percentage of people in America, according to the Gallup Poll, that donāt even believe in God. I do not believe it.ā Dr. Montgomery, we want to come to you and let me start off by this: first of all, we want to get into peopleās minds that basically still the best demonstration of God is still to be seen in Jesus. For most of the people across the board we ought to start there and then letās go to the people that donāt even start with the concept of God in their vocabulary.
- Montgomery: Yes, as far as Iām concerned the best introduction to God comes in Jesus Christ. If a person says to me, āDefine God.ā I say, āIāll do better than that. Iāll introduce you to him.ā And I take the person to Jesus Christ because weāre going to understand God the best by Godās appearance right here in our own midst. We are humans and therefore weāre going to meet God the most effectively right here in the human situation. So everything weāve done so far in this series relates directly to our topic tonight. The evidence for Jesus Christ, his resurrection from the dead, points us directly to God. One could not go with us as far as weāve gone so far and deny Godās existence. Youāve already met him. Youāve come across him in Jesus risen again from the dead.
- Ankerberg: But there are some people that are philosophers that are saying, āWe canāt even meaningfully discuss the word āGodā because by definition God is unique, so unique that anything that weāre going to say about him doesnāt really jibe, itās not true.ā
- Montgomery: That particular position has been presented by certain linguistic philosophers in our time stemming from the work of the later Wittgenstein in his Philosophical Investigations. And the view is in essence that you cannot speak meaningfully about anything unique. That uniqueness eliminates any kind of rational discussion. This is expressed by the quip that used to be going around on college campuses: āHow will you recognize God when you get to heaven?ā And the answer is, āBy the big āGā on his sweatshirt.ā See? But you see, since God is unique, you wouldnāt be able to recognize him and who would put the āGā there? How could you be sure it was put on the right person? This argument is illogical; it is irrational.
- Why? Because it goes against our human experience. We talk about the unique all the time without any difficulty at all. Seems to me that when I was a whippersnapper my preacher discoursed on snowflakes. āAh,ā he said, āeach little snowflake is different from each other little snowflake.ā I donāt know how he knew this; I donāt know how preachers know that each snowflake is different, but assuming that they are right, one can still talk about snowflakes.
- More important, think of the person sitting next to you, or think of yourself. Each human being is unique. The genetic chromosomal pattern that produced the person next to you or produced you never existed before and apparently will never exist again. So, you are different in some fundamental sense from any other person whoās ever lived and from any other thing. And yet itās perfectly possible to talk about the person next to you or you. So the philosophers, the analytical philosophers, are simply wrong that the uniqueness of God limits the possibility of talking about Him. And letās say for the sake of argument, and it isnāt just for the sake of argument because this is what weāve been talking about in this series, letās say that that unique being came to earth and made it even easier for you. And thatās exactly what happened in Jesus Christ.
- Ankerberg: Letās talk about the philosophers a little bit more. Give us the parable of Antony Flew and John Wisdom that the philosophers⦠itās really a good illustration about the liberals who are talking about God and theyāve got nothing to talk about. I mean, it exposes them, but itās terrific for historic Christianity. Would you explain that parable and why thatās so?
- Montgomery: The analytical philosophers John Wisdom and Antony Flew developed a parable which they employ to show how nonsensical it is to talk about God. I think itās wonderful that one of these men is named John Wisdom; makes you feel that the universe is not entirely in difficulty. And in this parable we have two explorers coming across a clearing in the jungle. The clearing in the jungle represents some degree of order in this world. And one explorer says, āThereās a gardener who comes and takes care of this garden.ā the other says, āThere is no gardener.ā One of them represents a believer in God; the other represents an atheist. So, they sit down and they watch. No gardener is seen. They remember H. G. Wellsā āInvisible Man,ā so they put a barbed wire around the clearing and they electrify it to catch any invisible climber, but there is never any indication of anyone being there. They patrol it with bloodhounds but the bloodhounds never give a cry. Finally at the end, the believer says, āBut there is a gardener, invisible, intangible, insensible to electric shocks, and he comes and takes care of the garden which he loves.ā And the skeptic replies, but how does that kind of a gardener differ from an imaginary gardener or from no gardener at all?ā
- This parable is to show, presumably, that people who believe in God believe in something that suffers the death by a thousand qualifications. āGod is not this, not that, not the other thing, there is never any evidence and therefore believers in God might as well be believing in an imaginary God.ā Well, as you pointed out, John, thatās exactly the mess that religious liberals get in.
- Ankerberg: Give them a few examples like of Tillichās, etc., etc., down the line.
- Montgomery: Oh, yes, well, Karl Barth, whom you mentioned previously, Karl Barth said the resurrection occurred, but it didnāt occur in ordinary history so it canāt be investigated. Paul Tillich says that God is the āground of all beingā and also being itself, and so youāre not sure whether youāre looking at God when you shave in the morning and look in the mirror. You donāt know what the āground of all beingā is. It canāt be hamburger but thereās some sort of āgroundā there. And the whole thing is so indefinable and so vague, so untestable, that you actually donāt end up with any sort of definable belief at all. The Eastern religions in talking about Brahman, āBrahman is all,ā get into that same sort of difficulty. But historic Christianity ā and this is the important point ā historic Christianity is not in those categories. Not in the slightest. Why? Because in historic Christianity you donāt need to set up a barbed wire fence. You donāt need any bloodhounds. The Gardener literally enters the garden. I think itās fascinating on Easter morning, the women thought they were seeing a gardener⦠thatās the āGardenerā of the Flew/Wisdom parable, everybody. The Gardener came into this world and he displayed himself āby many infallible proofs.ā [Acts 1:3]
- Ankerberg: Weāve got one minute before we take our break. What is a denotative definition versus a descriptive definition of God and why is it so neat that Christianity is one of the only religions in the world that can define God denotatively?
- Montgomery: Well, when people ask for a definition of God theyāre usually thinking of a dictionary definition. Thatās a descriptive definition. The trouble with such definitions is that you can always ask for the definition of the terms you use in the definition. All dictionaries are circular, in other words. And therefore there are many skeptics who try to get Christians into these discussions: āDefine God!ā And the minute the definition is given, then the skeptic asks for a definition of the definition. A far more effective form of definition not only in theology but in life is denotative definition, which involves denoting, pointing. Whatās a Ford? You take the person out and you say, āThatās a Ford!ā Well, only Christianity can provide a denotative definition of God. I donāt have to define God! I take you to Jesus Christ and I point, like John the Baptist did, and I say, āI must decrease; he must increase. [John 3:30] Thereās God. Now, do something about him.ā
- Ankerberg: Terrific. Weāre going to come back and weāre going to ask Dr. Montgomery to outline the evidence for the person that says, āGive me the evidence for the existence of God. Iām an atheist.ā Weāll do that when we come right back. Stick with us.
- Ankerberg: Alright, weāre back, and weāre talking with Dr. John Warwick Montgomery and weāre talking about the evidence for the existence of God. If you say, āListen, I donāt believe that there is any evidence that even suggests that God exists. But Iām not an āorneryā atheist, Iām an āordinaryā atheist who is open to hearing the evidence. And if youāve got something, Iām willing to listen.ā So, Dr. Montgomery, what would you say to a person who says, āListen, I donāt know if God exists or not.ā What would you tell him?
- Montgomery: Well, I first want to make sure that the person is open-minded on the subject; not vacant-minded but open-minded. I want to be sure that the person is not an atheist, as a matter of fact, but an agnostic and willing therefore to consider evidence. Thereās no sense in wasting time with people who are atheists; that is, who are closed off to the existence of God. The Bible says, āThe fool has said in his heart āThere is no God.āā [Psa. 14:1] It is foolishness to take that kind of closed-minded position.
- But it certainly isnāt foolishness, especially in a secular age, if one looks out at this very, very complex and mysterious universe and wonders if there is a God. So, we pick up then from the point of āwonder.ā Can this universe adequately be explained on its own ground? Answer: āNo.ā The universe is not self-explanatory; it is mysterious in the best sense of the word. Letās begin with anything, any single object or any person. Begin with this book. Being one of my books itās a particularly valuable place to start. Does this book explain itself? Certainly not. Youāre going to have to go beyond the book to something else.
- In fact, youāre going to have to go to a lot of āsomething elses.ā Youāre going to have to go to an author. Books donāt appear without an author. They also donāt get into the trade without a publisher, a printer, a distributor, paper manufacturers and on and on and on. This object doesnāt explain itself; it forces you to go beyond it to other things. Or, take the person sitting next to you. That person does not explain himself or herself. You must at least go beyond that person to parents in order to explain that person. But then, of course, youāre going to have to go to grandparents and youāre going to have to go to the chemistry and physics of the person and so on.
- The whole universe is made up of objects like the ones weāve just been discussing, and persons. And the universe is the sum total of everything in it. So, if any individual element of the universe cannot explain itself, if you take them all together, you take them as a whole, you do not have something that is self-explanatory. You have a gigantic amount of non-self-explanatory stuff. Philosophers call this ācontingency.ā What you get is a whale of a lot of contingency. And since the universe does not explain itself, you are obliged to go beyond it for an explanation. You must go from the contingent to something absolute that does not require further explanation and thatās God. So you must move from the universe, beyond it to God.
- Ankerberg: Then you have people like Bertrand Russell who said, āBut, you know, where does God come from and who caused God?ā
- Montgomery: Yes, thatās the next question asked. And a couple of things need to be seen about that. First of all, the nonsensical character of the question. It sounds like itās sensible, āWhere did God come from?ā But itās only grammatically sensible. Itās like the question, āHow many corners does a circle have?ā Itās sensible grammatically but if you know what a circle is, you know you canāt ask about the corners of it. And if you know what you mean by āGodā and you mean by God, āthat which is self-explanatory,ā you canāt ask the question, āWhere does he come from?ā or āWhere does it come from?ā because that in itself implies that God isnāt self-explanatory.
- The second thing about it is this: Letās say for the sake of argument that youāre moving from the universe to God in order to explain it. But, then you say, āHow do I explain God?ā and you say, āWell, Iām going to have to explain him.ā Then youāre going to have to go to a God to the second power to explain the God to the first power. That will require a God to the third, fourth, fifth⦠it becomes an infinite series, ending up with, āGod to the nth power.ā That simply means itās an infinite series.
- But if itās infinite, youāve never explained āGod to the n minus one.ā Because if the series has no end, there isnāt any next to last. If you havenāt explained āGod to the n minus one,ā you havenāt explained God to the n minus two, minus three,⦠finally, youāre back to the universe you were trying to explain to begin with. You would have done better listening to old Gomer Pyle re-runs on television. This has accomplished absolutely nothing.
- Youāre going to have to stop this business at one of two points. Either with the universe in which we find ourselves, or with God as the self-explanatory end of the series. Now, the only meaningful question in all of this is, which is the better place to stop? The atheist stops with the universe; the believer in God stops with the self-explanatory absolute. Which is better? Well, no question about this. Youāve got to stop here, because you admitted to begin with that everything in the universe that you come across canāt explain itself.
- You canāt then suddenly turn this universe into something self-explanatory. Thatās myth-making. Itās turning the universe into God. Itās making that which canāt explain itself suddenly and magically explanatory. The Christian is not the myth-maker, the atheist is the myth-maker. The Christian takes the universe seriously, that it canāt explain itself and insists on going to a source of explanation which can.
- Ankerberg: Besides that logical airtight argument that you just gave, support that with explaining the Second Law of Thermodynamics and how it proves the existence of God.
- Montgomery: Well, this is not an argument developed by Bible school teachers. This follows from one of the most fundamental laws of contemporary physics and engineering. The Second Law of Thermodynamics says that in a closed system the available energy will become less and less until finally you have no available energy at all. This is called a growth in entropy that finally results in heat death. Alright? It is a generalized law of the universe.
- Now, for the atheist the universe has got to be such a system because there is no God outside. The universe is all there is. It is such a closed system. But according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics it only takes a finite amount of time to reach heat death. Think about it. For the atheist the universe is all there is, so it has always been around. Itās been around for an infinite period of time. But an infinite period of time will embrace any finite period, so the universe would already have reached heat death if the atheists were right. Now, it evidently hasnāt because thereās enough energy left to discuss the question. So, we conclude that the atheist is wrong in his assumptions.
- One of two things must be the case, maybe both: the universe was created a finite amount of time ago and hasnāt yet had enough time to reach heat death: God created it. And/or there is a cosmic gas station attendant out there somewhere feeding in energy: Thatās known as continuous creation by the theologians. But youāve got to have creation. Thatās the point. Youāve got to have creation. The Second Law of Thermodynamics insists on it. Go to Gordon Van Wylenās textbook on thermodynamics published by Wylie and Son in Philadelphia, the scientific and technical publisher. Gordon Van Wylen was head of engineering at the University of Michigan. This is the most widely-used text in thermodynamics. Van Wylen says, āMy authors and myself must believe in God. We have no choice. The Second Law of Thermodynamics insists upon this.ā
- Ankerberg: Okay. But if you have an infinite force, if you call this absolute, āGod,ā how do we know this absolute is personal?
- Montgomery: Well, is it more reasonable to think that the absolute is personal or impersonal? For one thing, notice that we have used our minds in reasoning to the absolute. Wouldnāt it be strange if it required rational minds and personalities to engage in this argumentation, and when you finally arrived at God, he is non-rational. It would be more reasonable to assume that the reason we are able to get there rationally is that he is a rational and personal being himself. For another thing, in our experience, the impersonal does not give rise to the personal. You do not have bird houses giving rise to birds. The personal gives rise to the impersonal. Human beings build bridges, bridges do not turn into people, and so it is more reasonable to assume that the Source of the universe is personal and rational than that the Source of the universe is impersonal, that is to say, irrational.
- Ankerberg: In thirty seconds, why is it then, go back to the first thing that we said, why is the demonstration of God then best seen in relationship to who Jesus is?
- Montgomery: The reason is that when weāve used the contingency argument and weāve used the Second Law of Thermodynamics and weāve talked in the terms that we have during this program, the best that we have arrived at is a āSourceā of the universe, a First Cause, if you will, for everything. First causes are not sufficient for salvation. It says in the Bible that the devils also believe in God and tremble. [Jas. 2:19] In order to be saved youāve got to meet the God of the universe as Savior, as the one who has died on the cross to deal with your own personal problems and risen again to take care of the problem of death in your own experience. So, the best place to meet God is just where we said at the beginning of this program. The best place to meet God is God in Christ. God was in Christ, the witnesses say, āreconciling the world unto himself.ā [2 Cor. 5:19] And he is capable of reconciling you personally to himself. But, of course, itās up to you as to whether you let him.
- Ankerberg: Now, youāve heard the evidence, youāve heard the information, and what will you do with Jesus Christ? The Bible doesnāt say itās an intellectual problem all the time. Many times itās a moral problem: you just wonāt. You wonāt turn from your way of doing things and turn to Christ. But we ask you to examine your conclusions in light of the evidence and realize the invitation from Christ is open to you to commit your life to him. Join us for more next week.