Sharpening our Apologetic Skills

July 22, 2008

In a debate with Dinesh D’Souza, well known atheist Christopher Hitchens posed a question about God’s existence that went something like this:

Homo sapiens has been on the planet for a long time, let’s say 100,000 years. Apparently for 95,000 years God sat idly by, watching and perhaps enjoying man’s horrible condition. After all, cave-man’s plight was a miserable one: infant mortality, brutal massacres, horrible toothaches, and an early death. Evidently God didn’t really care.

Then, a few thousand years ago, God said, “It’s time to get involved.” Even so God did not intervene in one of the civilized parts of the world. He didn’t bother with China or Egypt or India. Rather, he decided to get his message to a group of nomadic people in the middle of nowhere. It took another thousand years or more for this message to get to places like India and China.

Here is the thrust of Hitchens’ point: God seems to have been napping for 98 percent of human history, finally getting his act together only for the most recent 2 percent? What kind of a bizarre God acts like this?

So, Christian apologists: how do we answer such an objection to belief in our great and glorious God?

Striving to always be prepared to give a reason for my hope in Christ to anyone who asks (1 Peter 3:15),

Larry

Posted by Larry | Filed Under Seeking Him 

Comments

One Response to “Sharpening our Apologetic Skills”

  1. Jim W on July 24th, 2008 8:24 pm

    All right, I haven’t read your July 24 post yet with D’Souza’s response to Hitchens. So, since the creation (old earth vs. new earth) vs. evolution debate is a real interest of mine, here’s what I’d say to Mr. Hitchens:

    “i don’t agree with the premise of your question. I don’t believe that man has been around for 100,000 years; I believe the Bible is the Word of God, and it teaches that the earth is much younger than that. Thus, the Bible teaches that God has been involved with His creation for 100% of the time. And I believe that God is clearly seen in the order of what He has made.”

    I could go on a lot longer than that, but his question raises an important question for those Christians who might be inclined to believe in Old Earth Creationism. In order to accept an old earth, we must explain how death entered the creation before Adam and Eve’s original sin. If the earth is tens of thousands of years old, and humankind was created five to ten thousand years ago, there must have been a lot of death/sickness/etc. going on before humans were created.

    I hope D’Souza was much more enlightening that I’ve been for Mr. Hitchens! What an influence for the gospel Christopher Hitchens would be if he put his trust in Christ, and turned away from his obvious hatred of God. Let’s pray for a Pauline influence in his life that would open his eyes to the gospel. And let’s refuse the tendency to hate him as an enemy, and instead to love him as our enemy.

    Jim W

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