More Alleged Sour Notes Among

Christian Beliefs

The Alleged Sour Note of Science Against Creation

The biggest scientific obstacle for most unbelievers is that the Bible teaches that God created the universe and life. Yet modern science assumes that it all happened by natural forces through evolutionary processes. Some have attempted to overcome this by claiming God created the universe, and then everything else evolved naturally. However, there are two problems with this. First, atheists will not even grant that God created the universe. Second, theistic evolution does not fit with the Genesis account of God directly creating every living thing after its own kind (Genesis 1:21), nor of the direct creation of Adam from dust and woman from Adam’s rib.

However, this alleged sour note is not as sour as it seems. Many top scientists argue that the universe and life could not have arisen by purely natural causes. These include Albert Einstein, Sir Fred Hoyle, James Collins, and numerous others. Indeed, a major astrophysicist, Robert Jastrow, declared,

Now we see how the astronomical evidence leads to a biblical view of the origin of the world. The details differ, but the essential elements in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis are the same: the chain of events leading to man commence suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy…The scientist’s pursuit of the past ends in the moment of creation…This is an exceedingly strange development, unexpected by all but theologians. They have always accepted the word of the Bible: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”¹

While naturalistic scientists wish there to be a natural cause for everything, Jastrow affirms: “That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact.”⁷

The Sour Note About a First Cause

Another note that seems sour to many unbelievers is the idea of God as a First, uncaused Cause. It is argued that if every cause needs a cause, then so does God. However, this is based on a false premise. There is no law that says “Every cause needs a cause.” The law of causality states only that “Every effect needs a cause.” Only effects (or things reducible to effects) need causes.

Put another way, everything that has a beginning needs a Beginner. But every Beginner does not need a Beginner. For example, every sculpture (effect) needs a sculptor (cause), yet every sculptor (cause) does not need another sculptor (cause).

Even atheists once claimed (and some still do) that the universe had no cause because it is eternal. Well, if the universe can be uncaused because it is eternal (which it is not according to big bang cosmology), then why can’t God be the uncaused first cause. Whatever is eternal has no Beginning Cause, and whatever is not eternal needs a Beginning Cause. However, since the evidence for the big bang argues that the universe is not eternal, then it follows that the universe is caused, but the Cause of the universe is not caused since it had no beginning. There are even some atheists who will go so far as to say, “The universe is self-caused.”  That this is a clear fallacy can be shown in a simple way.  In order for the universe to be its own cause of existence, it would have had to exist before it existed.  Any person with a basic knowledge of logic can see the problems with this kind of thinking.

The Alleged Sour Note of Biblical Contradictions

Space does not permit examination of all the alleged contradictions in the Bible. The Big Book of Bible Difficulties: Clear and Concise Answers from Genesis to Revelation (Norman L. Geisler and Thomas Howe) lists some 800 alleged contradictions, none of which turn out to be real ones. The book gives reasons why the Bible cannot err (because it is God’s Word and God can’t err) and also the most common mistakes critics make in assuming the Bible errs. Augustine’s dictum applies well to this situation: “If we are perplexed by any apparent contradiction in Scripture, it is not allowable to say, The author of this book is mistaken; but either [1] the manuscript is faulty, or [2] the translation is wrong, or [3] you have not understood” (Augustine, Reply to Faustus 11.5).

The truth is that the critics have made the errors, not the Bible. A few examples will suffice:

Cain married when there were no women to marry.God created Adam and Eve, and they had two sons, Cain and Abel. After Cain killed Abel (Genesis 4:8), he found a wife and married her (4:17). Critics question where Cain’s wife came from, with the implication that the biblical account of the creation of the human race must be wrong. But we are not told how much time elapsed between the murder of Abel and Cain’s finding a wife. Adam had other “sons and daughters” over a period of 800 years (5:3-5), so there were more than enough girls available for Cain to marry.

Life can’t exist without light. But the Bible speaks of life on the third day (Genesis 1:13), and the sun was not made until the fourth day (1:14-15), which, according to science, was millions of years later. However, since it is possible that most scientists may be wrong about the long age of the earth, the critic errs because Genesis affirms that there was light on the first day (1:3). It was only later that the sun became distinctly visible in the sky (perhaps as the vapor evaporated).

The inscription on Jesus’ cross reads four different ways in the four Gospels. The critics claim that all four accounts can’t be true. However, the critics wrongly assume that a partial report is a false report. But this is not necessarily so. Each Gospel gives part of the inscription—the crucial part—namely, the one who claimed to be “the king of the Jews” was being crucified. No Gospel said it was anyone else but Jesus, and all the Gospels said He claimed to be “the king of the Jews.”

Matthew 28:5 says there was one angel at the tomb,but John (20:12) says there were two angels there. Again, this is not a contradiction, because wherever there are two, there is always one. It never fails! Matthew did not say only one angel was there. The critic has to add a word to make it contradictory.

Matthew 27:5 says Judas “hanged himself,” yet Acts 1:18 declares “he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out.” The following likely scenario easily resolves this difficulty: Sometime after Judas hanged himself, his body was discovered and the rope was cut (since it was contrary to the law to touch a dead body). The body fell on rocks and it burst open.

Joshua 10:12 says “the sun stood still,” but modern science informs us that the sun does not move around the earth. Joshua also speaks of the sun rising (1:15), but this is not thought to be contradictory. Even contemporary meteorologists speak of “sunrise” and “sunset.” No scientist says, “Honey, look at the beautiful earth rotation!” The truth is that the Bible, like modern scientists, speaks in everyday observational language. And from an observer’s point of view, the sun rises and moves across the sky and sets.

First Kings 11:1 approves of polygamy, yet elsewhere the Bible supports monogamy (1 Corinthians 7:2; 1 Timothy 3:2). But here the critic errs by assuming that the Bible approves of everything it records. The Bible records Satan’s lie (Genesis 3:4; cf. John 8:44) but does not approve of lying (Exodus 20:16). Likewise, it records David’s adultery (2 Samuel 11), but does not approve of it (Exodus 20:14).

First Kings 4:26 says Solomon had 40,000 stalls for his chariot horses. Yet 2 Chronicles 9:25 says there were only 4,000. But there is no evidence that the number 40,000 was in the original text that God inspired (2 Timothy 3:16). This kind of copyist error (adding an extra zero) is easy to make. But they are rare and affect no doctrine of Scripture. Certainly no critic would refuse to pick up his money if he heard from the lottery: “Y#U HAVE WON TEN MILLION DOLLARS.” In spite of the minor error, 100 percent of the message comes through.

In brief, no one has ever demonstrated an irreconcilable error in the inspired text of Scripture. The errors are in the critics of the Bible, not in the Bible itself.

The Alleged Sour Note of Ethical Contradictions

Most atheists argue that the God of the Bible cannot be all-powerful and all-perfect and yet permit the evil that is in this world. Their argument can be put in logical form like this:

If God is all-powerful, He could defeat evil.

If He is all-good, He would defeat evil.

But evil is not defeated.

Therefore, there is no such God.

The problem with this argument is obvious. Premise 3 is incomplete. It should read: Evil is not yet defeated. But given this revised premise, the conclusion in Premise 4 does not follow. Simply because He has not yet defeated evil doesn’t mean He never will.

Indeed, the argument from evil does not disprove God. Rather, it proves God. For as former atheist C.S. Lewis put it, we cannot claim there is no God because there is evil and injustice in the world. For we cannot know that something is unjust unless we know what is just. And if we know there is a moral law of justice, then there must be a Moral Lawgiver (God). So, rather than disprove God, the presence of evil proves God.

The Alleged Sour Note Within Certain Christian Beliefs

The Doctrine of the Trinity. That there are three distinct persons in one and only one being (essence) seems flatly contradictory to many unbelievers. Muslims believe it is a form of polytheism—with three gods. But this is not what orthodox Christians believe. For they affirm that there is only one God, but there is a plurality of persons within this one Deity.

Others believe it is a violation of the law of noncontradiction. How can God be three and only one at the same time? The answer is that He can because He is one and three in a different sense. He is one in His nature but three in His persons.

Many Muslims believe the eternal Qur’an is one with God and yet distinct from Him. Likewise, one’s mind, ideas, and words expressing them are one, and yet they are distinct. God is love, and love involves a lover, a loved one, and a spirit of love between them; even so, God is three in one. Or to change the analogy, God is three whos in one what. There is a Father who, a Son who, and a Holy Spirit who, but only one divine nature (what).

Believing that God is three persons in one nature is certainly a mystery, though it is not a real contradiction. It would be a contradiction if we were to confess that God is three natures in one nature or three essences in one essence. So while God is one and many at the same time, He is not one and many in the same sense. He is one in the sense of His essence but many in the sense of His persons. (See Norman L. Geisler, Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999], 732, for further clarification of the doctrine of the Trinity.)