The Logic Of God Ravi Zacharias

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THE LOGIC OF GOD

52 CHRISTIAN ESSENTIALS FOR THE HEART AND MIND

RAVI ZACHARIAS

ZONDERVAN

Zondervan, 3900 Sparks Dr. SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546. ePub Edition © April 2019: ISBN 978-0-310-45405-2

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Versión®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973,1978,1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.Zondervan.com. The "NIV" and "New International Versión" are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.® Scripture quotations marked ESV are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible,

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Versión. Public domain.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are from the New American Standard

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To my grandchildren, dude, Ava, Isabella, Nico, and Jameson. Soyoung in their thinking and imagination now.

May their nurture in God's eternal truths make them blossom into spiritual maturity to embrace the elegant, wise, and perfect mind ofGod.

CONTENTS Introduction

1. Behind Ever v Q uestion 2. The Ultímate Gallin a 3. Point of Exclusión 4. The Pathwav of Pain 5. Battle of the Heart 6. Christianitv Without Christ?

7. Losin g Sight 8. The Greatest Investment 9. Shuttin g the Gate 10. Chasin g Shadows 11. Crossin g Brid ges 12. A Roval Weddin g Just Like Mine 13. Everv Thread Matters 14. The Heart of God 15. What Ha p pened to Your Hands?

16. Jud aing the Jud aes 17. Justice and Virtue 18. Bevond Moralit v 19. Who Owns Your Heart?

20. Disparate Threads 21. The Hun a erin g S pirit

22. The Most Difficult Questions 23. The Throes of Wonder 24. From Proximate to Personal 25. A Bi gg er Stor v 26. All Thin g s New 27. Does Praver Matter?

28. The Spirit of Pra ver 29. Rearran sing the Furniture 30. The Valué of Somethin g 31. The Gift of Faith 32. Li a ht of the Gos pel 33. Show Us the Father 34. A Taste of Worshi p 35. Livin g Temples 36. A Beacon of Ho pe 37. The Books We Read 38. Ri s ht Where We Are Wron g 39. Portrait of a Soul 40. Re g enerative Power 41. Man of Sorrows 42. Castin g Stones

43. Scandal of the Cross 44. Ima g ination and the Will 45. Co ping with Life's Turbulence 46. Is It Worth It?

47. Are Yon Lonel v?

48. Findin g the Perfect Gift 49. Safelv into the Unknown 50 . Peace Líke a River 51. Where God Was Homeless 52. Givin g All Acknowled a ments About the Author Notes

INTRODU C TION

oday, many people think it is nai've to believe in God because there is not enough evidence for His existence. Others conclude that even if He does exist.

He has insufñciently revealed and inadequately explained Himself; therefore He has not convinced us that He is real. Even less has He affirmed that the claims of the gospel of Jesús Christ are trae and lead to a worldview that offers the most coherent and logical answers to life's four essential questions—origin, meaning, morality, and destiny.

For the Christian this is where the battle must be fought, for no worldview suffers more from the loss of belief in God than the Christian one. And unless the "logic" of God—the evidence He has provided us of His existence—is defended, is sought after, is fully engaged with our hearts and minds, every essential of the Christian faith will be deemed illogical and untrue, thereby making them unworthy of rational assent.

The question then is, how does a person come to view this "logic" (this "evidence") as a reason to believe in a God on whom all other essentials of the Christian faith are built, by which life must be governed, and with which your personal beliefs, your culture, and the unique message of Jesús Christ are examined? The purpose of this book, and the way it is designed to be used, is to guide you on that journey. Here is a collection of my writings, most never before published in book form, selected for their perspective on the many ways God has provided us with evidence of His existence and how this "logic" gives life meaning, establishes the credibility of the Christian message, shows the weakness of modera intellectual movements, demonstrates the certainty of the claims of Jesús Christ, and validates biblical teaching and Christian apologetics.

Before you begin to engage with this material, let me give you a glimpse of the opportunity you have to experience this book in the most meaningful way. The Logic of God contains fifty-two readings. Each reading is preceded by a relevant quote from the Bible. I've added two other features to help you reflect on important themes in the readings (Reflection Questions) and apply the lessons learned from the readings (Personal Application).

Because these readings will consistently challenge your mind and stir your heart, and the questions and applications will take time to process, I recommend that, if possible, you spend a week with each "experience." If you start on a Monday, think of it as a kind of "Thank God It's Monday" summons, add that cliché to your intention, and thus help make your usual Mondays actually something to look forward to. Whatever motivates, right?

Okay. I know. A year is a big commitment. But the issues surrounding the subject of truth are serious business and have eternal consequences.

God wants us to know Him personally and live out our faith day by day in meaningful ways, but the noise, chaos, clutter, and busyness of life so often overwhelm that we find it difficult, if not impossible. We also can just routinely go through life not even conscious of His existence and end up trapped in a vicious cycle of wrong thinking and believing, and the cardinal statement of Jesús, "I am the way and the truth and the life," becomes meaningless.

Dear reader, thank you for beginning your personal journey with these fifty-two experiences, for in so doing you are demonstrating a desire to know God more

deeply and walk in intimate oneness with Him though His Son, Jesús Christ.

God wants you to be ever more confident that He is real, that He loves you and desires to fulfill all the longings of your heart.

With my prayers for your journey, RAVI

BEHIND EVERY OUESTION

We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 CORINTHIANS 5:20-21

w e are living in an era when apologetics is indispensable, but at the same time, we need a Christian apologetic that is not merely heard—it must also be seen.

The ñeld of apologetics deais with the hard questions posed to the Christian faith. Having had deep questions myself, I listen carefully to the questions raised. I always bear in mind that behind every question is a questioner. The convergence of intellectual and existential struggles drives a person to a brutal honesty in the questions he or she has.

The gospel of Jesús Christ is beautiful and true, yet oftentimes one will ask, "How can it be true that there is only one way?" Odd, isn't it, that we don't ask the same questions of the laws of nature or of any assertion that lays claim to truth? We are discomfited by the fact that truth, by definition, is exclusive. That is what truth claims are at their core.

The question really is, how do we know this is the truth?

Whether religious or irreligious, everyone has a worldview. A worldview basically offers answers to four necessary questions: origin, meaning, morality, and destiny. In turn, these answers must be correspondingly true on particular questions and, as a whole, all answers put together must be coherent.

Taking it a step further, the three tests for truth must be applied to any

worldview: logical consistency, empirical adequacy, and experiential relevance.

When submitted to these tests, the Christian message is utterly unique and meets the demand for truth.

Consider the empirical test of the person, teaching, and work of Jesús Christ. A look at human history shows why He was who He claimed to be and why millions follow Him today. A comparison of Jesús' teachings with any other claimant to divine or prophetic status quickly shows the profound differences in their claims and demonstrations. In fact, none except Jesús even claimed to be the divine Savior. His offer of grace and forgiveness by being the perfect sacrifice of our offense—that "we might become the righteousness of God"—is profoundly unique.

I position the sequence of fact and deduction in the following way: love is the supreme ethic. Where there is the possibility of love, there must be the reality of free will. Where there is the reality of free will, there will inevitably be the possibility of sin. Where there is sin, there is the need for a Savior. Where there is a Savior, there is the hope for redemption. Only in the Judeo-Christian worldview does this sequence find its total expression and answer. The story from sin to redemption is only in the gospel with the ultímate provisión of a loving God.

The veriñcation of what Jesús taught and described and did make belief in Him a very rationally tenable and an existentially fulfilling reality. From cosmology to history to human experience, the Christian faith presents explanatory power in a way no other worldview does. Our faith and trust in Christ are reasonably grounded and experientially sustained.

I was bom to Indian parents and raised in India. My ancestors were priests from the highest caste of Hinduism in India's Deep South. But that was several generations ago. I carne to Christ after a life of protracted failure and, unable to face the consequences, I sought to end it all. It was on a bed of suicide that a Bible was brought to me, and in a cry of desperation, I invited Jesús Christ into my life. It was a prayer, a plea, a commitment, and a hope.

I hardly knew what lay ahead of me, except that I was safe in Christ's hands.

Now over fifty years later, I marvel at the grace of God and am convinced that Jesús Christ alone uniquely answers the deepest questions of our hearts and

minds.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

1. How does the idea that "behind every question is a questioner" affect your understanding of apologetics?

2. What does it mean to "become the righteousness of God," and how is the gospel unique among other worldviews?

PERSONAL APPLICATION

í. Is your faith in Jesús reasonably grounded and experientially sustained, or do you struggle with doubt? How might you address any doubts of the mind or heart this week?

2. When someone asks you to explain either why you go to church or why you are a Christian, how do you respond?

THE ULTIMATE CALLING

Be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble. Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing. .. . In your hearts revere Christ as Lord.

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, keeping a clear conscience.

1 PETER 3:8-9, 15-16

A starting point for taking on the responsibility of the work of Christian apologetics is recognizing the role that living out a disciplined Christian life plays. Even a brief examination of the Scriptures reveáis this striking imperative: one may not divorce the contení of apologetics from the character of the apologist. Apologetics derives from the Greek word apología, "to give an answer." First Peter 3:15 gives us the defining statement: "In your hearts revere

Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer [ apología ] to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect."

I have always found this to be such a fascinating verse because the apostle Peter, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, knew the hazards and the risks of being an answer-bearer to the sincere questions people would pose of the gospel.

Indeed, when one contrasts the answers of Jesús to those of any of His detractors, it is easy to see that their resistance is not of the mind but rather of the heart. Furthermore, I have little doubt that the single greatest obstacle to the impact of the gospel has not been its inability to provide answers, but the failure on our parís to live it out. The British evangelist Rodney "Gipsy" Smith once said, "There are five Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the Christian, but most people will never read the first four."- In other words, apologetics is often first seen before it is heard.

For that very reason the Scriptures give us a clear picture of the apologetic Christian: one who has first set apart Christ in his or her heart as Lord, who responds with answers to the questioner with gentleness and respect. Therefore, one must not overlook the stark reality that the way one's life is lived out will determine the impact. Few obstacles to faith are as serious as expounding the unlived life. Too many simply see the quality of one's life and firmly believe that it is all theory, bearing no supernatural component.

I remember well in the early days of my Christian faith talking to a Hindú man.

He was questioning the strident claims of the followers of Christ as being something supernatural. He absolutely insisted conversión was nothing more than a decisión to lead a more ethical life, and that in most cases it was not any different to those claims of other "ethical" religions. So far, his argument was not anything new.

But then he said something I have never forgotten and often reflect upon: "If this conversión is truly supernatural, why is it not more evident in the lives of so many Christians I know?"

His question is a tronblesome one. After all, no Buddhist claims a supernatural life but frequently lives a more consistent one. The same pertains to many of the other faiths. Yet, how often the so-called Christian, even while proclaiming some of the loftiest truths one could ever express, lives a life bereft of that beauty and

character.

This cali to a life reflecting the person of Christ is the ultimate calling upon the apologist. Skeptics are not slow to notice when there is a disparity, and because of that, may question the whole gospel in its supernatural claim. Yet when they are met with gentleness and respect, we will help meet the deepest longings of the heart and mind—and they will find where true discovery lies. Let us live so accordingly.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

1. What does it look like to "revere Christ as Lord"? Why does Peter begin his charge with this injunction?

2. What is "the single greatest obstacle to the impact of the gospel," and what is so difñcult about "expounding the unlived life"?

PERSONAL APPLICATION

í. How has your conversión experience made a visible difference in your life and in those around you?

2. What might you do this week to become a more effective witness for Christ?

POINT OF EXCLUSION

Thomas said to him, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?" Jesús answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

JOHN 14:5-6

ith the numerous religions in the world, how can Christians claim exclusivity? I am often asked this question in different settings. But I've always been fascinated by the fact that the Christian faith is the only one that seems to have this question posed. The truth is that every religión has its starting points and its deductions, and those starting points exelude.

For example, Hinduism has two nonnegotiable beliefs: karma and reincarnation.

No Hindú will trade these away. In Buddhism, there is the denial of the essential notion of the self. Buddhists believe that the self as we understand it does not exist, and our ceasing to desire will be the cause of the end of all suffering. If we deny these premises, we devein Buddhism.

Islam believes that Mohammad is the last and final prophet, and the Qur'an is the perfect revelation. If we deny those two premises, we have denied Islam.

Even naturalism, which poses as irreligión, is exclusive. Naturalism teaches that anything supernatural or metaphysical is outside the realm of evidence and purely an opinión, not a matter of fact.

In the Christian faith, we believe Jesús is the consummate experience of God in the person of His Son and is the Savior and Redeemer of the world. We cannot deny these premises and continué to be Christians.

The question is not whether these are mutually exclusive. The question is, which one of these will we deny as being reasonable and consistent? Which one of these will we be able to sustain by argument and by evidence?

It is the very nature of truth that presents us with this reality. Truth by definition is exclusive. Everything cannot be trae. If everything is trae, then nothing is false. And if nothing is false, then it would also be trae to say everything is false.

We cannot have it both ways. One should not be surprised at the claims of exclusivity. The reality is that even those who deny truth's exclusivity, in effect, exelude those who do not deny it. The truth quickly emerges. The law of noncontradiction does apply to reality: two contradictory statements cannot both be trae in the same sense. Thus, to deny the law of noncontradiction is to affirm it at the same time. You may as well talk about a one-ended stick as talk about truth being all-inclusive.

So where does that leave us? We must not be surprised at truth's claims, but we must test them before we believe them. If the test demonstrates truth, then we are morally compelled to believe it. And this is precisely the point from which many are trying to run. As G. K. Chesterton said, "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried."

Jesus said deñnitively, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to

the Father except through me" (John 14:6). Apply the tests of truth to the person and the message of Jesús Christ. You see not only His exclusivity, but also His uniqueness.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

1. Why must truth be exclusive?

2. How does understanding that every worldview has exclusive claims impact the way we proclaim the Christian faith?

PERSONAL APPLICATION

1. Has your life been changed by Jesus's statement, "I am the way and the truth and the life"? Consider reflecting on His words throughout this week.

2. Do you know someone who has found Christianity difñcult and walked away from the faith? How might what you've read today help you reach out to this person?

THE PATHWAY OF PAIN

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, but I ftnd no rest.

PSALM 22:1-2

he difñcult reality of pain forms thorny questions on which volumes have been written: Why do the innocent suffer? Why do we face all these diseases? Why the suffering of millions because of natural disasters or the tyranny of demagogues? I do not pretend to have the answers, but one thing I know: pain is a universal fact of life. Likewise, there are moral dimensions in the way we phrase our questions concerning pain, and every religión explicitly or implicitly attempts to explain pain.

But why do we even ask these questions about suffering within the context of morality? Why have we blended the fact of physical pain with the demand for a

moral explanation? Who decided that pain is immoral? Indeed, almost every atheist or skeptic you read ñames this as the main reason for his or her denial of God's existence.

In the Judeo-Christian framework, pain is connected to the reality of evil and to the choices made by humanity at the beginning of time. The problem of pain and the problem of evil are inextricably bound. So when we assume evil, we assume good. When we assume good, we assume a moral law. And when we assume a moral law, we assume a moral Lawgiver.

You may ask, Why does assuming a moral law necessitate a moral Lawgiver?

One reason is that because every time the question of evil is raised, it is either by a person or about a person—and that implicitly assumes that the question is a worthy one. But it is a worthy question only if people have intrinsic worth, and the only reason people have intrinsic worth is that they are the creations of One who is of ultímate worth. That person is God. So the question self-destructs for the naturalist or the pantheist. The question of the morality of evil or pain is valid only for a theist.

Furthermore, only in Christian theism is love preexistent within the Trinity, which means that love precedes human life and becomes the absolute valué for us. This absolute is ultimately found only in God, and in knowing and loving

God we work our way through the struggles of pain, knowing of its ultímate connection to evil and its ultímate destruction by the One who is all-good and all-loving. Indeed, God has given us the very basis for the words good and love both in concept and in language.

Not far from my home lives a young woman who was born with a very rare disease called CIPA, congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis. Imagine having a body that looks normal and acts normally, except for one thing: it cannot feel physical pain. That sounds as if it would be a blessing. But the reason it's a problem is that she lives under the constant threat of injuring herself without knowing it. If she steps on a rusty nail that could infect her bloodstream, she wouldn't even realize it by sensation. If she placed her hand on a burning stove, she would not know she had just burned her hand except by looking at it. She needs constant vigilance because she could sustain an injury that could take her life or cause serious debilitation. When her family was interviewed some years ago, the line I most remember is the closing statement

by her mother. She said, "I pray every night for my daughter, that God would give her a sense of pain."

If that statement were read in a vacuum, we would wonder what sort of mother she is. But because more than anyone else she understands the risks of this strange disease, there is no greater prayer she can pray than that her daughter feel pain and be able to recognize what it portends.

I ask you this simple question: If, in our finitude, we can appreciate the valué of pain in even one single life, is it that difficult to grant the possibility that an infinite God can use pain to point us to a greater malady? We see through a glass darkly because all we want is to be comfortable. We cannot understand the great plan of an all-knowing God who brings us near through pain or in disappointment with pleasure.

Although we wish to avoid it, the pathway of pain can be the means to recognizing our own finitude and the rescuing grace of a God so longing to reach us that He was willing to suffer pain Himself. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" was Jesús' very cry as He endured the cross for you and me. His life, death, and resurrection point to the life-defining reality that our present sorrow is only a punctuation mark because eternity with Him awaits.

Yes, intellectual answers to the problem of pain are important. But intellect alone cannot help us navigate the minefield of pain and suffering. Other worldviews may offer intellectual answers. Christianity alone offers us a person.

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