Preview of Book 1

At that time I had, as they say, “all the guts in the world, but no judgment.”

There have been a lot of dark and stormy nights since that time in 1975.  Many of those storms could have been avoided or handled much better than I did if I had known during those years what I have written about in this and the next two books.  I learned all this the hard way.  I hope you can learn from my many mistakes.

Why these books?

The three books, of which I speak, are meant to help Christians fulfill the Great Commission. And to help non-Christians better understand what the Christian worldview is all about. This book focuses on what the Christian worldview is by answering 12 of life’s most important questions. Questions that everyone has…or should have anyway. Book two is all about God’s natural revelation in the cosmos. It presents an argument for an old universe as described by modern science and the Big Bang. Book three puts it all together and suggests ways of communicating the orthodox Christian worldview to our friends that ask us for the reason for the hope that we have.

Why the name?

Midnight in Marrakesh, is an unlikely name for a book to help in understanding the Christian worldview. But then who is ever going to pick up a book entitled Witnessing 101? That’s what I called a series of classes that I taught in the spring of 2017 to our adult Sunday School class at my church. Since that time, this book and book three have grown out of that class and become what they are today. So, let’s get started.

We were flying a group of Jewish passengers during the month of Ramadan to several cities in Morocco, a very Muslim country. (Which actually was no problem at all, it just adds a little mystery and excitement to the story.) It was around midnight in Marrakesh when we were taxiing out to leave for the lower 48 when the beginning of the end of my flying career took off. But, that’s another story.

The Word of God;
Chapter 1, Verse 1
Ten words.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth.”

Everything rests on those 10 Words. All science and all theology rests on the truthfulness of those 10 Words. Ten, simple, easily understandable Words.

Those 10 Words tell us Who did what, and that God is all-wise, all-powerful, and universally, eternally, sovereign period.

Every word ever uttered or written by all the scientists of the world are only a commentary on those first 10 Words; about how God did it.

Every word ever uttered or written by all the theologians of the world are only a commentary on those first 10 Words; Who God is; Eternal. Creator. Sovereign.

Every Word that follows those first 10 Words are only a commentary on those first 10 Words.

The Scriptures make it very clear that there is only one God. For example, Deuteronomy 6:4 says, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.”

But then, the Scriptures also refer to “God” and the “Spirit of God” as two distinguishable Persons. (“Persons” will be defined later.) For example, in Genesis 1:1-2, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”

This “Spirit of God” makes cameo appearances at other times in the Old Testament Scriptures as well. For example in Numbers 24:2, 2 Chronicles 15:1, and Ezekiel 11:24.

In Psalm 51:10-11, the Scriptures say, “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.

Now, here is my point: Whatever the distinction and relationship is between God and the Spirit of God in Genesis 1:1-2, and the other mentioned passages, is the same distinction and relationship that exists between what Christians call God the Father, and God the Spirit; nothing more, nothing less, nothing else.

So, this leaves us with two distinguishable Persons within the Godhead in the Old Testament but NOT a Trinity. The One Who completes the Christian Trinity of Persons in the Scriptures is God the Son (“the Word” in John 1:1-5); whose future coming is foretold many times in the Old Testament.

Now, in the pages that follow, I would like to tell you what I believe about the Trinity. To do that I am going to follow this outline:

First, some basics like God is incomprehensible, massless, everywhere, and one.

Second, what I mean by the words “Person” and “Essence,” because that is the heart of the matter.

Third, showing that the Trinity is NOT a violation of the law of non-contradiction.

Fourth, the two main reasons why I see a Trinity within the Being we call God.

Fifth, showing why the divisions of responsibilities within the godhead are a characteristic of what the Trinity DOES, never what the Trinity IS.

Sixth, examples of things that appear as a trinity to help understand the Trinity of God.

If you were a pilot, I could say that we are at V1, and you would know exactly what I mean. But since you are probably NOT, I’ll just say, hang on, because for better or worse, we’re taking off.

When we are born, we are all given a very large puzzle of many pieces called life. And a lot of those pieces are the same shape, the same size, and the same color, so it’s NOT easy putting it all together. But we have no choice, except to try. Since the beginning of time, some of the hardest pieces of our puzzle to put together are the ones that deal with evil and suffering. In this and the next chapter, I hope to show that those mysterious pieces can be put together in a way that is satisfying and strengthening for our souls.

What we, as Christians, say to anyone about the problems associated with evil and suffering depends, first of all, on how close they are to a severe tragedy in their lives. If they have just had a crushing loss in their life, it’s NOT the time to say, “Oh, it’s so nice to know that God is in control of all things and He had this planned all along, and don’t worry, everything is going to be fine, blah, blah, blah.” This is the time to put your arms around them, tell them how sorry you are, cry with them, and pray for them. What I am going to suggest in answer to the question of evil and suffering at this point is more of an academic discussion that should take place long before tragedy strikes. Still, one that I think can also be appropriate at the right time after a personal loss, as I will show later in the next chapter.

As you know, evil has been a dominant part of everyone’s life ever since Satan said to Eve, “Did God really say…?” The problem of evil and the resulting suffering is one of the all-time big questions that thinking people from all walks of life have struggled with through the ages. It can be stated in several ways; for example, if God is all-powerful and all-loving, then how can God allow evil to exist? Or, since evil does exist, it can be used as an argument to try to prove that God does NOT exist. The existence of evil is what many very intelligent people have and are using as an excuse for NOT believing in the God of the Bible.

But please note one thing throughout this presentation, the problem of evil is a problem for non-Christians, NOT for Christians. Non-Christians also have a problem with Purposelessness (Chapter 9), Nothingness (Chapter 10), Faith (Chapter 11), and Determinism (Chapter 12 and 13). Christians have an answer for each of these “problems”; the atheist does NOT. NOT a satisfactory answer anyway, and certainly NOT one with any significant basis.

So, with all this in mind, it’s time to look at Question 6. Just to be sure we are all on the same sheet of music, I would like to restate Question 6 this way:

What is evil, and why is there so much suffering in the world as a result of evil?

To answer the question “What is evil,” I will first put a face on evil, and then define evil. To answer the question “why is there so much suffering in the world as a result of evil” I will connect evil and suffering with God’s Providence, and finally, show how all this works to the benefit of ALL humanity.

So, let’s get started by putting a face on evil.

It is written, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil…”

“Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes
and clever in their own sight.”

When God says “WOE” we would be wise to listen.

WOE is ME if I fail to provide overwhelming evidence
that evil, in its proper context,
is God’s long-term good.

Friends, evil is NOT a good thing in itself. And God is never the originator of evil to do evil. But I believe our all-powerful, all-wise, all-loving God entered our world to bring good from what would otherwise be a bottomless pit of evilness. And the first thing it cost Him to do that was the death of His only Son.

The overwhelming evidence of which I promised in the last Chapter comes in the answer to Question 7: What is our purpose in life? More specifically, what is our ultimate purpose in this life and throughout eternity that gives our lives real and lasting meaning?

We all have important purposes in our lives such as our career, marriage, family, and so on. (Even the non-believing world recognizes that fact as was so beautifully epitomized in the 69 seconds, 2016 Audi Super Bowl commercial. If this doesn’t bring tears to your eyes, you haven’t lived!) But, have we been created with an ultimate purpose that is intrinsic to our very essence? Do we have an ultimate purpose that, if known and lived out, would give our lives real and lasting meaning for now and forever? Or are we only a chance happening of evolution without any particular purpose or intrinsic value, just struggling to get by, day by day?

Most people, at least most Americans, would answer that we are here to acquire as much wealth as possible. So that we can accumulate all of the Earthly possessions that we think we need in able to fulfill all of our desires; so that we might be as comfortable and entertained as humanly possible.

If that is your philosophy, and you are determined to stick with it, then you are never going to understand, and much less accept, why evil exists, or why we must suffer.

I believe everyone, from the moment of conception, has a three-fold, God-given, eternal-life purpose, that if fulfilled will give our lives real and lasting meaning. And that eternal-life purpose is: to seek God, to live in obedience to God, and to worship God in order to prepare us for life in the New Heaven and the New Earth.

In Chapter 6 we used Dr. Richard Dawkins’ book, The God Delusion to show that it is the atheist that is delusional. In this chapter I will use another one of Dr. Dawkins’ books, River Out of Eden, to show that the atheist does NOT have a sufficient purpose in life to give his or her life the necessary meaning.

I believe in River Out of Eden Dr. Dawkins did an excellent job of first, clearly and accurately showing how the “modern understanding of Darwinian life” is working out in our world. And second, he totally eliminates any belief that there is any purpose in life, except one. And without a sufficient purpose, life will NOT have sufficient meaning for our eternal well-being. But I am getting ahead of myself again. It’s best to let Dr. Dawkins speak for himself as he did in River Out of Eden A Darwinian View of Life.

Dr. Dawkins wrote,

Page 96: “We humans have purpose on the brain. We find it hard to look at anything without wondering what it is ‘for,’ what the motive for it is, or the purpose behind it. When the obsession with purpose becomes pathological it is called paranoia—reading malevolent purpose into what is actually random bad luck. But this is just an exaggerated form of a nearly universal delusion. Show us almost any object or process, and it is hard for us to resist the ‘Why’ question—the ‘What is it for?’ question.”

Page 96: “The desire to see purpose everywhere is a natural one in an animal (referring to humans) that lives surrounded by machines, works of art, tools and other designed artifacts; an animal, moreover, whose waking thoughts are dominated by its own personal goals. A car, a tin opener, a screwdriver and a pitchfork all legitimately warrant the ‘What is it for?’ question. Our pagan forebears would have asked the same question about thunder, eclipses, rocks and streams. Today we pride ourselves on having shaken off such primitive animism.”

Page 97: “Somewhere between windscreen wipers and tin openers on the one hand and rocks and the universe on the other lie living creatures. Living bodies and their organs are objects that, unlike rocks, seem to have purpose written all over them. Notoriously, of course, the apparent purposefulness of living bodies has dominated the classic Argument from Design, invoked by theologians from Aquinas to William Paley to modern ‘scientific’ creationists.”

Page 98: “The true process that has endowed wings and eyes, beaks, nesting instincts and everything else about life with the strong illusion of purposeful design is now well understood. It is Darwinian natural selection. Our understanding of this has come astonishingly recently, in the last century and a half. Before Darwin, even educated people who had abandoned ‘Why’ questions for rocks, streams and eclipses still implicitly accepted the legitimacy of the ‘Why’ question where living creatures were concerned. Now only the scientifically illiterate do. But ‘only’ conceals the unpalatable truth that we are still talking about an absolute majority.”

Page 98: “The illusion of purpose is so powerful that biologists themselves use the assumption of good design as a working tool.”

(My emphasis added to keywords above and below.)

Do you see the evolution of Dr. Dawkins’ argument against purpose? Now purpose is only “apparent purposefulness,” “strong illusion of purposeful design,” “the illusion of purpose,” “the metaphor of purpose.” And finally, on page 104 he says, “This is because Homo sapiens is a deeply purpose-ridden species.”

Apparently, the concept of purpose is so repugnant to Dr. Dawkins, that he gives it another name, “utility function” on page 102. Utility function means, “that which is maximized” (page 103). As the pages go on it becomes obvious that “purpose” has been fully replaced by “utility function” and on page 105 we find out what humanity’s utility function (purpose) really is, and I quote, “We now understand the single Utility Function (read purpose) of life in great detail…the true utility function of life, that which is being maximized in the natural world, is DNA survival.”

So, in Dr. Dawkins’ world there is no loving God, the universe came about by a quantum fluctuation, humanity evolved from the primordial soup, probably after being struck by lightning and that maybe on some other planet; and our only purpose in life is to pass on our DNA. And after we die, we simply return to dirt. The only thing that is glaringly absent from Dr. Dawkins’ worldview is hope. You may think that is just my conclusion until you read what Dr. Dawkins’ wrote on page 131 where he said:

“To return to this chapter’s pessimistic beginning, when the utility function—that which is being maximized—is DNA survival, this is not a recipe for happiness. So long as DNA is passed on, it does not matter who or what gets hurt in the process. It is better for the genes of Darwin’s ichneumon wasp that the caterpillar should be alive, and therefore fresh, when it is eaten, no matter what the cost in suffering. Genes don’t care about suffering, because they don’t care about anything.”

So, how has our society responded to that “pessimistic” conclusion? Let’s take a look at the evening news and see how stronger and stronger drugs are used to deaden the pain of life, and suicide to deaden a life of pain.

The following articles all appeared in the news. Click on the caption below the picture to read the full article.

Putting all the Pieces Together
Belief – Faith – Trust – Hope

Many times, I wake up early (sometimes in the middle of the night) thinking about things. And I have learned that if I keep thinking about it, something will come to me that I had never thought of before. I suppose it’s the result of taking in information day after day and eventually, my brain starts processing it and finally comes up with something new. Or maybe there is more at work here than the obvious; it’s one of those things that’s pretty hard to do a double-blind study on.

Anyway, the subject of a recent morning’s “wake-up call” was the relationship between four fundamentals of Christianity. And those particular four are belief, faith, trust, and hope.

Suggestion; many of my friends are going to find the following explanation unintelligible, boring, and irrelevant at best. It only works for boringly studious nerds and us want-a-be nerds. So, for everyone else, just cut to the chase here. Now, for nerds only, you may continue.

So, how do belief, faith, trust, and hope all work together for Christians and non-Christians alike?

First, a quick review: I believe all human beings are made up of a visible, physical body and a non-physical, i.e., immaterial, invisible, indivisible, massless spirit, or soul. The Bible uses spirit and soul interchangeably. And as you have heard me say before, that definition does NOT work if you are an atheist. To an atheist, we are only a physical body composed of atoms and maybe a few other tangible sub-atomic particles; never anything of a spiritual nature. The best analogy of our body/soul relationship that I can think of is a computer. A computer is made up of visible hardware plus invisible (to us) software. So: Human being = body + spirit. Computer = hardware + software. Do you understand the analogy I am trying to make here?

Now to extend that analogy further, many of the software programs in our computers use sub-programs called algorithms. Algorithms are simply “a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations.” In other words, they generally just do some specific thing over and over. So, think of our mind as having a belief algorithm, a faith algorithm, and a trust algorithm.

Our belief algorithm takes the inputs from our five senses, runs those inputs through our mind, and separates fact from fiction based on our current worldview. (That’s why we say something makes sense, or NOT.)

The output of the belief algorithm is to believe something to be true or false or somewhere in between.

Now, in spite of what you may think, NO one has ever been saved by believing in Jesus alone. John 3:16 doesn’t say that we are saved by believing in Jesus; that would mean that we are saved by our good works, i.e., by believing! (See Ephesians 2:8-9.) John 3:16 says that everyone that has been saved believes in Jesus. Do you need more proof? There has never been a creature alive that believes in Jesus more than Satan does and Satan is NOT, and never will be, a Christian. Satan is NOT, and never will be, an atheist either!

Our faith algorithm takes the output of the belief algorithm and establishes an initial level of confidence in the output of the belief algorithm. The truthfulness of the existence of God for example. As our senses take in more information on a particular subject our confidence (faith) in the subject either grows or diminishes. This faith algorithm works great on all subjects, except those things that pertain to the Christian God.

Now here is where the Christian mind differs from the non-Christian mind. God gives His chosen people a free gift. It’s called faith. (Ephesians 2:8-9) This gift of faith is given to us the moment we are born again. (Think regeneration, i.e., new birth then faith.) Think of this as an additional algorithm that new Christians receive that in effect gives us spiritual eyes to see spiritual things (Romans 8:14-17) that the non-Christian can never see because they don’t have the gift of faith. It enables the new Christian to see the Truth of the Word of God and to understand and passionately desire more and more of that Truth. And, most importantly, to be obedient to that Truth. This is what I called faith for salvation and faith for/from sanctification earlier in this chapter.

Our trust algorithm is like an energy generator. It’s what takes our beliefs that have been verified (and strengthened by God’s gift of faith for Christians) and gives us the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual energy to take action on what we believe and have faith in. Trust puts into action what we believe in, what we have faith (confidence) in. It enables us to trust something we may never have seen or experienced personally but is based on what we firmly believe and have faith in from the scientific and Biblical evidence we have.
non-Christians have a trust algorithm too, but NO gift of faith.

The focus of Christian faith is to ultimately trust in what God has already done for us to guarantee our eternal life with Him in a heavenly paradise. It is a gift that God plants in our hearts and nurtures with the Sonlight and with the rain from the storms of life.

When we think about these things, we normally associate them with eternal life. But guess what? The moment we are born again is when we begin (have) our eternal life. So, the trinity of belief, faith, and trust apply equally well with things in our daily life on this Earth as it does with our eternal life in the New Heaven and New Earth.

It all starts with a curiosity about the things of God. This may be an indication that the curious person is being drawn to God, or it may be just cat-killing curiosity. But once the Holy Spirit regenerates that person their belief in the real rational evidence grows with the inputs from the five senses and experiences gained from seeing how God provides for us each day of our lives on this Earth, and on into the New Heaven and New Earth. Seeing how God works in the daily things of life gives us faith to trust in bigger and bigger things each succeeding day of our lives. As our belief, faith, and trust grow in individual things our hope (think assurance and desire for God) in and for God grows rapidly.

Hope is one of those things like time, for example, that is hard to define, but intuitively we know that we can’t live without it. When Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks in the 2000 movie Castaway) found himself trapped on a secluded south sea island for years, he still had hope that he would be found. But for the person who dies without a Savior, there is NO hope. Ever. After an eternity of suffering, there will still NOT be any hope for even a drop of water to ease the pain. What is the worst hell you can imagine? That’s NOT even close to what awaits those who die without the “God of hope,” Who gives the gift of Hope, in their hearts.

There once was a man that stretched a tightrope from one high mountain peak to another; across a valley that lay far below filled with dark shadows of fearful things. When the man asked a friend if he believed that he could push a wheelbarrow across this sinister valley on a tightrope the friend said, “I don’t know; maybe.”

So, the man pushed the wheelbarrow across the valley. Not just once, but many times without difficulty of any kind.

And then the man asked the friend, “Now do you believe that I can do what I said?”

And the friend said, “Yes, of course!”

Then the man asked the friend, “Do you have faith that I can do it in the dark of night?” And the friend said, “Well, probably; I’m not sure about that.”

So, the man pushed the wheelbarrow across the valley at night; even during the midst of a great storm with no difficulty.

Then the man asked the friend, “Now, has your faith grown in what you believe I can do?”

And the friend said with great confidence, “Yes, you have given me total confidence in what you can do! There is not even a shadow of doubt in my mind of your abilities.”

Then the man asked the friend, “Do you trust me, that I could push this wheelbarrow across this valley of the shadow of death with a great weight in my wheelbarrow?”

Who are you trusting in to see you through this day? Tomorrow? Eternity?

There is only one way to enter a state of total, complete, and eternal hopelessness. And that is to die without Jesus as your savior. As long as a person has life there is hope.

Hope is the last thing to go; hopelessness lasts forever.

If you are reading this you have hope!

WARNING:
False beliefs produce false hopes.

If God is sovereign and He “determines” our steps, as the old 1978 NIV says in Proverbs 16:9, of what value is prayer?

In Dr. Dawkins’ book The God Delusion (page 85), he talks about a study he calls “The Great Prayer Experiment” that was financed ($2.4 million) by the Templeton Foundation. Apparently, someone thought it was possible to do a double-blind study on prayer. The Templeton Foundation is a very well-funded organization with many intelligent, highly educated, well-meaning people. But it seems to me that you would have to assume that God would consistently perform in ways that would allow for human analysis in order to study prayer. Apparently, these people have never read Isaiah 55:8-9 where God says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” When God decides (humanly speaking) how to answer our prayers, He considers how His answer is going to impact every atom in the universe from now through eternity.

Do you really think anyone could ever do a double-blind study on that?

In the Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 5 concerning Providence it says, “God the great Creator of all things does uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least, by His most wise and holy providence, according to His infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of His own will, to the praise of the glory of His wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy.”

James, the half-brother of Jesus, summarized what wrong motivations for praying look like when he said, “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures” (James 4:1-3).

Does that ring a bell?

Question: if you really believed that God was listening to your prayers and would, based on your prayers alone, change the course of your life in a way that you wanted, would that encourage you to pray more?

Well, for whatever it’s worth, I believe God does just that. And here is how I think God does it.

God told His chosen people, as recorded in Jeremiah 29:11, “’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to give you hope and a future.”

I believe that promise is for all of God’s chosen people for all time.

So, what is God’s plan for Christians?

I can tell you in 8 words: to conform Christians to the likeness of Jesus.

Notice how it goes right back to Question 7; What is Our Purpose in Life? Certainly, there are a lot of peripheral things in God’s plan for us, but conforming us to the likeness of Jesus is the basis for everything that follows. And no good thing follows without that conformity to the likeness of Jesus.

So, in seven steps, this is how I think our prayers are answered in the reality of our daily life.

(I highly recommend NOT doing that. I have seen the results of that, and it’s never good.)

No, absolutely NOT! (Sorry Mr. Kierkegaard) I get this a lot from non-believers and some so-called Christians! The reason why Christianity is NOT a leap of faith is that our Christian faith has a strong and provable basis. Our faith is NOT based on a mathematical type of proof, but it is based on a logical, legal type of proof. By that I mean, it is based on the preponderance of logical evidence from historical and scientific facts including eyewitness testimony. And, by the way, if you believe that all science is based on mathematical type proofs and what we used to call the “scientific method,” then you know very little about modern science.

Let me state this another way, Christianity is NOT faith in faith, as some would say. It’s a faith with a REAL basis in truth, reality, and experience. In other words, it’s rational.

Okay, let me say it this way. Back in my flying days when I lined up my Gulfstream on runway 25 to depart from Juan Santamaria International airport in San Jose, Costa Rica, as I did in the picture below on February the 24th, 2006, there was a very strict procedure that we went through for this and every takeoff. It’s the procedure that every multi-engine jet pilot follows for every takeoff. And this is it:

After we completed the line-up check and we were cleared for takeoff, I taxied out onto the active runway and moved the power levers forward until the twin Rolls-Royce engines began spooling up. When the engine pressure ratio passed 1.17, I pressed the autothrottle engagement switch on the power levers to initiate autothrottle control of the engines. This enabled the engines to develop their total 27,700 lbs. of thrust. Once I released the brakes and started the takeoff roll, the co-pilot verbally confirmed that both engines were producing computed takeoff power as we quickly accelerated faster and faster down the runway.

At 100 knots (115 mph) the co-pilot called out, “100 knots.” Any anomalies below 100 knots would have called for an immediate abort of the takeoff. Above 100 knots, the only reason we would have aborted would have been for an engine failure, an engine fire, or thrust reverser deployment.

As we continued to accelerate down the 9,882-foot-long runway on that day, we reached another predetermined speed, at which the co-pilot called V1. V1 is decision speed. Below decision speed, we could have still aborted the takeoff and stopped before reaching the end of the runway – theoretically. After V1, we were committed to takeoff – no matter what. In other words, if we had lost an engine after V1, we would have continued the takeoff on one engine, climbed to traffic pattern altitude, circled the airport, and landed without further incident – theoretically.

By this time, the far end of the runway was getting very close, and getting closer at the rate of well over 200 feet per second. Soon there will be no way to stop before reaching the end of the runway.

But still, it’s NOT time to take off. We must go even faster.

Then, at the exact calculated speed, for the conditions that existed that day for our aircraft weight, outside air temperature, and pressure altitude, the co-pilot called, “Rotate.”

In every takeoff, this is the moment of reckoning.

When I pulled back on the control yoke, on that warm, hazy day in 2006, I had complete faith that the laws of physics, that have been in place since the birth of the Singularity and the beginning of time, would generate a downward force on the tail of my airplane, causing the nose to rotate skyward and the wings to develop sufficient lift to send my airplane, and everyone in it, up into the heavens.

My faith in the laws of physics on that takeoff was NOT a leap of faith, pun intended, nor was it faith in faith; this was scientific faith with a REAL BASIS IN TRUTH, REALITY, AND EXPERIENCE and that’s what CHRISTIAN FAITH is all about.

Oh, but my wise, skeptical, non-believing friends would say that this is only an example of scientific faith. Airplanes fly under the right conditions for non-Christians just as well as Christians.

Very true, thanks to God’s common grace! But here is the point I am trying to make. The basis for scientific faith and Christian faith is the same to the extent that they are both based on real, true, facts and accurate information that is available to everyone.

So, what’s the difference?

Christian faith is NOT wishing upon a star and hoping it comes true. Christian faith builds on and goes beyond scientific faith. Remember from Chapter 11, scientific faith is a gift of God’s common grace that is given to all. Christian faith is a gift from God, given to whom God chooses
(remember Romans 9:16).

Here is the bottom line:

Christianity is a logic-based, eternal life system that provides consistent, credible answers to questions like where did everything come from, how then must I live to find peace and contentment in this life, and what will happen to me after my life on Earth is over?

Christianity is an eternal life system that is based on over four thousand years of verifiable, historical, scientific evidence and creditable witnesses with NO hidden or unstated assumptions.

But now, let’s turn the question around; what’s the atheists’ faith based on?