I am continuing a summary of the information in Dr. Stephen Meyer’s new book, Signature in the Cell.You can read the previous blog entry to see the first part of my report on this important book.

Meyer follows this with an examination of what scientists in the past had thought about biological origins and how they investigated these questions. He found it interesting that Watson and Crick were not doing experiments in labs, but that didn’t mean they were not doing science. Instead, they built models based on data they acquired from other sources, like scientific journals, other scientists, and other laboratories. In this way they were much like current advocates of intelligent design, who have been accused of not doing science. A brief story is revealing — when Meyer asked Fred Hoyle, a famous astronomer, about whether he thought the information stored in DNA might point to an intelligent source, his reply was, “That would certainly make life a lot easier to explain.” Meyer goes on to explain that modern science was specifically inspired by the idea that the universe is the product of a rational mind and that humans could understand it. He says historical scientists reasoned from clues back to causes, conferring unseen facts/events/causes in the past from clues or facts in the present. Based on this, he asks what causes now in operation produce digital code or specified information? Intelligent design must qualify as a possible scientific explanation for the origin of biological information because we know that intelligent agents produce specific information.

For the next 150 pages Meyer examines the competing explanations for the origin of biological information. He starts by examining the possibility that chance produced this information. Most people who advocate chance assume that life could not originate without biological information first arising in some form, which means they must explain where the DNA information came from or how proteins might have arisen directly without DNA. Many origin-of-life scientists realize how difficult it is to generate specified biological information by chance alone in the limited time earth has been around. But it’s even more difficult than this — building a living cell not only requires specified information, but it also requires a vast amount of information. For example, the simplest cell requires nearly 500 proteins and nearly 600,000 bases of DNA to assemble these proteins. One experiment in the late 1980s indicated the probability of achieving a functional sequence of amino acids in several known proteins by chance was about one chance in 10 to the 63rd power (it’s about like picking one atom out of all the atoms in the universe). Another problem with chance was the discovery of the lack of a favorable prebiotic soup on primitive earth. A biophysicist at San Francisco State University named Dean Kenyon came up with another explanation for the origin of biological information — self-organization., in which life might have arisen through a series of chemical transformations in which more complex chemical structures arose from simpler ones. However, one of his students asked him if his model could explain the origin of the information in DNA, and Kenyon realized that it could not. Probably the most popular theory now of how life began (apart from intelligent design) focuses on RNA molecules; the premise is that RNA performed both as proteins and DNA. But there are huge problems with this theory — RNA is easy to destroy, it makes a poor substitute for proteins, and it doesn’t explain the origin of genetic information. It’s no wonder that Francis Crick said, “… in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going.”

I recently read a powerful book that argues for the existence of a creator based on the tiny world of the cell. Years ago, scientists thought of the cell as a primitive and simple thing–a glob of protoplasm. But discoveries have since changed this view. To help explain these amazing findings, Dr. Stephen Meyer, a former geophysicist and college professor who leads the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute in Seattle, wrote Signature in the Cell. The book looks intimidating since it has over 500 pages of information, but it is an important book that many should read. Meyer focuses on the importance of the discovery in 1953 of the information-bearing capacities of the DNA molecule, what he calls the “signature in the cell.” For the next several blogs, I’d like to walk you through the book.

His opening chapters define the scientific and philosophical issues at stake in the DNA enigma. Darwin had argued that the striking appearance of design in living organisms could be explained by natural selection working on random variations. But, thanks to Watson and Crick, scientists discovered the structure of DNA. They found that DNA stores information using a four-character chemical alphabet. This information is used to build crucial protein molecules and machines the cell needs to survive. This chemical alphabet functions like letters and a written language or symbols and a computer code. In fact, Bill Gates said, “DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software ever created.” Of course, the key question is how the information in DNA arose. You have to have information before you can build the first living organism. In the mid-1980s a controversial book came out called The Mystery of Life’s Origin by Charles Thaxton, Walter Bradley, and Roger Olsen. These three scientists came to the conclusion that no theory had explained the origin of the first life. They suggested that the information in DNA might have originated from an intelligent source.

Next, Meyer describes the mystery surrounding DNA in more detail. He tells in depth the story of Watson and Crick as they set about to understand the structure of DNA. By the mid-1950s scientists soon realized that DNA could store an immense amount of information. Meyer ties this in with information about proteins — they build cellular machines and structures, they carry and deliver cellular materials, they allow chemical reactions necessary for the cell’s survival. To do all this, a typical cell uses thousands of different kinds of proteins, and each one has a distinctive shape related to its function. These proteins are made of smaller molecules called amino acids. The structure of proteins depends upon the specific arrangement of its amino acids, but the question was what determined the arrangement of the amino acids. It was Francis Crick who suggested it was the precise arrangement of the four-character chemical alphabet found in DNA that determined the arrangement of amino acids. Scientists soon found there were mechanisms in the cell to transcribe, transport, and translate the information in DNA so that amino-acid chains could be constructed at certain sites. Like a production facility at Ford, the cell uses digitally encoded information to direct the manufacture of the parts of its machines. You can see animation of this process at signatureinthecell.com or in the DVD called Unlocking the Mystery of Life. Here’s another mystery — it takes DNA to make proteins, but it also requires proteins to make DNA; so how did the whole thing get started? Which came first, the chicken (nucleic acids) or the egg (proteins)? The author says scientists must now explain the origin of three key features of life — DNA’s capacity to store digitally encoded information, the complexity of the information in DNA, and the cell’s ability to process the information.

I enjoyed reading Lee Strobel’s  book, The Case for the Real Jesus. It’s like his others—the author interviews leading experts, this time trying to better understand the truth about Jesus. Recently, many different assaults have been made on the traditional picture of Jesus, and Strobel wants to find out where the truth lies. He has five key points which he develops.

First of all, he wants to find out whether other ancient documents, rather than the four Gospels, reveal a radically different Jesus. He discovers these alternative texts were written much later than the four Gospels and, therefore, have little historical credibility. For example, liberal critics love to talk about the Gospel of Thomas, placing it on an equal footing with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. However, it was written around 200 A.D., over 100 years later than the four Gospels. Other Gnostic texts also suffer from late dating and lack any connection with the real Jesus.

Strobel then seeks to discover whether the picture of Jesus is unreliable because of changes made by scribes in the documents. He finds that the New Testament is essentially reliable, despite many claims made recently about errors. Only about one percent of manuscript variations affect the meaning; not one essential doctrine is in doubt. Because we have so many New Testament manuscripts, we can trust the way Jesus is portrayed.

A third question the author seeks to explore deals with Jesus’s resurrection. Some critics suggest alternative explanations for this crucial event. He focuses on five key facts that almost all scholars, including skeptical ones, accept as historical truths–Jesus died on a cross, his disciples believed that he rose and appeared to them, Paul (a former persecutor of Christians)converted to Christianity, James (former skeptic and half-brother of Jesus) converted, Jesus’s tomb was empty. What is the best explanation for this evidence? The resurrection appears to be far more logical than any competing hypotheses.

One question which Strobel pursued was especially intriguing to me—did Christianity steal its ideas about Jesus from earlier pagan religions? Many scholars have examined stories of Mithras, Osiris, Adonis, and Dionysus. The truth is that there were no dying and rising gods that preceded Christianity. In fact, they appear after the time of Jesus. These myths contained no parallels to the life of Jesus. The stories occurred in the unspecified and distant past and were usually related to the seasonal life-and-death cycle of vegetation. What is frustrating is that many scholars looked at these myths decades ago and discredited them, but now, thanks to the Internet, the same challenges are back.

One other challenge comes from those who believe Jesus was an impostor who failed to fulfill messianic prophecies. Strobel interviews a Jewish scholar who does a magnificent job in going through Old Testament prophecies, showing that only Jesus managed to fulfill the prophecies that needed to come to pass before 70 A.D., when the Jewish Temple was seized and destroyed by the Romans.

Lee Strobel has produced several thought-provoking books such as The Case for Christ, The Case for Faith, and The Case for a Creator. His latest, The Case for the Real Jesus, does an excellent job taking on the newest critics of Christianity.

A long time ago my wife and I watched a show on PBS dealing with Galileo, the famous scientist and philosopher. It was pretty much as I expected – Galileo was persecuted by the church for his scientific beliefs and died a broken man. The show made it appear to be a war between religion and science with Galileo as the hero. However, many crucial facts had been left out which change the picture quite a bit.

Starting end of the Middle Ages, the dominant model of the universe in Europe came from Aristotle. He had written about the earth as the center of the universe. People today think that this was an egotistical attempt to make humanity think better of itself. But Aristotle placed the earth at the center because that was the lowest place in the universe, not the most important. There were concentric circles above the earth representing the moon, the stars, the planets, and heaven. These heavenly bodies were more pure than the earth, which was seen as the focus of evil in this system.

When Copernicus came along and placed the sun in the center of the universe, it changed how people saw themselves. Instead of demoting the human race, he elevated humanity. Galileo was a firm disciple of Copernicus and, therefore, argued for a sun-centered universe.

Galileo’s view put him in conflict with Aristotle’s model. This was a problem because many church leaders had bought into Aristotle’s philosophy, and they were concerned with the metaphysical, spiritual, and social consequences that would come about if this philosophy was rejected. Actually, a majority of church intellectuals were on the side of Galileo; they had no argument with Galileo’s theories as science. He got in trouble, not because the Bible conflicted with observation but because he differed with the church over what authority should be used to interpret it.

Galileo did not help himself when he turned to writing his theories. He was provocative, using caricatures of the pope to make him look silly in various debates included in the writings.

It is true that Galileo was detained and was forced to renounce the sun-centered universe theory. But he was given his own rooms and servants. He did not die a broken, lonely man in exile. Instead, he returned to his own home with his pensions from the church preserved.

This is just one more illustration that the “war” between science and Christianity often comes from poor interpretations rather than from the Bible itself. It also demonstrates how modern communicators love to perpetuate the old idea that science and faith are incompatible.

I read an interesting account by a Muslim who encountered a Christian and debated several key questions with him–has the New Testament been corrupted? did Jesus ever claim to be God? did Jesus really die on the cross?. Like all Muslims, the narrator believed the New Testament had been changed, that Jesus never claimed to be God, and that He did not die on the cross. Read his story to see the results. What would be your response to these crucial questions?

Has the Bible been corrupted?
I challenged David, stating that no reasonable person could trust the Bible. As a Muslim, I knew that the Qur’an was the uncorrupted word of God transmitted from God Himself, through the Prophet of Islam. And although the Qur’an says that the Gospels (al-Injeel) were given by God, they had been irretrievably modified and corrupted in the centuries after Jesus. Why else would there be so many versions of the Bible throughout history, with constant editions and revisions even today? I advocated the position that Christ never claimed to be God, but rather that Christians had forged all verses that would indicate such a claim. And without a divinely inspired book worth trusting, Christians have no ground to stand on. False ideas were introduced into Christianity by power-hungry followers such as Paul, a self-proclaimed “apostle,” and others like him.
Unbeknownst to me, David was not just a Bible-reading Christian, but a Christian with every intention of becoming a devoted apologist. So when he heard this argument, he wasn’t overcome by its logic (as I had assumed) but instead was shocked that I had decided to enter into such a discussion without any prodding of his own. And so began our series of informal debates about the truth of Islam versus Christianity, as well as my intellectual journey towards the throne of Christ.
David’s response to my argument ran as follows. First, while there are indeed many variations of the Bible obtained from more than 5,000 Greek manuscripts, there is such a large amount of early manuscript evidence and such a concordance between those manuscripts that we can reconstruct the Bible and be certain of about 95% of the original content. Second, no doctrine of the Bible is in jeopardy by any of the variations. Third, there are so many quotations of and references to the New Testament from the ancient world that we can reconstruct practically all of it from early quotations alone. Fourth, there are multiple fragments of manuscripts that can be dated to within a couple of centuries after Christ’s death which we have in our possession even now (the earliest dating to less than 100 years after Christ, 125 AD). Fifth, he claimed that whole copies of the Bible are available from around three centuries after Christ’s death. Finally, the previously mentioned estimate of 95% accuracy was a conservative one; in actuality it is closer to 98 or 99%.
Blown away by the overwhelmingly convincing argument he provided, I determined that he had made it all up, and I decided to investigate the issue myself. The result of my investigation was that there is no evidential reason to believe that the modern editions of the New Testament are in any way substantially different from the original autographs themselves. To challenge the scriptural integrity of the New Testament after sincere investigation is to reflect a bias against it.

Did Jesus claim to be God?
After being satisfied that the New Testament is trustworthy, I decided to take David to task on a different point. Nowhere, ever, did Christ claim that He was the literal Son of God, let alone God Himself. Christ, being the Messiah for Muslims as well as Christians, was a holy man. How dare the Christians ascribe such hubris to one of the greatest men of history, especially when He never claimed divinity in the Gospels themselves!
This discussion took more time than the first. David’s claim was that Christ did say that He was the Son of God, though He didn’t run around proclaiming it from the rooftops, as this would have gotten Him killed immediately. Here is some of the evidence David offered.
In the Old Testament, Isaiah prophesied that a child would be born who would be called “Mighty God” (Isaiah 9:6). But this isn’t the only Old Testament support for the deity of Christ. Jesus’s most common title for Himself was “Son of Man,” which referred back to a prophecy in the book of Daniel:
In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed. (vv. 7:14-15, NIV)
According to the New Testament, Jesus was worshiped shortly after His birth (Matthew 2:11), during His ministry (Matthew 14:33; John 9:38), and after His resurrection from the dead (Matthew 28:9, 28:17; Luke 24:52), yet He never told his worshipers to stop what they were doing. Jesus claimed to have existed before Abraham (who lived in the 18th century BC). When asked whether He was the Son of God, He answered, “I am . . . And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Mark 14:62). Jesus also claimed to be the final Judge of all mankind (Matthew 25-31-32).
After actually reading parts of the New Testament itself instead of merely reading Muslim books on the topic, I came to agree with David’s claim: both the New Testament in general and Christ Himself claimed that Jesus is God.

Did Jesus die on the Cross?
As a Muslim, there was one thing I had always believed that would make Christianity completely invalid, regardless of anything else. According to Qur’an, Christ did not die on the cross.
That they said “We killed Christ Jesus the son of Mary, the Messenger of Allah.” But they killed him not, nor crucified him, … of a surety they killed him not. (Al-Qur’an 4:157-158)
If Christ did not die on the Cross, then Christianity is without question a vain belief, even according to Paul himself! Paul said that if Christ was not raised from the dead, then the faith of a Christian is worthless (1 Corinthians 15:17). Of course, His resurrection requires His death, and so Paul is stating that if Christ did not die on the cross, then the Christian faith is worthless.
Thus we are presented with a question: “Which is right—the Qur’an or the Bible?” Of course, if I were to pick the Qur’an without perusing the evidence, I would not be searching for the truth; rather, I would be robotically defending what I had prejudicially taken as the truth. After investigating the facts surrounding the crucifixion of Christ, I was amazed by how incontrovertibly clear it is that He did die on the cross, a fact which is considered by some historians to be among the best established facts of history. Based on the first century evidence (including both Christian and non-Christian sources), as well as our historical knowledge about Roman crucifixion, there turns out to be no rational way to deny the death of Jesus. Any notion that says otherwise requires an elaborate conspiracy theory of some sort, and even those fail because the conspirators would have been His apostles, the very disciples who were quite obviously convinced of the truth of the Gospel message.

I get so frustrated at rational people who end up seriously considering the goofy claims of people like Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code. I’m starting a book by a noted scholar, Ben Witherington (What Have They Done With Jesus?). In the early pages he deals with this same issue–why are we so easily taken in by radical claims about Jesus and the New Testament? I’m including his response here. After I’ve read more of this book, I hope to use later blogs to explore some of his points about this ongoing distortion of Jesus and the early church.

What is there about American culture that makes normally rational people extremely gullible about sensational claims about Jesus? For one thing, our society is biblically illiterate and, therefore, swallows almost any wild theory about Jesus. In addition, Americans today are burned out and skeptical of anyone offering traditional answers; they would rather listen to new theories even if there’s no evidence behind them. Furthermore, our commercial-based society says that if something is new it must be better. One other reason has to do with fundamentalists on television where they preen and make foolish pronouncements, causing scholars to go crazy and to react by presenting a Christianity which is completely different. A fifth reason deals with scholars who want to win praise from fellow scholars by appearing to be mavericks; a good way for them to do this is to discount or discredit much of the traditional view of Jesus or the New Testament. One final reason deals with presuppositions that many modern scholars, including historians, use to shape their views of Jesus. For example, some of these people assume that miracles cannot happen and therefore do not happen. They have not proved this; they merely assert this to be true.

Every once in a while, we get brash headlines, declaring the finding of a “new” gospel, one that throws out our traditional understanding of Jesus as seen in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Not too long ago, it was the Gospel of Judas. Here’s Chuck Colson’s take on the uproar over this document. By the way, I highly recommend anything by Colson, one of the clearest, most challenging Christian writers today.

Just last weekend I was in an airport bookstore and saw the new book counter filled with numerous editions of The Da Vinci Code. Then I picked up the New York Times, and there I was greeted with the headline on the front page that read, “In Ancient Document, Judas, Minus the Betrayal.”
You probably have seen the hype, including a one-hour National Geographic TV spectacular: After seventeen hundred years, the story goes, the long-lost text of the so-called “Gospel of Judas” has re-surfaced. It claims that Jesus secretly told Judas to betray Him; so Judas is really a good disciple.

Well, it’s not a new discovery. This “new gospel” and the heresy it espouses—Gnosticism—were rejected as fiction by Christian leaders and the Church as early as 180 A.D.

Gnosticism was an attempt to add to Christianity an essentially Eastern worldview dressed up with Christian language. It was presented to the Roman world as the true Gospel—complete with endless mysteries that only those with secret knowledge could unravel. Many unsuspecting people were enthralled with Gnostic writings, particularly their sometimes gory and salacious initiation ceremonies. Christian pastors and theologians repeatedly rejected all forms of Gnosticism, until, by the middle of the third century, it had all but disappeared.

But now it is back with a vengeance, with supposed discoveries and works like Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. It provides the means for Christianity’s detractors to debunk the historical Jesus, and it certainly sells books. Seven million copies of The Da Vinci Code is testimony to that. Gnosticism has particular appeal today because of the postmodern age, which has rejected historical truth. So you can find God any way you wish, through your own group. This, of course, is the belief that is at the root of the spreading New Age movement.

The danger is that we have a biblically illiterate population. People today don’t know—maybe don’t care—whether there is a difference between the Gospel of Judas and the Gospel of John. They are unfamiliar with the work of the ancient canonical councils of the Church (which rejected the Gnostic “gospels” time and again) or even of the basic creeds or confessions of the Christian Church. Sadly, people are as gullible today as ever.

Now it is tempting to get angry at National Geographic and the liberal press for unleashing this fraudulent “gospel” at the beginning of the holiest week of the year. But don’t. Instead, let’s use the media attention to debunk the debunkers, to point out to friends that this regurgitated Gnosticism—the Da Vinci Code and the “gospel” of Judas included—is nothing more than historically unsupportable fantasy.

Then we can point them to the knowledge that is accessible to all people that has been accessible to Christians for two thousand years and proven historically accurate. It’s called the Bible.

Some time ago I listened to Greg Koukl’s radio show, Stand to Reason. This is a quality show that encourages all Christians to think clearly about their faith. I highly recommend it (get more information at str.org). Greg had as his guest Mary Jo Sharp (confidentchristianity.com), a woman who has become a successful Christian apologist for her faith. I made a list of women I knew who were involved in defending the faith—Nancy Pearcey, Gretchen Passantino Coburn, Amy Orr-Ewing, and Mary Jo Sharp. That’s a pretty small list when compared to men who are doing the same thing. Why is the proportion of women so small? Here are some possible answers. Do these make sense? Any other ideas?

First, there may be a difference in how men and women are wired. Men may care more about abstract issues while women may be more interested in the practical aspects of life involving family, friends, and the society around them. Men seem to be more aggressive, enjoying argumentation’s give-and-take.

Secondly, women have been heavily involved with other things. They raise children, hold jobs, get connected with various church ministries, create comfortable home environments, etc. I get tired just thinking of what my wife and my daughters-in-law do during a typical day.

Finally, churches may unintentionally send a message that this area isn’t for women. For example, many women’s ministries focus on traditional female events like teas while high school and college groups may stick with males doing all the teaching. Lots of churches have been uncomfortable with the idea of women teaching men.

We all like lists–the best places to eat, the best books to have while on a desert island (one quick-witted soul said he would want The Art of Shipbuilding), the world’s most livable cities, etc. The following is a list I found on the internet. There are a couple of names here that I don’t necessarily agree with, but overall it’s a great resource. Out of all the names here, I highly recommend Beckwith, Copan, D’Souza, Dembski, Geisler, Habermas, Hanegraaff, Johnson, Keller, Koukl, Lewis, both McDowells, McGrath, Moreland, Ross, Schaeffer, Strobel, Zacharias. I would add a couple of names to this last–Chuck Colson, Philip Yancey, Os Guinness, Nancy Pearcey. How about you? Any you’d toss off this list? Any you’d add to it?

Get to know 100 Christian apologists. Most are current. Some are dead. A couple are very old. Some are not popular. They range from world-class philosophers and thinkers to internet and radio apologists. But all have made an impact with their works and ministries. They are in alphabetical order. (This is not a top 100, and theologians and church fathers have been left out.)

1. Kerby Anderson – Head of Probe ministries.
2. John Ankerberg – Founder of Ankerberg Theological Research Institute; Great podcast.
3. Greg Bahnsen – the late great presuppositional apologist. Debated Gordon Stein.
4. Andy Bannister – London School of Theology / Oxford Centre for Christian apologetics.
5. Francis Beckwith – noted philosopher and apologist, especially in the area of ethics.
6. Ken Boa – relational evangelism, discipleship, apologetics.
7. Darrell Bock – Research Professor of NT Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary.
8. Joe Boot – apologist, educator, author and pastor.
9. Robert Bowman – noted apologetics and theology teacher (Biola)
10. Justin Brierley – host of Unbelievable? on Premier Christian Radio, UK.
11. Kyle Butt – staff at Apologetics Press and editor of Discovery magazine. Debated Barker.
12. Ted Cabal – general editor of The Apologetics Study Bible.
13. Charlie Campbell – itinerant apologist and head of AlwaysBeReady.com.
14. Ergun Caner – president of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary; author.
15. Edward John Carnell – was a prominent and influential Christian theologian and apologist.
16. G.K. Chesterton – famous author, philosopher, theologian, apologist.
17. David K. Clark – apologist with notable books; teaches at Bethel Seminary
18. Gordon Clark – Christian philosopher, apologist, and theologian. Contemporary of Van Til.
19. Kelly James Clark – notable philosopher of religion, author; Calvin College.
20. Gene Cook – host of UnchainedRadio; reformed pastor and apologist. Owns a pit bull.
21. Paul Copan – Philosophy and ethics; noted apologist and author.
22. Winfried Corduan – Christian philosopher of religion; noted author.
23. Steven B. Cowan – Associate director of Apologetics Resource Center; Areopagus Journal
24. William Lane Craig – philosopher, theologian, apologist; Debater par excellence.
25. Dinesh D’Souza – writer, speaker, debater. Various notable debates.
26. William Dembski – philosopher of science and mathematician; ID theorist.
27. William Edgar – Professor of Apologetics Westminster Theological Seminary; jazz pianist.
28. Lenny Esposito – founder of ComeReason apologetics ministry.
29. C. Stephen Evans – philosophy of religion; apologetics; great author. Baylor.
30. Paul D. Feinberg – the late philosopher of religion and apologist; author.
31. Harold Felder – founder of GivingAnAnswer apologetics ministry.
32. Phil Fernandes – Christian philosopher, apologist, debater. Tremendous audio resources.
33. John Frame – Reformed Theological Seminary; reformed apologist; Van Til expert.
34. Norman Geisler – prolific author of over 70 books; Classical apologist.
35. R. Douglas Geivett – Professor of Philosophy Talbot Department of Philosophy / Biola
36. Simon Greenleaf – legal scholar famous for his book Testimony of the Evangelists.
37. Douglas Groothuis – Christian philosopher, author, teacher.
38. Shandon L. Guthrie – philosophy, apologetics, atheism, comparative religions, ethics.
39. Gary Habermas – the world’s foremost expert on the resurrection of Jesus.
40. Ken Ham – young Earth creationist famous/nororious for the Creation Museum.
41. Hank Hanegraaff – today’s Bible Answer Man.
42. Craig Hazen – director of Biola’s Christian Apologetics program.
43. J.P. Holding – founded Tektonics apologetics website; author.
44. Anthony Horvath – Athanatos Christian Ministries and online Apologetics Academy.
45. Phillip E. Johnson – one of the key leaders of the Intelligent Design movement.
46. Walter Kaiser – scholar, writer, educator, and distinguished Professor of Old Testament.
47. Timothy Keller – urban pastor and apologist noted for his clear communication.
48. Greg Koukl – apologist and president of Stand to Reason; excellent radio program.
49. Peter Kreeft – professor of philosophy at Boston College, noted apologist.
50. John Lennox – philosopher of science, mathematician, Oxford debater of Dawkins.
51. C.S. Lewis – famous author, lecturer, apologist; Narnia books, Mere Christianity.
52. Gordon Lewis – philosopher and theologian; author of Testing Christianity’s Truth Claims.
53. Mike Licona – historian and apologist; authority on the resurrection of Jesus.
54. Bruce Little – philosopher noted for work on the problem of evil and theodicy.
55. Paul Little – late apologist and author noted for his simple style and easy communication.
56. David Marshall – world cultures, outspoken against new atheism.
57. Walter Martin – most famous for his Kingdom of the Cults book; the original Answer Man.
58. Stuart McAllister – Scottish itinerant cultural apologist with RZIM.
59. Josh McDowell – famous for Evidence that Demands a Verdict.
60. Sean McDowell – worldview youth minister / itinerant apologist.
61. Alex McFarland – itinerant apologist targeting young people, teens.
62. Alister McGrath – Oxford professor of theology, author and opponent of new atheism.
63. Chad Meister – philosopher of religion, ethics, logic; apologist, author; Bethel College.
64. Angus Menuge – Concordia University professor of philosophy.
65. Albert Mohler – president of SBTS, worldview cultural commentator, author, radio host.
66. John Warwick Montgomery – perhaps the most famous evidentialist apologist.
67. J.P. Moreland – Christian philosopher, noted author, apologist.
68. Ronald Nash – Professor Philosophy and Theology at Reformed Theological Seminary
69. Randall Niles – itinerant and multimedia apologist.
70. David Noebel – founder of Summit Ministries and worldview apologist.
71. Scott Oliphint – Professor of Apologetics and Systematic Theology WTS
72. Amy Orr-Ewing – Director of Training of the Zacharias Trust.
73. Craig Parton – trial lawyer and noted Lutheran apologist.
74. Alvin Plantinga – world-class philosopher; reformed epistemology, philosophy of religion.
75. Doug Powell – excellent multimedia apologist at SelflessDefense.
76. Michael Ramsden – European Director of Zacharias Trust, speaker for RZIM.
77. Fazale Rana – PhD biochemist with Reasons to Believe.
78. Ron Rhodes – author and apologist founder of Reasoning from the Scriptures.
79. John W. Robbins – reformed apologist, founder of Trinity Foundation.
80. Mark D. Roberts – pastor, author, speaker, blogger. Emphasis in NT / Gospels.
81. David Robertson – Scottish pastor famous/notorious for his Dawkins Letters.
82. Hugh Ross – astrophysicist apologist and old Earth creationist; founder Reasons to Believe.
83. Kenneth Samples – reformed philosopher, theologian, apologist with Reasons to Believe.
84. Francis Schaeffer – famous late cultural apologist, author, philosopher; founder of L’Abri.
85. Mary Jo Sharp – author, apologist, debater; founder of Confident Christianity.
86. James Sire – influential worldview author, apologist, and speaker.
87. Matt Slick – founder of CARM.org, one of the best apologetics encyclopedias on the web.
88. R.C. Sproul – notable theologian, author, and classical apologist.
89. Don Stewart – prolific author, apologist, and host of the Bible Explorer.
90. Lee Strobel – journalist famous for his Case for Christ series of books; popular apologist.
91. Richard Swinburne – world-class Oxford philosopher of religion; author.
92. Frank Turek – itinerant apologist and founder of CrossExamined; debated Hitchens.
93. Cornelius Van Til – the most famous presuppositional reformed apologist.
94. Jim Wallace – cold case detective, pastor, and apologist; excellent podcast.
95. James White – theologian, author, prolific debater, and reformed apologist.
96. Dallas Willard – Christian philosopher; notable works in philosophy, discipleship,
97. Peter S. Williams – Christian philosopher; notable works countering Dawkins
98. Douglas Wilson – presuppositional apologist; number of atheist debates (Hitchens, Barker)
99. N.T. Wright – Archbishop of Canterbury; notable work on the resurrection.
100. Ravi Zacharias -perhaps today’s most notable international cultural apologist.

Today we live in a skeptical world. People like Richard Dawkins sneer at the idea of miracles, especially those connected with Christianity. They envision a world of the future ruled by science and logic where there is no place for superstitions and silly stories of gods performing miraculous feats. But for the Christian, miracles are crucial — the birth , life and ministry, and death of Jesus of Nazareth is the heart of the message.

Can we today in the 21st century make a case for miracles? I believe we can. So I would like to give some reasons to believe in miracles and consider objections from skeptics.

Let’s start with the existence of God. Something like 98 percent of the world believes there is a God of some type. If you are talking to one of these people, your work is pretty well done if you are defending the idea of miracles. God exists in a supernatural world, so if miracles require divine intervention, we can readily argue that such a being is capable of performing them. If you’re dealing with someone who does not believe in God, there are many good ways to argue that he or she is wrong. For example, there are three major ways to prove your case — the cosmological argument (where did the universe come from?), the design argument (where did such exquisite design come from?), the existence of morality (how did morality come from atoms and molecules alone?).

The second line of evidence for the existence of miracles involves the New Testament, source of many miraculous stories. We can make a strong case for the reliability of the four gospels If we consider the existence of so many manuscripts, their existence so close to the original documents, and affirmation from hostile, non-Christian sources.

A third reason to believe in miracles has to do with science. That may seem surprising to some who believe science and Christianity are at war. But many recent discoveries of science actually suggest the possibility of a supernatural world. For example, physicists now believe that there were 10 dimensions at the Big Bang event. So at the beginning of the universe, extra dimensions (God’s realm) were there. In addition, we now know a great deal about DNA, the building blocks of life which are information-rich. Where did this language come from? Such information must come from a language maker.

Finally, we can argue for miracles based on experience. There are so many people who have witnessed miracles. A few weeks back I spoke to thirty people or so, and I asked them if they had either witnessed a miracle or trusted someone who told them about experiencing a miracle. Nearly one-third of the people responded positively.

So what is a key objection to miracles? The one I have run into the most says that miracles do not exist because they violate natural laws. But let’s consider that for one minute. Natural laws tell how things have usually happened; they do not predict the future. Consider a tennis ball that I have my hand. If I toss it up in the air, I may expect it to fall to the ground because I have seen it happen many times in the past. However, my wife may decide to grab the ball in mid air as it heads to the ground. Did she violate the law of gravity? No, she simply intervened just as God may intervene in our world.

There are other objections to miracles, but they do not seem especially strong. Some say miracles must not exist because most of the time they do not happen, so we are correct to be highly suspicious whenever a miracle is claimed. However, that is circular reasoning. Truth is not decided by a majority. Secondly, some say miracles are anti-science since science deals with what you can see, hear, etc. But that’s not true; miracles are not anti-science. They are beyond science. That’s why they’re called “supernatural.” There are others who argue that belief in miracles is bad because it would stop scientific research and investigation since no one could count on a rational universe. However, this is an orderly world which has natural laws dealing with regular events. Early scientists, many of whom were Christians, had faith that they could investigate the world because of its rational, orderly nature. Finally, there are those who refuse to believe in miracles simply because they have never seen one. But they are willing to believe in electrons even though they have never seen them either.

So there is a good case to be made for miracles. This blog has only been able to skim the surface. If you’d like more information, consider web sites such as str.org, equip.org, rzim.org, and answers.org. Some good books that deal with this include The Case for Faith, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, Know Why You Believe, Skeptics Answered, When Skeptics Ask.