By Elizabeth Clarke, LCU News
PINEVILLE, La. (LCU News) – “Would you ever be able to catch someone in a lie if there was no truth?” Renowned Christian apologist Frank Turek asked the crowd, April 7, inside Louisiana Christian University’s Guinn Auditorium.
Turek, founder of CrossExamined.org and host of the program “I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist” addressed four questions.
- Does truth exist?
- Does God exist?
- Are miracles possible?
- Is the New Testament true?
He said we live in a relativist post-modern world today, where some people argue that all truth is relative. However, there can’t be “my truth” or “your truth,” only “the truth.”
“Instead of teaching kids how to think, we are teaching them what to feel,” he said. “So many things you hear today violate the law of non-contradiction.”
The law of non-contradiction states that two opposing ideas cannot both be true. For example, the statement “there isn’t the truth, only my truth.” If there is no truth, then that statement can’t be the truth.
“There’s only one answer to ‘Jesus Christ rose from the dead.’ It doesn’t matter if you believe it or not,” Turek said. “Do you have to believe in gravity to stay on the ground? Do people who don’t float away?”
He argued that many people aren’t really looking for the truth, but rather just what makes them happy or feels good.
His evidence to illustrate the existence of God included that the universe had a beginning, which he said even atheists believe.
If something came from nothing, Turek said, then it has to come from something outside of space, time and matter—“to go from nothingness to a state of creation,” there had to be a beginner.
“If the universe were designed, there had to be a designer,” he said.
Also, if humans can judge things to be morally wrong, then there must be a God. “There must be a standard beyond us,” he said.
Answering the question of the possibility of miracles and the numerous miracles mentioned in the Bible, Turek pointed to the greatest miracle—the creation of the universe. “If He can create the whole universe out of nothing, if Genesis 1:1 is true, then every other verse is at least possible.”
Finally, he spoke at length on the truth of the New Testament.
Turek pointed to three points to illustrate its truth. It includes embarrassing stories. The gospels contain numerous eyewitness accounts of events, and Jesus’ followers often died excruciating deaths.
The authors would not have included stories to make themselves look bad if not true, he said.
“You don’t invent things to make yourself look bad,” Turek said.
Exact dates and eyewitness testimony are offered, and 37 historical people in the New Testament have been confirmed through archeological findings and documents. There have been 124 in the entire Bible, and seven biblical names from Jesus’ trial and crucifixion have been confirmed through archeology.
Jesus’ followers were so convinced that He was the Messiah and rose from the grave that they were willing to be put to death rather than change their stories.
“What did the New Testament writers have to gain by creating a new religion? They had everything to lose by saying it was true,” Turek said.
No one is willing to die for something they know is a lie, he said.
Turek said this points to an “impact event” and why the writers documented it in what we call the New Testament. He defined an impact event as something so significant that you don’t forget it and remember where you were when it happened.
Others who claimed to be the Messiah, Turek said, today we don’t even remember their names, but people still travel to Jesus’ tomb 2,000 years later because something spectacular happened there.
“Christianity would be true even if the Bible never existed,” he said. “The New Testament writers did not create the resurrection. The resurrection created the New Testament writers.”
