God's Crime Scene by J. Warner Wallace- Audio Book Highlight

Introduction

If you consume a large portion of your material through audio, it is hard to get past a good deal on an excellent audio book. Twice every year ChristianAudio.com runs a sale on most of their collection, and you can usually pick up these great audio resources for $7.49. The time has come for the first sale of 2020 (and following years), so I will be highlighting some of my favorite audio books. I'll include a few of my favorite quotes from the books, my recommendation from my chapter-by-chapter reviews, links to posts that were inspired by the books, and, of course, I will include links to the audio book deal throughout the article. Today, I am highlighting God's Crime Scene by J. Warner Wallace.

God's Crime Scene by J. Warner Wallace- My Recommendation

"God's Crime Scene" is the highly anticipated "sequel" to J. Warner Wallace's "Cold Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels". In his first investigation Wallace looks at the evidence for the claim that the Gospels were eye-witness accounts of the life of Jesus. In his latest book, he investigates the existence of God. He takes his experience and skill-set as a homicide detective to bring together the evidences and present them in a coherent and convincing manner for the jurors (readers) to decide.

This book was an engaging listen. For many people investigating the existence of God seems like a dull, philosophical project. To make matters worse, the resources to investigate seem overwhelming, so people do not know where to start. Because of the interest of people in criminal investigation (as evidenced by the popularity of both fictional and non-fictional crime investigation shows on TV and streaming services) and the fact that people often are involved with the criminal justice system (as a victim or juror), Wallace is able to use his skill set and experience as a homicide investigator to bring the investigation into God's existence to the masses. This audio book is not only filled with the evidences for God as the "suspect" in the "crime scene" of the universe, but Wallace includes stories of his own experiences and many stories that most people will connect with on a deep basis. Wallace's connection to the reader and his powerful case result in an audio book that I highly recommend for everyone to listen to and pass along to friends, family, and others who may be interesting in God's existence but may not know exactly where to start.

You can read the complete chapter-by-chapter summary review by clicking or tapping here. 

Book Review: Forensic Faith🕵

Introduction

I have to say that ever since I heard that cold-case homicide detective J. Warner Wallace was working on a new book, I was extremely excited, especially when I heard it would be a book on learning how to be a Christian case-maker. I read and reviewed his two previous books (Cold-Case Christianity and God's Crime Scene). In those books, he brought a unique and powerful perspective, as a cold-case homicide detective, to presenting the case for Christ's resurrection and God's existence. However, many Christians are not convinced that there is even a need to make the case for the truth of our worldview. In "Forensic Faith: A Homicide Detective Makes the Case for a More Reasonable, Evidential Christian Faith" (paperback, Kindle, audiobook), Wallace's aim is to appeal to these Christians, who are hesitant about making the case, by presenting them with the biblical reasons for making the case and the resources to do so.

Chapter 1: Distinctive Duty

J. Warner Wallace begins by telling of his graduation from the police academy in California. As part of the graduation, the new graduates took an oath; they sore to protect the citizens of their state from all threats using the training they had received. This instilled in the new officers a great sense of duty. As an officer of the law and a detective, evidence played an extremely important role in Wallace's everyday life. When Christian officers witnessed to him, he was not impressed because they seemed to have a faith that went against the evidence. However, when he investigated the Gospels for himself, he found the complete opposite: that Christianity made claims about reality that could be falsified or verified by evidence, and Jesus and his Disciples, in fact, encouraged people to believe based on the evidence and witness to others using the evidence.

Wallace observes that every Christian believes the claims of Christ based upon the direct evidence of the eye-witness testimony of the Disciples given in the gospels, so having a faith based upon evidence is nothing foreign to the Christian. However, to make his case more powerfully, he takes the reader through the New Testament to show that Jesus encouraged people to believe His claims based on the evidence He offered, and that the Disciples accepted their duty to witness using their eye-witness testimonies (direct evidence). He observes that while Paul explicitly stated that not everyone was necessarily called to be an evangelist (Eph. 4:11), Peter explicitly stated that everyone is called to be a Christian case-maker (1 Peter 3:15). He then takes the reader through early Church history. In this he cites several historical writers at the time who provided evidence to their readers for the truth of what they were claiming about Jesus Christ. Wallace concludes the chapter with a call to every Christian to accept their biblically-established duty to be Christian case-makers for the next generation.

Chapter 2: Targeted Training

For those who have accepted their duty as Christian case makers, Wallace now moves to training. He observes that despite the fact that the Church has been teaching the Word of God, the desired effect is not borne out in culture: most adults (including Christian adults) do not have an accurate Christian worldview, and our kids are leaving the Church in droves. From Wallace's own experience as a youth pastor, simply teaching is still resulting in our children rejecting Christ. He decided from that experience that he needed to employ a tactic from his work on the police force: training. Instead of merely providing instruction in a classroom then going off to do something fun within the confines of the Church, he decided to train his students. This involved more than just instruction, and he lays out his system using an acrostic:

Test
Require
Arm
Involve
Nurture

It is important that Christians test each other's (and their own) ability to answer the tough questions from skeptics. This will reveal the focuses of training. Christians need to raise the bar and require more of themselves and each other than what we think can be handled; this encourages growth in knowledge. As we stretch our minds, we must arm ourselves and each other. Learn what is true and how to communicate it clearly. We do each of these in order to involve ourselves in culture and engage the challenges of skeptics; we must use the knowledge and skills that we have practiced. As we involve and engage, those with us will discover areas where they are weak, and we must be there to nurture them in the middle of the battle so that they can get back on their feet. Wallace explains that all these are necessary if we wish to see the trends described at the beginning of the chapter reversed. He concludes the chapter with a specific call to parents to get trained so that when their kids ask challenging questions, they will "be ready to give a reason for the hope that they have with gentleness and respect." (1 Peter 3:15)

Chapter 3: Intense Investigation

In the third chapter, Wallace describes five practices that he exercises in order to investigate cold cases, and he demonstrates how to apply each one in order to have a forensic faith. His first practice is to read the case file completely and know it backward and forward. He must be extremely familiar with the material. The Christian, likewise, needs to read the Bible (Christian file) completely and know it from cover to cover. His second practice is to remember that everything can be evidence, even things that we may not usually consider. When reading the Bible, the Christian must understand that everything contained within its pages counts as evidence in one way or the other. The third practice is to take extensive notes and thoroughly analyze.

As we read the Bible, notes should be taken regarding different relationships among passages and concepts, and the claims (along with the specific words used and not used) all need to be thoroughly analyzed. The fifth practice is to organize the data and summarize it. Doing the same with the Bible will assist in understanding and recollection of the investigation. The fifth practice is to look for evidence outside the original case file. For the Christian, most skeptics do not recognize the Bible as a source of truth, so if they are to reasonably believe what it says is true, they need to have evidence from a source that they recognize as valid (which will be outside the Bible). For each one of these practices, Wallace presents an example of application for the Christian that will help in developing a forensic faith.

Chapter 4: Convincing Communication 

Of course, once we have developed a forensic faith, we cannot keep it to ourselves, we must communicate to those who must decide, a "jury" of sorts. Wallace again draws upon his experience to provide the Christian with principles for communicating what evidences have been uncovered for the truth of the Christian worldview. His first principle is to be insightful in deciding who to present the evidence to. Just as jury selection is important for a trial, so is the selection of the people to present evidence to. He explains that there are generally four kinds of people: Committed skeptics, committed Christians, Christians who are doubting, and skeptics who are doubting. Generally the ones who are most receptive to the evidence are the last three. His second principle is to instruct those you present evidence to on how to examine evidence. It is not always common knowledge how evidence is to be handled; if someone does not understand how evidence builds a case, then they will not likely see how powerful the case is when presented.

The third principle is to remember that whoever makes a claim bears the burden of proof, not just the theist (as many atheists would have you believe). Any time that someone claims something (even that God does not exist), it is their responsibility to make a case. Fourth, always remember that possibilities are not arguments against your case or the evidence presented. There will always be unanswered questions, and there always seems to be some speculative way to avoid the conclusion. However, speculated possibilities are not supported by the evidence; the conclusion you present is. Fifth, the more evidence you present, the more reasonable the conclusion. If you claim that something happened, the more support you can present, the more evidentially persuasive the case will be. Familiarize yourself with as many pieces of evidence for the truth of Christianity as you can. Finally, Wallace encourages the Christian to communicate passionately yet humbly; never overstate your case. He concludes the book with a reminder of the importance of the duties of those who are called to "serve and protect" in law enforcement and encourages the Christian to accept the same duty to "serve and protect" the members of the Body of Christ.

Reviewer's Thoughts

I had high hopes for this book, and Wallace certainly did not disappoint. While there are numerous aspects of this book to appreciate, the one that stood out to me was his thorough use of Scripture throughout the book to make his case for providing an evidential case for Christianity. One of the principles he's learned in his career as a homicide detective is to "overwhelm" his jury with the evidence for the guilt of defendant so that there is little-to-no doubt in their minds of his/her guilt. His use of Scripture certainly follows that principle. If you have not seen a decent case for presenting evidence for the truth of the Christian worldview, this is the book that you need to read. If you have heard about "apologetics" and have been curious but do not know where to start, this is the book to get. I cannot recommend it enough as the starting point for anyone who feels Peter's call to "be prepared to give a reason for the hope that you have." After this one, be sure to continue your development of a forensic faith with J. Warner Wallace's two other great books, "Cold-Case Christianity" and "God's Crime Scene."

Were You There?

Introduction

"Were you there?" When I was younger that is a question that I was taught to ask a naturalist when they tried to tell me that the universe was started by the big bang. Before I recognized the big bang as powerful evidence for the Creator (I vehemently rejected it as an atheistic theory), when presented with evidence for the big bang, I would respond by asking, "were you there to witness all those events you say happened...no?...I didn't think so, so how can you be so sure that God didn't create the universe like the Bible says?" I remember using this in several occasions in college and came across a couple students who turned the question around on me: "you weren't there either?...then how do you know it didn't happen as I described?" I realized that this was not a very good way to defend the idea that God created the universe (and the Christian worldview).

I have not seen this question used in quite some time as an apologetic strategy; however, it did come up last year in an article from the popular young-earth creationist organization, Answers in Genesis. The author proposed that the way the question was asked (similar to how I was taught) was unwise but that there is a proper way to use the question. Please read the original article here before you continue; I want you to be sure that in my critique, I am accurately representing the author.

Presuppositions, Circumstantial Evidence, and Free Will

Introduction

In the last month or so, I have become more of a "fly on the wall" in different scientific groups on Facebook. It has been interesting to take a break from interaction for a while and simply observe it. Something that I have noticed come up quite often is that many Christians, when debating scientific evidence with skeptics, end up telling the skeptics that they do not accept the evidence based on their presuppositions of atheism. That is bad enough, but what is disturbing is that I have also witnessed Christians say this same thing (presupposition of atheism) to Christians who take a different perspective (specifically on the age of the universe or evolution). (I have been a victim of this myself but did not think much of it until I saw it committed against several other Christians in multiple groups by multiple people.) Included in the attacks on both the skeptic and the fellow Christian is (sometimes explicit and sometimes implicit) the claim that presuppositions cannot be set aside. This leads the attacking Christian to feel justified in cutting off discussion and no longer answering questions or challenges to their view, and consigning the questioner to damnation. Today, I want to address the idea that presuppositions cannot be set aside, for if this is false, then the attacker has a false sense of logical security in their decision to be dismissive in the face of challenges they cannot (or will not) address.

17 Quotes from Norman Geisler On Evidence for Special Creation

"It will not suffice for the creationist simply to point to the lack of evidence for a secondary cause of life. From no evidence no scientific conclusion follow. Some positive evidence for creation must be presented before a positive conclusion can be drawn."

"It is true that special creation is not testable against any regularly recurring pattern of events in the present. But neither is macroevolution. Both views involve unobserved past singularities. That is, they involve rare occurrences. For example, so far as we can tell, life did not emerge from nonlife over and over. Nor were the great transitions between major forms of life repeated again and again. Hence there is no recurring patterns of events against which to test how the universe began, how life began, or how diverse life forms originated. So neither macroevolution nor creation comes within the discipline of operation science. This does not mean that there is no sense in which macroevolution and creation are scientific. Although they are not an empirical science, nevertheless they function like a forensic science. Just as a forensic scientist tries to make a plausible reconstruction of an unobserved (and unrepeatable) murder, so the evolutionist and creationist attempt to construct a plausible scenario of the unobserved past singularities of origin. So neither view is operation science. Rather both are in the domain of origin science."

Philosophy of Science, Circumstantial Evidence, and Creation

Introduction

For those who have followed me for some time, you know that I take a strong stance on the importance of defending the Christian worldview in its specific claims about reality, as opposed to only defending general claims. For those who are not familiar with my reasons for this position, please see my posts here and here. One of the theological debates that I defend specifically is a particular view on creation. I take the old-earth creation (OEC) position that holds to the literal historicity of the records of Genesis 1-11. I came from a position of young-earth creationism (YEC) but changed due to the lack of scientific evidence supporting the view and the complete compatibility of OEC with Christianity. A couple years ago, a prominent YEC leader (Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis) debated Bill Nye on the scientific status on YECism. Ham constantly drew a distinction between "observational/operational science" and "historical science" to say that what happened in the past cannot be known. I wrote a post last year critiquing this philosophy of science and provided a followup clarification on my position (here and here, respectively).

Since then I have read and reviewed one of the foundational works on the philosophical distinction (Origin Science: A Proposal for the Creation/Evolution Controversy by Norman Geisler and J. Kirby Anderson). My previous posts dealt with the distinction as presented by Ken Ham (and many other YEC proponents); however, today I want to deal with the distinction as presented by Geisler and Anderson. There is a wide chasm between the two understandings, and if Ken Ham is getting the distinction from the work of Geisler and Kirby (or someone who agree with their distinctions), then he has misunderstood the distinctions. My goal is to explain the distinctions made by Geisler and Anderson and show how they have been misunderstood by Ken Ham and other YEC proponents. I will also show that the rejection of circumstantial evidence in Ham's understanding necessarily undermines the presuppositional grounding of knowledge of all events recorded in the Bible, which is what Ken Ham promotes in place of a circumstantial, evidential approach to discovering the mechanisms, timing, and purposes of creation.