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Skeptic Richard Dawkins famously stated that he doesn't believe in Christ but embraces Christian values and principles.[i] He believes that these are necessary for an orderly culture. He called his view cultural Christianity.
In a recent interview with Jordan Peterson, Elon Musk made a similar comment.[ii] He believes in Christian values and principles, too, but doesn't believe in Christ. Peterson challenged him. Musk paused but, after a few moments of uneasiness, Peterson offered Dawkins’ view, which Musk apparently wasn’t familiar with it. Musk quickly agreed that he was a Dawkins’ cultural Christian.
Since the beginning of the nineteenth century, skepticism has emerged as an increasingly popular worldview. Prior to this time, there were few atheists in the world. But with the introduction of nominalism in the fourteenth century, skepticism about epistemology (the branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge) arose. No longer was divine revelation the basis for knowledge and wisdom. Increasingly, humans replaced divine revelation with various combinations of rationalism, empiricism, and emotionalism.
Epistemological skepticism is doubt about God and his revelation. This is—and has been—a trait of the fallen condition of mankind. In Genesis 3, Eve entertained doubt about God’s veracity. And since Adam and Eve are the parents of all mankind, the principle of reproduction-after-kind (Genesis 1) suggests that all their descendants would possess the proclivity to doubt.
Notwithstanding this innate trait, throughout most of history humans have recognized the reality of a Creator. According to Romans 1, this is unequivocally revealed in creation and is available to all humans as self-evident truth. Therefore, historically few people have questioned the existence of a Creator, though many have rejected the special revelation from the Creator provided in the Bible. This is why atheism never had much traction before the nineteenth century.
But the toxic impact of fourteenth-century nominalism slowly was realized. Nominalism denigrated God and elevated man. By the eighteenth century, things changed; people were emboldened to doubt the veracity of Scripture.
Late in the eighteenth century, the French Enlightenment served to bolster atheism. The French were the first in history to attempt to build a society without a God hypothesis. Though it failed, many were still encouraged to consider atheism.
Early in the nineteenth century, German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768−1834), whose moniker is the “Father of Modern Liberal Theology,” was influenced by the French Enlightenment to develop a theology based on skepticism of the metanarrative of God (higher criticism). In time, this led to skepticism of the source documents of the Bible (lower criticism). By the end of the century, skepticism of epistemology based on divine revelation globally swept through all levels of education. Epistemology was liberated from divine revelation and rested on various combinations of human reason, experience, and emotions.
By the twentieth century, there was a battle between the fundamentalists and the liberals (skeptics). The former based epistemology on the Bible and the latter followed Schleiermacher in rejecting the Bible.
One theological leader who wrestled with this issue was J. Gresham Machen (1881−1937). Machen grew up in the midst of the battle between fundamentalism and liberalism. Initially, Machen had difficulty discerning the truth of the debate. He sought certainty and the fruit of his labor was Toward a Sure Faith, a book that documents his journey to certainty. One writer summarized Machen’s conclusion in these words:
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if readers of the Bible examine the evidence and think hard enough about it, as Machen did, they too can come to a sure faith.[iii]
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Certainty about faith in the Bible as the inspired inerrant infallible Word of God is critical for a person to be rooted and grounded in the truth (Colossians 2:1–8). Without this, a person will be unstable. The mandate for all the saints is to be stable in their understanding of the truth of Christ as revealed in Scripture (Ephesians 4:11−16).
Certainty in the veracity of his report about Jesus was clearly Luke’s objective. Luke was the first-century physician who also wrote Acts and more than a quarter of the New Testament canon. His two works are commonly coupled and called Luke-Acts. His objective was to present in Luke-Acts a report about Jesus and the kingdom of God that was without equivocation; he began his first canonical book with these words:
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Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught. (Luke 1:1–4 ESV)
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Theophilus had already been catechized; he knew about Jesus. Luke-Acts was not written to biblically illiterate people. Luke sought to accurately record what happened so that Theophilus might know the truth with certainty. He continued his historical record in the book of Acts with these words:
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In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. (Acts 1:1–3 ESV)
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Again, Luke stressed the importance of the historicity of Jesus’ birth, actions, teachings, death, and resurrection. A few verses later in Acts, Luke wrote of Jesus’ commission to the apostles whom he had chosen (John 15:16):
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"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." (Acts 1:8 ESV)
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These original apostles were tasked to personally bear witness of Jesus’ resurrection (Acts 4:33), the lynchpin of Christianity (1 Corinthians 15:12–14). This was a unique assignment given specifically to them. Even Paul did not have this assignment as he made clear in these words spoken on his first apostolic journey:
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But God raised him from the dead, and for many days he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people. And we [Paul and Barnabas] bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers . . . (Acts 13:30–32 ESV)
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Note that Paul recognized a distinction in assignments; only the original apostles were charged to be eyewitnesses of Jesus’ resurrection. Paul’s assignment was to proclaim the good news based on the original apostles’ eyewitness account of Jesus’ resurrection.
The certainty of Christianity rests on historical events attested to by eyewitnesses. This means that faith in Jesus as revealed in the Bible is not a blind leap; there are empirically based, historically validated facts that reveal the truth of the character, nature, and actions of Jesus. Based on this testimony, Christians can have certainty about the truth of the Bible.
On the first day of the New Covenant era, the apostle Peter proclaimed the good news—the gospel—in the following words to the biblically literate people who crucified Jesus:
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"Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified." (Acts 2:36 ESV)
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This was a command to know with certainty that Jesus was Lord and Christ. Though the first-century Jews had crucified Jesus, the Father raised him from the dead. Jesus was declared by the Father to be Lord and Christ in fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies concerning God’s plan and purpose to redeem what was lost at the fall of mankind.
This was in fulfillment of the protoevangelium (first proclamation of the good news, the first promise of God to redeem what was lost) that was given by the Creator:
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I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. (Genesis 3:15 ESV)
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Jesus, as the seed of the woman, fulfilled the protevangelium. Satan’s rebellion was defeated through Jesus’ work on the cross. Christians live today in the certainty of this victory while they wait patiently for the final judgment and the new creation.
The validation of this certainty rests on the person and work of Jesus as a historical figure who was born of a virgin, lived, taught, died, and was resurrected according to God’s plan and purpose as revealed in Scripture. These are historically established facts that ground Christianity in truth and reality.
If one does not believe in the revelation of the historical record of Christianity, what is the basis for one’s convictions? Without a firm foundation of credible historical facts, epistemology is not timeless or universal.
Christianity is based on an epistemology rooted in historical facts recorded in Scripture, which is grounded on the revelation about Jesus, who is Lord and Christ. This is the only way to sound epistemology and certainty in life. And even those who adhere to cultural Christianity concede to this reality because, though they may try to deny Christ, they cannot deny the efficacy of his timeless universal principles to sustain life.
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[i] H. Tomlinson, “Dawkins and 'Cultural Christianity': What Does It All Mean?” Christianity Today, April 5, 2024 https://www.christiantoday.com/article/dawkins.and.cultural.Christianity.
what.does.it.all.mean/141586.htm.
[ii] “Elon Musk to Jordan Peterson: ‘Life had no Meaning,’ ”
https://youtu.be/QmdfUC2-N28?si=tfs3lR3sCWrZp7DY.
[iii] Richard E. Burnett, Machen’s Hope: The Transformation of a Modernist
in the New Princeton (Eerdman’s, 2024).
https://a.co/0/9xcGqEq.
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