Apologetics

There is nothing in science which teaches the origin of anything at all.--Lord Kelvin

Religious or existential truth in the highest sense, then, can be characterized as follows: it is personal and not impersonal; it is not something one has but what he is; it is not what one knows but what he lives.  Objective truth is something we grip but religious truth is something that grips us.  It is appropriated and not merely acknowledged.  It is discovered by commitment and not by any alleged correspondence to the world.  In a word, truth is subjectivity.--Norman Geisler in Christian Apologetics

All non-Christian world views are ultimately self-contradictory.  For example, skepticism refutes itself because it is internally self-contradictory. If skepticism is true, it is false.—Norman Geisler in Christian Apologetics

But if I know what is imperfect, I must have knowledge of the perfect; otherwise I would not know it is not-perfect.—Norman Geisler in Christian Apologetics

We propose that undeniability is the test for the truth of a world view and unaffirmability is the test for the falsity of a world view.—Norman Geisler in Christian Apologetics

Saint Augustine, St. Ambrose, the fathers of councils, had long taught the Christian world that error is not destroyed by the sword, and that the truths of the Gospel ought not to be preached to mankind amidst threats and violences.—Joseph Francois Michaud in The History of the Crusades Vol. II

There are only three types of people; those who have found God and serve him; those who have not found God and seek him, and those who live not seeking, or finding him. The first are rational and happy; the second unhappy and rational, and the third foolish and unhappy.—Blaise Pascal 

There are two purposes of Christian apologetics.  The first is defense.  The second is to communicate Christianity in a way that any given generation can understand.—Francis Schaeffer in The God Who Is There

God, we may say, is perfect.  This recognition that there is such a thing as perfection must then be an awareness granted by God within us.—Dr. William R. Parker & Elaine St. Johns in Prayer can Change Your Life

To say that God “need not have tried the experiment” is to say that because God knows, the thing known by God need not exist.—C.S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain

When man passes from physical fear to dread and awe, he makes a sheer jump, and apprehends something which could never be given, as danger is, by the physical facts and logical deductions from them.—C.S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain

I never noticed that the very strength and facility of the pessimists’ case at once poses us a problem.  If the universe is so bad, or even half so bad, how on earth did human beings ever come to attribute it to the activity of a wise and good Creator? . . . The direct inference from black to white, from evil flower to virtuous root, from senseless work to a workman infinitely wise, staggers belief.—C.S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain

I have long sought the Truth, but without finding it.  I have travelled far and near, but have never searched it out. In Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, I have found no rest.  But I do find rest in what we have heard tonight.  Henceforth, I am a believer in Jesus.—Dr. and Mrs. Howard Taylor in Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret

This is a form of argument well-known to logicians called the reductio ad absurdum, that is, showing that a premise is false by demonstrating that it implies an absurd conclusion.  It is a technique that Christians can use to great effect, and Jesus himself used this and many other types of logical arguments. Many statements by anti-Christians might appear reasonable on the surface, but when each of these statements is turned on itself, it refutes itself.  For example:

• “There is no truth”—this would mean that thissentence itself is not true.
• “We can never know anything for certain”—so how could we know that for certain?
• “A statement is only meaningful if it is either a necessary truth of logic or can be tested empirically” (the once-popular verification criterion for meaningof the “Logical positivists”)—this statement itself is neither  a necessary truth of logic nor can it be tested empirically, so it is meaningless by its own criteria.
• “There are no moral absolutes, so we ought to be tolerant of other people’s morals”—but “ought” implies a moral absolute that toleration is good.
• “Our thoughts are really the motions of atoms in the brain obeying the fixedlaws of chemistry in the brain”—yet atheists claim to have arrived a that position freely by thinking through the evidence!--Jonathan Sarfati in Refuting Compromise

We must never assume that things like the teacher’s reputation, the warmth of his personality, or majority opinion about him are perfectly safe barometers of whether his teaching is really dangerous or not.—John MacArthur in The Truth War

For the Christian, the only reliable revelation of God is the Bible.  If the believer is free to decide what parts of the Bible are true for him, then God becomes the creation of his own desires.  Left without the precious promises of God, for after all we cannot rely on them anymore than we can rely on the New Testament for leadership regarding His will for our lives, that individual eliminates any reason for believing anything except what he wants to believe.  Such a person is better off believing in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Fairy Godmother. –Walt Henrichsen
Unless the believer can indicate how the world would be different if there were no God at all, he cannot use conditions in the world as evidence that there is a God.—Norman Geisler in Christian Apologetics

            Every effect has a cause;
            The world is an effect;
            Therefore, the world has a cause.—Norman Geisler in Christian Apologetics

Basically there are three different philosophies of history within which historians operate.  There are the chaotic, the cyclical, and the linear views of history.  Which one of these the historian adopts will be a matter of faith or philosophy and not a matter of mere fact.—Norman Geisler in Christian Apologetics

First, we can know nothing about God; he is unknowable.  Second, we can know everything about God; he is completely and exhaustively knowable.  Third, we can know something about God but not everything; he is partially knowable. The first position we will call agnosticism; the second, dogmatism; and the last, realism.—Norman Geisler in Christian Apologetics

That is to say, unless the real world were intelligible no statement about it would apply.—Norman Geisler in Christian Apologetics

Language (thought) and reality cannot be mutually exclusive, for every attempt to completely separate them implies some interaction or commerce between them.—Norman Geisler in Christian Apologetics

. . . how can one know that God is inexpressible without thereby revealing something expressible about God?  The very attempt to deny all expressions about God is an expression about God.—Norman Geisler in Christian Apologetics

A total state of nonexistence of anything would be unfalsifiable, for example, since there would be no one and no way to falsify it.—Norman Geisler in Christian Apologetics

In point of fact, the very denial of causal necessity implies some kind of causal necessity in the denial.—Norman Geisler in Christian Apologetics

The corrective for error is found in four rules of valid thinking.  First, the rule of certainty states that only indubitably clear and distinct ideas should be accepted as true.  Second, the rule of division affirms that problems must be reduced first to their simplest parts.  Third, the rule of order declares that we must proceed in our reasoning from the simplest to the most complex.  Finally, the rule of enumeration demands that we check and recheck each step of the argument to make sure no mistake has been made.—Norman Geisler in Christian Apologetics discussing Rene Descartes’ work in Discourse on Method

There are several innate principles in the human mind that are not derived from the senses.  First, the principle of sufficient reason says that nothing is without a reason; that is, everything has a reason or cause.—Norman Geisler in Christian Apologetics

But since the world has not the sufficient reason for itself in itself in that it changes, there must be beyond the world a sufficient reason or cause for its existence.  Further, there cannot be an infinite regress of sufficient reasons, for the failure to reach an explanation is not an explanation.—Norman Geisler in Christian Apologetics

Logic does not determine existence; rather, it is reality that governs the nature of thought.—Norman Geisler in Christian Apologetics

One cannot legitimately argue that the law of noncontradiction is valid because it is contradictory to deny it.—Norman Geisler in Christian Apologetics

The components of a belief, then, are three: first, it is something of which we are aware.  Second, it satisfies the irritation caused by doubt.  And finally, it involves the establishment in our nature of a rule of action or a habit.—Norman Geisler in Christian Apologetics

If the model gives the fact its meaning and truth values, then the fact cannot in turn be used to give the model its meaning and truth.—Norman Geisler in Christian Apologetics

Any statement which negates the only basis on which it can make its affirmation (or denial) is indirectly self-defeating.—Norman Geisler in Christian Apologetics

Apologetics is not just giving answers to question—it is questioning people’s answers, and even questioning their questions.—Ravi Zacharias in Walking From East To West

The law of noncontradiction as such is only a test for falsity, not a test for truth. That is, a view is wrong if it is contradictory to itself, but it is not automatically true if it is noncontradictory or consistent with itself.—Norman Geisler in Christian Apologetics

Truth cannot be denied unless some truth is being affirmed.—Norman Geisler in Christian Apologetics

Acts of God presuppose a God who can act.  And to presuppose a God who can act in order to prove by one of his acts that he exists is viciously circular reasoning.—Norman Geisler in Christian Apologetics

Pragmatism rightly stresses that contemplation is not always sufficient; action is sometimes necessary.—Norman Geisler in Christian Apologetics

Over twenty-five thousand finds have confirmed the picture of the Biblical world presented in Scripture.—Norman Geisler in Christian Apologetics

The very assertion that God is unknowable in an intellectual way is either meaningless or self-defeating.  If that assertion is one that cannot itself be understood in an intellectual way, then it is a meaningless assertion.  On the other hand, if the assertion “God is unknowable in an intellectual way” is really understandable in an intellectual way, then it is self-defeating.—Norman Geisler in Christian Apologetics

One of the premises in the alleged ontological disproof of God is that “no statements about existence are necessary.”  If this is true then it would apply also to that very statement itself.—Norman Geisler in Christian Apologetics

Omnipotence does not mean the ability to do what is impossible; it entails only the ability to do what is actually possible.—Norman Geisler in Christian Apologetics

But one does not have to do something in order to be something.  One must exist in order to perform, but he need not perform in order to exist.—Norman Geisler in Christian Apologetics

. . . the odds against a chance explanation of the universe are very great.  Even nonbelievers like Julian Huxley have calculated the odds against a purely chance evolution of life at 1 to 1,000 to the millionth  (i.e., one followed by 3 million zeros).—Norman Geisler in Christian Apologetics

No contingent being can cause another being to exist.  What does not account for its own existence could not possibly ground the existence of another.—Norman Geisler in Christian Apologetics

The denial of Christ has less to do with facts and more to do with the bent of what a person is prejudiced to conclude.—Ravi Zacharias in Jesus Among Other Gods

Unsuspecting people make a fatal mistake when they give their allegiance to a system of thought by focusing on its benefits while they ignore its systemic contradictions.—Ravi Zacharias in Jesus Among Other Gods

. . . who has to have more faith. Is it the Christian who uses his mind to trust in God, or is it the one who, without any attempt to explain how his mind came to be, nevertheless uses that mind to demand a sign and disbelieves in God?—Ravi Zacharias in Jesus Among Other Gods

How does a universe, which itself developed from nothing, impart into every human strand of DNA enough specific information to cover six hundred thousand pages of information from nothing?  Intelligence is intrinsic to our makeup.—Ravi Zacharias in Jesus Among Other Gods

The attempt to deny God because of the presence of evil is so fraught with the illogical that one marvels at its acceptance.  Not one proponent of evolutionary ethics has explained how an impersonal, amoral first cause through a nonmoral process has produced a moral basis of life, while at the same time denying any objective more basis for good and evil.—Ravi Zacharias in Jesus Among Other Gods

Objective moral values exist only if God exists.—Ravi Zacharias in Jesus Among Other Gods

The denial of an objective moral law, based on the compulsion to deny the existence of God, results ultimately in the denial of evil itself.—Ravi Zacharias in Jesus Among Other Gods

Can one resist asking, How does a world-view that considers everything to be impermanent even explain the origin of impermanence and the seduction of the mind to see these as permanent?—Ravi Zacharias in Jesus Among Other Gods

Philosopher William Lane Craig reminds us that an infinite regress of causes is like trying to jump out of a bottomless pit.  How do you start if you never reach the bottom?  On the other hand, one might well ask, if every birth is a rebirth, what kamma was paid for in his first birth?—Ravi Zacharias in Jesus Among Other Gods
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The surest evidence that evil is not the enemy of meaning is this inescapable existential reality: that meaninglessness does not come from being weary of pain but from being weary of pleasure.—Ravi Zacharias in Jesus Among Other Gods