It seems that the first thing we should know is how to combat post-modernism with the Three Fundamental Laws of Logic. The most significant of the three laws in combatting post-modernism is the Law of non-contradiction. The idea is that any truth statement or claim is made, such as, “Jesus rose from the dead,” or “Jennifer is pregnant” or “it is morally correct to transition genders if one feels it is necessary,” then the fact of the matter is that not one of these truth claims can be both true and false at the same time and in the same sense.
To use the third fundamental law of logic, called the Law of the excluded middle, which would be to say that all of these truth claims are either true or false. Either “Jesus rose from the dead,” or He did not, either “Jennifer is pregnant,” or she is not, and “it is morally correct to transition genders if one feels it is necessary,” or it is not. These examples show us that the law of excluded middle is not a false dilemma. There are no other alternatives.
I predict that the following system of thought after post-modernity is simply going to be apathy and complacency. If there is no truth, according to a post-modernist, then why should we care about anything at all? Post-modernists believe that everyone has their own truth, and if this is the case, then this means that nothing is true. Simply stated, if everything is true, then nothing is true.
The above subject material is more deeply discussed in the links within the text above. This article seeks to continue the discussion on post-modernists following the combatting of the post-modern mind with the three fundamental laws of logic (above). So, where do we go after the discussion of post-modernism?
Now, if a person who holds to post-modernism for instance, says that that he doesn’t believe that transitioning genders is not immoral no matter what these laws teach, that he just does not care what the laws state, then where do we go in our conversation? Similarly, when we are witnessing to people about Jesus and they tell us that they don’t care if they are in need of salvation, then how do we navigate this?
We come to the three barriers to belief in God and ultimately, the gospel: Emotional, Intellectual, and Volitional.
Emotional Barrier
The emotional barrier is often the first line of defense against seeing the truth of Christianity. It rears its ugly head when the person you are speaking with thinks that God could not possibly exist because of all the evil in the world. It often becomes very personal with him. He might say, “If God exists, then why did my parent/child/spouse/friend die?”
The problem is that this kind of thinking is logically fallacious. Just because we don’t like the fact that something is true, doesn’t mean that it is not true. Just because there is evil in the world does not mean that God does not exist. This is not a false dilemma, that either God exists or evil exists. If God created people with their own free will, then the possibility of evil must exist, otherwise people would not be truly free.
Another way a person might have an emotional barrier up is that they are mad at God for something that He allowed to happen to him, so they do not want to acknowledge His existence. In either case, if someone is mad at God or if they don’t believe in Him because evil happened, does not mean that God does not exist, and the gospel isn’t true.
So, the idea is that we want to show our friends and family the existence of the emotional barrier in their lives, because recognizing it with them may help them to see that they really do not have any ground to stand on based on having such a barrier to the gospel.
Intellectual Barrier
The intellectual barrier is the belief that God cannot exist, or that for instance, the universe has existed forever. This barrier is the atheists’ claim to fame. He believes that God cannot possibly exist, and if you do find an atheist that believe that He possibly exists, for him it will obviously be more unlikely than not. But again, the same idea is used for this barrier as the last. We show a person with an intellectual barrier that they do not have anything to stand on, because some of the arguments for the existence of God are irrefutable. For instance, William Lane Craig champions the Kalam Cosmological Argument, which looks like this:
1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause for its existence.
2. The Universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the Universe had a cause (and that cause is what we call “God”).
If a person were to argue against either of these premises (1. or 2.) it seems he would have a lot of work to do for no gained headway. If someone were to say that not everything that begins to exist has a cause for its existence, you might simply ask them to prove it. Perhaps they might bring up quantum physics, but the thing we find quantum physics in already exists (i. e. in the universe), so that does not work. Fluctuations are not nothing, which are the causes of some quantum events coming into existence. Therefore, there is something that causes the existence of quantum events, even at the quantum level. Just because quantum physics are different than what we see does not mean that these quantum events are caused by nothing.[1]
In any event, everything we have witnessed with our eyeballs coming into existence has had a cause, and to believe otherwise is like believing in cheap magic tricks. So, again, ask them to produce something that does not have a cause for its existence. They will not be able to do such.
Second, people will attack the idea that the universe had a beginning (2.). But this is what the standard model maintains. Other cosmological models of the universe will be used in defense of the universe existing for an infinite regress, but all of these models fail in some way or another. This is why the standard model, or the big-bang model is generally accepted by most scholars, which is why it is called the standard model. The reason that many are so confident in big bang cosmology is because we have strong evidence for it. The red shift is essentially the doppler effect in the light spectrum, and we see the red shift at the distant parts of the universe as viewed through high power telescopes. This red shift simply means that light is traveling away from our point of view, which tells cosmologists that the universe is expanding. The idea behind this is that if we were to go back in time, the universe would shrink to a point of nonexistence. Thus, at the beginning, we have the actual big-bang.[2]
If these two premises are true, then the conclusion is true. Now this does not necessarily lead to the Christian God, but it definitely leads to the God of all that exists, and we can help someone believe that Jesus is this God through what we will discuss below.
Volitional Barrier
The volitional barrier to the belief in God and the gospel of Jesus concerns the barrier of the will. In other words, a person sometimes simply does not want God to exist because he or she will have to answer to Him. If God existed, it would only create problems for him in his mind. If the existence of God were true, then that means that he would have to answer to someone else for his actions and all those women he took advantage of, or all the money he stole, or all those times he took the name of God in vain. This is why people do not want Jesus to be the truth. They want to be their own gods. They want to be condoned in any action they choose or feel good doing, but yet again, just because we want something to be true, does not mean that it is or will be. We can want something so deeply to be true, but it does not mean that it is. I can believe with all my heart that it is going to snow, that I will win the lottery, or that I will become a famous artist, or whatever, but that does not make my belief true. Similarly, we can show that if we have broken down these earlier barriers and come to the volitional barrier, we can show them that they ultimately do not want to believe the gospel because they do not want it to be true.
The way to lead someone out of the volitional barrier is perhaps strictly a spiritual battle, but showing them that they do not have emotional or intellectual barriers to stand on may help them see and understand that it is only a desire that they do not want there to be a God, and not anything that necessarily points to the truth.
The question we ask someone at this point is, if we could “absolutely prove that Christianity is true, would you become a Christian?” Similarly, if we could ask that if we could “absolutely prove that it was immoral that transitioning gender is true, would you still transition?” If the answer to the first is no, and the second is yes, then we have come to know the person’s heart on the matter. We have come to see the volitional barrier square in the face.
Final Steps
If we succeed in our discussion with the three barriers, then we move to show that the gospel is true, and to start this, we show people that the Bible is true and is the word of God. The children’s game of telephone as an argument against the integrity of the Bible does not hold, because historically speaking, it would be impossible, as we see in this link.
From here, we show that because what the Bible says is true, then what it says about Jesus must be true. In John 1:1-3, the Bible says, “In the beginning was the word (Jesus) and the word (Jesus) was with God and the word (Jesus) was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that has been made.”
What this says is that Jesus made everything. Jesus is the creator of the universe. “Through Him all things were made and without Him, nothing was made that has been made.” This means that if Jesus was ever a created being, then He created Himself, which is an absurd notion. No, Jesus was not created because He is the creator.
This is what we can tell people we have scaled the three barriers to the gospel, that Jesus is God, that He loves them so much that He died in their place, and that means that they will not come under the wrath of God, but also that this means that they will have eternal life. Not only does a Christian not come under the wrath of God, but he or she lives for eternity!
The Roman Road is simple, but solid. This is something that you can easily share with people in order to lead them to Christ. I like to use 4 verses, because they are easier to remember, and it seems to take out further complicated thoughts. Romans 3:23 says that we all fall short of the glory of God. This means that we do not meet the standard that God is. He is the standard of goodness, and we fail to meet Him as the standard in our goodness. The proof for this comes from an honest analysis of the Ten Commandments, but all you need to look at is one of them. Think about the Seventh Commandment for example, that “You shall not commit adultery.” Jesus clarifies this commandment in the sermon on the mount in Matthew chapter 5. He says that “if you have looked on a woman with lust in your heart, you have already committed adultery with her.” I think that not only does this show how disastrously far we are from the standard of goodness that is God, but I think that through it, Jesus is saying, “See how desperately you need me.” We fall short of God’s glory.
Second, in the Roman Road, we turn to Romans 6:23, which says “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.” This is to say that the cost of our sin (our moral failures against God), is the reason why we die. The death rate is 1/1. Ten out of ten people, die. The reason why we die is because we have sinned. But this is not the end of the verse. Paul says, “but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.” In other words, death is a temporary setback to our existence. We will live for eternity.
Third, in Romans 5:8, we read that “God demonstrates His own love for us in this: that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” So, in the middle of the act of our sin, He did the biggest act of love that anyone could ever possibly do: He died for us. He took our place on the cross. This shows us that God loves us.
Similarly, John 3:16 says that “God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” God loves you so much that He Himself became a man in the body of Jesus Christ and came to earth to die for our sins.[3] This is essential for a person to understand that God loves Him or her. It is essential because he or she can have a personal relationship with Him, which is what He wants. He communicated to us in human language, the words of the Bible. The historical events that actually took place in the Bible are written down so that all may learn about Him and know Him.
God loves us unconditionally, but there are conditions to salvation. The condition is found in our final verse in the Roman Road: Romans 10:9. It reads, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, then you will be saved.” Confess with your physical mouth that Jesus is Lord, because professing your faith and sharing your faith is important to faith.
Believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, because Christianity is based on a historical fact.[4] Then you will be saved. This verse, Romans 10:9, is a Modus Ponens syllogism. What that means is that it is essentially an if, then argument. IF you confess and believe, THEN you will be saved. This is the condition for salvation, which is not much of condition at all. “It is by grace we are saved through faith, and this is not from ourselves, but it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one may boast.”[5] We cannot earn a gift, any more than we can earn forgiveness.
Remember that when you are trying to share the gospel that the gift of salvation if for everyone to receive, but only some will take the free gift. Don’t beat yourself up about what you could have, should have, or would have said, because ultimately it is not you who works on the heart of a person, but this is the work of the Spirit (see John 16:8) In any event, there is no question that He will use you to bring someone into the Kingdom of God (see Romans 10:14-15).
Comments
Post a Comment