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    Do You Believe It?: A Guide to a Reasonable Christian Faith
    Do You Believe It?: A Guide to a Reasonable Christian Faith
    Do You Believe It?: A Guide to a Reasonable Christian Faith
    Ebook114 pages1 hour

    Do You Believe It?: A Guide to a Reasonable Christian Faith

    By Peter Harris

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    About this ebook

    Do you doubt the truth of your Christian faith? Peter Harris's book Do You Believe It? is for you. It is also for those who know Christians who are struggling with doubt and for those who have been challenged about their faith by skeptics and don't have the answers. By looking at the very best of evidence for Christianity, Peter Harris presents the compelling case that Christianity is the truth. Writing in an accessible way about some challenging topics, Harris begins by deploying historical arguments for Jesus's resurrection. He then turns to science to contend that there is a creator. Using biblical data and the famous Trilemma, he demonstrates that the creator is also Jesus. He deals with other difficult questions such as "How is a miracle possible?" and "What about suffering and evil?" He ends by providing Christian responses to some thorny contemporary issues such as gender equality. The book is also designed to be used as the basis for discussion groups in the church where doubts can be safely discussed. So stop what you are doing, open this book, and prepare to be amazed at how good the evidence is for Christianity!
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWipf and Stock
    Release dateJan 9, 2020
    ISBN9781725256187
    Do You Believe It?: A Guide to a Reasonable Christian Faith
    Author

    Peter Harris

    I joined GRID-Arendal as Managing Director in 2014. I am a native of the USA, citizen of Australia and resident of Norway; I describe myself as a “professional foreigner”. I am a graduate of the University of Washington (Seattle USA), completed a PhD at the University of Wales (Swansea UK), married an Australian and have 3 children. I have worked in the field of marine geology and science management for over 30 years and published over 100 scientific papers. I taught marine geology at the University of Sydney and conducted research on UK estuaries, the Great Barrier Reef, the Fly River Delta (Papua New Guinea) and Antarctica. I worked for 20 years for Australia’s national geoscience agency as a scientist and manager. In 2009 I was appointed a member of the group of experts for the United Nations World Ocean Assessment. Apart from managing all of GRID-Arendal’s amazing activities, my interests include new methods for the conduct of environmental assessments (the expert elicitation method) and the use of multivariate statistics and geomorphology to provide tools to manage the global ocean environment. I also enjoy sailing and playing the bagpipes.

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      Book preview

      Do You Believe It? - Peter Harris

      9781725256163.kindle.jpg

      Do You Believe It?

      A Guide to a Reasonable Christian Faith

      Peter Harris

      Do You Believe It?

      A Guide to a Reasonable Christian Faith

      Copyright © 2020 Peter Harris. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

      Wipf & Stock

      An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

      199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

      Eugene, OR 97401

      www.wipfandstock.com

      paperback isbn: 978-1-7252-5616-3

      hardcover isbn: 978-1-7252-5617-0

      ebook isbn: 978-1-7252-5618-7

      Scripture is taken from the Good News Bible version. Copyright © 1994 by the Bible Societies/Harper Collins. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

      Scripture is also taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1991 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

      01/03/20

      This book is dedicated to Steve Bruce, David Johnson, Pastor Veyne Austin, and to the memory of Cyril Baker (1927–2014) and Ethel Baker (1921–2015). Thank you for helping to restore my Christian faith. It is dedicated also to the memory of Pastor Ray Bindra (1952–2016) who preached the Gospel to my whole family at my wedding.

      Preface

      When I was a 19-year-old student, I rejected my Christian faith of seven years and lived as an atheist for eight years. I had made friends with a fellow student who was an atheist and he challenged me to prove my faith. What made my friend a great debater was that he had clearly thought very much about the issues we were debating and as he was studying philosophy, he knew many of the arguments against the existence of God. On the other hand, I had never been taught to defend my faith rationally and how to challenge the atheist worldview in turn. I decided to investigate atheism and read books by well-known skeptics such as Bertrand Russell and David Hume. Against their criticisms I had no response. I had no idea that there have been and are many robust defenders of the Christian faith. C. S. Lewis for me was the author of charming children’s stories rather than the foremost apologist of the twentieth century. I had never even heard of Dorothy L. Sayers or Norman Geisler, let alone read their works. Deeply troubled by my weakening faith, I did something I would never ordinarily have done: I visited without prior arrangement one cold, somber Sunday evening an acquaintance of mine who was a Christian. He was studying science and seemed a very mature believer. I thought he was the one who could satisfy my doubts. Over a cup of tea I asked him to give me a knock-down reason for why I ought to be a Christian. He was surprised by the question and supplied me with the answer that I least wanted to hear: Being a Christian was a matter of simply believing it. There were no reasons. It was a matter of faith. Taking his response as the best Christianity could muster, my faith slowly died and I chose atheism.

      I do not blame my acquaintance for my temporary departure from Christianity. He most likely did not know any arguments for Christianity either as he had never been taught them. He did his best to help me, but it was not enough. When I look back on this episode which happened just over thirty years ago, I am struck by the fact that I did not question more of my Christian friends and acquaintances. It was as if I had already made up my mind about Christianity and though my acquaintance’s failure to provide an argument dismayed and angered me, it also confirmed what I had already concluded: That Christianity was superstition. I wanted to be considered an intellectual and remember thinking to myself that if I were to be regarded as such, I ought to become an atheist. Declaring myself to be an atheist excited me because it seemed daring. Both emotional and intellectual forces were therefore acting on my decision-making with the emotional forces pushing me into atheism and the intellectual forces confirming that choice.

      Memories of this moment in my life have never left me. I remember it clearly and it has taught me the importance of knowing why we believe in Christ and how we may best help others who have doubts and those who have no faith, but who have challenged what we believe. If you have not yet questioned the truth of your faith, one day you might. If you have never been asked by another Christian for help during their doubting, one day you probably will. If people know you are a Christian, eventually someone will challenge what you believe. The aim of this book is to help sustain and strengthen your and others’ faith. Its aim too is to enable you to answer some of the tough questions non-believers ask. I hope you enjoy it.

      Acknowledgments

      Many thanks go to Pastor David Webster and Father Michael Payne for inviting me to give seminars at the churches they lead which have featured some of the arguments in this book.

      Introduction

      Having questions about the truth of our faith and being questioned about our faith is something we should not worry about if we know where to find answers for our doubts and we have knowledgeable people with whom we can talk. Our and others’ questions are wonderful opportunities to reflect on what we believe and to present the Gospel to unbelievers. The problem we face is that many Christians do not know how they will answer skeptical questions about their faith. This is not wholly their fault. We Christians live at a moment when emotions and sensations are given far more importance than reason and evidence within the Christian lifestyle. In the face of a powerful skepticism arising from that period of history in the eighteenth century called the Enlightenment, and which has continued today, many Christians turned Christianity into a religion of the heart rather than stand their intellectual ground. The effects of this are still with us. For example, I once attended a church service during which the speaker told us that so-called ‘Greek’ or logical ways of thinking are not as good as the ‘Hebrew’ way of thinking. The speaker did not explain what she meant by the Hebrew way of thinking, but as she was contrasting it with logical thinking, we can conclude that she meant that the Hebrews were somehow non-logical. The irony is that her rejection of logic requires us to think logically to understand it! Furthermore, she is ignorant of the occasions when Jesus used logic in His disputes with the Pharisees, Sadducees, and teachers of the law (see, for example, Matt. 12:10-14; 12:22-28; 16:13-20). It also makes you wonder how Solomon’s architects and engineers put up the Temple without the aid of mathematics. It is no surprise that much of the service was taken up with people expressing their emotions to God (a good thing), but little exercise of the mind was required (a bad thing). It was lullaby Christianity rather than grown-up Christianity that seeks to engage the mind as well as the heart.

      This imbalance towards the heart is unusual because traditionally Christianity has been as much about the head as it is the heart. Johann Sebastian Bach wrote music in praise of God that can bring us to tears; Thomas Aquinas wrote philosophy over which we can think for a lifetime. We are meant to be whole, balanced people who love through the feelings we express, the acts we perform, and the thoughts that we share. Nevertheless, we have the reputation of being ignorant among our atheist

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