Chapter 1: A Ready Defense
Chapter 2: Moral Absolutes
Chapter 3: Is The Bible the Bible?
Chapter 4: The Canon of Scripture: How the Bible Came to be the Bible
Chapter 5: Tests of False Prophets or False Writings
Chapter 6: The Christian Orthodoxy
Chapter 7: Other World Religions
Chapter 8: Other Major Belief Systems
Chapter 9: Hermeneutics
Chapter 10: Cults
Chapter 11: The Occult

Home

Jesus was a historical person. The Bible is true. The theme of the Bible is Jesus. The Bible is logical and it makes sense.

These four sentences may seem very basic, but to understand them thoroughly can make us much more effective witnesses for Jesus. If we cannot understand what I call "the logic of the cross", then it becomes very difficult for us to show someone else how it makes sense. In I Peter 3:15 we read:

The Greek word for defense in this verse is apologia which means "a verbal defense of what one has done or of truth which one believes". From this word we get the English word apologetics.

The word apologetics does not mean to be sorry for something as it might seem to, but instead means "a ready defense of" as described in the verse from 1 Peter above.

The first thing which Christians should be able to explain through apologetics is the answer to the question: What does Jesus' death on a cross two thousand years ago have to do with me?

To understand the meaning of Jesus death on the cross and thus, salvation, we must understand the context within which it occurred. Throughout this booklet, we will reference scripture in the old and new testaments. This is done to show the unity of thought in scripture, even though it was written by many different people over hundreds of years on several continents in different languages.

In Leviticus 17:11, God states

Not only is this a scientifically accurate description of the necessity of blood in the body, but it also clearly states that the shedding of blood is necessary for atonement for the soul. Atonement in this sense means to "cover over". For example in Leviticus 4:13-21, when the congregation of Israel unintentionally sinned, the elders were to lay their hands on the head of the bull before the Lord, then the bull was to be killed.

The laying on of hands in this sense symbolized the transference of sin from the people, through the priests to the bull. The bull then died on behalf of the people's sins and served as a temporary atonement for their sins before God. In Hebrews 9:22 we see

So we see from the Jewish tradition into which Jesus was born, that the shedding of blood was normally required for the remission or covering of sin. There are also over 60 mentions of sacrifices to God which include the restriction that the animal sacrificed must be without blemish. That is, there was no acceptable sacrifice to God that was made from anything less than the best of the flock. We see another example of acceptable sacrifices to God in 2 Samuel 24:24 where David states:

So from these scriptures we see that a sacrifice had to be the best of the flock, without blemish, and should truly be a sacrifice to the person giving it. In fact this at least partly explains Jesus' righteous indignation at the temple when moneychangers were selling doves and goats for sacrifices in Matthew 21:12-13. Not only were the moneychangers making the temple a "den of thieves", but the people of Israel were also offering sacrifices which were not very acceptable according to the precepts mentioned above.

This brings us to Jesus' redeeming act upon the cross. God had already set in place a covenant in which there was no remission of sins without the shedding of blood. We must also know that God does not change his mind. He is holy and He is righteous. Since the sacrifices before Jesus came only covered the sins of the people for one year, a new covenant was needed. Since God is righteous and unchanging, this new covenant would still have to satisfy the rules He had already established. In order for God's rules to be followed under Jesus' new covenant, a perfect sacrifice would have to be offered, one which could cover the sins of God's people once, for all time. The only perfect sacrifice for so great of a sin covering could then only be a sacrifice of God Himself, offered by a blameless priest. The author of Hebrews states this best:

Thus we see that Jesus was not only the perfect sacrifice, but served as our eternal high priest as well.

To summarize the logic of the cross, we have the following: 1. God created rules for the atonement of sin. In these rules, the shedding of blood was required. However, the shedding of blood had to be from a blameless animal without a blemish. 2. This shedding of blood only atoned for the sins of the people for one year, however. 3. What was needed was a perfect sacrifice from a perfect priest. 4. This was accomplished by Jesus' voluntary crucifixion on the cross. 5. Since He was without sin, He was blameless. More importantly, since He was God Himself, only He was qualified to be a perfect, sinless sacrifice.

Jesus' life, death, and resurrection are matters of historical fact. The only dispute to the situation set above would be if Jesus were not actually God in the flesh of a man.

So, we will next examine the claims that Jesus was indeed God in the flesh. After we have established this foundation of the Christian faith, we can then examine the authenticity and historicity of the Bible.

One of the most common responses I get when I speak of Jesus is "Well, you know, Jesus never actually said He was God". This belief is very widespread especially among academics. These people usually believe that Jesus was a very good man who was a prophet like any other prophets of ancient times. We should not let such statements go unchallenged, because Jesus spoke clearly on this matter. In John 8:58-59 we see:

By these statements the Jews clearly thought they had heard blasphemy, and so were going to stone Jesus. The Jews knew that only God was eternal, so it seems they understood very clearly what Jesus was saying. Jesus had to speak even more clearly to his disciples:

To say "He who has seen me has seen the father" seems a clear statement that Jesus is God.

He said it even more clearly to the Jews in the temple at the Feast of Dedication:

Again, the Jews clearly understood that Jesus was saying He was God. In fact it was for this reason that they crucified Him.

We should also note that the phrases "you rightly say that I am" and "it is as you say" in the Jewish culture were very clear ways of saying "yes". An analogy would be in the United States when someone asks us a question to which our answer is "yes" we might instead say "you bet". This is also a clear way of saying yes in our culture, and does not soften its meaning.

So we see clearly that Jesus said that He was God, and that people of the day also clearly understood that He said He was. However, simply because someone says that he is God does not make it true. As stated earlier, many people simply believe that Jesus was a good teacher, but not the only begotten Son of God. This He cannot be. There are only three possibilities regarding the deity of Jesus and "simply a good teacher" is not among them.

There are only three logical possibilities relevant to Jesus' claim to be God. First, He could be telling the truth. In which case, everything He said was true; that the only way to the Father is through Jesus, the Christ, the only begotten of the Father.

The second possibility is that Jesus was a liar. That is, that He knew that He was not the Son of God, but told everyone that He was.

The third possibility is that Jesus thought He was the Son of God, but He really wasn't. We should examine the evidence of all three possibilities. We will first look at the possibility that He was lying.

As with any historical claim, we should evaluate the truth of a claim based on the evidence available. We will first examine the possibility that Jesus was lying about being the Son of God. If this were so, then He was also a hypocrite because He told other men not to lie. He would also have been quite evil to have "deceived" so many. He told men to trust in him for their eternal destiny. If He knew that He was just a man, then this would be an act of evil to pull people away from the true God. He would also have been quite foolish, because it was His claim to be God which led to his very painful death on the cross. Up until the very end, He was given the chance to say that He was not God. But instead He answered before the high priest who asked Him:

We also see from Jesus' life, that what He did and said was quite consistent. That is, to live a sinless life, raise the dead, heal the sick, and give the blind sight are not acts consistent with a man who was living a lie. In fact, there are very few in history who believed that Jesus was actually lying. They may instead to believe that He was "mistaken". This then takes us to our second possibility, that He was not telling the truth, but did not know He was not telling the truth.

This possibility has less viability than the first. Even the harshest opponents of Christianity have pointed out that Jesus led a more virtuous life than any man in history. On all matters He spoke with calm wisdom and supernatural insight. He lived a life totally consistent with everything He said, a claim no other man could make.

In short, there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever to support Possibility 1 or Possibility 2. The only possibility left is that Jesus was telling the truth. That He is who He said He is; God incarnate.

By simply using the rules of the scientific method, and excluding all other possibilities of which there can only be the ones above, we can say that the only explanation is that Jesus is God. He cannot simply be a moral teacher; either He was a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord.

Even though we have just seen that by using logic we can show that Jesus is Lord, there is other evidence to support this claim as well. Much of this evidence comes from the Bible where we see that Jesus fulfilled prophesy of old testament prophets written hundreds of years before He was born.

Before we can examine this further evidence of the truth of Jesus' deity, we must first make a more basic argument that there is such a thing as truth.

To someone who has not followed scientific and philosophical thought of the last fifty years, the need to prove that there is such a thing as truth might seem unnecessary. "Of course there is such a thing as truth, and right and wrong, one might say".

However, modern academicians and philosophers are almost universal in agreeing that there are no such things as moral absolutes; further, there is no such a thing as absolute truth. Most will further go on to argue that there is no such thing as absolute anything. That is, they say that there is no statement which is true under

all circumstances, under all cultural conditions, at all times.

Many critical thinkers who read this will immediately see that such a statement is an absolute statement in itself! Thus, those who hold to this belief would have to agree that the statement "there are no absolutes" is an absolute statement and is therefore not true in all circumstances!

Webster's New World Dictionary defines truth as "the quality of being in agreement with reality or facts". Absolute truth can be defined as something which is true, regardless of the time in which something occurred, and the culture of the people involved. We could also say that absolute truth is objective, universal, and constant. That is, it does not change.

In the last fifty years or so, society and scientists have moved far away from the notion of absolute truth. They instead hold that something that is true for one person may not be true for another person.

Such people may use the following situation to supposedly "prove" their point: Let's say you were a Christian family living in Nazi Germany in the early 1940's. You have friends who are Jewish, and are being hunted down by the Gestapo to be murdered for being Jewish. They come to your home to hide. The Nazis knock on the front door and ask if there are any Jews hiding in the home. What do you say? You know that the Bible says that lying is wrong, but to tell the truth will result in your friends being executed, and probably you as well.

So, the believers of "no absolutes" would say that lying is not an "absolute wrong" because there are times when you would choose to lie to prevent a "greater wrong". This is actually quite an elegant argument, but it has no hope of disproving the existence of absolute truth. Even if you do tell a lie, lying is still wrong.

A counter to such an argument may go as follows: Ask a person who does not believe in moral absolutes if what the Nazis did to Jews and others during the holocaust was wrong. Since people who do not believe in moral absolutes think that no one should ever say that something is wrong, they may have trouble answering this question. This is because they feel that anyone who says that something is wrong, is simply being bigoted, narrow minded and intolerant of others.

People who are honest with their position would have to say that it would not be tolerant of us to say that actions taken by another culture, including Nazi Germany, were morally wrong. Therefore, with their belief system, they are faced with saying that the murder of six million innocent men, women and children cannot be called wrong.

Using basic rules of logic, we can disprove the statement "there is no such thing as a moral absolute" by coming up with even one single instance of when an act could be considered morally wrong, by all cultures, in all times.

I would propose that a person who sneaks into a hospital and murders all the newborn babies in the nursery is committing a morally wrong act. If so, then I have shown that there indeed exists an absolute moral standard.

At this point, many people who are reading this may be wondering why I am going to such lengths to explain that there is such a thing as absolute truths, and moral absolutes. You may say that in the Christian church, pretty much everyone will agree that there are moral absolutes. Unfortunately this is most certainly not the case.

In 1994, Christian author and speaker Josh McDowell commissioned a survey of over 3,700 high school students who attended youth group meetings from thirteen evangelical denominations. Their responses to many questions in the survey are quite shocking, at least to me. For example, only 32% surveyed defined a family as "all of the people related to each other by birth, adoption, or marriage. Instead, 59% said that a family was "any person or group whom you love or care about deeply, or who love or care about you deeply". With this second definition of family, you may be able to predict how they will respond to questions of morality of extra marital relationships.

However, some of the most incredible statistics from this survey come from the youths views of absolute truth, and moral absolutes. We should again emphasize that these were church-going teenagers attending an evangelical church. Students indicated whether they agreed, disagreed, or were not sure of a list of questions. One such question was:

48% agreed, 29% disagreed, and 23% were not sure. That is, only 29% were sure that there is such a thing as an absolute truth. 71% were either unsure, or believed that absolute truth does not exist.

The confusion of church-going youth may also be seen, when the question of absolute truth was asked directly:

29% agreed, 43% disagreed, and 28% were not sure. Although 43% disagreed, their responses to other questions about absolute truth did not bear out that they truly believed in it. That is, they may have said that absolute truth exists when answering the last question, but also thought that what is wrong for one person may not be wrong for another. Thus, their belief did not translate to all other questions.

An analysis of the results of the questions about absolute truth shows that only 9% of 3,795 church-going teenagers consistently answered questions showing that they believed in an absolute truth.

Part of the reason why the youth responded to this survey the way they did, is the pervasive view in society of moral relativism. Moral relativism stands in direct contrast to the existence of moral absolutes. In moral relativism, each person decides for himself or herself what is right and wrong. This view further holds that anyone who believes that an action of another is wrong is practicing bigotry and is intolerant.

Examples of this viewpoint are most commonly seen with the controversial issues of homosexuality and abortion. Moral relativists accuse Christians of being bigoted because the Bible teaches clearly that homosexuality is a sin. However, when Christians point this out, they are accused of being bigoted. Moral relativists usually compare Christian opinion towards homosexuality as identical to racial hatred. This shows a lack of understanding about the Bible because the Bible of course, does not say that being of a specific race is wrong. Therefore this comparison is not valid.

In the same way, when Christians oppose abortion they are seen as being full of hatred for women. They feel that Christians "have no right to impose their moral views on anyone else". That is, any time a Christian points to an act that is wrong then they are seen as hateful, bigoted and intolerant.

Let me state it more simply. In today's society, any time a person states that a specific act of another person is morally wrong they are seen as bigoted and intolerant. As you see, moral relativism has taken hold of modern society in almost all cultures.

Often antagonists of Christianity will even point to scripture to argue for moral relativism. One of the most popular verses quoted in modern society is Matthew 7:1 where Jesus states:

Again, this shows an incomplete understanding of scripture, because Jesus clearly points out at different times when an act is sinful. This verse tell us to not judge people's hearts, not to ignore sin in other people. In fact to use modern language, we would have to conclude that Jesus was quite intolerant of sin in others! This is because Jesus knew the absolute standard against which our actions should be compared...God!
 
 

There is perhaps a very simple reason why most people in modern society do not believe in moral absolutes. If there is such a thing as absolutes, then there must be an absolute standard. That standard is God Himself. Thus to admit in moral absolutes, is to admit in the existence of God, and further to admit that there is an ultimate accountability of our actions. The following discussion will show how moral absolutes are derived.

The first thing to understand about moral absolutes are precepts. Precepts can be thought of as a list of "do's" and don'ts" for people to follow. The ten commandments is one example of precepts. Another example is when you tell your child "don't put your hand on a burning hot stove". This leads us to the second stage of moral absolutes, principles.

Principles can be thought of as the "why's" of the precepts. For example behind the precept "don't touch hot stoves" is the principle "fire tends to hurt our flesh when directly applied". In the same way, from the commandment "thou shalt not kill" is the principle of the value of human life. The principle behind the precept "thou shalt not steal" is the principle of honesty. Principles in themselves do not lead us to moral absolutes, however. It is the third area, the person.

This stage can be thought of as the "why" behind the principle. For example, a precept is "thou shalt not steal", the principle is that honesty is desirable, the reason honesty is desirable is because it is in line with the nature of God, the Person from whom ultimate truth is derived.

With any situation, we can now determine if an act is morally right or wrong. The ultimate test is to compare an act against precepts, principles and nature of God Himself. Thus we see that lying is wrong, because lying is contrary to the nature of God. Killing babies is wrong because the killing of innocents is contrary to the nature of God.

Although we see in the Bible examples of people losing their lives at God's hand, we also see that it was their behavior that led to their death. We see far more examples, however, of the incredible forgiveness of God and his forbearance towards sinful man.

Only through an understanding of Jesus' atoning sacrifice on the cross and a study of God's word can we make a clear determination of the nature of God. Through an understanding of God's word we can determine for ourselves that absolute truth exists, because God exists, and God is true! Jesus said:

One of the common approaches from those who oppose Christianity is to attack the Bible. Although we have proved using logic (he could be only Lord, liar or lunatic, nothing else) that Jesus was God based on his statements about his deity and his actions, many still choose not to believe. Within the Bible there are also numerous examples of fulfillment of prophesy that further prove its supernatural origin. However, before we can enter a discussion of the prophesies of the Bible, we must first establish the authenticity of scripture.

This is necessary because many people believe that the new testament was not actually written by Paul and the apostles. Instead they believe that early church founders in the third century put together what we know today as the New Testament. Thus, they believe that what we call the Bible is not truly the same document which was created shortly after Jesus' death and resurrection. Instead they believe that it was altered over time to fit the beliefs of early church fathers.

This is a very intriguing position for people to take who oppose Christianity. If they can prove that the Bible was not actually written by who the Bible claims it was, then they can attack the infallibility of scripture. Infallibility refers to something being perfect, dependable and faultless. Remember from the first paragraph of this book, we stated that the Bible is true. If opponents of Christianity can then prove that the Bible is not true, then they have struck a serious blow to the Christian faith. However, attacks against the historicity, authenticity and accuracy of the Bible are not supported by the evidence.

In this chapter we will look at the evidence to support the truthfulness of scripture. As before, we will use the rules of science and evidence to make this determination. To show that the Bible is true requires no "blind leap of faith".

One of the first ways to establish that the Bible is true, is to first prove that Jesus really lived. Jesus has been written about by many early authors, many who were not Christians. Many professors in the academic world refer to Jesus as the "Christ myth". That is, they believe that Jesus was not really a historical person who lived and walked on the earth.

However, the historical evidence shows otherwise. Here we will look at evidence outside the Bible to establish the fact that Jesus really lived.

Tacitus was a Roman historian who lived in the first century A.D. In his writings about the emperor Nero, he writes about Christians and the Christ Jesus. In this passage he talks about the persecution of Christians in Rome by Nero. Tacitus states that part of the reason for Nero's murder of Christians was to take the blame off of himself for accusations that he was responsible for the burning of Rome.

So we see historical evidence of a non-Christian Roman historian discussing the life and death of Jesus (with a Romanized spelling of his name)

Josephus was a Jewish Pharisee who was the commander of Jewish forces in Galilee in AD 66. He writes the following about Jesus:

Interestingly, an Arabic translation of this text says essentially the same thing but includes such qualifiers such as "They reported that He had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion and that He was alive" (taken from an Arabian manuscript roughly entitled "Book of History Guided by All the virtues of Wisdom. Crowned with Various Philosophies and Blessed by the Truth of Knowledge").

Another Roman historian in about AD 120 writes that

There are also many other ancient authors who speak of the life of Jesus, but perhaps the Encyclopedia Britannica says it best in the section about Jesus:

So, in Chapter 1, we see that it can be proved logically that Jesus is Lord by comparing what He said with what He did. In Chapter 2 we showed that evidence and the use of logic supports the existence of truth and moral absolutes. Now in Chapter 3, we have seen external evidence that Jesus really was a historical person. The next step is to show that the things reported in the New Testament actually happened. That is, we will examine the historicity and authenticity of the New Testament documents.

In the book "Christian Apologetics" by Norman Geisler, he lays out three premises for an argument proving that the new testament is authentic: 1. The New Testament documents are historically reliable (2) these documents accurately present Christ as claiming to be God Incarnate and confirm his claim by showing that he fulfilled prophecy, that he lived a sinless and miraculous life, and that he predicted and accomplished his resurrection from the dead; 3. Therefore, the deity of Christ is historically and miraculously confirmed. We will follow this argument to examine the New Testament.

The first way to determine if any ancient manuscript is accurate is to compare different versions of it. For example, one way to determine if Homer's Iliad has been handed down accurately, is to compare the different "extant manuscripts" of the Iliad. To follow this example, we know that there are 643 different copies of the Iliad which have been discovered. When these different copies are compared side by side, we see discrepancies in about 5% of the text. This is called a 5% textual corruption. In the secular world, there is no ancient work which has as many extant manuscripts of a work as does Homer.

By contrast, the New Testament now has over 5,000 extant manuscripts. When compared side by side, there is about a 99.5% accuracy. This level of accuracy is not found in the world in any other ancient work, including that of other religions.

From this we see that the new testament has more manuscript evidence than any other ancient work; its closest rival is Homer's Iliad, with 643 copies compared with the New Testament's 5,043 copies. Additionally, no other work comes close to having the accuracy of the New Testament documents.

From a scholarly examination of these documents, anyone can see, if they wish to, that the Bible which we have today is an accurate translation of the original manuscripts.

Some people have stated that the new testament was actually written about 300 A.D. by early leaders of the Catholic Church. The evidence would say otherwise, however.

For example, we know of secular historical records that Paul was martyred under Nero in A.D. 67. His earliest epistles were most probably written before his imprisonment in Rome between A.D. 60-62. Although some critics charge (without meaningful evidence) that Paul did not write I and II Timothy and Titus, even the most ardent critics generally accept that Paul was the author of the other ten books in the New Testament which are considered to be "Pauline".

Scholars have shown that all these letters were found to contain all the essential points of the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Christ written by a contemporary of the eyewitnesses. So, it seems clear that Paul's letters, as well as the other books of the New Testament were written in the first century A.D.

Here is another way to dispute the argument that the Bible was written hundreds of years after the fact: Try to write thirteen letters today, which were supposed to have been written in the late 1600's. You would need to speak accurately about matters of culture, speech, and activities which were common to the day. It is virtually impossible to do so. This is the same thing that "frauds" would have had to believably accomplish in falsifying scripture.

One of the strongest arguments for the truth of scripture is that Paul discusses the eyewitnesses who saw Jesus' resurrection (I Cor 15:5)! If anyone wished to disprove Paul they could have asked one of these eyewitnesses, of whom Paul states that most were still alive at the time of the writing.

If any issue in the New Testament could have been challenged by opponents of Christianity, it would have been the resurrection of Jesus. It is the supernatural resurrection of Jesus from the dead which separates Christianity apart from other religions. Other religions believe in what their leaders said, Christianity is based upon what Jesus did.

Specifically, Christianity is concerned with the deity of Jesus; that he lived a sinless life and offered himself as a sin sacrifice to all people for all time for those who would believe on him; and that he rose from the dead never to die again just as He Himself predicted! The resurrection of Jesus is also a historical fact, as readily proven as His life.

The fact that Jesus died on the cross should be without dispute. When His side was pierced by a Roman sword, water and blood came out. This is a clear sign of death; in that the heart was no longer functioning. However, there are over five hundred witnesses who saw Jesus after this death on the cross. Not only did he reveal Himself to his disciples several times, to numerous women from Galilee, but also to five hundred brethren at one time (I Cor 15:6).

Remember that these books were written while many of these eyewitnesses were still alive. If someone wanted to attack Christianity at its heart, they could have found witnesses to contradict what the disciples and Paul wrote. There is no evidence that anyone did, however.

Some critics have proposed that it was an example of mass hallucination for those who saw Jesus after his death. However, this is easily contradicted. First, Jesus was seen by numerous people in numerous places doing numerous things. Jesus ate with some, he let Thomas put his hand in Jesus's wounds and He also did further miracles. To propose that different people from different backgrounds at different times had the same delusion is unsupported by evidence or logic The Bible also states that although many saw Jesus, some doubted (Matt 28:17). This is not consistent with mass hysteria, either.

Further the accounts of Jesus' actions after his resurrection were divergent enough that no one could legitimately argue that they colluded to make up the story. The differences in the rendering of the story by different authors in the New Testament support its authenticity.

The New Testament documents are shown to be historically reliable through a vast richness of manuscript evidence which exceeds that of any other ancient work. The historical fact of Jesus' resurrection was confirmed by over five hundred witnesses. Jesus appeared at different times to different people, therefore mass hysteria cannot explain his appearance. The New Testament was written while many of these witnesses were still alive, but none came forth to contradict statements of the apostles.
 
 

We have seen from earlier chapters that Jesus was a historical Man. His resurrection was a historical event; the tomb was empty. In earlier writings we have seen that there really is a God. This can be seen from the intricate design of the universe; therefore, there was a Designer.

We also established that since God exists, there is such a thing as an absolute, specifically moral absolutes. We saw that a moral absolute is something which is either in line with God's nature (something which is good, or right) or contrary to God's nature (something wrong or evil).

Now, we have are faced with the fact that there is God, and there is truth. Therefore, how could God best communicate that truth to us.

One can conclude that the best, and most reliable way to communicate that truth to us, at the time in history, would be to have witnesses to that truth write it down. In fact, we find that at the time of Jesus, for the first time in the history of the world, there was a universal written language; koinonia Greek. That is, Jesus came to earth at just the right moment in history when events about his birth, life, death and resurrection could be communicated throughout the whole world.

In fact, it is difficult to argue with the logic that if there is a God (which we have shown), He would want to communicate with us. This He has done through his inspired Word, the Bible. What we will examine in this chapter is whether what we call the Bible is truly God's inspired word, or simply a collection of books written by man. We will examine the Old and New Testaments separately.

The problem of how we came by 39 books known as Old Testament "Scripture" is a purely historical investigation. The question involved is, not who wrote the several books, but who made them into a collection, not their origin or contents, but their history; not God's part, but man's.

1. The Christian Term "Canon": The word "canon" is of Christian origin, from the Greek word kanon, which in turn is probably borrowed from the Hebrew word, qaneh, meaning a reed or measuring rod, hence, norm or rule. Later it came to mean a rule of faith, and eventually a catalogue or list. In present usage it signifies a collection of religious writings Divinely inspired and hence, authoritative, normative, sacred and binding. The term occurs in <Gal 6:16; 2 Cor 10:13-16>; but it is first employed of the books of Scripture in the technical sense of a standard collection or body of sacred writings, by the church Fathers of the 4th century; e.g. in the 59th canon of the Council of Laodicea (363 AD); in the Festal Epistle of Athanasius (365 AD); and by Amphilochius, archbishop of Iconium (395 AD).

2. The Corresponding Hebrew Expression: How the ancient Hebrews expressed the conception of canonicity is not known; but it is safe to say that the idea, as an idea, existed long before there was any special phrase invented to express it. In the New Testament the word "Scriptures" conveys unquestionably the notion of sacredness <Mt 21:42; Jn 5:39; Acts 18:24>. From the 1st century AD and following, however, according to the Talmud, the Jews employed the phrase "defile the hands." Writings which were suitable to be read in the synagogue were designated as books which "defile the hands." What this very peculiar oriental expression may have originally signified no one definitely knows. Probably <Lev 16:24> gives a hint of the true interpretation. According to this passage the high priest on the great Day of Atonement washed not only when he put on the holy garments of his office, but also when he put them off.

Quite possibly, therefore, the expression "defile the hands" signified that the hands which had touched the sacred writings must first be washed before touching aught else.

So we see that the Jews attributed to what we call the Old Testament a divine significance. The books which we currently know as the Old Testament are largely accepted by most scholars to be divinely inspired scripture. There have been other books which have been rejected by the church as not having been divinely inspired. Some of these books are known as the apocrypha.

Before we can say why these books were not considered canonical, we should first look at the tests which Hebrew scholars apparently used to determine if a book was inspired by God. There are five tests which they seem to have used:

1. Is the book authoritative? That is, are the words in the book said to have come from God? (For example, does it include "Thus sayeth the Lord"). However, just because a man says that his words come straight from God, does not mean that he is telling the truth. This takes us to the second test.

2. Is the book prophetic? That is, was it written by a man of God, and was it true? As we will see shortly, one of the tests of prophesy is whether all fore-telling prophesies actually come true, one hundred percent of the time. This is also somewhat related to the third test.

3. Is the book authentic? Authenticity includes not only being true, but also being written by whom it was attributed.

4. Is the book dynamic? Does the book include evidence of the life-transforming power of God?

5. Was the book received, collected, read and used by the people of God? That is, was there evidence from an early date that the book was received as a work of God.

We can be thankful that our church fathers were so conservative in deciding which books to choose in putting together what we know as the Bible, and in dismissing books which were not God-inspired, such as the apocrypha. Unger's Bible Dictionary gives very clear reasons why the books collectively known as the apocrypha (meaning hidden or concealed) were not accepted as God-breathed by early church leaders. Specifically,

"They abound in historical and geographical inaccuracies and anachronisms. They teach doctrines which are false and foster practices which are at variance with inspired Scripture. They resort to literary types and display an artificiality of subject matter and styling out of keeping with inspired Scripture. They lack the distinctive elements which give genuine Scripture their divine character, such as prophetic power and poetic and religious feeling". So, to put it simply, the apocrypha were recognized to be untrue and contrary to accepted scriptural teachings. They include legends and myths which probably never occurred.

There is also significant external evidence to show that what we know as the Old Testament is actually true. First, Philo a Jewish philosopher of about 30-40 A.D. quoted extensively from our books of the Old Testament but never from the Apocrypha as an inspired work. That is, he treated our books of the Old Testament as inspired, but the Apocrypha simply as Jewish literature. Josephus, the Jewish historian numbers the books of the Old Testament exactly as they are now, excluding the Apocrypha. The Apocrypha was also rejected by church leaders for the first four hundred years of the church.

Most importantly, Jesus and all the New Testament writers never quote from the Apocrypha, although they quote from almost all other books in the Old Testament. Not only is it important to understand that the Old Testament is truly God-inspired, but the New Testament as well.

Many opponents of Christianity have stated that what we know as the New Testament was not written until about the 3^rd or 4^th century A.D. They believe that church leaders wrote, or collected other writings and edited them to create what we know as the New Testament. Once again, however, historical evidence does not support this position.

For example, Clement of Rome, in 95 AD, wrote a letter in the name of the Christians of Rome to those in Corinth. In this letter he uses material found in Matthew and Luke. He also makes extensive reference to the book of Hebrews. He also wrote of things which are quite consistent with the teaching of Paul in the books of Romans and Corinthians. He also echoes teachings in this letter of those found in 1 Timothy, Titus, 1 Peter and Ephesians. This would seem to be clear evidence of the existence in the 1^st century of many of the books of the New Testament

Irenaeus was a pupil of Polycarp, who was a disciple of John. Therefore he is connected with the apostles themselves. He also lived and taught in Rome and became afterward bishop of Lyons. He had, therefore, a wide acquaintance with the churches, and was peculiarly competent to speak concerning the general judgment of the Christian world. As An earnest defender of the truth, he makes the New Testament in great part his authority, and often appeals to it. The four Gospels, the Acts, the epistles of Paul, are to him Scripture in the fullest sense. They are genuine and authoritative, as much so as the Old Testament ever was. He dwells upon the fact that there are four gospels. By the end of the 2nd century the canon of the gospels was settled. The same is true also of the Pauline epistles. Irenaeus makes more than two hundred citations from Paul, and looks upon his epistles as Scripture (Adv. Haer., iii. 12, 12). Indeed, at this time it may be said that the new canon was known under the designation "The Gospel and the Apostles" in contradistinction to the old as "the Law and the Prophets."

In the early part of the 4th century Eusebius (270-340 AD), bishop of Caesarea before 315, sets before us in his Church History (III, chapters iii-xxv) his estimate of the canon in his time. He does not of course use the word canon, but he "conducts an historical inquiry into the belief and practice of earlier generations." He lived through the last great persecution in the early part of the 4th century, when not only places of worship were razed to the ground, but also the sacred Scriptures were in the public market-places consigned to the flames (Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, VIII, 2). It was, therefore, no idle question what book a loyal Christian must stand for as his Scripture. The question of the canon had an earnest, practical significance.

One of the general rules which can be seen from the canon of the New Testament is that books were chosen for their apostolic authority. That is, books in which authors give credit to Jesus for sending them out (the meaning of apostle), may be selected as canon.

There is also considerable evidence within the New Testament which point to the creation of a canon for the New Testament as well. We have already seen that Jesus and His disciples quote extensively from the Old Testament. That in itself, lends credence to our acceptance of the Old Testament as God-breathed. Luke in Luke 1: 1-4 clearly lays out the purpose of the letter he is writing to Theophilus. Specifically Luke wrote "that you may know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed" (Lk 1:4)

In II Thess 2:2 we see a warning "not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come". That is, Paul is laying down what appears to be a rule for the canon of the New Testament; apostolic authority.

Paul also testifies to the accuracy of his testimony in 2 Pet 1:15-16 when he states

Paul was also making clear that the epistles he was writing were to be read in the church and passed along to other Christian churches as well (Col 4:16)

There is also evidence of quoting within the New Testament of other New Testament writings as scripture. Specifically, Paul quoted Luke in I Tim 5:18 (referencing Luke 10:7, and Jude quoted Peter in Jude 17 (referencing II Pet 3:2). The 27 books of the New Testament are the only extant copies of potential New Testament books. There appears to be clear evidence in the scriptures that after the death of the apostles, the writings of the New Testament were to be concluded. John seems to make reference to this in Rev 22:18:

Since John was the last living apostle, this statement seems to clearly put a closing to the canon of the New Testament. Norman Geisler in Christian Apologetics states: "Christ fulfilled all, his apostles told all, and his last apostle completed the canon" (p. 371).

So far, we have examined the evidence which supports the truthfulness of the Bible. As we have seen, there are many ways in which we can show that the scriptures we have today are true. However, the Bible is not the only book which claims to have truth from God. Many other religions and Christian cults also claim to have prophets and prophetic books from God. There are some basic tests that we can also use to determine if these other writings which claim to come from God are also true. We will discuss these tests in this chapter. This discussion will then lead us in the next chapter into an examination of some of the major religions of the world, and many of the Christian cults. We will apply the tests below to these other religions and test them for truth.

We must first go back to one of the early chapters when we saw evidence to support that Jesus is really God. The evidence supports that Jesus really is Lord (not a liar or lunatic). We also know that Jesus said "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes through the Father except through Me" (John 14:6). Since we have already established that Jesus was not a liar, and there is no reason to believe that Jesus was not speaking literally in this passage, then we must believe Him. Many of the tests for truth we will examine could just as simply be accomplished by comparing what is said or written against this statement by Jesus. In I John 4:3 we read:

So, the Bible establishes this test as truth: Anyone, or any spirit, which claims that Jesus is not the Christ is not of God. John, in the book of Revelation, also admonishes us to not add or subtract a word from scripture. Thus, we can see that anyone who comes to us with a "new revelation" from God for mankind is not truly a messenger of God.

Jesus was the full and final revelation of God. We need nothing more than Jesus, and need know no more about Him than the Bible shows us.

From a common sense perspective, we are faced with this dilemma when someone claims to have a new revelation from God: Which is true, the Bible or him/her? For we see in Gal 1:8

So, if someone claims to have a new revelation from God for mankind, we can know for certain that either he/she is telling the truth, or the Bible is. Evidence supports the truth of the Bible.

In the Old Testament, we see many examples of God speaking to men in dreams and in visions. For example, God spoke to Jacob in a dream in Gen 28, and many times to Daniel in visions and in dreams. However, in Heb 1:2 we read that

In Paul's letters, he warns us about revelations from an angel from heaven (Gal 1:8), or from a spirit (II Thess 2:2). This, coupled with what we have seen earlier, seems to clearly point out that Jesus is the final revelation of God. He is sufficient, nothing new or different is needed. Paul foresaw in Gal 1:8 that people would claim to have a new vision from God which came from an angel supposedly. So, he gave us a simple test: if what someone says is different than what Paul and the apostles taught, then let that so-called prophet be accursed.

The Bible also tells us that such false prophets may appear to be "ministers of righteousness" but may actually be ministers of the devil (2 Cor:11:15).

There are also many new age, and other religions which claim to communicate with spirits and dead people through crystals or other means. This practice is known in the Bible as necromancy and is explicitly forbidden in scripture. God sees such activities as an abomination to the Lord (Deut 18:11, 12). Therefore any one who claims to obtain revelations from God through such means is a false prophet.

In the same way that scripture forbids communicating with spirits, the use of divining objects is also forbidden. In Deut 18:10, 12) we see:

Many of today's so-called psychics who make predictions about the future do so through the use of divining objects such as crystal balls or crystals. The founder of the Mormon church, Joseph Smith, wore a divining stone, and also wore an occultic Jupiter Talisman, around his neck (from a paper given by a Mormon historian in 1974). Therefore we can establish many of the religions and prophets of today as false, because they participate in a practice forbidden by God.

Jesus stated that He was the theme of prophetic scripture on five different occasions (Matt 5:17, Luke 24:27, 44; John 5:39; Heb 10:7). John also stated that "Every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God" (1 John 4:3).

Through these and other verses we can see that any "Christian" religion which does not recognize that Jesus is the only begotten son of God the Father, and that Jesus is equal with the Father, is a false one.

There are some who would at this point, state that since these tests are Christian tests, they therefore unfairly exclude other world religions as being true. I would ask their patience until we study an overview of the teachings of these other religions. We shall that the Bible is unique among all religions of the world.

So, by scripture we see that any religion which denies the deity and humanity of Christ is not of God. We can also see from Paul's letters, that any gospel not based on justification by faith alone is also false. That is, the gospel states that Jesus' atoning death and resurrection was sufficient to save us from our sins. Jesus' propitiatory death on the cross is what saves us; faith in Him is how we receive that salvation.

From these two doctrinal tests, the deity and humanity of Jesus, and justification by faith, we can see that several of today's religions are false.

Mormons teach that Jesus was the brother of Satan and that "Jesus is a god for Mormons only in the same sense we are gods" (taken from the Mormon test Journal of Discourses). Jehovah's Witnesses deny the deity of Christ, claiming that he was the created angel Michael. The writings of Mohammad, the basis for Islam, teach that Jesus was only a prophet who did not die for our sins and who was superseded by other, more important prophets.

First, merely because someone makes a correct prediction about the future does not mean that he/she is a prophet of God. Anyone can guess correctly about a future event every once in a while. However, the opposite is true. That is, anyone who makes a prophesy which does not come true, is not of God. To understand why this is so, we must review some of the characteristics of the nature of God. First, God is all-knowing. Therefore, if He told something that something was going to happen, it would definitely happen!

So, if someone says that God gave them a prophecy which did not happen, we can know that since God is all-knowing, then that person was not speaking from God at all, and is a false prophet. This is exactly what is meant in Deut 18:22 when we read:

For comparison, every prophecy made in the Bible has either come 100% true, or it has not yet come about (such as the second coming of Jesus). However, Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon church prophesied in 1833 that the town of Zion, Missouri would never fall. However, he later found out that two weeks before this prophecy, the town was moved, and the Mormon presses were destroyed, and the Mormon leadership was run out of town. Therefore, we can conclude that such a prophecy was not from God.
 
 

In the old testament, all of the true prophets of God received miracles from God to confirm that they were actually speaking with His voice. For example, Moses was given a rod to perform miracles such as parting the sea. Elijah was given the power to call down fire from heaven (1 Kings 18-38).

In a similar way, the new testament prophets, the apostles, were also given miraculous powers by Jesus. Jesus gave them power to open the eyes of the blind, cast out demons and raise the dead (Matt 10:1). Although there are and have been many false prophets who may be able to perform signs and wonders, the true prophets could raise people from the dead. Paul seems to lay down rules concerning true apostles in his letter to the Corinthians where he states:

It would then seem logical to say that if someone today were truly a prophet from God, then not only would he be able to accurately predict the future, but he would also be able to exhibit miracles from God, including raising the dead.

Before we begin a discussion of other world religions and pseudo-Christian cults, we must first understand what it is that unites us as Christians. There are many who believe that we should embrace all religions which call upon "God", in whatever form. This is not a biblical practice. Although there is room for some differences of opinion among Christians, we must be careful on what we embrace as "Christian".

Jesus said that not all who call him "Lord, Lord" will enter the gates of heaven (Matt 7:21). We also must use discernment when looking at the beliefs of other sects, religions, etc. The following issues will delineate what we mean when we say that a certain denomination, sect, etc., does not follow orthodox Christianity. Orthodox in this sense refers to biblical Christianity, or beliefs of Jesus and God based on what the Bible teaches.

As Christians, we believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God, both the old and new testaments. The Bible itself teaches this in 2 Tim 3:16. In Rev 22:18-19 we are taught:

So, we are admonished to leave the Bible as it is, not taking anything away or adding anything to it.

We have discussed earlier the validity and authenticity of both the old and new testaments. Peter recognized the new testament writings as God-inspired when he wrote in 2 Pet 3:15-16:

The more liberal elements within the Christian church believe that the Bible is not meant to be taken literally. That is, they believe it contains truths, in general, but each word is not inspired by God. This is a very dangerous doctrine as we have already stated in earlier chapters.

When we stop taking the Bible literally, where by context it is clear that it is meant to be taken literally, we run the risk of falsely dividing God's word. For example, if we teach that Jesus did not really mean it when He said that He is the way, the truth and the life, and that no one comes through the Father but through Him, then we are free to accept anyone's belief in anything as a highway to heaven. Scripture clearly teaches that this is not so. In the chapter on the logic of the cross, we see that only through the perfect sacrifice of God Himself, through the person of Jesus, can we be saved.

The Bible has proved its supernatural origin through the fulfillment of prophecy, and by its accurate teaching on matters of science hundreds and even thousands of years before the scientific world realized them (see the chapter on the Bible and science for further information).

We can then conclude that any sect which does not teach that every word of the Bible is inspired by God, is on very shaky ground. The Bible does not simply contain the word of God, it is the word of God.

There is only one God in orthodox Christianity (Deut 6:4), who is manifest in three persons. This is a difficult concept for humans to understand, because it deals with an attribute of God that is impossible in ourselves. We have seen in earlier chapters that Jesus said that He was God, and was equal with God. Again, this was the reason He was crucified. So, we have established that God exists in two persons so far. However, the Holy Spirit is also God. In Acts 5:3,4 Annanias learned that lying to the Holy Spirit is lying to God. Thus, we have one God in three persons. We also see throughout the new and old testaments that the Holy Spirit is eternal (Heb 9:14), took part in creation (Gen 1:2, Job 33:4), and the inspiration of the Bible (2 Pet 1:20,21)

The doctrine of the trinity is simple: Jesus is as much God as God the Father; the Holy Spirit is a person, and is as much God as God the Father; and God the Father is as much God as the other two. This is not a doctrine of three gods, but simply of one God who eternally exists in three persons.

Many people have made many analogies to try to explain this, but all fall short. However, the one I like the most is to compare the trinity to light. Light exists simultaneously in both particle form and in wave form. However, common sense tells us that it is impossible for this to be so; they are mutually exclusive properties. However, the evidence clearly shows us that light is only explained fully by using both the wave and particle theories of light.

Many Christian cults fall away from orthodoxy as it regards the deity of Jesus. Many, if not all such cults, teach that Jesus was a created being, and is not God at all. Remember, in so believing this, then Jesus' death on the cross was meaningless for us. A critical component of the deity of Jesus is His virgin birth. Again, many Christian sects teach that Jesus was not of virgin birth.

They may teach that Jesus is symbolically the Son of God, but not truly God in the flesh. Such teaching is clearly against what is taught in the Bible. John 1 teaches that the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. John makes it clear that Jesus is God, and that Jesus became flesh and dwelt among us. Remember, that if Jesus is not God in the flesh, then his sacrifice on the cross was meaningless for us.

The old testament also prophesied that Jesus would be born of a virgin. Thus, anyone who teaches otherwise seeks to make the old testament prophets into false prophets.

So, any sect which does not teach that God exists in three persons; and particularly that Jesus was God in the flesh, born of a virgin, is outside Christian orthodoxy. Any such teaching is a false, unbiblical doctrine.

Not only does Christian orthodoxy teach that Jesus is God, as discussed above, but also that Jesus was 100% human as well. Again, this is often a stumbling block, but scripture clearly teaches that it is so. The Bible clearly teaches that Jesus became hungry (Luke 2:52); he became tired (John 4:6); he wept (John 11:35); and he died (John 11:33). All of these are attributes of a human being.

As we have discussed in previous chapters, Jesus also made claims about Himself that He was and is God. His disciples also clearly write in the new testament that Jesus is God. Indeed, He was crucified because He claimed to be God, and the Jews thought this was blasphemy. It would have been, if He had not been telling the truth!

This may seem silly to include this within the doctrine of orthodoxy, but many teach otherwise. There are those who attempt to explain away the miracles of Jesus and others through natural phenomena, or simply teach that such healings were not meant to be taken literally. This teaching also goes back to the first tenet of orthodox Christianity regarding the authority of scripture.

In the same way, many teach that the demons that Jesus and the apostles cast out were not really demons, but were simply mentally ill people. Once again, such teaching is contradicted in scripture. Jesus clearly knew the difference between sick people and demon-possessed people. Also, many of the demons He cast out had knowledge of Jesus as soon as Jesus walked up. A simply mentally ill person would not have had such knowledge.

To teach that Jesus and his disciples did not perform true miracles, is to take away from his deity. Such teaching is also clearly not scriptural.

Many in the Christian church are confused by this doctrine, since the Bible also teaches that works for a Christian are very important. However, in the chapter on the logic of the cross, we saw that salvation can only be through the person of Jesus Himself. It is not the teachings of Jesus which gives us salvation, but Jesus Himself. If a sect teaches that salvation requires some actions on our part other than accepting Jesus' propitiating death on the cross, then it is in dangerous waters.

I call such teaching "salvation plus". This means that salvation requires Jesus' atoning death and resurrection, plus good works, or something similar, as well. What this means is that Jesus atoning death was insufficient for our salvation. What would then also be needed, according to such teachings, is good works to make up the difference. If this is so, then we have no hope. Remember, God is a holy God, and no sinful man can dwell with Him. If Jesus' perfect sacrifice by a perfect high priest (Jesus Himself) was not enough to save enough us, then nothing is.

The Bible teaches in Eph 2:8-9 that:

However, the Bible also clearly teaches that such a saving faith will bring forth fruit in our lives, resulting in good works. Such good works are not the cause of salvation, but the results of salvation.

To this point we have discussed many issues which point to the truth of the Christian faith. We will now turn our attention to an overview of other world religions and use some tests of truth to analyze them as well. A basic understanding of the theology of other world religions and pseudo-Christian cults is important to the Christian because many would argue that all world religions basically believe the same thing. This is not the case.

Throughout our analysis of world religions we will compare what they teach to what the Bible teaches. However, a deep understanding of other world religions is worthless without a solid grounding and understanding of the Bible. We will begin our discussion with an overview of one religion which I have heard many people say is very similar to the Christian faith, Islam.

The Islam or Muslim faith, is the fastest growing religion in the world today. Islam holds a tremendous amount of power in the middle east, and much of the conflict in the middle east is due to Islamic-Jewish conflict. It is estimated that there are approximately 450,000,000 practicing Muslims in the world (Handbook of Today's Religions, p. 378). The world Islam means submission or surrender.

The Islamic faith is based on one person, Muhammad. Muhammad was born around 570 A.D. in the city of Mecca. In his adult life, Muhammad became disenchanted with the polytheistic religions of his country, and believed in the existence of one god. It is generally assumed that Muhammad developed some of his teachings from Jewish and Christian sources, which already existed in his country.

Before discussing Mohammad further, it should be pointed out that he was simply a man, and that he died and never rose again. Also, there were no prophesies about his birth, life, death, etc. He did, however, create a world religion of immense power today. His life was marked by a stark contrast between gentleness and violence. This characteristic of himself also may have had some influence of his view of god, as he believed that God was so all-powerful that he could be both evil and just. This belief stands directly opposed to the Christian attributes of God as being absolutely holy and righteous, and containing no evil at all.

At the age of 40, Muhammad, by now a religious man, reportedly had a vision. This vision is recorded in the Koran, the holy book of the Islamic faith. At first, Muhammad was unsure of the source of the vision. That is, he didn't know whether it had come from God or from demonic spirits. In fact, these visions brought Muhammad to believe that he was demon-possessed. Such a person was normally greatly hated by his tribesmen. His wife later convinced him that it had come from God. He became more comfortable with the visions and had them the rest of his life. The earlier visions consisted of short verses, usually ending with a rhyme, which were committed to memory and chanted by Muhammad's followers. The later visions dealt with issues of the day for Muslims in his country.

One of Muhammad's visions had the angel Gabriel appear to him with a piece of silk brocade which had the word "recite" written upon it. There was then a short verse which he was to recite. This vision so troubled him, that when he awoke, he was going to throw himself off a cliff. However, biographers state that he heard a voice from heaven hailing him as the Apostle of God. Instead of committing suicide, he remained on the spot for a long period of time. After his wife and others convinced him that he was not demon-possessed, he began to have more such visions until his death.

In 622 A.D., Mohammad's new faith began to encounter opposition in his hometown of Mecca, so he moved to the city of Medina, originally named Yathrib. Medina means "City of the Prophet". This date marked what is held as the beginning of the Islamic faith by Muslims.

Mohammad was originally sympathetic to the Jewish and Christian faiths, but when they rejected his new religion, he moved the center of worship from Jerusalem to Mecca. Mecca housed the black stone Ka'aba which was originally a polytheistic shrine. Muhammad made this rock a shrine for Allah, the god of the Islamic faith, after he overtook the city by force. Between this point and his rather sudden death in 632, Muhammad zealously and militantly propagated Islam.

After Muhammad's death, his followers broke up into different sects, based on their beliefs on who should follow Muhammad as the leader of Islam. The most common sects today are the Shi'a, and the Sunni sects. The Shi'a moslems are mostly found in Iran today. The third main sect is the Sufi sect. This sect is also known as Islamic mysticism. Whirling dervishes are of the Sufi sect. They seek to become closer to God through whirling around until they achieve an altered state of consciousness.

The Koran is the sacred book of the Islamic faith. They have other books, or revelations including the Torat of Moses, the Suhuf, books of the prophets, the Zabure, psalms of David, and the Injil, the Gospel of Jesus. Although these revelations are a part of our Bible, they are different in Islam. They are also believed to have been corrupted by Jews and Christians, and thus believe that only the Koran is sacred. It was written by Muhammad from his "visions" from Allah.

More than any other religion ever in existence the teachings of Islam through the Shari'a (the law) cover all aspects of a Muslim's life including the most intimate and personal such as the use of a toothpick and cleaning one's body.

There are five articles of faith in Islam. The first is that there is only one God and his name is Allah. The concept of the trinity is profane to a Muslim. The second article is the belief in angels, who may be either good or evil. They believe that each man has two angels, one who records his good deeds, and the other who records his evil deeds. The third article is the scriptures of Islam as mentioned above. They believe that the Koran supersedes all other revelations of God. The fourth article is of the prophets. They believe the six greatest prophets were Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, with Muhammad being the last and the greatest. The last article deals with a final judgement in which faithful followers of Islam will go to Paradise, and those who oppose them will be tormented in hell. All of these doctrines are covered by a strong belief in fate, or the will of Allah. They strongly believe that every act, whether good or evil, is the will of Allah.

The pillars of faith of Islam are: the creed, prayer, almsgiving, fasting, and the pilgrimage to Mecca. The sixth pillar of Islam is the Jihad. This duty requires that when the situation warrants, men are required to go to war to spread or defend Islam. Anyone who dies in a Jihad is guaranteed a place in paradise.

Islam is not compatible with Christianity, nor does Islam worship the same God of the Bible. We will use the tenets of Christian orthodoxy to compare the two faiths.

1. The Inspiration of Scripture: Muslims teach that the scriptures are corrupted, and that only the Koran is the pure word of God. Remember that the Revelation of John warns us against adding or taking away words from scripture. Islam has done this to a huge extent.

2. The Trinity: Islam strongly rejects the concept of the trinity. They believe that Jesus was only a prophet of God, not God Himself. They also believe that the concept of a son of God is blasphemous. Their God is totally separate from his creation.

3. Jesus was fully God and fully man: Again, the Muslims believe that Jesus was only a prophet, not God incarnate.

4. Jesus performed miracles: Muslims have no problem with this, but believe that Jesus only acted as God's prophet when doing miracles.

5. Doctrine of salvation: Islam teaches salvation through submission to Allah through good works. Islam knows no concept of a God of grace.

Thus, we see that the God of Islam is completely different than the God of Christianity. Any knowledge of God which does not include Jesus Christ is a false description, because it is contrary to what Jesus told us. Jesus said "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me".

Additionally the God of Islam is a cold, impersonal God who can act with either cruelty or love. Allah can commit sinful acts and still be an all-powerful spirit. Such an act of sin is not possible with the holy God of the Bible. The God of Islam may be more appropriately described as an extension of Mohammed himself. This is further exemplified by part of Mohammed's description of paradise, in which men could have multiple sex partners in heaven.

We can conclude then that Islam is not consistent with Christianity. Nor can we say that Allah of Islam is the same God of the Bible.
 
 

Buddhism began about 500 B.C. in India. It is an off-shoot of the Hindu religion. The founder of Buddhism, Siddhartha Gautama, was dissatisfied with certain beliefs of Hinduism and so created his teachings. Buddha means "the enlightened one", and the purpose of Buddhism is to seek enlightenment.

Siddhartha Gautama, according to historical legends and records was a real person, born about 560 B.C. in India. His father was reportedly a rajah (a ruler). Supposedly, his father was told by a prophet that if Siddhartha was to remain in the palace, then he would be king. However, if he were ever allowed outside the palace he would be a savior to mankind.

After Siddhartha grew up, he finally requested to see the world. When he walked through town he saw what Buddhists refer to as the four passing sights. He saw an old man, a sick man, a funeral procession, and a monk begging for his food. He really liked the tranquil look on the beggar's face and so decided to leave his home and seek spiritual enlightenment.

Gautama reportedly then became "enlightened" while sitting and meditating under a fig tree. While meditating he reached a state of nirvana, which is the highest state of "God-consciousness" in Buddhism. From this point he was no longer referred to as Siddhartha Gautama, but Buddha, the enlightened one.

Buddha taught that the mistake of mankind was to move in two extremes. The first extreme was seeking passion and luxury. The second extreme was self-torture. What was needed, taught Buddha, was to seek enlightenment of the Middle path. This middle path would lead to higher knowledge, enlightenment, and ultimately nirvana.

This middle path consisted of the "Eightfold Path" which are listed below.

1. Right Views: Accept the four noble truths: the existence of suffering, the cause of suffering (which is through craving things), the ending of suffering (through enlightenment by emptying yourself of all emotions), and the fourth truth which is following the eightfold path.

2. Right Resolve: Renounce the pleasures of the senses; harbor no ill will and harm no living creature (including insects).

3. Right Speech: Do not lie, slander or indulge in idle talk.

4. Right Behavior: Do not destroy any living creature; take only what is given to you; and do not commit unlawful sexual acts.

5. Right Occupation: Earn your living an a way that will harm no one.

6. Right Effort: Resolve to prevent any evil qualities from arising in you. Strive to acquire good qualities and encourage others to do so.

7. Right Contemplation: Be observant, alert, contemplative, and free of desire and of sorrow.

8. Right Meditation: When you have abandoned all sensuous pleasures, evil qualities, you must then enter the four degrees of meditation.

A key concept in Buddhism is nirvana, mentioned above. Nirvana is difficult to define because it is a negative term. That is, it means the negation of desire, the negation of suffering, and ultimately the negation of self, to achieve emptiness and thus enlightenment. Another word for what is sought by Buddhists is dispassion. Buddhist scholars state that "through dispassion one is freed".

One of the reasons why the Buddha began his religion was because he did not like the current Hindu concept of reincarnation; an endless progression of living and rebirth in another creature. Thus, he teaches that through enlightenment, one can escape the cycle of reincarnation by achieving enlightenment, or nothingness. Then one simply ceases to be.

Part of the Buddhist creed is a stated belief in evolution, and the denial of God. Buddhists also deny the existence of heaven or hell. They believe that one either reaches nirvana through enlightenment and thus achieves nothingness; or he simply is reincarnated again.

After his death, Buddha was deified by his followers, believing that he was the ultimate enlightened one. In fact, some sects say that worshiping the relics of the Buddha is one way to achieve religious merit and enlightenment.
 
 

There are many different sects of Buddhism. The most common sect in the U.S. is Zen Buddhism. This sect teaches that knowledge is transferred from mind to mind, rather than from scriptures. This sect emphasizes meditation, as Buddha did, but also teaches to "look within, you are the Buddha".

One of the most readily recognized rituals of Zen Buddhism is the zazen. Zazen is the method of sitting in meditation with ones legs crossed in the lap. This is done at different times of the day. There are prescribed placements for the hands and feet during this type of meditation. Interspersed with this meditation is the chanting of a sutra.

During meditation one is to focus his eyes on the ground a few feet in front and to seek to empty his mind of everything. This is done by concentrating on your belly button, which is thought to be the center of your being. By concentrating on your belly button, you are said to work towards enlightenment and nirvana.

Zen Buddhism is also known for word puzzles, which supposedly help students achieve enlightenment. This type of puzzle is called a koan. Examples of koans are:

1. What is the sound of one hand clapping?

2. Q: What is the meaning of Bodhidharms's visit to China?

    A: "The cypress tree in the courtyard"

3. What is the essence of the bucket of water?

There are no true answers to these questions, but the seeking of answers is said to bring one closer to enlightenment. The sudden enlightenment attained through studying a koan is called satori. Satori is an abrupt "aha!" in which one's sees wisdom.

To summarize, Buddhism is a self-centered religion. Buddha taught his followers to "take refuge in nothing outside yourselves". Thus, the entire religion is inwardly focused. Through concentrating on your belly button through meditation, one can achieve enlightenment. The highest level of enlightenment is called nirvana. Only through achieving nirvana can one escape the cycle of reincarnation and instead achieve ultimate emptiness.

Buddhists deny the existence of God. They teach that Jesus was simply an enlightened person, not God Himself. Buddhism is essentially a salvation by works religion. By being a good person, following the "eightfold path", and meditating to achieve enlightenment, one can be saved from an endless cycle of reincarnation.

Thus, Buddhist meditation techniques are absolutely not compatible with Christianity and should not be practiced by Christians.

Although Buddhists and Buddhist monks may be gentle people, they are following a false hope. Jesus said that He is the light. The best way to achieve enlightenment then, is the study of Jesus and accepting Him as our Lord and Savior.

Hinduism is one of the oldest and most complicated religious systems in the world. As discussed earlier, Buddhism is an off-shoot of Hinduism, and there are many, many more variations of the belief system as well.

There are various sects which may worship different deities. However, most of the Hindu sects have the following core beliefs:

They believe in the god called Brahman, who is a three-in-one god. For this reason, many people will say that Hinduism is consistent with Christianity. However, Brahman is most definitely not the God of the Bible. Brahman, also called the eternal Trimutri, is made up of: 1. Brahma, the creator; 2. Vishnu, the preserver, and 3. Shiva, the destroyer.

In fact, at a recent management conference, a world-renowned management consultant used the illustration of these three Hindu gods to make his point about what organizations need to do to succeed: namely, create, preserve and destroy when necessary.

They also believe that man is a part of Brahman; that is, that man is a part of God. In fact, the word Brahman is difficult to define. It basically means the ultimate reality or universal soul which consists of everything, every thought, every energy force, etc. In Star Wars, it was referred to as "the force".

Hindus, as well as Buddhists, also believe in the law of Karma. That is, good will come from good, and evil will come from evil. When one dies, if he or she has built up enough good karma, he/she will reincarnate as a higher caste person. That is, if you are poor in this life, but do good deeds to build up good karma, then you will reincarnate as a richer person. If you build up bad karma, you may reincarnate as some type of animal.

They also believe that nirvana may ultimately be reached, in which case one is released from the chain of rebirths.

Hindus also believe in the practice of yoga, which is used to discipline the Hindu to control his body and emotions.

Hindu beliefs permeate our society. Many beloved films such as Star Wars are full of Hindu religious thought. Many people practice yoga, thinking it to be merely a form of exercise. It is not, it is a spiritual act which is not pleasing to God.

Hindus are very tolerant of other religions. They believe that the truth is contained in every religion.

The Hindu scriptures are called the vedas. Veda means wisdom or knowledge. The oldest veda contains hymns, prayers and ritual texts composed over one thousand years, beginning in about 1400 B.C.

Another of the Hindu scriptures, called the athara-veda consists of magical spells and incantations carried out by the priests.

The Hindu version of salvation is called Moksha, or mukti, which is the liberation of the soul from the cycle of reincarnation. Mukti can be obtained in three ways: (1) knowledge (jnana); (2) devotion (bhakti) or (3) ritual works (karma).

The way of knowledge (jnana) is typified by one's coming to realize that "selfhood is an illusion". That is, knowledge comes when one realizes that he has no independent self. Instead, he comes to realize that he is simply a part of the universal constant.

The way of devotion (bhakti) is the devotion to the deity. It is carried out through either ritual devotion or through meditation. Both of these are considered as yoga. They also include the exercises which many still practice and are shown on television as an exercise for relaxation.

The third way to salvation is through the way of works (karma). In this way, one escapes from reincarnation through doing good works in one's life. Hopefully, he will reincarnate as a higher caste person. However, if he develops bad karma, he will reincarnate as a lower caste or as an animal.

Another central concept in Hinduism is Maya. Maya basically means that the world is a mere illusion, even though it seems real to us. However, in the same sense that dreams are not real because the things in dreams did not actually happen, and a movie is not real because it is simply film projected through a camera, the universe is not real either.

Hindus thus see reality as a mental construct which everyone sees differently. This allows them to believe that anyone's path to the truth is equally as valid as another, because every one's mental construct of truth is different.

This above paragraph is most readily seen in today's society in the denial of absolute truth (see Chapter 1). To the Hindu, there is no such thing as absolute truth. This eastern belief has so invaded our culture that we no longer see it as a belief contrary to God's wishes.

Have you ever heard, or seen in a movie, a discussion that our entire universe may simply be a tiny speck in some huge universe? This is a Hindu belief, stemming from their ultimate belief that reality and the universe is an illusion anyway.

The Hindu religion is also characterized by a very rigid caste system. In this system, the highest level of people are the Brahmins. They are honored by all people, including the royal family. Their jobs are as priests and as philosophers studying the holy vedas. The next highest level are the Kshatriyas. They are upper middle class, and have traditionally been rulers and warriors. Today they are the professional class. The next lower level are the Vaisyas, who are merchants and farmers. The lowest level are the Sudras. They are also excluded from many of the religious rituals, and are not allowed to study the vedas.

The last interesting aspect of the Hindu faith is their worship of the cow. Hindus believe that the cow is a possessor of great power. In their holy scriptures reads: "The Cow is heaven, the Cow is Earth, the Cow is Vishnu, Lord of Life".

Confucianism is basically a moral code which teaches people how to co-exist with one another. However, as with many teachers, Confucius was deified after his death. His teachings dealt with wisdom in every day life, not with the after life. However, the doctrines of Confucianism include ancestor worship which was common in Confucius's day (about 500 B.C). In also includes filial piety, which is the respect of elders by their juniors. Confucianism has had a huge impact on the Chinese culture even to this day.

Confucius taught variations of teachings of Proverbs. He urged people to treat other as they would like to be treated, to be gentlemanly, and to serve in the station of life you were given.

As with many other eastern religions, Confucianism seeks redemption of the spirit world through good works while we are on earth.

Similar to some of the concepts of Zen Buddhism discussed earlier, Taoism is a religion of mystery. The word Tao basically means "the way" or "the path". However, Taoists hold that no one can truly understand Tao. The holy book of Taoism "The Tao Te King", states in its introduction that any Tao that can be understood is not the real Tao. A famous saying in Taoism is "Those who know don't say and those who say don't know".

Also similar to Buddhism is the seeking of emptiness. In one book on Tao, the author states "Vacancy stillness, placidity, tastelessness, quietude, silence, non-action-- this is the level of Heaven and Earth, and the perfection of the Tao". One moves toward Tao by practicing Wu Wei, which means inaction. Taoism calls for man to live non-aggressively and passively.

According to Taoism "to blend with the cycle of the universe without effort is to become one with the Tao and so find fulfillment".

Shinto is a purely Japanese religion. It is essentially a worship of things ancient and distinctly Japanese; a worship of country and customs. In Shinto the Japanese believe that only Japan is divine, and is the center of our world.

Until after World War II, Japanese children were taught that the Japanese emperors were descendants of the sun-goddess Amaterasu.

Thus, Shintos believe that Japan is the country of the Gods, and her inhabitants are the descendants of the gods.

Shinto also includes a form of animism, or worship of inanimate objects. They believe that spirits exist in rocks, places, animals etc.

Shinto is an ancient religion, and is somewhat unique. Shinto has neither a founder, sacred writings, nor any authoritative set of beliefs. Thus, there are many different sects of Shinto. However, most sects of Shinto at least practice the act of worship to the spirits of places or things. The place of worship is most often a shrine. The most sacred spot in Japan is the imperial shrine dedicated to the worship of Amaterasu.

Also unique about Shinto is that its most worshiped deity (Amaterasu the sun-goddess) is female.

There are still many people in the world who do not adhere to any of the major world religions we have discussed so far. However, they still have beliefs that may be defined as "religious". This chapter could also be called the "study of isms". In this chapter we will examine the beliefs of atheism, agnosticism, humanism, marxism and existentialism.

Atheism by definition means "no God". So, atheists believe that there is no God or gods. Many of the other belief systems in this chapter are basically different versions of atheism. Atheists believe that natural processes resulted in everything we see in the universe. Thus, it is supposedly "scientifically" based in the theory of evolution. Indeed evolution serves as the "scientific" basis for all god-less religions.

Atheists deny the existence of God on basically three arguments: the moral argument, the scientific argument, and the logical argument. We will list each of these arguments below and then refute each.

This argument goes as follows:

This sounds like a fairly elegant argument. In fact a large number of books have been written on this very subject. One such best-selling book was called "Why do Bad Things Happen to Good People". This book was written by a (liberal) Jewish rabbi. The conclusion of this author was that God was not powerful enough to defeat evil, thus it exists. There is a much better argument to refute the atheist.

In any argument analysis, it is important to test the argument every step of the way. In argument above we can agree with the first two premises of the argument; that God is good and all-powerful. It is the third premise that is untrue and misleading.

It is true that God is totally good, and that he despises all evil, since it is sin. However, by reading the Bible we come to understand that sometimes we must undergo tests (evil by others) that God will ultimately use for good. The story of Joseph in Genesis is an excellent example of this. In fact Joseph says "what you meant for evil, God meant for good". Thus we can know that some types of evil are used by God to carry out His will.

However, not all evil necessary meets this test. For example, one may argue that the murder of a baby does not seem to work any good for God's purposes, yet babies are still abused and murdered. How could a good and loving God allow this?

First, we should clearly understand that God is grieved when innocents are hurt, and sin prevails in our world. In this situation, since God is all-powerful, he could force everyone in the world to be good. That is, it is possible for God to make us mindless 'robots" who worship Him and do not commit sin, simply because we are programmed to do so. So, God could destroy all evil in the world with a breath. So why doesn't He? It is partly because God wanted us to worship Him from our own choice. Thus, He gave us "free will" in which we can choose to serve Him or not. Since we often choose not to serve Him, we sin and evil exists.

However, we should point out that God allows evil to exist only for a season. Ultimately he will destroy all evil. Thus, simply because evil exists today, does not mean that evil will always exist. Then, the existence of evil today, does not mean that God is not powerful enough to destroy it, but simply that His time has not yet come to destroy it.

The bottom line is this: If God were to destroy all evil, He would either have to kill every person on earth, or turn us all into mindless robots, programmed to not sin. Neither one of these options is in line with the nature of God.

The other argument against the atheist's "logical construct" above, is that man brought evil into the world. Since God gave Adam the choice by free will to sin or not, Adam then chose to sin, bringing evil and death into the world.

Thus, God is not the direct creator of evil in the world, man is (helped by Satan, the deceiver). However, God will allow evil to exist for a season, until His time to destroy it all (see the book of Revelation for more details).

So finally, simply because evil exists today, does not mean that God does not exist or is not all-good. It simply means that God is allowing evil to exist to serve a specific purpose, and to serve his eternal purpose.

The next argument is a supposed scientific one. This argument goes as follows:

The refutation of this argument is dealt with in more detail in the chapters on creation science, but it can be summed up as this:

The biological world of people, animals and plants contain order of great complexity. The DNA molecule is a tremendously wonderful and complex of software and hardware. The odds of "natural selection" and random chance resulting in such order is approximately 10 to the 40,000^th power to one against. This compares with the odds of winning the lottery as only 10 to the 7^th power to one against.

Thus, the scientific world has not explained away the necessity of a creator, since we and the universe are intricately designed and created.

Logical arguments against God are most commonly applied to God's nature. The most often used argument that I have heard which seeks to attack God's omnipotence is as follows:

To answer this question, we must first know what omnipotence really means. The dictionary defines omnipotence as "having unlimited power". So, we can say that one who is omnipotent can do anything that power can accomplish. To apply this to the question above, we may well ask "how much power is needed for someone to create a rock that he cannot also life". The answer is that no amount of power would be enough, because this is not a test of power!

That is, God is all-powerful. Since he is all-powerful, He can do anything that power allows. Other arguments are similar: "Can God make 2 + 2 = 6?" Again, we must ask, how much power is required to make this happen. The answer is again that this is not a question of power, but of illogic. So, such questions do not have anything to do with disproving the omnipotent nature of God.

We must also point out that there are many things that God will not do, although he could. For example, God could tell a lie, since He is all-powerful but he would not lie, because to do so is contrary to His nature.
 
 

While atheists deny the existence of God, agnostics question His existence. There are basically two types of agnostics; those who say that such knowledge is impossible to obtain, and those who say that we simply do not have enough evidence to decide.

Agnostics who claim that we cannot ever know the existence of God do so because they believe that we can never really know the existence of anything. That is, this type of agnostic believes that we can only sense reality we cannot know it. In fact, they will go one step further and say that we can know nothing for certain.

However, that statement itself serves as a disproof of it. That is, if we say that we can know nothing for certain, then we cannot know if even that statement is certain.

The second type of agnostic are simply those people who claim that we do not have enough evidence to substantiate the existence of God. It is for this type of people, that it is important for Christians to understand the logic of the cross, and to understand why we believe.

Humanism or secular humanism is a one of the fastest growing world belief systems. Secular humanism does not believe in a God. Instead humanists believe that people can find fulfillment or salvation in themselves. There are many variants of humanism, but the following creeds spell out some of the major themes of secular humanism:

1. The universe is self-existing and not created.

2. Man is a result of evolutionary processes.

3. There is no supernatural.

4. Through science, man has outgrown the need for God, who they believe was simply created by primitive man.

5. The goal of life is to develop one's own personality, which ends at death.

6. The solution to all of man's problems lie within man.

7. Morals are derived from human experience and are situational (not absolutes)

8. People should be tolerant of other people who have different moral outlooks, sexual orientation, etc.

The first four of these creeds deal with the belief in evolution. This issue was covered in some detail in the early chapters. The belief in evolution logically causes one to believe that life is a mere accident and that there is no ultimate purpose to it. Thus secular humanists deny the supernatural and the afterlife. Since they believe that the human personality (or soul) dies at death, then the goal of human life is the perfection of the human personality.

One of the most universally accepted themes of secular humanism is the concept of moral relativism, which was covered in an earlier chapter, also. It is under the umbrella of moral relativism that people shout to those who oppose the abortion of pre-born babies or homosexual behavior "who are you to impose your morals on me?" or "keep your morals away from my body".

First, we showed early in this paper that evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics and is mathematically impossible. Therefore the first four tenets of secular humanism are not born out by a careful study of science.

Next, the goal to perfect the human personality may seem an innocuous goal. However, we must remember that man left to his own devices, will sin. There is no such thing as perfecting the human spirit without God. If there is truly no God, and no ultimate accountability, it seems that secular humanists ought to simply believe that enjoyment should be man's chief goal.

Moral relativism holds that one person should not judge the acts of another as 'wrong", since what is wrong for one person may be all right for another. It is this type of thinking that allowed Adolf Hitler to almost take over the world. The entire world stood by and watched while millions of innocent Jews and others were murdered.

However, moral relativism tells us that we should not judge the behavior of another culture as 'wrong", therefore humanists cannot say that what Hitler did was wrong. So, we see that the view of moral relativists is unsatisfactory.

It is the view of moral relativism which calls for tolerance of other's behaviors. In fact, in a recent survey of America's teenagers by Josh McDowell and others, he found that being intolerant is among the most undesirable "labels" to have. The result is a society in which we can no longer to an act and say that it is morally wrong. This includes the sexual molestation of children and the murder of babies.

So we see that secular humanism creates a very dangerous outlook towards life in which there is no right or wrong, and there is no accountability after death.

Marxism is named after its founder, Karl Marx. Marxism is the ideological foundation for modern communism as is found in Russia and China. It is a thoroughly atheistic belief system. As are the other systems mentioned above, the scientific basis for Marxism is evolution and the belief in materialism. Materialism is a belief only in the here and now, not an eternal or spiritual outlook.

Marxists believe that God is an illusion, made up by man who was not well-schooled enough in science to understand the (supposedly) evolutionary basis for the universe. The abolishment of all forms of religion is a goal of Marxism.

Marxism calls for the denial of individual human worth in favor of the good of the working class people. Marx believed that economic forces control the destiny of the human race. He believed that the only way to achieve change in one's society is through class struggle or revolution.

Marxism calls for a one-world government, having a classless society. In this society there would be no religion, no private ownership of property, no family units, no government and no law.

Finally, Marxism states that man is basically good. The evil that is in the world is due to a sick (usually a capitalist) society. Through class revolution, the utopian classless society can be achieved. Thus, Marxism stands in stark contrast to Christianity. There is no way to reconcile the foundational atheism of Marxism with orthodox Christianity.

Existentialism is a very difficult concept to define. It may be simplistically explained as "only the individual truly exists, everything else is a manifestation of the individual or an illusion".

Existentialists usually believe that true knowledge can never be obtained, we can only observe and exist but not know anything objectively. There are many different "schools" of existentialism, but we will examine the most popular founder, Jean-Paul Sartre. Sartre had several major tenets in his existential philosophy of life:

1. Life is absurd. Sartre wrote several books, including Being and Nothingness, and Nausea. In Nausea, the main character comes to understand that all of life is simply absurd, and this served as the foundation of other tenets as well.

2. Man is Autonomous. Sartre denied the existence of God. Since he believed there is no God, then there is no supernatural authority to tell us what is right or wrong. Thus, this leads us back to tenet number one; that life is absurd and ultimately meaningless.

There are other tenets, but they are very complex and confusing to discuss for our purposes here. Existentialism can be summarized as saying that since there is no God, there is no ultimate authority. Since there is no ultimate authority, there is nothing authoritative to tell us what is right or wrong. We must decide that for ourselves. Man only exists. This existing is the only really meaningful philosophy to study, according to Sartre. Through studying his own existence, man comes to an understanding of himself. Through this understanding man "creates himself" in life. There is no such thing as human nature, only what man creates for himself.

Ultimately existentialism is a very sad and hopeless view towards life. Man simply lives and exists in a subjective world and seeks to obtain "authenticity" by his actions.

However, on his death bed perhaps Sartre came to understand the wrongness of his entire life's philosophy. He is said to have said "I do not feel that I am the product of chance, a speck of dust in the universe, but someone who was expected, prepared, prefigured. In short, a being whom only a Creator could put here: and this idea of a creating hand refers to God".
 
 

In this chapter we will take a break from discussing other world religions and instead focus on how to interpret scripture. The science of interpreting literature is called hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is important because, as we will see, many of the pseudo-Christian cults have gone astray in improperly interpreting scripture. So, an understanding of how to rightly divide the word of God is very important to the church, to keep us on the right track.

Hermeneutics was developed in the 15th-16th century. It was developed because the Catholic church at the time performed its mass in Latin. The Bible was also written in Latin. This was a problem for the common people of the day, because only the rich and well-educated were taught Latin. The Catholic church of the day, and still today, taught its people that they should not try to interpret the Bible. Instead, they should seek out their priest who would tell them what it said and what it meant. The people found this unsatisfactory, so hermeneutics was developed to help them create a scientific method to use to apply to the interpretation of scripture.

It is common in many churches to hear leaders say that there are many different ways to interpret scripture. In fact many people say that every person will interpret the same piece of scripture in a unique way. This is a false teaching which stems from the belief in moral relativism, as discussed earlier.

It is very important for us to understand that there is only one correct way to interpret scripture. As Christians we must be skilled in interpreting scripture the correct way. Hermeneutics can help us to do just that.

One of the basic foundations of hermeneutics is that every piece of literature was written from a person to a person. So, it is important to understand as much as we can about who wrote a passage of scripture, to what audience it was written, and what was going on in the environment of the day that would affect what was written. The three basic rules of hermeneutics we will discuss here are scripture text, scripture context, and scripture background.

There are three ways to study a passage of scriptural text. The first is to look at the literary genre. That is, we may first determine if the passage is a part of a poem, a parable, or a certain literary style. We know that Jesus often used different literary styles when He spoke. For example, in John 6:48, He said "I am the bread of life", and in 10:7, "I am the door of the sheep". In such passages it is clear that Jesus was using a figure of speech. However, it is important to approach all of scripture with the point of view that we should take all scripture literally, except where clear by context and usage that it is not meant to be taken so. When figures of speech are used, we should interpret the passage by the point that the figure of speech was meant to convey.

The second way to examine a passage of text is to use a word study. This method recognizes that every word of the Bible is God-breathed and was put there for a reason. So, it is important to understand what each word of the Bible means as it was originally written. Although many versions of the Bible today are accurate translations of the original manuscripts, we must also understand that often subtle points are lost in the translation from one language to another. For example, the English word love, has two distinct meanings in Greek. It can refer to have an ardent affection for (phileo), or have high esteem or high regard for (agapao).

So, if we do not do a word study of what the exact meaning of a specific word is, we may lose the picture of what the author (God) was trying to say.

The third way to examine scriptural text is by studying the grammar used in the passage. Paul points the importance of grammar in scripture when he points out in Gal 3:16

As we see, the difference between the singular and plural meaning of the word seed is very important to the understanding of this passage.

This is perhaps the area in which many believers go astray, in not understanding the context of a passage of scripture. Many improper uses of scripture can occur when one does not understand the context of what is said. The following are but a few examples of passages of scripture, when taken out of context, may give us the wrong interpretation of the scripture.

Luke 6:37

"Judge not, and you shall not be judged.

(NKJ)

Mark 16:18

"they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover."

(NKJ)

Matt 17:20

20 "...for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.

(NKJ)

In studying the context of scripture, we must understand that there are several contexts to study. First, is the immediate context of the paragraph in which the verse occurs, as well as the paragraphs immediately above and below it. The wider context to study, deals with the placement of the verse under study within the book it was written. Without the understanding of the wider context in 1John 3:6 which says

we might believe that if we have committed a sin since accepting Jesus, then we are not truly saved. However, when we read the entire book of 1 John, we see that this is not so.

The third type of context is the context of the entire Bible, old and new testament. Since we have already established in previous chapters that the Bible is the inspired word of God, we know that the Bible is true.

If there are parts of the Bible which seem to contradict this, it is up to us to study further to understand these confusing parts. Too often, so called scholars will point to confusing passages of scripture and call them contradictory. They will then say that the Bible cannot be true and God-inspired if it contains contradictions.

However, an understanding of the word structure, the context and the scriptural background will most often allow us to readily reconcile what may at first appear to be contradictions in scripture.

The background of a given passage of text may contain several elements. The most common element is the cultural background. This includes the social, legal, religious traditions and customs of the author and his audience. For example if one studies the tradition of the Jewish wedding and the authority the father of the groom has in determining the timing of the wedding feast, we get a much richer picture of the second coming of Jesus.

In the same way, if we know that sheep respond only to the voice of their shepherd, it gives us a richer understanding when Jesus says my sheep know my voice.

The second kind of background is the historical element. It is the richness and truth of scripture that allows archaeologists to establish evidence to confirm scripture. Every year, archaeologists uncover an ancient city which was spoken of in the Bible.

The most important thing to remember in the study of the Bible is that it is true. The Bible is meant to be taken literally, except when it is clear by context and usage that a passage is not meant to be taken so. Since the Bible is true, there is only one correct way to interpret each passage of scripture. By following this simple rule, Christians can avoid many of the traps of cults which twist God's word around to fit their own desires.
 
 

The term cult is often misunderstood by its popular usage. For example, if you watch popular TV news programs, you might believe that a cult is a dysfunctional group of people gathered around one charismatic person for some spiritual purpose. Although such "mind control" cults are most assuredly cults, they need not be so extreme to meet the more correct definition for our purposes. What separates cults from other orthodox religions is their theology. So, we will refer in this chapter to theological cults. We will analyze their theology using the Bible as our standard.

As discussed throughout this work, we have come to see that the Bible is true. Since it is historically true, and inspired by God, there is only one correct way to interpret it. Through the use of hermeneutics, we can understand the correct interpretation of scripture. Most all cults fall into the trap of believing a leader's unconventional interpretation of scripture which leads them into a lot of trouble.

The foundational verses to use when examining the beliefs of groups who call themselves Christian but have unorthodox views of the Bible are in 2 Cor 11: 4, and 13-15:

Cults can be grouped into three broad categories: Western cults, Eastern cults, and New Age cults. Western cults are offshoots of traditional Christianity, but deny the essential doctrines of our faith (see the chapter on Christian orthodoxy). They may use the Bible as one of their sources, but usually interpret it in a very unusual, not logically based, way. Jesus may be a central figure in their religion, but not the Jesus of the Bible.

Eastern cults do not believe the Bible is anything more than a book of myths written by men. Their basis of faith is usually within man himself. They may be offshoots of the more traditional oriental religions discussed in earlier chapters. However, they are characterized by having a new revelation from above, and are usually led by a charismatic leader.

New Age cults are very difficult to define, as they may embrace beliefs from many sources. They often combine themes from traditional Christianity, eastern religions and the occult.

Cults in general are on the rise. Many have attained a very respectable status in the world and evangelize their beliefs throughout the world in a very organized and zealous way. The Mormon church has over 40,000 full-time missionaries at any given time. Young men in the Mormon church are expected to spend two years as a missionary at some point shortly after they graduate high school. In fact, even the U.S. military academies allow a leave of absence for Mormon young men to pursue their missionary duties.

The Jehovah's Witnesses publish and distribute 55 million copies of their magazines each month around the world.

People join cults for a variety of reasons, but these reasons may be categorized as intellectual, emotional, social or spiritual reasons.

People may join for intellectual reasons because they feel that the apostle of that cult has all the answers to the important questions in life such as "why am I here?" "what is my purpose in life?" etc. In fact, one huge "mission field" for cults are people who attend main stream Christian denominations, but who are ignorant of why and what they believe. Cultists who come door-to-door are often very eloquent speakers and persuasive arguers who are well-prepared for their task at hand. Many Christian cults attempt to appear scholarly by quoting from Greek and Hebrew, although often their interpretations are incorrect. However, they "sound smart".

Perhaps the greatest reason why people join cults is because their life is in terrible shape and they are starving for affection and belonging which is lacking in their life. Therefore when cult members treat them as very special people, they become vulnerable to listening to what they have to say.

People seeking some type of emotional stability in their lives find comfort in cults who tell them exactly how to live their lives, what to think and how to act.

People may also join for social reasons. The Mormon church has done an outstanding job in marketing their church as a "family oriented" religion. They have purchased commercials on all networks which are shown extensively throughout the Chris