Defense and Refutation Points
Assignment:
After reading the Doctrine of Truth documents in the Instructor’s Notes folder, answer the following questions:
a) Which three of these claims is most important to defend today, and why?
b) Which three of the claims to refute are most urgent?
c) Then choose one from each of your groups of three, and post a defense of the one and a refutation of the other
The three points that we must defend are:
1. The Bible is the inerrant Word of God.
a. We must defend this point because if the Bible is not true everything we believe is false and we have no hope.
2. Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven, to peace with God.
a. We must defend this point otherwise Christians are fools because there are much easier ways to live than living as a Christian.
3. Mankind is a special creation of God, not the product of evolution or of impersonal forces in the universe.
a. If evolution were true then humans cannot express authority in any area of life because we would be no better than least of creatures.
The three points we must refute are:
1. All religions lead to the same god.
a. If this is true then Jesus is a liar and everything he said and did is irrelevant.
2. The Bible is a human book, a product of the religious experiences of one people.
a. This statement itself contradicts itself. While Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all have branching points, all three agree that the Old Testament is true.
3. We are the end product of evolution, the crowning achievement of the forces of nature.
a. This statement also refutes itself; if evolution is true there is no crowning achievement but rather simply a current placeholder to eventually be replaced.
Defend: The Bible is the inerrant Word of God.
There are two main reasons to believe that the Bible is God’s word. First there is the archeological evidence. Secondly are the references to the Bible is other literary works.
Archeologists often use the Bible as a source point for their research and digs. The Biblical references are found to be true sometimes overturning long held academic points. Also, many discoveries when cross-referenced line up with Biblical descriptions. One of the most recent and powerful examples is finding carved references to ‘the house of David’. Until this point there had not been ‘historical’ records of David.
As an English major part of my studies was the entomology of words and works of literature. The Bible is one of the few historical writings that can be completely reconstructed using only secondary resources. There are literally so many quotes from the Bible that are used in other writings, showing where they come from, that is every Bible on the planet vanished God’s word could be reconstructed in its entirety, intact, and placed in proper order. Only God could create a miracle that protects his Word in such a way that it could never be wiped out.
Refute: We are the end product of evolution, the crowning achievement of the forces of nature.
Evolution is the theory that science uses to explain the origins and development of humanity. Consider the concept: from nothing comes something. How can this be? Well no proof can be provided; we are told to just accept it, on faith. As Christians we cannot accept this theory as fact. The Bible says that Man was created in the image of God. If evolution were correct then our faith would mean that humanity is nothing because we are in the image of nothing.
Science itself refutes the concept of evolution. The ‘natural’ state of the universe is chaotic. The third law of Thermodynamics states ‘that without energy being put into a system it will breakdown to its component parts’. Another term for this is entropy; Christians know this as death. Evolution asks that one believe that major changes can be made to a system and it not fail. Clearly this is not true.
Even when there is the appearance of change it is not change. The best example of the appearance of change is the common dog. No matter the changes man has bred into the species it is still genetically a wolf. The DNA match between a poodle and a wolf is nearly 100%.
How does this apply to man? It shows that despite our racial looks and adaptations to local environmental conditions we are still humans. Evolution says that because of these differences we should be different species now. Yet we are not so clearly the theory of evolution is wrong.
Comments on this entry are closed.