Is Christianity True?

Is Christianity true? This is the single most important question any of us will ever answer in our lives. C.S. Lewis put it this way, “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance…”

The night my husband died, I lay in bed holding my daughter and silently screamed inside my head. My entire life was in tatters. A decade of prayer for my husband’s mental, emotional, and spiritual healing from PTSD, TBIs, and clinical depression following his twenty-year military career had been answered in a single horrific moment.

“God, this? This?! This is the answer to all my years of prayers for him?? I don’t understand. How could this be the best answer for him, for me, for our family???”

And as I lay there railing against the Creator of the Universe, the Holy Spirit brought four facts to mind.

1. The Universe didn’t create itself.
2. The Universe didn’t design itself.
3. We can’t get life from non-life.
4. Jesus walked out of the grave.

“Okay, God if those four things are true, then I know you are real, and I can trust you with my life whether I feel like it right now or not. I believe, Lord, help my unbelief.”

If Christianity is true, then I could trust God even when my world was falling apart.

All the time I had spent learning apologetics, I thought that I was going to stumble on just the right fact or idea that would turn my husband’s mind toward Christ while I tried to love him in ways that would turn his heart. Instead, apologetics was what saved my faith when I was closest to walking away after losing him. In the horror of that tragedy, I realized either my beliefs are based in truth or they are worthless.

So are my four statements true?

1. The Universe didn’t create itself.

Both science and the Bible say that the universe had a beginning.

We can look at several factors, including the cosmic background radiation from the Big Bang and the red shift of galaxies moving away from us to know that our universe is expanding from a singular point when all space, time, and matter began to exist.

The Law of Causality says that everything that has a beginning must have a cause. The universe must have a cause that is outside of space, time, and matter. This creator must be all-powerful, intelligent, and personal.

This cause must be personal, as in a being with the ability to decide when to act, because forces act immediately. Gravity doesn’t decide when to start working. If gravity exists, we all fall down, period. Whatever caused the universe to begin had to choose when to create.

2. The Universe has a highly complex design.

Even a simple design like an arrowhead shows that it was created from a mind, by hands, for a purpose. If we can see design in a simple arrowhead, what does the incredibly complex design of the universe, our galaxy, our solar system, and our planet mean for the existence of a creator.

Christopher Hitchens, the famed atheist, said the fine-tuning or design argument is the strongest argument for God.

According to the team at Reasons to Believe, 1462 features of the cosmos, planetary systems, and galaxies, and our planet must fall with razor thin ranges for the possibility of life to exist. It takes too much faith to believe all 1462 of these characteristics are perfectly tuned for life, by chance.

The universe must have a designer who is creative, intelligent, and cares about His creation.

3. We cannot get life from non-life.

“The probability of getting one protein molecule (which has about 100 amino acids) by chance would be the same as a blindfolded man finding one marked grain of sand in the Sahara Desert three times in a row.” – Michael Behe. We would need 150-200 of these for the most simple DNA, which is just a step towards life, not life itself.

We need properly sequenced proteins to get DNA. In order to get properly sequenced proteins, we need DNA.

DNA is information, more elegant and complex than any computer code. We know information comes from a mind. The amount of information in the nucleus of a single celled organism would fill 30 encyclopedias.

“The probability of life originating from accident is comparable to the probability of the unabridged dictionary resulting from an explosion in a printing factory.” Ed Conklin, evolutionist, professor of biology, Princeton.

4. Jesus rose from the grave. Christianity rests on this fact.

The New Testament we have today is 98.33-99.5% accurate to the original manuscripts, according to textual scholars Wescott and Hort and Bruce Metzger.

The Resurrection makes the most sense of the evidence we have. Dr. Gary Habermas asked over 1400 scholars which facts surrounding the Resurrection they believed to be true. Over 90% of scholars, including those hostile to Christianity, attest to these four facts:

1. Jesus died by crucifixion under Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius Caesar. This is documented in Josephus and Tacitus, as well as the four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
2. The disciples believed they saw the risen Jesus. He appeared to the women first, then to the disciples, then to 500 others who were alive to refute this testimony. They all knew if this was truth or fiction and went from frightened cowards to boldly proclaiming Christ’s resurrection despite persecution, torture, imprisonment, and death in most cases.
3. James, the brother of Jesus, went from believing Jesus was out of his mind in Mark 3:21, to calling Him, Lord. He was a pious Jew who radically altered his faith and life to follow His brother as God. (It would take a lot to believe your sibling is God.)
4. Saul from Tarsus was a powerful Jew. He had prestige and authority and believed he was persecuting people who were blaspheming His God. Until he met the risen Jesus on the way to Damascus. Then he was willing to suffer and die for this truth just like the other disciples.
5. +1 (Only 80% of scholars agree to this one, but that’s pretty good) The tomb was empty. The tomb was known and guarded. If they could have produced Jesus’ body to stop the disciples from telling people He was the Messiah, the Jews or the Romans would have done so.

The answer to “Is Christianity true?” rests on this fact. Also, if Jesus fulfilled prophecy (He did) and prophesied His own death and resurrection, then He is God. We can take what he says to be true. And He affirms the Scripture to be the Word of God.

5. Lastly, laws require a lawgiver.

(Gary Habermas has a +1 for his minimal facts argument, so I can, too.)

We know there is a moral law, right and wrong. While we might disagree about the details, we all know some actions are wrong. Therefore, there must be a moral lawgiver who is just and cares about justice.

If there is no God, then nothing is right or wrong, only the moral consensus of culture. Hitler had moral consensus, but we all know his actions were immoral and evil.

Without God nothing is evil, just things we don’t like. And we all know there is evil in this world. Therefore, God must exist.

The God described by the creation and fine-tuning of the universes is spaceless, timeless, immaterial, all-powerful, all-knowing. The God described through creation of life and morality is detail oriented, creative, loving, and just. The Resurrection of Jesus proves this is the God of the Bible. These are just five of the many arguments for the God of the Bible. (And just a quick summary of each.) But if these five arguments are true, then Christianity is true, God is real, and you can trust Him with your life, as I have done with mine, even in the massive grief and challenges since losing my husband to suicide.

Each of my points can be defended in much longer form, but this is a quick take on each point. Enough truth is here to believe even if we don’t have answers to every possible objection.