Recently there was a debate in New York City between two men arguing from science against the existence of God and two who apparently who were arguing for God’s existence.  This is described in an article on Foxnews.com, “Science vs. God:  does progress trump faith?”  It’s interesting who was in this debate.  Lawrence Krauss is a well-known physicist from Arizona State University and Michael Shermer is a founding publisher of Skeptic magazine.  Krauss and Shermer argue against God’s existence.  On the “God side” was Dinesh D’Souza and Ian Hutchinson.  D’Souza is well known for the 2016 documentary movie and Ian Hutchinson is a professior of nuclear engineering at MIT.  D’Souza and Hutchinson argued for the compatibility of science and religion.  But they don’t particulary argue for Christianity specifically.  Their opponents picked up on this.  I have some simpathy for atheists in some issues because the arguments of Christian apologists sometimes leave me unsatisfied.  I didn’t actually see the debate, so I’m only going by the article on Foxnews.  Don’t get me wrong, D’Souza made good points.  There is much good being done by modern Christian apologists mostly because they are having success at being heard.

But, sometimes they don’t give adequate answers because they don’t go far enough in arguing specifically for Christianity and specifically for the truth of the Bible.  There are things that require the Biblical answers in order to have a complete answer.  Also, it is not adequate to treat all religions as sort of “equal.”  The atheists at the debate pointed out that both the men representing the “God” side were Christians, so that meant they rejected all the religions in the world except one.  The atheists said they were asking them to reject one more.  Obviously Christians can’t oblige on this.  The God of the Bible is unlike the gods of all other religions.

Science cannot disprove God and science cannot really prove anything about origins.  Science can prove things that can be reproduced by experiment today, but the origin of things is not like that.  Science studies origins to determine the plausibility of the various possibilities.  Many Christian apologists fail in not rejecting evolution and the Big Bang.  Christians are called to stand on all the truth, not just part of it.  We won’t get respect for giving a mixed or contradictory message.  This is the actual impression of Christians that skeptics and nonchristians very often have.  The skeptics have the right to criticize the contradictory incoherent messages that Christian’s sometimes have about what they believe and why they believe it.

The Foxnews article says that D’Souza made the statement, “The last good argument against God came out in the 1850s.”  D’Souza was referring to Charles Darwin’s book, Origin of Species.  But Darwin was wrong.  There has never been a good argument against the existence of God.  Often arguments against God’s existence are based on misunderstandings of Biblical concepts, or they are based on evolution.  In the debate, physicist Lawrence Krauss said, “500 years of science have demonstrated that God, that vague notion, is not likely.”  Perhaps for some God is a “vague notion,” but it should not be like that for any Christian.  Christians should know better than to allow God to be a vague notion.  The God who created the universe has spoken to mankind and given us the answers we need in the Bible.  We have in the Bible much more than vague notions!  We may not always have all the information to fully answer some scientific or archeological questions regarding things in Bible.  But that doesn’t disprove the Bible.  In the light of all the wonderful confirmations of the Bible from science and archeology, we should be glad for the answers we have.

Krauss was apparently thinking of the evidence from modern science supporting evolution and the Big Bang.  Many of Darwin’s conclusions were unwarranted from the actual evidence.  In fact, he didn’t even make very good observations in ways because he didn’t keep adequate records.  Since Darwin, scientists have been locked into a wrong way of thinking.  Creationists have pointed out a number of things that not only refute evolution but also argue specifically for the truth of the Bible.  If the Bible is really true, there must be historical and scientific evidence that supports it.  That does not mean the evidence proves the Bible.  It doesn’t actually have to technically “prove” it to give people plenty of reason to believe it.  Also, Christianity is not just borne out by objective things like scientific evidence.  It explains life better than other religions.  This part is not as obvious and many Christian apologists don’t address this aspect enough.

The most interesting thing perhaps in the Foxnews article is the polling of the audience at the debate, at the end of the article.  Krauss and Shermer increased their votes about who won the debate from 37% (before the debate) to 50% (after the debate).  But D’Souza and Hutchinson only increased their votes from 34% to 38%.  This implies we need to do a better job at engaging people.  But, it probably also implies it takes more than a debate or a lecture to change someone’s mind.