Objections sustained

The purpose of this book is not really to convince atheists, agnostics and sceptics to become Christians. Rather, the purpose is to explain to Christians what bad people atheists are. In other words, the books is defensive in character, not offensive. The author often charicatures the atheist position. Often, he starts quoting the Bible as proof, even before he reaches the point where he ostensibly proves the Bible. No well-grounded atheist will be convinced by this book, nor is that the intention. The authors' point is to preach to the choir, hopefully keeping them in check.

Going through every argument would be tedious, so I stick to the main methodological flaws in the book.

First, Rhodes places heavy emphasis on a kind of philosophical paradoxes, such as "The claim that everything is relative is itself absolute and hence self-refuting" or "The claim that only the empirically verifiable is true cannot be empirically verified itself, and is hence false". He even mentions something called "the kalam argument", apparently a Muslim version of Zeno's Paradox. I'm not a philosopher, so perhaps that's why I am singularly unimpressed! Even if this or that statement is paradoxical according to some criterion of formal logic, so what? Zeno's Paradox isn't taken seriously by anyone. Empirically verifiable claims are still more certain than non-verifiable ones. And if everything is in constant flux ("relative"), pointing this out "absolutely" doesn't make it any less true. Perhaps the authors intended audience at some evangelical Bible seminary in Texas are impressed by these arguments. Well, I'm not. Besides, even Ron Rhodes accepts empirical verifiability when it suits his purposes. He attempts to prove the Bible by appeals to archeology and claims that Intelligent Design is...well, empirically verifiable. As for the truth being relative, atheists do *not* say that truth is relative. For instance, atheists are reasonably sure that God doesn't exist, that Darwin was right, and that a Bronze Age document decreeing genocide (a.k.a the Book of Joshua) contradicts modern principles of morality.

I already pointed out that the book isn't really intended for an atheist audience, which may explain why some of Rhodes arguments strikes the sceptical reader as very odd. For instance, he asserts that Peter cannot have lied about the Resurrection, since he was trained since childhood in the Ten Commandments, which prohibits false witness! Come again? A sceptic might point out that Peter may have been mistaken, that the Resurrection stories may have been embellished by later tradition, or that he may indeed have been - dare I say it - lying. New religions are founded as we speak, they can be studied by scholars, and often their origins are an amazing melange of subjectively honest spiritual experiences, half-truths due to politic, and out-right lies. Why should we believe that Christianity was any different?

But the main problem with the book is that it's methodologically disingenious. In one chapter, Rhodes uses the Big Bang to "prove" that God exists. BUT IN A FOOTNOTE HE ADMITS OF BEING A YOUNG EARTH CREATIONIST!!! He therefore doesn't believe in the Big Bang himself!!!

How can a non-believer in an old universe and the Big Bang nevertheless concoct a chapter using the Big Bang as an apologetic tool? Personal dishonesty may be one explanation, but I think the rabbit hole goes deeper. I come across this problem in other "fundamentalist" texts as well. A real classic in this field is "When Critics Ask" by Norman Geisler and Thomas Howe, a book that can be paraphrased thus: "The Bible is absolutely free from errors and contradictions, because it says so. If the Bible contradicts modern science, either modern science is wrong, or the Bible has been misunderstood. Either way, the Bible is right. The solution to Bible contradiction X is either Y, or maybe Z, or maybe Y and Z combined. No matter what, the Bible is true. And if we cannot explain away something, just blame it on scribal error. After all, only the original manuscripts were inspired". (If you don't believe me, please obtain this book for yourself. It's very funny.)

The problem, clearly, is this. Rhodes have already made up his mind about the Bible being inerrant in all its (original?) paragraphs. He reached that conclusion WITHOUT the help of apologetics. Presumably he reached it for some kind of psychological or sociological reasons. Only then, AFTER his conversion, did he started to look around for apologetical arguments. He found the Big Bang here, some philosophical paradoxes there, and decided to use it. In the end, the veracity of each tool, taken by itself, doesn't really matter, since he already "knows" that the Bible is correct. And this approach is not peculiar to Rhodes himself, but typical of the fundamentalist approach in general. I found it in Norman Geisler, publications by the ICR and Answers in Genesis, etc.

But it's precisely this method, this dogmatism, that smacks "atheists, agnostics, and sceptics" as a very bad answer to their objections.

ADDENDUM, 23 MAY 2012

I wrote this during my atheist-materialist period. Today I'm more into dualism, deism and such ideas. When I recently looked through Rhodes' book again, I realized that it's *even worse* than indicated in my review. For that reason, the review stays.