Cold Case Christianity: The Holy Spirit doesn't exist; its all up to you alone

This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled

Cold Case Christianity: How to Make the Case Like a Case Maker

Posted: 15 Aug 2018 01:03 AM PDT

Every year at the CrossExamined Instructors Academy (CIA), dozens of students courageously offer their own “apologetics” presentations to those of us who had been assembled as evaluators, coaches and trainers.

Perhaps you should require Christians to pass tests of spirituality before you send 18-year old Jonathon off into the Satanic world of atheist counter-rebuttal.  Perhaps you forgot that when you answer bible skeptics, you are not just providing evidence.  The bible characterizes that situation as your entering the nightmare world of demonic darkness.  Your battle is spiritual, against wickedness in the sky:

 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. (Eph. 6:12 NAU)

 Are you quite sure all those young upstarts, so on fire to do apologetics, are properly spiritually equipped to be immune to the subtle deceptions of the devil, a creature that has far more knowledge about how to deceive young Christians than you have?   Or did I forget that in your quest to keep Christians busy focusing on J. Warner Wallace, you overlooked the grim possibility that you might be handing dangerous powertools to spiritual babies?

Wallace continues:

Prior to these talks, we take the time to help the students understand the proper structure of public presentations of this nature. Greg Koukl provides a brief outline, encouraging the men and women of CIA to “take charge confidently,” lead their audience “on a clear path,” and guide their listeners “to the destination.” Every year as I listen to many of the student speeches, I am reminded of the format we, as criminal case makers, often use in front of a jury. Christian Case Makers can learn something from this simple three step approach:

Like the fact that if you are dramatic enough, you can persuade jurors to agree with your case more because of the style of presentation and less to do with the merits.  That's also an unfortunate reality of jury trials.  Still interested in comparing apologetics presentations to jury trials?

Make an Opening Statement Thoroughly

In criminal trials, attorneys begin by making opening statements to the jury.

They also often exercise their option to forgo the opening statement, where they believe such tactic will further their agenda.  Take the hint.

The crime under consideration will be thoroughly described and jurors will see photographs of the crime scene for the first time. It is a dramatic moment for many of the jurors, particularly if they’ve never been exposed to the level of violence that typically accompanies the kinds of cases I work as a detective.

Yes, prosecutors usually do prefer grisly crime scene photos; these play on emotions and can be the reason a juror less convinced on the merits, chooses to go ahead and just say "guilty".

Prosecutors know they only get one chance at a first impression; this is not the place to stumble through your notes. They must know this portion of the presentation thoroughly and display the kind of confidence, passion and certainty that comes from exhaustively understanding the case at hand.

 Leaving your readers to wonder why you would add the power of the Holy Spirit to anybody's apologetics presentation where they display confidence, passion and certainty.  Wallace, your methods of apologetics are so utterly earth-bound, one would figure you don't regard the Holy Spirit and his convicting power as anything more than a gratuitous afterthought.  Why would you credit apologetics success to god, when the empirical evidence would indicate it had to do with all of the purely naturalistic methods of evidence-presentation you glean from trial procedure?  Under your plan, there is no more reason to ascribe apologetics success to God, than there is to ascribe the prosecutor's success at trial to God.  In both cases, there's no reason to think people need the holy spirit before they can render a reasonable judgment about what really happened in history.

In criminal trials, opening statements are limited to a simple outline of the facts of the case. Attorneys set the scene for the jurors, present the issues at stake and provide an overview of how the trial is expected to proceed. Jurors are told who their witnesses will be, how these witnesses are related to each other and the case, and what each is expected to say. While opening statements should be as persuasive as possible, they should not include “arguments”. Those will come later.

The Take-A-Way for Christian Case Makers:

Like trial attorneys, Christian Case Makers only get one chance to make a first impression.

 And there you go again, taking the unbiblical position that some things, such as a second chance to make a first impression, are not possible with God.  Read your bible:  "all things are possible with God", Mark 10:27

Especially if that God approves of and actually uses his magically coercive telepathic power to get people to do whatever he wants them to do, as he apparently did in Ezra 1:1.

When defending the Christian Worldview to our friends, we need to remember the power of the opening. Is it intriguing and captivating? Is it relevant and accurate? Are we offering something that can be supported by the evidence and are we ready to provide that evidence later in the presentation or conversation?

 Indeed, there is no Holy Spirit.  If you wish to succeed in apologetics, you need to make your speeches intriguing, captivating, etc.  If YOU don't do it, it won't get done.  Amen?

Present Evidence Specifically

Once the opening statements have been made, it’s time to begin presenting the evidence to the jury. Much of this evidence will simply be the testimony of important expert witnesses. Some cases require DNA experts; others require experts in material evidence, coroners, doctors, or weapons specialists. The attorneys have the burden of deciding which types of experts will be needed. In addition, each attorney has to decide which pieces of physical or circumstantial evidence will be ‘highlighted’. Not every piece of evidence will have the same priority or emphasis; some will be more important than others. Each attorney must try to decide which evidence he or she will highlight and which evidence he or she will seek to minimize, and they have the burden of explaining why some pieces of evidence should be given greater weight than others.

The Take-A-Way for Christian Case Makers:

While you and I, as Christian Case Makers may be very familiar with the scientific or philosophical work that has been done on a particular topic, we have to be careful not to overload the conversation with too many “expert witnesses”.

 No doubt because God is incapable of enabling them to keep all that data straight.  Once again, if the sinful apologist doesn't employ this tactic, that will simply reduce the level of persuasiveness.  There is no Holy Spirit to speak of.  You do the job yourself, or it doesn't get done.

Many of us have not done the “heavy lifting” and examined the original sources for the evidence supporting the Christian Worldview. Instead we carelessly quote something we read once on a website or heard some speaker say. We need to familiarize ourselves with the evidence supporting our case and be responsible and accurate in citing these evidences. We’ve also got to be prepared to argue why some pieces of evidence should be given more weight than others.

 If you are going to use trials as a model, you might tell your students that if they don't wish to get steamrolled, they need to stay abreast of the arguments the latest atheist bible critics are making.

And you don't do that by simply highlighting the known problems in the arguments of the likes of Sam Harris and other very popular atheists. There are lots of smart atheists on the internet that could sing circles around you and your students, that is...if your Cold Case Christianity books accurately represent your level of knowledge.

Make a Closing Argument Convincingly

Once the jury has seen and heard the evidence, the attorneys are allowed to argue the case. In this closing portion of the trial, attorneys attempt to persuade jurors about the conclusions they ought to form. Attorneys remind jurors about the specific evidence presented earlier and try to convince jurors to embrace one interpretation or another. Here, attorneys are free to include hypothetical analogies, assess and argue about the credibility of witnesses, and discuss how various pieces of the puzzle fit together to make a compelling case. While an attorney might be limited in the opening to saying something like, “Witness Smith will testify that the Defendant left the house after the victim screamed,” it’s here in the closing that the attorney will argue the value of this statement by saying something like, “As we know from Witness Smith’s overwhelmingly compelling testimony, the Defendant left the house immediately after the victim screamed, and given the other facts of this case, the only reasonable conclusion is the Defendant was responsible for murdering the victim.”

The Take-A-Way for Christian Case Makers:

It’s not enough to present the evidence without taking the time to show how the pieces of the puzzle fit together. That’s one reason why I wrote Cold Case Christianity; I wanted to help Christian Case Makers understand the rules of evidence so they can utilize these simple principles to form an effective case.

 No doubt because the Holy Spirit's actual responsibilities at this point are so utterly invisible, unknown and unknowable that in the practical world, it makes more sense to simply proceed as if making the case convincing is the sole responsibility of the sinful apologist.   Words that praise the Holy Spirit for any ministry success are about as meaningful as crediting the Holy Spirit with the fact that a gasoline powered engine starts up after gas is put in the tank.  Sure is funny that the Holy Spirit disappears just as soon as the gas does.

When we wrap up our presentations and conversations, it’s important to “connect the dots”. We need to do more than explain what the case looks like; we need to help people understand why the Christian worldview is the most reasonable inference from the evidence.

Because if you don't do that, neither will the Holy Spirit.  Wallace, is there a reason why you distinguish the Holy Spirit from the synapses firing inside your brain?  Sure, church creeds might demand you make such distinction, but you carry on in practical life as if leaving room for the Holy Spirit to discharge his own responsibilities in apologetics is unbiblical and dangerous.  You clearly disdain the idea of quoting a bible verse to a skeptic, then walking away, as insufficient, but why?  If Romans 1 is correct that skeptics are without excuse before god, how could the skeptic's excuses as you walk away, motivate you to return counter-argument?  Do you fear that the bible doesn't do a good enough job of keeping the skeptics worried about being wrong?

If you seriously believed in the power of the Holy Spirit to convict, you would not see any need to do more than simply quote the bible to unbelievers.  So answer the question already:  Do you believe the Holy Spirit can move just as easily and powerfully in an unbelievers heart solely through hearing the bible quoted, as He can when the unbeliever is slammed with a presentation of the likes you argue for herein?

If you answer "yes", how could you possibly dare lie to these good folks, telling them they "need" your materials, or that employing your methods can increase success?  Why should anybody believe God himself is doing JACK SHIT in the unbeliever's heart as they hear apologetics presentations?  According to your advice, success is all about how the sinner organizes things and the level of confidence they exude, no need to involve God in the process at all.

In every presentation or conversation, it is my goal to raise important questions that must be answered. I want to help my unbelieving friends see the logical inconsistencies of their worldview and leave them with a few important last thoughts to challenge and provoke them to dig deeper into the claims we’ve been discussing.

 Ok, I know you inside and out, and I have serious problems with your methodology and the arguments you use to arrive at your conclusions.  Would you be interested in having a formal debate on any biblical topic of your choice, in any internet forum of your choice, on any date or dates of your choice?

Or does there come a point where keeping up sales requires that you start reducing your customer's exposure to the other side?

Juries are ultimately asked to make a decision; the efforts of the attorneys are focused on this singular goal. Christian Case Makers can adopt their approach as we help our friends and family to assess the case and make a decision for Christ.

If you seriously think the jury format is a good analogy to what you are doing, then you cannot possibly  balk at any skeptic who, like a juror, reaches what he believes to be a reasonable verdict after listening to the evidence for the average amount of time that jurors hear evidence in trials.

Contrary to popular belief, your jury-analogy doesn't give you the option to say that the skeptical jurors need to continue investigating, perhaps for years or a lifetime,  until they agree with the defense.  There comes a day when we have to stop saying "anything is possible" and render a judgment based on currently known probabilities.  The fact that we could possibly be wrong is not a good reason to suspend judgment otherwise, because every criminal suspect could possibly be innocent, we should never have criminal trials.

And if your god really doesn't want atheists to attack the bible, he could simply exercise his magically coercive Ezra 1:1 telepathic powers in the minds of all unbelievers and presto, no need for Wallace to sell Jesus, everybody already believes.

You say God exercises such power but we resist his wooing effect with our freewill?

Read Daniel 4:33, God not only can, but HAS violated a sinner's freewill to force them to change their mind:

 30 "The king reflected and said, 'Is this not Babylon the great, which I myself have built as a royal residence by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?'
 31 "While the word was in the king's mouth, a voice came from heaven, saying, 'King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is declared: sovereignty has been removed from you,
 32 and you will be driven away from mankind, and your dwelling place will be with the beasts of the field. You will be given grass to eat like cattle, and seven periods of time will pass over you until you recognize that the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind and bestows it on whomever He wishes.'
 33 "Immediately the word concerning Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled; and he was driven away from mankind and began eating grass like cattle, and his body was drenched with the dew of heaven until his hair had grown like eagles' feathers and his nails like birds' claws.
 34 "But at the end of that period, I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever; For His dominion is an everlasting dominion, And His kingdom endures from generation to generation. (Dan. 4:30-34 NAU)

 if his nails grew like bird's claws, that sounds like God caused this man to act insane for at least 6 months.  That's quite a long time to violate somebody's freewill and make them act like farm animals.

You also have the option of denying this argument by saying the book of Daniel contains legend and mythology.  But only at the price of bible inerrancy, a price you aren't willing to pay.  So drown in the biblical evidence that your  bible-god cares a lot less about respecting human freewill than you and Turek constantly say.


The point is that your god has no good excuse for being so hidden and absent, that imperfect sinners like you are required to sell Jesus stuff and make money.  God would be satisfied with forcefully coercing skeptics to believe.  Whether you can reconcile your idea about love and freewill with Daniel 4:33 is your problem.  Take a more liberal view, solve a lot of problems.

And don't even get me started on how unbiblical it is for America to give Christian ministers tax-breaks.  You use the roads and other public facilities just as much as anybody else, therefore, it is more in accord with honesty that you should pay your fair share of taxes.  The only reason this tax-scheme works is because not everybody employs it.  If they did, America would have no tax revenue, and that would be the end of this nation.  Stop freeloading.