Christian Research Journal Reads Episode 129: Answering The Objection, “All Religion Is Manmade”

This is Episode 129 of Christian Research Journal Reads. This is an audio version of the CHRISTIAN RESEARCH JOURNAL article, “Answering The Objection, “All Religion Is Manmade”” by Frank Turek.  This article first appeared in the Effective Evangelism column of the Christian Research Journal, volume 40, number 03 (2017). https://www.equip.org/articles/answering-the-objection-all-religion-is-manmade/


This podcast presents audio versions of Christian Research Journal articles. As the flagship publication of the Christian Research Institute, the Journal seeks to equip followers of Christ to think and to live Christianly—to exercise truth and experience life. Truth, especially essential Christian doctrine, forms the basis for how we live our lives in Christ. As the apostle Paul instructed Timothy in 1 Tim. 4:16, “Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.”The Christian Research Journal enjoyed a print incarnation of almost 45 years. Now exclusively an online publication, the Journal consists of thousands of free articles. We hope that through these audio articles you are not only equipped to proclaim and defend your faith but that as a disciple you also draw closer to Christ in your walk with Him.  You can find the written version of each article that is an episode of Christian Research Journal Reads at the website of the Christian Research Institute, equip.org. All Christian Research Journal articles at equip.org are completely free and do not require a subscription and are not under a paywall.All episodes will be available at the following podcast platforms with more being added daily! You can help spread the word about this new podcast by giving us a rating and review from the other channels we are listed on and telling others!You can view off our Website at the at this link and off our Journal main page. 



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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
This is episode one hundred and twenty nine of the
Christian Research Journal Reads Podcast. Answering the objection All Religion
is Man Made? By Frank Turk. This article first appeared
in the print edition in the Effective Evangelism column of

(00:27):
the Christian Research Journal, Volume forty, number three in twenty seventeen.
Effective Evangelism, as its title suggests, is a practical advice
column on how to reach people of other faiths and
of no faith with the Gospel. Authors with experience witnessing

(00:48):
to adherents of a particular non Christian or unorthodox belief
system or group share their knowledge and wisdom on approaches
to breaking through the barriers that Christians commonly encounter with
that group. The Christian Research Journal Reads Podcast presents audio
versions of Christian Research Journal articles. To read the full

(01:12):
text of this article and its documentation, please go to
equip dot org. That's e qu ip dot rg.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Answering the objection all Religion is Man Made? This article
is by Frank Turek and is read by an automated voice.
How do you proceed when someone asserts that all religions
are men made? Here are some helpful ways of responding
to objections. In general, and then this particular one. Answer

(01:46):
the person, not just the question. Rave Zacharius says that
when you address objections or answer questions about the Christian faith,
never forget that you are answering a person, not just
a question. A caring person and thoughtful apologist should probe
to see why the person is making this objection or
asking this question. This is especially true with the questions

(02:08):
such as, if there is a good God, why does
he allow evil in the world. The answer will be
different if the questioner is motivated by mere intellectual curiosity
than if the person has just watched his daughter die.
Launching into a philosophical critique when the person is really
seeking pastoral care would be disastrous. Ask clarifying questions before

(02:30):
answering the question. This also is true with the claim
that all religion is man made. While it probably does
not have the same likelihood of being as emotionally sensitive
as the issue of evil, the potential is still there.
Perhaps the objection was conceived after being hurt by hypocritical
Christians or deceived by man made cults. Therefore, asking a

(02:53):
couple of questions before answering is usually a good idea.
Now that's not always possible in a public setting, but
it certainly is in private conversations. So in a personal setting,
you might start with that's an excellent question, why do
you ask? Or that's an interesting claim, why do you
bring it up? How they answer will determine how you respond.

(03:17):
Ask two tactical questions. Greg Kochel, in his excellent book Tactics,
champions this question based approach. It works and is modeled
after Jesus, who often asks questions when challenged. Asking questions
helps clarify what the person is asking or claiming, and
it has the added benefit of relieving pressure and putting

(03:38):
you in the driver's seat of the conversation. After you've
discovered that there is not some other more emotionally sensitive
issue behind the objection, I recommend that you proceed with
the two questions. Kokel suggests, what do you mean by that?
And how did you come to that conclusion? The first
question helps clarify and expose any assumptions behind a question,

(04:00):
what do you mean by all religions are meant made?
Then be quiet and really listen to the answer. If
they're not sure what they mean, you might help them
a little. You could say, do you mean that they
have no divine inspiration behind them at all, or do
you mean that people are involved in some way and
that means the religions must be flawed or false. After

(04:22):
you've discovered what they really mean, you should transition to
the second question, which asks for evidence. How did you
come to that conclusion or what evidence convinced you of
that conclusion. This is critically important because you should not
assume the burden of proof or disproof when someone makes
a claim. It's not your job to refute the claim.

(04:43):
The person making the claim has the job of supporting it.
Once Again, pe quiet after asking the question, if they
struggle to produce evidence, you're probably dealing with someone who
has adopted a slogan into his or her worldview without
reflecting on what the slogan means or whether it's really true.
In fact, I think that's likely the case with a

(05:03):
majority of people. They don't have a well thought out,
consistent and coherent worldview. They've merely heard slogans that they'd
like to be true and have blindly adopted them as
their own, never stopping to understand what the slogans mean,
their implications, or if they are really true. Agree where
you can. It makes sense to build some common ground

(05:25):
with the person by agreeing with as much as you can.
Is there a kernel of truth in what they say?
There is? Probably the most common reason people think all
religions are man made is because most of them actually are.
While nearly all religions have some truth in them, they
are usually man made systems in which people theoretically can

(05:47):
work their way to God. Christianity, of course, is the
exact opposite. We don't work our way to God. God
works his way to us, Which is why this objection
provides you with an opportunity to transition seamlessly to the Gospel.
Turn the claim on itself before you get to the gospel,
gently show the sense in which the objection is false.

(06:09):
You can do this by turning the objection on itself
to expose its inconsistency. For example, the objector may think
that since human beings er and human beings are undeniably
a part of Christianity, then Christianity must err as well.
Expose this flaw by beginning with Cocal's disarming phrase, have
you ever considered? Have you ever considered that while human

(06:32):
beings often air, they don't always err. If human beings
always aired. Then the objection all religions are man made
would be in error too, because the objection comes from
a human being. In fact, all objections are man made.
In other words, the objection is self defeating. The objector
may charge you with arrogance for suggesting that Christianity is

(06:55):
the one completely true religion. How could you possibly know that?
He might charge. I'll explain how below. But you might
want to expose the fact that the objector is doing
exactly what he is accusing you of doing. Have you
ever considered that you are assuming to have the same
level of knowledge that you say I can't have. After all,

(07:16):
you can't know something is false unless you know what
is true. How do you know it's true that all
religions are false? Have you investigated the truth claims of
all religions to know that they are all men made?
Focus on the evidence for the resurrection rather than biblical
inerrancy in your defense of Christianity, point out that the

(07:36):
Bible does not have to be a errant in order
for Christianity to be true. While you can make a
case for inerrancy, you should not set such a high
bar in order to get someone saved. If you do,
you risk the person dismissing all of Christianity because he
thinks he's found an error in the Bible, or because
he's discovered a biblical event that he has a hard
time believing. You might say the following to a person

(07:59):
who thinks any error is fatal to Christianity. If you
found an error in a box score on the sports page,
would that mean that everything in the sports section was
necessarily false? Of course, not Despite the error, you would
assume that the gist of the stories on the sports
page were true. It's probably our fault that the average
person is spring loaded to reject the entire Bible if

(08:21):
any detail is suspect. We Christians often presuppose inerrancy is necessary,
when in fact, the Resurrection is necessary for salvation Romans
ten to nine. There were thousands of Christians before a
line of the New Testament was ever written. That's because
Christianity is based on an historical event called the Resurrection,

(08:43):
not on mere philosophies in ancient writings, as is the
case with other religions. In fact, there would be no
New Testament if the Resurrection did not occur. Why would
Jews invent a resurrection story. They already believed that they
were God's chosen people. They had no motive to invent
the resurrection story, especially one that would get them kicked

(09:05):
out of the synagogue and then beaten, tortured, and killed. No,
the Jewish New Testament writers did not create the Resurrection.
The Resurrection created the New Testament writers make the case
for Christianity. We have good evidence to believe that a
theistic God exists and that the Resurrection actually occurred. We

(09:27):
also have good evidence to believe that the New Testament
documents are historically reliable. There is a good reason to
conclude that Christianity, unlike other religions, is not man made.
Since Christ really is God, as evidenced by the Resurrection
and the reliable New Testament documents, then whatever God teaches
is true. Jesus taught that the entire Old Testament is

(09:50):
the inherent word of God, and he promised that his
apostles would write the coming New Testament. Therefore, it is
on the risen Christ's authority that we believe scripture is
God breathed and biblical inerrancy is true. And while it's
true that God used fallible human beings to produce the Bible.
The writings they produced were inspired by God. As Hank

(10:11):
Hanigraph often says, the Bible is divine rather than merely
human in origin. But even if God didn't inspire the
writers of the Bible or guarantee an inherent original text,
the essentials of Christianity could still be true. In other words,
Christianity follows even if the New Testament writers weren't inspired

(10:32):
but merely recorded the main events correctly getting to the Gospel.
As I said above, the all religion as man made
objection provides you with an easy way to show the
uniqueness of the Gospel. In man made religions, you have
to do this and do that. In Christianity, Christ has
done all the work for you. In other words, God

(10:54):
made Christianity and were just participants in the story. While
this objection says nice to the Gospel, not all objections do.
Don't feel pressured to force every conversation to the foot
of the cross, especially if you sense the person would
feel that you are manipulating the conversation rather than being
attentive to the question being asked. Sometimes just planting a

(11:16):
seed in the minds of other people is enough to
propel them on their spiritual journey. Indeed, some plants some water,
but God causes the growth One Corinthians three to six.
Since our religion isn't made, we can trust God to
cause the growth.

Speaker 1 (11:32):
Frank Turk thank you for listening to another episode from
the Christian Research Journal Reads podcast, which provides audio articles
of Christian Research Journal articles. If you go to equip
dot org, you will find a brand new article for
the Christian Research Journal published weekly. In addition, please subscribe

(11:53):
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(12:14):
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engage in in depth, free flowing, essential Christian conversations on
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people on the planet. At equipp dot org, you will

(12:35):
also find a lot of resources to equip you, including
many thousands of Christian Research Journal articles. That's e qu
ip dot rg.