Apologetics 101Sample

Exploration for God

This book was written to aid you in your exploration for God: Is he real? What is he like? Is what the Bible says about him authoritative and worthy of obedience? Many people question whether this is a valid pursuit.

Some think it is irrelevant whether God exists. Others see belief in God and the Bible as an anesthetic that exists only to help those who have a low tolerance for pain cope. Still others see God and the Bible as fictions invented to help the powerful oppress the weak.

We should not be too quick to dismiss these assertions. There are undoubtedly people who claim to be Christians but live as if God is irrelevant. And we can easily imagine people embracing Christianity because they want a crutch to help them hobble through life or a club with which to bully others.

Skeptics, cynics, atheists, agnostics, and firm believers all have at least one thing in common: they don’t know everything. Beyond general things (such as how to walk without falling down, how to feed ourselves, and so on), we need help. Think of all the confusing issues humans face:

- Is there a God? And what do I understand to be true about him?
- How should I respond to those who believe differently, especially those whose understanding of God tells them to harm people like me?
- Where did we come from? Are we really a special creation of God, or are we the result of a random process of evolution? What does this mean for how we live together?
- What should I do for a job? What kinds of jobs are worth doing? How can we create more jobs?
- What does God want from me? How can I even know? What if people who have a different view of him try to stop me from doing what he wants?
- Should I get married? What is marriage anyway? If two people of the same sex want to marry each other, is that truly marriage?
- How can I live in harmony with those around me? Which political and economic policies are most harmonious with human flourishing? How should we respond when bad decisions made by leaders create disharmony?

It’s tempting to dismiss these questions as trivial, but they matter. In the end, we have to act on what we know, and all our questions and actions will lead us to some destination. You might say, “I refuse to think about this—I’m not going anywhere,” but you actually are. In this case, nowhere is surely as much a destination as somewhere.