Seven Honest Questions Regarding Christianity: A Challenge

Recently I challenged my friends and acquaintances, those who are skeptics, agnostics, non-religious and so on to raise their best questions regarding the Christian faith. I asked them to raise honest questions, questions that if answered would possibly clear the road for them to believe.

I indicated that I would attempt to the best of my ability to answer those questions from the Christian worldview. These are the questions raised, and the answers provided by this one Christian. Don't expect perfection, I don't know everything, but I've done my best to provide answers that will be intellectually satisfying and philosophically meaningful.

I'd like to thank everyone that participated. I was very pleased with the thoughtful questions given.

This is an age old question, debated by skeptics, theologians and philosophers. Everything has a cause. Everything we know of, seems to have been made by something else. I was born because of my parents. A tree grows because an acorn falls from another tree, digs into the dirt, and begins to grow up. But the answer to this question is simple: There has to be something at the very beginning of time, space, and reality without a cause. Or whose cause is within itself. Many scientists hoped and believed that perhaps the universe itself could be the past-eternal uncaused reality. But scientists have since discovered that the universe most certainly did begin to exist in the finite past (the big bang theory.)

A Christian would say "God is the eternal first cause." That is not an intellectually satisfying answer it seems. But the truth is, that isn't an answer off the top of anybody's head. It's been in the Bible for over two thousand years. Even before man had considered the necessity of a single infinite eternal first cause, the Bible had already said that God was the eternal first cause. "He is from everlasting to everlasting" (Psalm 90:2).

Are we willing to admit that something like eternity is beyond our full ability to comprehend? We must certainly admit that there are some things in life that will be beyond us.

Ultimately, the question "Who made God?" is a fallacy, because it assumes God could have a cause. If God could be caused by something else, say a greater god, or a greater force, then God wouldn't be God. God is by definition, timeless, omnipotent, and eternal.

In conclusion, I would simply say that we cannot have an infinite regression regarding a first cause. There must be a single, uncaused first cause, and it will either be God or the universe. Since science has shown that the universe is finite in the past, having come into existence at the moment of the big bang, this shows that the most likely uncaused first cause is God. I hope that helps.

Question Two:

I was a Christian my whole life until about 3 years ago. I got more and more into science which made me question faith. One question I can't figure out is why people pray? If God has a master plan for everyone, what good is praying for someone as that would only seem to be trying to change God's mind regarding his divine plan?

Question raised by Paul S.

Science and faith is an interesting topic. Though many modern scientists like Richard Dawkins, Stephen Hawking, and Lawrence Krauss tend to be more atheistic, it's interesting that many great scientists from the history of the discipline were actually Christians. Or at least deists (believe in some sort of God). Some of the notable believers include Galileo, Newton, Pascal, Bacon, Einstein, and today people like Francis Collins and Michael Behe. Or as Francis Bacon said, the first sip of the glass of science may lead to atheism, but at the bottom of the cup God is waiting for you. The more scientists study earth, nature, and the universe the more they discover the grand order and design behind it all. This order and design tends to lend evidence toward an intelligent designer, and diminish the possibility of random evolutionary processes, given the 2nd law of thermodynamics (entropy).

As far as the question of prayer; it's a good question. Given the fact that God foreordains the future, and he knows and plans all of reality, why should prayer be necessary? Why pray about anything when God has already foreordained all things?

I think the answer to that question is choice. From my perspective, God may have set up the rules and regulations of the system, but he gives us the freedom to choose. I tend to believe that God foreknows my future free actions (an Arminian perspective) while some would say that God foreordains all future actions and preordains some to heaven and some to hell (a Calvinist perspective). I think that freedom and choice are taught constantly in the scripture. God asks us to choose now whom we will serve and what we will do. God may foreknow my future actions. But that doesn't really matter. Ultimately I still make the choice whether I'm going to pray or not. And if I pray, God responds in the now. Even if God already knew that He would in the future respond to my prayer, and perhaps that was already part of his plan, from my perspective, I've made the free choice to pray and in the now, He has answered (or not answered.) Ultimately my prayers do matter then. Maybe God knew I would pray. But it doesn't really matter from my perspective. From my perspective, I prayed, and God answered. From my view it looks like he changed his sovereign plan to accommodate my prayer. But maybe from His view, he knew what I would do. Either way, my prayer has made a real difference.