Dayton:Outside of my apologetic endeavors, I work with middle school and high school students. As a rule, I keep copies of your book “True For You But Not For Me” on hand to give away to either students interested in learning more about apologetics or to unbelievers looking to explore Christianity. What other books have written that you could recommend be used in this manner?
Paul Copan: I appreciate your keeping copies of “True for You” handy! I’ve written several books at a more popular level that either deal with a wide range of common criticisms or slogans leveled against Christianity, and I try to make more accessible topics like Christian philosophy of religion or dealing with Old Testament ethical problems. So here are the other books to check out:
Dayton: Speaking of books you have written, is there anything new in the works? Do you have any forthcoming books you could tell us about?
Paul Copan: For a fuller picture of what I’m working on, people can check out my website: www.paulcopan.com. I’m on Twitter (I tweet weekly); so people can keep up with my writings and speaking engagements that way. I’m very excited about my book, Is God a Moral Monster? (forthcoming with Baker in January 2011). The noted Old Testament scholar Gordon Wenham (University of Gloucestershire) has given this endorsement: “Lucid, lively, and very well informed, this book is the best defence of Old Testament ethics that I have read. A must-read for all preachers and Bible study leaders.” Christopher J.H. Wright, a noted Old Testament scholar (specializing in Old Testament ethics) and author of Old Testament Ethics for the People of God and The God I Don’t Understand, has this blurb: “This is the book I wish I had written myself. It is simply the best book I have read that tackles the many difficulties that the Old Testament presents to thinking and sensitive Christians and that give such ammunition to the opponents of all religious faith…. I strongly recommend this book. We have wanted and needed it for a long time.”
I am coediting another book with William Lane Craig: Come Let Us Reason. This is the third apologetics book we’ve edited for B&H Academic (the other two are Passionate Conviction and Contending with Christianity’s Critics); it is filled with cutting-edge essays on important topics such as issues surrounding the Qur’an’s authority, Jesus’ resurrection as a pagan myth, postmodernism, problems with naturalism, and so on.
I’m coauthoring a book on the moral argument with Mark Linville (Continuum), and another book on biblical ethics with Robertson McQuilkin called Living Wisdom (InterVarsity Press). I’m also contributing several chapters to various books: on the Protestant view on human dignity (Routledge); on why ethics needs God (Oxford University Press); on theism’s contribution to bioethics (Routledge); two on the problem of the Canaanites (B&H Academic and another to be determined); on the moral argument (a short article) in The Dictionary of Christian Theology (Cambridge). I’ve also contributed a series of articles on Old Testament ethics to Enrichment Journal.
I recently contributed a chapter “A Time for Truth” in The Complete Christian Guidebook to Understanding Homosexuality, edited by Joe Dallas and Nancy Heche (Harvest House) and a chapter on the moral argument to Mike Licona’s and Bill Dembski’s The Evidence for God (Baker).
Paul Copan is not only one the nicest guys, but he is also quite tough and combative about his faith. A real fire-breathing evangelical who writes about things that are relevant to rank and file. Whenever I send out beginner apologetics packages, I always include lots of Paul Copan books because his books are the most practical. For evangelicals who like to defend their faith to their co-workers and friends, Paul Copan is a must-read.
The other guys who write good books for beginners are Lee Strobel and Sean McDowell. All practical evangelicals used to fielding questions.
This lecture is based on the book “Truth in Religion” by famous philosopher Mortimer J. Adler. At the time of writing the book, he was not a Christian, but there is still a lot of value in the book for Christians who are trying to understand what religion is about. In one sense, the material on this lecture should be the first thing that Christians learn about Christianity before they ever open the Bible. And I mean before even knowing about the existence of the Bible. The most important question when it comes to religion is this: “IS RELIGION CONCERNED WITH TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT REALITY”? That is the first question to answer.
Here’s a bio from his faculty page at Baylor University:
Walter Bradley (B.S., Ph.D. University of Texas at Austin) is Distinguished Professor of Engineering at Baylor. He comes to Baylor from Texas A&M University where he helped develop a nationally recognized program in polymeric composite materials. At Texas A&M, he served as director of the Polymer Technology Center for 10 years and as Department Head of Mechanical Engineering, a department of 67 professors that was ranked as high as 12th nationally during his tenure. Bradley has authored over 150 refereed research publications including book chapters, articles in archival journals such as the Journal of Material Science, Journal of Reinforced Plastics and Composites, Mechanics of Time-Dependent Materials, Journal of Composites Technology and Research, Composite Science and Technology, Journal of Metals, Polymer Engineering and Science, and Journal of Materials Science, and refereed conference proceedings.
Dr. Bradley has secured over $5.0 million in research funding from NSF grants (15 yrs.), AFOSR (10 years), NASA grants (10 years), and DOE (3 years). He has also received research grants or contracts from many Fortune 500 companies, including Alcoa, Dow Chemical, DuPont, 3M, Shell, Exxon, Boeing, and Phillips.
He co-authored The Mystery of Life Origin: Reassessing Current Theories and has written 10 book chapters dealing with various faith science issues, a topic on which he speaks widely.
He has received 5 research awards at Texas A&M University and 1 national research award. He has also received two teaching awards. He is an Elected Fellow of the American Society for Materials and the American Scientific Affiliation (ASA), the largest organization of Christians in Science and Technology in the world. He is President elect of the ASA and will serve his term in 2008.
some propositions are true culturally – just for certain groups in certain times (cultures)
some proposition are true trans-culturally – true independently of what anyone wants or feels
Mathematical truth is trans-cultural – it is true regardless of cultural fashions
Scientific truth is trans-cultural – it is true regardless of cultural fashions
Some truths are not like this – cooking traditions, clothing traditions and greeting traditions
These kinds of truths are NOT trans-cultural, they vary by culture
The question is – is religion true like math and science, or true depending on the culture
Some people think that your religion depends on where you were born or what your family believes
Religions make conflicting claims about the way the world really is, so they can’t all be true
And these conflicts are at the core of the religions – who God is, how can we be related to him, etc.
So if religions convey trans-cultural truth, then either one is true or none are true
If they are not trying to convey trans-cultural truth, then they are not like math and science
Let’s assume that religion is the same as trans-cultural truth
How can we know which religion is true? 1) the laws of logic, 2) empirical testing against reality
Logical consistency is needed to make the first cut – self-contradictory claims cannot be true
To be true trans-culturally, a proposition must at least NOT break the law of non-contradiction
According to Mortimer Adler’s book, only Christianity, Judaism and Islam are not self-contradictory
All the others can be excluded on the basis of overt internal contradictions on fundamental questions
The others that are self-contradictory can be true culturally, but not trans-culturally
The way to proceed forward is to test the three non-contradictory religions against science and history
One of these three may be true, or they could all be false
We can test the three by evaluating their conflicting truth claims about the historical Jesus
Famous skeptics have undertaken studies to undermine the historical Jesus presented in the Bible
Lew Wallace, Simon Greenleaf and Frank Morrison assessed the evidence as atheists and became Christians
There is a lot of opposition in culture to the idea that one religion might be true
But if you take the claims of Jesus at face value, he claims to be the unique revelation of God to mankind
Either he was telling the truth about that, or he was lying, or he was crazy
So which is it?
Why don’t religious people ask if their religion is true?
Truth claims are necessarily divisive. If God wants people to know him as he is, and I tell them a lie that they can invent their own view of him, then that is sinning against God. And the only reason I would lie about that is because I can’t be bothered studying these things and taking the heat for standing up for God’s real personality and goals for his creatures to his creatures. Nowhere in Bible does it say that our goal is to tell people that they can believe anything they want about God and he really doesn’t care since he just wants us to be nice to each other and be happy and have fun and believe whatever we want about him whether it’s true or not.
People who think that all religions are true are doing it for three reasons: 1) they don’t want to study and be bound to one view through study, 2) they want to use religion to be comforted, but to leave it when it makes demands, 3) they want other people to like them so they want to say that all views of God are true. But this pluralism is not a view that is consistent with the plain meaning of the Bible – the people who embrace the idea that all religions are true based on personal preferences or cultures reject the plain meaning of the gospel, which makes exclusive claims. It is NOT TRUE that you can believe whatever you want as long as you are sincere – sincerity doesn’t mean that you can’t be mistaken. Not wanting to know whether Christianity is true is really just another way of saying that you don’t think God’s existence and character matters that much to you. Is that a good relationship? Is that the right way to be God’s friend?
I think that God’s existence and character can be assessed and known based on logic and evidence. I think that God exists independently of whether I want him to or not, and I think that his character and desires are not the same as my character and desires. And I don’t really care what my neighbors think of my disagreeing with them, my goal is not to keep silent and to just get along with them and be happier in my community. God’s first commandment to us is not to love our neighbor – that’s number two. Number one is to love him. And how can we love him, if we don’t want to know him. And how can we love him, if we don’t tell people the truth about him, (when asked to, and within the context of a respectful relationship, as in 1 Pet 3:15).
13If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.
14And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.
15More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised.
16For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either.
17And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.
18Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost.
19If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.
That message is not going to win us a lot of friends, but our job as Christians is to tell how and why God stepped into history. Jesus expects us to be his ambassadors and to carry out the task of evangelism faithfully, and to suffer with him and to be rejected like he was rejected.
WINTERY KNIGHT 