“But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.”
1 Peter 3:15
Do you know the reasons Christianity is true? Could you defend your faith if asked about it?
As public-schooled Christians striving to share the gospel, knowing what to say when asked about our faith is important. Even if we weren’t in school with nonbelievers, we should want to be prepared to have gospel conversations with people. We should also be prepared for people to ask questions about Jesus—I know I would have questions if someone shared the gospel with me for the first time.
For a long time, I didn’t know the reasons for my faith. I have been a Christian for six years and I have just recently started learning about apologetics because I want to be able to respond in a loving and informed way if people ask why I believe God is real.
Knowing the reasons for faith in God is not only important to defend the faith to others, but is also important for our own faith. “Does God really exist?” was a question I wrestled with for a while. However, I didn’t necessarily search for an answer. When I was younger, I would ask God, “Give me a sign that You are real.” Little did I realize that God has already given so many signs—I just needed to look for them.
Recently, I finished reading The Reason for God by Timothy Keller. As you can probably guess from the title, the book is about why God exists. It first goes over why non-Christian worldviews are flawed, then explains why the author believes Christianity is true. Here are four easy-to-understand arguments for God’s existence from the book.
- Creation didn’t happen by chance.
“Some have said that it is as if there were a large number of dials that all had to be tuned with extremely narrow limits – and they were.”
Timothy Keller, The Reason For God
Earth is the only planet we know of that has life on it. And for life to exist on Earth, conditions have to be perfect—gravity, temperatures, and so on. There are many factors that have to have extremely specific values. Values so specific, in fact, that life happening by chance is almost impossible.
If you were playing a card game with someone and they drew Aces in every round, what would you think? It’s technically possible for someone to get that lucky, but most likely, you would assume your opponent is cheating.
All of the factors contributing to life on Earth could technically also be tuned to just the right point by chance. But it is very unlikely, just as it is very unlikely someone would be lucky enough to draw all Aces in a card game every round. It is logical to believe there is something influencing the factors that let us survive on Earth—and I believe that something is God.
- If the gospel is made up, the apostles crafted it wrong.
“And that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then He appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles.”
1 Corinthians 15:5-7
There are certain aspects of the gospel story that would have made it less believable to the people in Jesus’ time. For example, the first witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection were women. Women held low status in the Roman empire and their testimony was not admissible evidence in court. Therefore, women being the first witnesses would have undermined the resurrection story. Why would the apostles list women as the first people who saw resurrected Jesus unless it was true?
In New Testament books, the apostles also named witnesses who saw Jesus after He was resurrected. It was probably dangerous to name witnesses if the witnesses hadn’t actually seen Jesus’ resurrected body—it would have been considered blasphemy. The apostles named real people whom their readers could ask about the truth of the resurrection story. I don’t think the apostles name so many witnesses unless they were confident the witnesses would bear true testimony that aligned with their story.
Many of the apostles also died for their faith. Would you die for a story you made up? What about something you think is probably true, but you aren’t sure? Would you even die for a cause you believe in? Though I may support some political or other authority figure, I probably wouldn’t die for them.
But the apostles died for Jesus. They must have been sure that Jesus had been resurrected and Christianity was true if died for their faith.
- The gospel answers our needs.
“You make known to me the path of life;
Psalm 16:11
in Your presence there is fullness of joy;
at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”
All natural needs and wants come with fulfillment. If we are hungry, there is food to eat. If we are thirsty, we can quench our thirst with water. If we are tired, we can satisfy our need with sleep. But what about our longings for other things; things like love, peace, and joy? Things like justice, hope, and fulfillment?
Physical needs correspond to things in the world that can meet them. But spiritual needs can’t be met by this world. Our longing for love, peace, and hope can’t be fulfilled by the world because the world is not peaceable—there is violence, arguments, and warfare. The world isn’t loving, either, but hateful. And if there is no meaning to life and God doesn’t exist; if we are only going to die and be forgotten, then what hope is there?
But if we have longings for love, peace, and hope, it follows that something can satisfy them. That thing just isn’t of this world. God fulfills our longings because He is love (1 John 4:16), and therefore, we can find love in Him. God’s Spirit brings peace to us (Romans 8:6. And we can have hope because God will return one day and take Christians to Heaven for a perfect eternity, while bringing justice to those who have not turned from their sin (Revelation).
If people long for fulfillment, joy, or peace, they should look to Jesus. Most of us know from experience that when we try to fill the void in our hearts with worldly things, it doesn’t permanently work. God can satisfy our spiritual needs forever.
- Our view of morality comes from somewhere.
“If there is no God, then there is no way to say any one action is “moral” and another “immoral” but only ‘I like this.’”
Timothy Keller, The Reason For God
Humans all seem to have an idea of what is universally right and wrong. Murder, violence, and warfare is wrong. Being kind to others is right, and so is respecting others’ rights, helping those in need, and working hard.
Our culture often claims that truth is subjective, but there are some truths that even they must believe are objective. If a group of people is oppressed or murdered in another country, most people would agree that it is wrong and something should be done about it. You won’t find someone saying, “Since truth is subjective, murder is wrong in my culture because that is our truth. But in another culture it can be right if that is their truth.” Things like murder are either universally right or universally wrong.
When we decide that something is universally right or wrong, we have to decide who defines what is right and wrong. Where do our ideas of right and wrong come from?
I believe our morality comes from God, who designed us to be moral creatures and know right from wrong. Other explanations of morality that depend on evolution or survival of the fittest theories don’t make as much sense, at least to me.
For example, some people may say that we have an idea of what is right and wrong because doing what is right helped more people survive in the past. Basically, humans are programmed to do what is right because it is good for our survival. But doing something self-sacrificial thing, which is usually looked upon as good and right, is somewhat risky for us most of the time.
Knowing the reasons for our faith isn’t essential to being saved, but it is good to be able to defend Christianity. Knowing why Christianity is true can also help us be more sure in what we believe. If someone asked you why you believe God is real, how would you respond? Do you know the reasons for your faith?
The Public-Schooled Christian 
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