Table Of Content

WHEN GOD GOES TO STARBUCKS Other books by Paul Copan Creation Out of Nothing: A Biblical, Philosophical, and Scientific Exploration (coauthored with William Lane Craig) “How Do You Know You’re Not Wrong?” Responding to Objections That Leave Christians Speechless “That’s Just Your Interpretation”: Responding to Skeptics Who Challenge Your Faith “True for You, but Not for Me”: Deflating the Slogans That Leave Christians Speechless Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up? A Debate between William Lane Craig and John Dominic Crossan (editor) WHEN GOD GOES TO STARBUCKS A Guide to Everyday Apologetics PAUL COPAN © 2008 by Paul Copan Published by Baker Books a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.bakerbooks.com E-book edition created 2011 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews. ISBN 978-1-5855-8950-0 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC. Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture is taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.lockman.org Scripture marked KJV is taken from the King James Version of the Bible. Scripture marked NIV is taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com Scripture marked NRSV is taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture marked RSV is taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture marked TNIV is taken from the Holy Bible, Today’s New International Version™ Copyright © 2001 by International Bible Society. All rights reserved. The internet addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers in this book are accurate at the time of publication. They are provided as a resource. Baker Publishing Group does not endorse them or vouch for their content or permanence. To my precious daughter Johanna, who enjoys Starbucks and loves conversations about God and whose life shows forth the sweetness of Christ. Contents Introduction Part I: Slogans Related to Truth and Reality 1. Why Not Just Look Out for Yourself? 2. Do What You Want—Just as Long as You Don’t Hurt Anyone 3. Is It Okay to Lie to Nazis? Part II: Slogans Related to Worldviews 4. Why Is God So Arrogant and Egotistical? 5. Miracles Are Unscientific 6. Only Gullible People Believe in Miracles 7. Don’t People from All Religions Experience God? 8. Does the Bible Condemn Loving, Committed Homosexual Relationships? 9. Aren’t People Born Gay? 10. What’s Wrong with Gay Marriage? Part III: Slogans Related to Christianity 11. How Can the Psalmists Say Such Vindictive, Hateful Things? 12. Aren’t the Bible’s “Holy Wars” Just Like Islamic Jihad? Part One 13. Aren’t the Bible’s “Holy Wars” Just Like Islamic Jihad? Part Two 14. Aren’t the Bible’s “Holy Wars” Just Like Islamic Jihad? Part Three 15. Was Jesus Mistaken about an Early Second Coming? Part One 16. Was Jesus Mistaken about an Early Second Coming? Part Two 17. Why Are Christians So Divided? Why So Many Denominations? Notes Introduction Cafés are a natural place to engage in conversations about God. Many of us don’t just swing by for a quick caffeine fix and then dash out. We like to sit down, relax, and read a book or engage in conversation with a friend over a cup of coffee with espresso brownies or cranberry-orange muffins. I’ve enjoyed many hearty discussions at coffee shops—exchanging stories, problems, and questions with friends, students, and strangers. A coffee shop is a superb place to talk about what’s important— what makes for a good life, why we should be moral, what is really real. I have not only discussed such coffee-shop topics on location, but I’ve also tried to write on these often-challenging topics in an accessible manner. You may want to check out my earlier popular-level coffee-shop books— “True for You, but Not for Me,” “That’s Just Your Interpretation,” “How Do You Know You’re Not 1 Wrong?” and Loving Wisdom: Christian Philosophy of Religion. As the subtitle—A Guide to Everyday Apologetics—suggests, this book attempts to guide readers, Christian or not, into practical answers to tough questions and hard-to-handle slogans. As with my aforementioned books, this book follows a threefold structure. First, in our café chats, we may have to begin with issues of truth and reality—the fundamentals of any philosophy of life. Many people will deny that there’s such a thing as truth at all. But despite their most valiant attempts to deny the stability of truth and reality, they can’t do so. They keep bumping up against the inescapable. For when they deny objective truth, they are actually affirming the existence of truth (“It’s true that there is no truth”). In claiming that they can make up their own reality, they are affirming something they take to be universally real (“The reality is that all people make up their own reality”). But truth and reality aren’t in the eye of the beholder. Second, given the bedrock nature of reality and truth, we need to ask which worldview or philosophy of life is the true one. That is, which one best matches up with the way things really are? I have repeatedly argued that the existence of a good personal God who created the world and made humans with value and dignity (“theism”) does a better job of explaining the features of this universe and of human experience than alternative nontheistic worldviews— whether the view is naturalism (“nature is all there is”) or nontheistic religions like Buddhism, Shintoism, Confucianism, and the like. For those who are serious-minded seekers (rather than halfhearted dabblers), there are abundant indicators of God’s existence; indeed, they are quite difficult to explain if there is no God. Consider the profuse beauty of the world and the elegance of certain scientific laws, the dignity and rights of human beings, the universe’s beginning and astonishing bio-friendliness, and human awareness of a transcendent presence—to name a few. Third, if a personal God makes better sense of the world and also better helps interpret human experience, we have to ask if this God has actually done something to help us out of our misery, suffering, and alienation from him, from one another, from our world, and from our own selves. This brings us to the question of Christian apologetics—reasons to believe that God’s revelation in Christ is more intellectually satisfying than the other theistic alternatives of Judaism and Islam. Topics such as the deity and resurrection of Jesus, the doctrine of the Trinity, or the reliability of Scripture fit in here. Why should I be a Christian rather than a Muslim? Why take a trinitarian view of God rather than a unitarian one? In claiming that the Christian faith provides a more robust explanation than its theistic competitors, I am not saying that we can remove all mysteries and questions. God’s greatness is truly unsearchable, and the mystery of the incarnation is profound. At times we may have only partial answers and see things only dimly (1 Cor. 13:12); at other times we may simply have to confess, “I don’t know.” And when we’re talking with people in pain or when people just want to tell their stories, we should be quick to listen and slow to speak (James 1:19); we shouldn’t jump in with answers when we haven’t truly understood the questions. Finally, discussing such questions in the context of a gracious, respectful relationship (1 Peter 3:15) goes a long way to setting the context for robust, in-depth conversations. Moreover, Christians should engage their non-Christian friends prayerfully, in dependence on God’s Spirit to awaken, 2 convict, and provoke. While people can resist God’s gracious initiative (e.g., Isa. 5:4; Luke 7:30; Acts 7:51; Rev. 2:21), they can’t wake up to their need without it.