How to Know Truth and Evaluate Competing Worldviews...Continued from page 4

It should be noted that the Naturalist has a high price to pay for the worldview he embraces. The Naturalist must say that the things that we all value in life—love, relationships, beauty, justice—are mere illusions. A consistent Naturalist will admit this.

But the Naturalist has a deeper problem. How can mere matter and energy have an illusion? Of course, it can't. At this point, we realize that Naturalism fails the Test of Logical Consistency as well, requiring illusions which Naturalism cannot allow.


How to Test a Worldview - Islam
What about Islam? Islam depends on the notion that the Bible has been fundamentally corrupted. Islam has to claim this because, while it affirms that the Bible as originally written is the Word of God, there are core contradictions between the Bible as we have it today and the teachings of Islam.

For example, the Bible teaches that Jesus is the Son of God, and without this teaching Christianity falls apart. But Islam teaches that Jesus is not the Son of God, and without this teaching Islam falls apart. Again, the Bible teaches that Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead, and without this teaching Christianity falls apart. But Islam teaches that Jesus did not die on the cross and rise from the dead, and without this teaching Islam falls apart. So there are clear contradictions between the core teachings of the Bible as we have it today and the core teachings of Islam. And the only way Islam can maintain that the Bible is the Word of God and avoid these kinds of contradictions is by claiming that the Bible as originally written came to be fundamentally corrupted at some point in time.

So then, the question becomes "When was the Bible corrupted?" One possibility is before the Koran was written in the seventh century. The problem with this possibility is that the Koran itself refers to the Bible as a reliable document at the time in which the Koran was written.

For example, Koran 5:47 says "Let the People of the Gospel [i.e., Christians] judge by what God hath revealed therein. If any do fail to judge by the light of what God hath revealed, they are no better than those who rebel." This is a call issued by the Koran in the seventh century for Christians to listen to what God had revealed in the New Testament. This call only makes sense if the New Testament had been faithfully preserved through the seventh century, because only then could they "judge by the light of what God hath revealed."

Likewise, Koran 5:68 says "Say: ‘O People of the Book [i.e., Jews and Christians]! Ye have no ground to stand upon unless ye stand fast by the Law [i.e., the Old Testament], the Gospel [i.e., the New Testament], and all the revelation that has come to you from your Lord.'" Again, this assumes that the Bible is reliable at the time of the writing of the Koran because you can't "stand fast" by what has essentially been lost through corruption.

So, the Koran itself assumes that the Bible had been faithfully preserved, at least through the seventh century when the Koran was written. Of course, for Islam to suggest that the Bible had become fundamentally corrupted before the seventh century would lead to a contradiction, causing Islam to fail the Test of Logical Consistency.