Probe Ministries

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Probe Ministries

• Mind Games Conference
• Australia
• November 5, 2005

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First - Think Biblically

• All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for
  teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in
  righteousness, so that the man of God may be
  thoroughly equipped for every good work (2
  Timothy 316-17).

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First - Think Biblically

• Jesus answered, The foremost is, Hear, O
  Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord and you
  shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
  and with all your soul, and with all your mind,
  and with all your strength. (Mark
  1229-30)

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First - Think Biblically

• See to it that no one takes you captive through
  philosophy and empty deception, according to the
  tradition of men, according to the elementary
  principles of the world, rather than according to
  Christ. (Colossians 28)

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Second - Communicate Effectively

• Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone
  who asks you to give the reason for the hope that
  you have. But do this with gentleness and respect
  (1 Peter 315).
• We demolish arguments and every pretension that
  sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and
  we take captive every thought to make it obedient
  to Christ (2 Corinthians 105).

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Third - Learn Continually

• Do your best to present yourself to God as one
  approved, a workman who does not need to be
  ashamed and who correctly handles the word of
  truth. (2 Timothy 215)

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Third - Learn Continually

• To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If
  you hold to my teaching, you are really my
  disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the
  truth will set you free. (John 832)

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Logic

• Logic may not lead us to the truth, but it is
  indispensable to understanding error. All
  apologetics does is clear the way so that a
  seeker can take a direct look at the cross (Ravi
  Zacharias).

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What Not To Expect

• Debating tactics.
• Reasons to mock other peoples beliefs.
• Silver-bullet evidence.

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What To Expect

• ...to prepare God's people for works of service,
  so that the body of Christ may be built up until
  we all reach unity in the faith and in the
  knowledge of the Son of God and become mature,
  attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of
  Christ. (Eph. 412-13)

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The Result

• Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back
  and forth by the waves, and blown here and there
  by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and
  craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.
  Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in
  all things grow up into him who is the Head, that
  is, Christ. (Eph. 415-16)

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Our Prayer for You

• Eph.118 I pray that the eyes of your heart may
  be enlightened, so that you will know what is the
  hope of His calling, what are the riches of the
  glory of His inheritance in the saints,
• Eph 119 and what is the surpassing greatness of
  His power toward us who believe. These are in
  accordance with the working of the strength of
  His might

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Worldviews What is True?

• Probe Ministries

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Why Is It Important to Study Worldviews?
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Christian African Voices

• My father (who is illiterate) is still a
  full-blooded traditional African. I smile into my
  beard about his primitive superstitions. My
  mother belongs to the ---------- ------- Church
  of Zimbabwe. If you ask me, the church is more
  pagan than Christian. Friends at ------- -------
  have guided me to Christ. I have now been an
  active member of the Methodist Church for two
  years.

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Christian African Voices

• Why do I still doubt who I am? Am I still a true
  African if I do not believe in traditional
  culture and religion any longer? Have I perhaps
  become a Black Westerner or a westernized black
  man? Is my identity determined by my Christian
  faith? Or am I perhaps not any of these three?
• A final year student at Oxford University

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Christian Voices from Africa

• I teach at a secular state institution. There are
  many para-church organizations spreading the
  gospel among the students on campus. I have the
  feeling, however, that the students need
  something more, something like a Christian
  intellectual framework, vision, or perspective on
  life.

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Christian Voices from Africa

• The students seem to me to be directionless how
  would they one day be able to help schoolchildren
  to keep to the right (Christian) way? I do not
  really know what the solution is. I do hope that
  you understand my problem and that you will be
  able to give me the right advice.
• A female lecturer at a teachers training
  college, Botswana

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Christian Voices from Africa

• The Lord Jesus has commanded us to love him not
  only with our hearts but also with our minds. I
  would like to do this because the Lord has
  blessed me with a good brain. (I usually get the
  highest marks in the class.) In my Biology
  handbook, however, I read nothing about the Lord.
  Is He then not also the Creator and the Upholder
  of life? Will I be able to serve Him as a
  biologist one day, or would it be better for me
  to become a minister?
• A high school student from Zaire

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Christian Voices from Africa

• The basic need emerging from these ten cases is
  for an integral encompassing and powerful
  Christian worldview, a Christian perspective on
  all the faces of mans life. Without such a
  vision Africa will perish. Because without it we
  will not be able to offer really sound responses
  to these voices calling out from Africa, or to
  all the hundreds of others who have not been
  mentioned.
• BJ van der Walt, The Liberating Message A
  Christian Worldview for Africa, p. 4.

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What is a worldview?

• A worldview is a set of presuppositions . . .
  which we hold (consciously or subconsciously)
  about the basic makeup of our world.
• -- James Sire

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What is a worldview?

• A worldview is an integrated, interpretive, set
  of confessional perspectives on reality which
  underlies, shapes, motivates, and gives direction
  and meaning to human activity.
• BJ van der Walt, The Liberating Message A
  Christian Worldview for Africa, p. 39.

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What is a worldview?

• Everyone has a worldview whether one can explain
  it or not. It can be likened to a pair of
  glasses through which one views the world. It is
  important to have the right prescription or
  reality will be distorted. Modern man is faced
  with a supermarket of world views all of them
  claiming to be true.

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Questions which reveal ones worldview

• Why is there something rather than nothing?
• How do you explain human nature?
• How do you know that you know?

• What happens to a person at death?
• How do you determine what is right or wrong?
• What is the meaning of history?

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Inescapable Truths

• Something exists.
• All people have absolutes.
• Something cant be true and false at the same
  time.
• All people exercise faith.

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What Are the Three Major Worldviews?

• Three Worldviews Theism, Naturalism, and
  Pantheism
• It is important to understand the worldviews
  because they are the foundation of all religions
  and philosophies.

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Important Points!

• Rival worldviews cannot be true at the same time.
  If one is true, the other two must be false.
• If your foundational premises are false, the
  conclusions you come to are going to be false.

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The Major Worldviews Christian Theism
GOD
MAN
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The Major Worldviews Naturalism
MAN
30
The Major Worldviews Postmodernism
Whatever
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The Major Worldviews Pantheism
god
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The Major Worldviews Christian Theism
GOD
MAN
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What Are the Tenets of Christian Theism?

• God - Monotheistic/ Supernaturalistic
• The World - Creation ex nihilo ( Gen.
  11 Col. 113-17)
• Human Nature - Made in Gods image but fallen
  (Gen. 126-27)

GOD
MAN
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What Are the Tenets of Christian Theism?

• Knowledge - Reason/ Experience/ Authority/
  Revelation (Dt. 2929 I Cor. 26-11)
• Mans Destiny - Separation from God or life with
  God (Heb. 927-28 I Cor. 1550-58)

GOD
MAN
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What Are the Tenets of Christian Theism?

• Ethics - Nature/ Conscience/ Scripture revealed
  absolutes (Rom. 214-15 Ex. 202-17)
• History - Linear/ Beginning and end defined by
  the center (Gen. 11 Rev. 21-22)

GOD
MAN
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A Personal Beginning

• Isa. 455a
• One God . . .
• Genesis 11
• Who created the world . . .
• Colossians 113-17
• Through Christ who sustains all things.

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Revelation

• Deut. 2929
• I Cor. 26-11
• I Pet. 110-12
• II Timothy 316

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Created Image-Bearer with a Fallen Nature

• Genesis 126-27
• James 39
• Psalm. 84-8

• Romans 310-18, 23

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Revealed Absolutes

• Rom. 214-16
• Psalm 328,9
• Ex. 202-17
• Matt. 5-7
• I Pet. 114-16

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History is Linear and Meaningful

• Rev. 18 2213
• Gen. 11
• Rev. 21-22
• Rev. 14-8

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Separation from God or Life with God

• Hebrews 927-28
• I Corinthians 1550-58
• Rev. 79
• II Thess. 19

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The Major Worldviews Naturalism
MAN
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• God
• World
• Human Nature
• Human Destiny
• Knowledge
• Ethics
• History

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What Are the Tenets of Naturalism?

• God - Atheistic
• The World - Evolution (Materialism)
• Human Nature Evolved Social Animal/Autonomy
• Knowledge - Human reason/ Scientific method
• Mans Destiny - Death brings extinction
• Ethics Whatever works
• History - Linear history no goal

MAN
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The Major Worldviews Postmodernism
Whatever
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What is Postmodernism?
Whatever

• The last gasp of modernism
• God and the World same as naturalism
• Human Nature Culturally determined
• Knowledge - confidence in the knowledge of truth
  is lost -- truth is true for me (or us)
  Truth is what works.
• Ethics Culturally determined
• History Meaningless and unknowable except as a
  study of power by one group over another

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What is Postmodernism?
Whatever

• Thus,
• There is no transcultural objectivity.
• We cant think independently because we are
  defined by our culture.
• Truth is what works.
• Ethics is whatever the social group decides.
• Power is a key issue.

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What is Postmodernism?
Whatever
It has deconstructed its entire universe. So all
that are left are pieces. All that remains to be
done is to play with the pieces. Playing with the
piecesthat is postmodern. --Jean Baudrillard
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The Major Worldviews Pantheism
god
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What Are the Tenets of Pantheism?

• God Monism All is one, Pantheism - all is god
• World - Evolution
• Human Nature - Human divinity
• Knowledge - Intuition cosmic consciousness
• Mans Destiny Reincarnation/Absorption
• Ethics - Moral relativism/Karma
• History - History is cyclical

god
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Traditional Religions

• God one creator with many lower gods and
  spirits
• World nature (life force) is an integrated
  unity/harmony
• Human Nature community of eternal souls seeking
  to survive by seeking spiritual harmony, life is
  religious
• Knowledge Experience, accumulated through ages
  or from spirits and ancestors
• Destiny live for today but eternal existence
  with ancestors/no heaven or hell
• Ethics Communally derived, live in harmony with
  spirits
• History Repetitive and cyclical

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Evaluating Worldviews Which One Is True?

• Although our faith is based upon the
  authoritative Word of God, it doesnt rest on
  authority alone. There are certain things we
  would expect from a worldview. In these matters
  Christianity doesnt disappoint.

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What are some worldview tests?

• Reason A worldview should be consistent and
  coherent
• Experience A worldview should match the facts
  of our experience
• Explanation A worldview should be comprehensive
  in scope and be able to explain the world around
  us.
• Practice A worldview should be livable.

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The test of explanatory power
The explanatory power of theism is based . . .
on the cumulative case one gets by reflecting on
the existence of the universe, the order of the
universe, and the facts of human rationality,
moral consciousness, and religious
experience. -- Ronald Nash
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Comparison of Worldviews
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What are some worldview tests?

• Reason consistent and coherent
• Experience match the facts of our experience
• Explanation - should be comprehensive and explain
  the world around us
• Practice - should be livable

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A Quiz

• Name that worldview!

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Why is there something rather than nothing?

• Everything had an impersonal beginning (spirit or
  energy).
• Matter has always existed.
• Everything had a personal beginning.

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What is the ultimate source of knowledge?

• Reason -- (Rationalism)
• Experience -- (Empiricism)
• Intuition -- (Mysticism)
• Revelation

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How do you explain human nature?

• Blank slate
• Inherently good
• Socially constructed
• Manifestation of God
• Created image-bearer with a fallen nature

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How do you determine what is right or wrong?

• Everything is relative
• Everything is determined
• An is is an ought
• Might makes right
• Revealed absolutes

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What is the meaning of history?

• History is determined as part of a mechanistic
  universe.
• History is cyclical.
• History is going forward, and it is meaningful.
• History is decided by the historian.

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What happens to a person at death?

• People merely cease to exist.
• People are reincarnated
• Death is the gate to life with God or separation
  from God.
• Whatever a person believes will happen is what
  matters.