RC Talk - The Official Blogs of Ratio Christi Chapters

As our young people graduate high school, enter college, navigate through the academy, and eventually end up in the real world, they will face many challenges to what they believe. I have seen too many young people who considered themselves Christians, then lost their faith when they got into the world. Most of them cite that a college professor was able to show that the Bible is not reliable regarding reality or to convince them that Christ is not the only way to God or to reason them away from a belief in God altogether.

continue reading →

Queens University is a new chapter this year and so far it is doing really well.  Kaleb and Ben, the student leaders, have done a wonderful job of organizing the group.  The first time that I attended we were in a room in the library.  We quickly filled up that room and had to move to another room the next week.  I have been very encouraged by the groups interest in apologetics and in their desire to grow both in their love and knowledge of God.

Last week we went through the kalam cosmological argument.  That argument goes something like this:

1. Whatever begins to exist must have a cause of its existence.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe must have a cause of it's existence.

We are working with the student leaders to come up with a plan for the semenster.  Please join us as we prayerfully formulate this exciting new group at Queens University!

continue reading →

We only need $4,350 to finish this matching grant campaign.

Why is this so important?

The next phase of Ratio Christi existence involves long term financial stability. Your donation and the match we will receive will immediately be put to use to purchase our donor software for our supported missionary program, and to pay for the launching of our dinner event speaker series.  Both these programs are designed to bring on monthly support for local chapters, local apologists and the national organization. This strategy is designed to help us find consistent monthly supporters that make multi-year commitments. That way we can focus on our mission and not be stuck raising each year’s budget over and over again.

continue reading →

Creating confident witnesses—A new strategy for church growth

The modern church is under intellectual attack. The university is the breeding ground of skepticism, secularism, atheism, and neo-Darwinism. In the past, this was a relatively non-toxic situation. Intellectuals at the university used to simply dismiss Christianity as anti-intellectual, but all that has changed. Today they are on the attack and they are aggressively recruiting students to their cause. Neo-atheists are now proselytizing with the zeal of evangelists. They have a coordinated effort and use the same language and the same arguments from Oxford to Appalachia.

continue reading →

Listen TODAY at noon - 1:00 pm EST to the interview with Ratio Christi president, Rick Schenker, by Ryan Dobson as part of "Back to School Week" of Grounded radio. 

Book Giveaway - Get details on today's show on how to win 3 FREE books written and SIGNED by Christian apologist Frank Turek (www.CrossExamined.org).

• I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist by Frank Turek and Norman Geisler
• Legislating Morality by Frank Turek and Norman Geisler
• Correct, NOT Politically Correct: How Same Sex Marriage Hurts Everyone by Frank Turek

continue reading →

Over the years, I have had my share of discussions with atheists and skeptics about the existence of God. Any attempt to point to God as an explanation for observable phenomena such as anticipatory, irreducible or specified complexity can invoke the atheist or naturalist to cry “ foul play.” Many of these people tend to have faith that science will be able to fill in any gaps in our knowledge. Let’s try to clear up this misunderstanding.

First of all, in his book Who Made God: Searching For A Theory Of Everything? Edgar Andrews has given us some things to ponder here:

1. It is important to understand that science can explain nothing except in terms of the laws of nature. Science works by first discovering (by observation) laws that describe the workings of nature and then using this knowledge to seek out further explanations — beginning with hypotheses and then confirming these hypotheses by various tests, the chief of which must always be repeatable experimental verification. To offer a scientific explanation of anything one must always appeal to existing laws (or at very least plausible hypotheses). No laws, no science; it’s as simple as that.

2. To explain the origin of the universe scientifically, therefore, requires an appeal to laws of nature (established or hypothesized) that pre-existed the universe. But laws of nature are nothing more than descriptions of the way nature operates. No one has ever proposed a law of nature that does not involve existing natural entities, whether they be matter, energy, space-time or mathematical systems. (Note that mathematics are arguably philosophical rather than scientific in character and are only scientifically relevant when applied to natural realities — that is, the world as it exists).

3. This creates a dilemma; the laws of nature cannot exist without nature itself existing but the origin of nature cannot be explained scientifically without pre-existing laws. The logical conclusion is that science cannot, by its very nature, explain the origin of the universe.

4. The only alternative is that the laws of nature did pre-exist the universe but existed as a kind of blueprint in some non-material medium such as the “mind of God”.

Let me add a few of my own points here:

When we observe the effects in the world, we can infer there are two kinds of causes—natural and intelligent. In other words, there are really two general kinds of explanations for events: intentional accounts (which demonstrate signs of value, design, and purpose) and non-intentional accounts (which lack values, design, and purpose). (1)

For example, both Richard Dawkins and Francis Crick (who are staunch atheists) both admit that while the world shows every indication it is designed and have purpose, they add one qualification; it only looks that way. In other words, while the design is evident, it can be explained without resorting to any Designer. Since Crick and Dawkins (as well as other atheists) only accept natural causes, this means the phenomena we observe can be explained mostly by chance and randomness. So even if the world shows intentional causation, the design can be explained without saying there is a Designer.

We must not forget that natural laws (gravitation, magnetism, etc) do nothing and set nothing into motion. A “law of nature” is a description of what happens when no agent (whether it be divine, human, etc) is interfering or intervening into the casual order. So when someone such as Richard Dawkins and other atheists appeal to “the blind forces of nature” as being able to explain all the observable complexity (such as anticipatory, irreducible and specified complexity), this makes no sense.

Second, it is true that a law of gravity, or the strong and weak nuclear forces don’t have minds or are conscious. However, while they may be blind, what Dawkins and others forget is that these laws are MECHANISMS. They are not AGENTS. As Edgar has already has pointed out, there is a problem with stating these mechanisms created themselves.

We must not forget that agents have goals and plan ahead. Mind or intelligence is the only known condition that can remove the improbabilities against life’s emergence. It is hard to see how a blind, naturalistic, undirected process could anticipate the universe that is required for our life to get started on our present earth and then go on to create life from non-life as well as the genetic code, etc.

So we see the confusion is between MECHANISM and AGENCY. If Dawkins and others could at least admit that nature is a mechanism that is used by an Agent (e.g., an Intelligent Designer), to accomplish His purposes, they would begin to make some sense. However, what we see here is that science can’t be divorced from philosophy. Without metaphysics one would not be able to construct a worldview. Metaphysical naturalism refers to the view that nature is the “whole show.” Methodological naturalism (as currently discussed and advocated by Dawkins, some atheists, etc.) is not a discovery of science. It must always be viewed as a presupposition of science as presently practiced. It is clear that modern science only accounts for secondary causation (natural causes alone without any agency).

The Inference To The Best Explanation Model

Another problem in this discussion is the failure to understand what is called inference to the best explanation. The inference to the best explanation model takes into account the best available explanation in our whole range of experience and reflection. Intelligent Design simply looks at the evidence and shows that we can empirically verify that nature by itself (without any agency) can’t come into existence on it’s own and go on to account for anticipatory, irreducible, and specified complexity. This is discussed in further detail in Signature In The Cell by Stephen C. Meyer and in Jay W. Richard’s God and Evolution.

Good Luck to Naturalists!

In his book An Atheist Defends Religion: Why Humanity Is Better Off With Religion Than Without It, author Bruce Sheiman gives a general outline of how atheists account for how we got here. Human Life = Laws of physics X chance + randomness+ accidents+luck X 3.5 billion yrs. In other words, the laws of physics for our present universe arose by chance (from a multitude of possible universes); the first forms of life developed by chance (arising by primordial soup combinations that resulted from the laws of physics plus accidents); the first concept of life developed purely by chance (genetic mutations and environmental randomness); and humans evolved by more improbable occurrences. I wish naturalists all the luck in trying to account for this scenario.

It seems that Rabbi Paul was on target when he said that God’s existence and attributes can be “clearly seen” (Romans 1:18-20) since they have been “shown” to the unbelieving world through “the things that are made” (nature). Some people assert that unless the God of the Bible is a material object that can be verified with one’s five senses, He doesn’t exist. In response, it is a category fallacy to ascribe sensory qualities to God or fault him for not being visible. Since we can’t see God as a material object, one way to approach this issue is to look at the effects in the world and make rational inferences to the cause of the effect. Hence, we must look to see if God has left us any pointers that lead the way to finding Him.

My advice is to at least attempt to learn about Intelligent Design. Maybe you could read the literature?

1. Charles Taliaferro, Philosophy of Religion: A Beginners Guide (Oxford: Oxford Publications, 2009), 70.

continue reading →

I’ve finished reading Sam Harris’ “The Moral Landscape”, read several reviews, and watched his debate with William Lane Craig. There seems to me to be a gaping hole in his argument that seems to have escaped notice.

His argument that the well-being of conscious creatures is the foundation of morality, on pages 15-16, goes like this;

1) There exists a bad life and a good life.

2) Nothing is more important to us and those we care about than the difference between the good life and the bad life

3) The difference between the good life and the bad life has a lawful relationship to human behavior

4) 2 & 3 cannot be reasonably doubted.

But 2 to 3 is a huge logical leap. There is an unspoken, unsubstantiated premise in between the two. And that is “What is very important to us and those around us has a lawful relationship to human behavior”. 

Well, there is at least an indirect attempt to establish it, I should say, on page 17.

“Ask yourself, if the difference between the Bad Life and the Good Life doesn’t matter to a person, what could possibly matter to him? Is it conceivable that something might matter more than this difference expressed on the widest possible scale? What would we think of a person who said “Well, I could have delivered all seven billion of us into the Good Life, but I had other priorities. Would it be possible to have other priorities?”

What’s interesting here is that there is an appeal to intuition.  We just know that's true! Yet throughout the book, Harris casts doubt on the reliability of human intuition. Sometimes he is correct. Truths are sometimes counter-intuitive. But he discards the possibility of free will, which is as deep as just about any other intuition.  What, then, is the rationale for trusting his intuition that because humans all prefer the good life over the bad life, therefore it is moral to work for them to have it? Harris has defended this whole formula as a first principle. However, it’s clear that it’s deeply intuitive to him.
 

continue reading →

by Kyle Reid---  physics graduate at OSU

I came to  Ohio State my freshman year as a Christian, hoping  to share my belief with others. Within the first fortnight at the dorms I was challenged with questions and assertions which I had never heard before. They revolved around subjects I had never encountered before such as questions about morality, statements why the Pentateuch could not have been solely written by Moses, and why other books were not included in the New Testament.

continue reading →

Join us for discussion

continue reading →

HOW CAN YOU HELP US TURN $11,895 INTO $22,195?

RATIO CHRISTI RECEIVED A MATCHING GIFT OF $25,000 EARLIER THIS YEAR.
SO FAR, WE HAVE RAISED A TOTAL OF $13,105 TOWARD THIS GIFT.

continue reading →