The Logic of Christianity:

  Is It Logical?

1 August 2021

Tony Rankin

Logic:  Correct Reasoning

Introduction:  Many “new atheists” today base their aggressive refutations and denunciations of Christianity on the examples of the individuals who claim to be “Christians” but who are not accurately representing fairly and accurately New Testament Christianity (Dave Miller.  Is Christianity Logical, Page 1.).  

And I want to stop right here so you will understand the worlds definition of the realm of Christianity.  Anyone who believes in a basic belief of Jesus Christ as the head of the church and His deity being the Son of God.  This would naturally include according to the world and our society in the United States of America - denominations large and small.

Let’s also define “new atheists” :  New atheists aren’t presenting new arguments but what they are doing are promoting their ideas by changing their method of delivery.  Atheists have become very aggressive, very confrontational, and this is considered by some as unique.

I.  Belief in God is Irrational (From the Atheist’s point of view)

We as Christians try to be examples of Christ on a daily basis.  We know though as from our experience as a Christian we went through different stages of growth (hopefully we wanted to grow as a Christian since that is what the Bible teaches).  As we grew, we saw Christians in different stages of their growth.  Some were babes in Christ, some were at the point where they were leading devotionals or leading prayers in the congregation, and some had studied to the point where they were now able to teach and preach.  We hope this is how we see the body of Christ progressing in our congregations.  We all know that individuals have different levels of commitment and we hope no one is just going through the motions.

When atheists see the denominational side of  Christianity they don’t know the difference.  “You all call your self Christians, aren’t Christians supposed to work together as a family?  So then they discover there are different versions of Christianity, right?  (Tell audience to look at packet that shows WORLD RELIGIONS).  No, there aren’t to God, one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism right .  But they don’t know that.  Look at the packet, how many different regions do you see and how many different denominations can you think of that have claimed to be Christians worshipping the correct way!  Some one tell me where it says in the Bible it is OK to add or take away from the words of the Bible.  You will not find it!  This is one of the reasons why people who are atheists laugh at the Christian World.  We talk brotherly love but we can’t get along!  We can’t all agree on what God has made so clear in his word if we are reading and studying!

I’m OK you’re OK is not OK.   Your truth is your truth and my truth is my truth is not OK.  We can’t settle, we have to keep pushing toward the goal (Philippians 3:14) until we get as close to the goal as we can to what God wants us to be before He takes us from this earth.  Don’t get me wrong, sometimes when we study together we have problems seeing and understanding what others all ready understand and see, so it may take us a while to catch-up.  As long as we are learning the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15) that is what we need to do daily.  Atheist hold as there absolute truth that there are no absolute truth’s.  In essence they are denying their own view point in order to prove their view point, contradiction in their philosophy.  This is why they sit back and laugh at the Christian World.  So it allows the atheist to be from morality and many other attributes of Christian character.  God’s truth is constant, God’s truth does not change, it is not relative to what is going on yesterday, today, or tomorrow (Hebrews 13:8).

We can know the truth! 

Illustration:  You go to the doctor for an examination because you are not feeling good.  The doctor examines you and ask you some questions and through this process the doctor writes you a prescription and you take it to the pharmacist and the pharmacist calls the hospital and verify’s the prescription and you go home and take the medication and YOU CAN KNOW THE TRUTH ABOUT YOUR SICKNESS!  You rationally worked through the symptoms and figured out with your doctor and the pharmacist and came to a conclusion about your illness and how to treat it so you could recover.  We can reason and infer what God wants us to do and know how to proceed in life from that point on as we continue to learn (Leviticus 10:1-2 Nadab & Abihu).

We interpet thousands of messages daily like text messages, email, looking through our postal mail and bills.  We read books and news papers and interpret the messages correctly.  If we can do this we can understand the Bible correctly.

Yet God, who made us all is incapable of giving us His word and we seem to not want to use the same reasoning and logic and problem solving skills we use with our other daily activities.  The one who created our brains and is infinitely wiser than use didn’t give us something we can understand.  We can know the truth and we don’t have to accept differing opinions from those who either don’t read and study or who refuse to go back and look at it again in the context it is written.  That’s like saying, well I’d better stop writing emails to friends and family or texting because they are not smart enough to figure out what I mean when they have understood almost every email I’ve sent to them since I started writing texts and emails.  How do you think God feels when we don’t spend the time in the word that we need to in order to get to know how much He loves us and what he expects out of us.

One more thing, it doesn’t excuse atheists from discerning what are false teachings and error filled opinions.  They still have to find and define what true New Testament Christianity is in order to properly address the issue of evidence concerning the existence of God!

The Bible and Christianity are Rational

In John 4:24 it tells us that God is spirit, and if he is spirit and he created us in His spiritual likeness, His own image (Genesis 1:26) then we are capable as human beings to function in a rational manner as did Able (Hebrews 11:4), don’t tell me we don’t have the power to understand or apply in the context it is written, the truth of God’s word.  It’s always funny to me how people who have studied God’s word always get questioned in a way that doubt is at the door step, are you sure that’s what that means?  Nothing wrong with questions as long as they are geared toward growing in the understanding of God’s word.

We need to justify our conclusions by logical and adequate evidence.  If we are not sure, we need to just keep studying and attain the evidence we need to support our conclusions.

Final thoughts, did the New Testament teachers use logic and rationality when teaching those masses about the new covent and eternal life?  The answer is yes!  How could it not be if they were using the mind God gave them.  The 3000 at Pentecost, did they respond to the Gospel of Jesus Christ preached by Peter before they received the gift of the Holy Spirit or after?  They responded BEFORE!  God created us to be able to reason logically because we were created in His Spiritual image. 

We will look at 4 arguments presented by “new atheists.”  They are as follows:

            1.  Belief in God is irrational.

Irrational thinking - having thoughts that have no evidence of being accurate.

This is basically the definition the entirety of Christendom is being defined as, people of faith, without evidence!

Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins who are well known atheists have commented on the existence of God, or should we say the non-existence of God, in this manner:

Sam Harris stated:  “We have names for people who have many beliefs for which there is no rational justification.  When their beliefs are extremely common we call them “religious” otherwise they are likely to be called “mad, psychotic, or delusional.”

In Richard Dawkins book, The God Delusion, he states that belief in God is delusional thinking.  He further states that belief in God is a delusion built on empty assertions rather than evidence.  He also goes on to state that “Faith is blind trust, in the absence of evidence, even in the teeth of evidence.”  His conclusion is that all the evidence says there is no God and goes to support, in fact, goes to support the non-existence of God. (PZukeran. The New Athiest Agenda)

A lot of Christians who believe in God struggle with defending the existence of God because they don’t engage with people daily about the existence of God.  There are alot of people who are Christians who don’t engage daily with there Bible for Bible study whether it is with their family, spouse, or children.  So how could they be expected to defend the existence of God.  We have to take the example of the Bereans (Acts 17:11) and search the Scriptures Daily if we want to show our selves approved of God (2 Timothy 2:15).

As Christians, we know our faith is base on faith, not blind faith, but on the evidence.  Antony Flew once was a well known atheist and “this generations greatest atheist philosopher” that used to debate Brother Thomas Warren and in the brotherhood this debate was well known.  The were referred to as the Warren-Flew debate in September of 1976 at North Texas State University.

The process that Antony Flew came to believe in an infinite intelligence was to find the answers to three major questions he had been wrestling with:

            1.  How did the laws of nature come to be?

            2.  How did life come from non-life?

            3.  How did the universe come into existence?

When Antony Flew was 81, he conceded through the advancement of modern science that the universe was created by infinite intelligence.  It was “a step” but Antony Flew still did not believe in the God of the Bible (Dave Miller.  Atheist Finally “Sobers Up.”  Apologetics Press 2004).   

⁸     “For My thoughts are not your thoughts,

Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.

⁹     “For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

So are My ways higher than your ways,

And My thoughts than your thoughts.

                                                            Isaiah 55:8-9

If you are here today and you want to now about the love of Jesus Christ and what it can do for you and how to become part of the body of Christ you just have to let us know and we will teach you what you need to do to make that happen.

 If you are already a Christian and you need Prayers for what ever is keeping you troubled we would love to pray for you.

If we can help you in any way would you come as we stand and sing.

Next week we will deal with question #2.

            2.  Science has clearly proven God does not exist.

Hebrews 3:4, Acts 17:29

            3.  Religion is dangerous, particularly Christianity.

            4.  Religion is the result of a natural manmade evolutionary process motivated by man’s                                 need for a Devine Father figure and the need for meaning in the universe.