2010

The modern secularist, seeing the world through what Charles Taylor calls "the immanent frame", has a particular set of assumptions that form a wall which makes belief difficult. Upon these assumptions are constructed arguments that serve to strengthen the wall. Our engagement with secularists is often characterized by little more than the clash of ideas; our arguments seem to just ricochet off the wall. It would be helpful, I believe, if we could find an approach that brings God's truths to light that the secularist cannot deny, or cannot deny easily. Keeping foremost in our minds the person, rather than the ideas, and the goal of guiding the person to Christ, rather than winning arguments, can lead to a somewhat different way of doing apologetics than we're used to.

An intuitive argument for the existence of God is the Design Argument. This is an argument by analogy: that a Transcendental Engineer is the explanation for the well designed Universe and various biological systems. Unfortunately, criticisms of this argument have caused it to be largely ignored today. This paper reformulates the analogical design argument to address these criticisms and make it more current. Instead of focusing on outer space and large biological entities, it centers on the microscopic inner-space of the simplest cell, developing a new analogy called “The Space Station LLEC”. This analogy is buttressed by recent scientific research, as well as quotations from hostile scientific witnesses which support the view that the inner workings of the cell are well-engineered. The analogy is purposely given in a form that is understandable to the lay person.

How even after sixty-five years does one answer the questions of the Holocaust? How does one seek to explain the death of six million whose only crime was being Jewish? How does one fathom the actions that could result in the death of almost 1.5 million Jewish children? However, these questions are not the most impossible to answer. The most impossible ones of all are simply – How does one show the love of Jesus after two millennia of Christian‘ accusations of deicide? How does one illustrate the compassion of Christianity amid the ashes of innocent Jewish children? How does one share the Gospel of Messiah Jesus after the Holocaust? Therefore, this paper will embark on a journey to examine the Church‘s anti-Semitic past. An expedition that will end with the illustration that true Christianity is diametrically opposed to this irrational hatred. This paper also will attempt to take each of the impossible questions and provide an apologetic answer that defends the Gospel.