The Leading Atheist No Longer Atheist

If you talk in scholarly circles in the realm of atheism, most will cite Antony Flew as the leading scholar on atheism for the 20th century. At the very least he has the most published material for atheism than any man alive today. Many people are talking about what happened to him. And other atheists, like Richard Dawkins, are trying to explain it away as some aberration.

The reason scholars are used is they are going to supply us with the best evidences or at least attempts at evidences to round out the full discussion.

Over 15 years Flew had two debates with the leading scholar on the resurrection of Jesus, Gary. R. Habermas. The second one was in 2004. Subsequently, he is no longer an atheist and considers it absolutely wrong. Imagine that. Science has totally disprove atheism. Basically it goes like this. Cosmologists have been able to calculate the universe is exactly 13.7 billion years old, but it couldn't have just happened all by itself since nothing in nature happens all by itself; hence, it was caused by that which is uncaused, and that uncaused we call the uncreated Creator or God. Similarly, the Bible says look at the stars and the mountains and ask yourself, Did you do that?

Sad to say though he has not given his life to Christ yet. But there is hope. Continue reading.

How do you prove Jesus is God? The Minimal Facts Approach is the way to do it. It simply says, if you don't depend on the Bible being inerrant, but only accept what most critical scholars agree on. Can we still get to the resurrection and thus prove Jesus is God? You may ask how do I know most critical scholars agree on some things? Simply, Gary. R. Habermas has counted them over the past quarter of a century and you can get the report from him. You may ask still what if all these scholars change their minds. Not likely, but even still, the determining factor is there are multiple reasons that triangulate upon the resurrection that make it virtually impossible not to have occurred.

Most skeptical scholars believe the Apostles genuinely believed Jesus appeared to them in His resurrection. Paul was an outsider skeptic who said he saw Jesus resurrected. And James, brother of Jesus, who did not believe his brother was God, when he saw Jesus resurrected, gave his life to Christ.

Resurrection is the central belief of the early Church and the there was early proclamation of resurrection. Most skeptical scholars agree that in all Paul's writings (many books of the NT), that at the very least some are genuinely Paul's, e.g. Gal. 1 & 2, 1 Cor. 15. Paul, therein, said, he went up to Jerusalem 3 years after his conversion. He met Peter and James. He said he received (within 3 years after the cross) the same eyewitness testimony of the Apostles of the resurrected Jesus. 14 years later he went back to Jerusalem and met John who was there in addition to Peter and James. He said they had nothing to add on to him. Peter, James, John and Paul all said they saw Jesus resurrected. They are all on the same page. These are the right people at the right time.

You have to explain this early eyewitness combined effort if it is not true. You can't operate like Islam which says 6 centuries later that Jesus didn't die on the cross without anything to support their idea; or Mormons who say God the Father use to be a man and had celestial sex and their belief in tritheism (polytheism). Even Hindus don't believe in polytheism. They believe there is one uncreated Creator which they call Brahma and then 330 million gods. You can't claim 18 centuries later Jesus is not of one substance with the Father as one Being without anything to support that idea. Taking a guy's word for it won't cut it. Joseph Smith was a liar and he is going to Hell and so will those who followed him. To be saved, you believe in the God of the Bible, not some facsimile. Any replication is just selfishness.

You could take this proof of the resurrection in a court of law and it would win according to historical requirements! The biography of Alexander the Great was written 400 years later, but Paul's writings are done nearly on top of the event of resurrection of Jesus. This is the reason why most skeptical scholars don't try the mythical theory. And not everyone is an instant scholar.

Could have these Apostles invented this story of Jesus' resurrection because they wanted His message to live on? Did they steal the body from the tomb? Again, most skeptical scholars don't suggest this because though people die for things they believe to be true, they truly believed their message. They could be wrong, but they are being sincere. They, therefore, didn't make the story up. Nobody recanted in the early Church. In Mormonism, the eyewitnesses of the Book of Mormon all left Mormonism. We have records of 3 of the 4 Apostles being martyred, and these records are from the first century. There is a second century source that indicates or suggests John was martyred also.

The case for Jesus' resurrection is bodily in which they could touch Him, talk with Him, walk with Him, ate with Him. Tom Right wrote a 700 page book talking just about just the resurrection. Gary R. Habermas has written 140 sub-categories on the resurrection. He has written 34 books, 17 books on the resurrection with not much overlap. He has a contract with his publisher to write 3 more books of 800 pages each on the resurrection without overlap: (1) naturalistic theories, (2) where is scholarship today, and (3) evidence. There's an amazing amount of evidence.

Antony Flew said in one of his books, Christianity was the most convincing of all the religions. Flew is no longer an atheist. This is Antony's problem, and it is the same mistake you make if you are not yet born-again. He says he has never heard from God and that is why he doesn't believe in Christianity. But that is not how it works. You don't hear from God. He came to earth to reveal Himself and since He is fully proven, He is to be believed He died for our sins to forgive our sins and give us eternal life to whosoever believes. Antony also doesn't believe in an after-life, but he still says the resurrection of Jesus is the best miracle claim in the history of religions. His change of heart is an extraordinary shift, but now he just has to let go of this assumption that he has to hear from God, because that is not how God operates. It is in fact a selfishness to demand you hear from God before you can believe Him.

As per not believing in an after-life, that is faulty too, because the evidence we have also points to an after-life. There has been multiply attested reports of people who have died for several hours, are flat-lined and their hearts have stopped in which when they were revived, they reported things there is no way they could have known, like things that happened in the operating room or even elsewhere as their bodies were raised up and could overlook things happening. Obviously, only those cases are considered which the claimant reported the data immediately after coming to and were immediately multiply attested. These cases are collected by Gary R. Habermas.