Poetic Apologia

Prelude

The black abyss that came before

Was vast in time and space—

What years preceded my first breath,

What emptiness, what waste?

What is a year in that abyss,

When years follow my sun?

How can I say the cosmos walks

This path that I now run?

And run I do, with frightful speed;

The speed of light seems slow

Compared with Death, whose scythe was laid

At birth across my throat.

“Enjoy this fleeting taste of air,”

He says with ghastly grin.

“Soon or sooner, you’ll be mine—

Go back to black abyss.”

A breath of mist upon the ice,

A blink, and then I go.

I smell the flowers, taste the wine,

Then decay with them both.

Why did the fates see fit to tease

My heart with these few beats?

Why open eyes that only see

Such boundless mysteries?

The atheist considers this,

And says, “We cannot know.

But while I’m here, I’ll mock and jeer

At all who seek to show

That there is more to life than death,

More to this tale than chance,”

Then praise the dust on which our feet,

Perform this pointless dance.

Praise the dust and hate the One

Who offers boundless life?

Even if I thought them right,

I’d blind my weeping eyes.

For it is better to believe

A sweet, enchanting lie

That comforts and emboldens me

If, either way, I die.

But is this sweet, enchanting tale

A lie? No, it is not.

The truth of it is evident

With just a little thought.

The sweet, enchanting Truth has come

And proved He is the Christ;

But atheists would rather cling

To sad and pointless lies.

So, let us now proceed to show

The Way, the Truth, the Life;

Now, let us join the chorus of

The faithful of all time.

Milton, Herbert, Augustine,

They wrote of Him so well,

And let us join the faithful few

Who ring and ring that bell.

Creation

Aristotle understood

What atheists now miss:

That if a wave goes washing by,

Then something causes this.

And if that something was, let’s say,

An earthquake or a boat,

Then something caused those causes too;

But how far can it go?

Aristotle traced it to

A Mover who’s unmoved;

For if the past is infinite,

The future is disproved:

If all the sum of time were found

Contained within the past,

The future would be found there too—

It had all time to pass.

But what need for abstraction when

The scientists have shown

That bang, the universe began

Just as the Bible told?

I believe that nothingness

Makes nothing, left alone;

Atheists believe it made

All that we see and know.

“Abandon your blind faith!” they cry.

“How foolish can you be?

Believe me, there’s a multiverse

No one has ever seen!”

I’m afraid I cannot stake

My soul on faith so blind.

When nothingness becomes our world,

This points me to a Mind.

Design

Along a nature walk, you find

A watch there on the path;

You notice that its working parts

Are functional, exact.

This gear ticks the hands along,

And this face displays time.

So, will you not be rational

To say it was designed?

You never saw the watchmaker;

You cannot prove his work;

But to assume a self-built watch

Is patently absurd.

Just as the watch declares the work

Of one you cannot see;

The skies declare the glory of

The Maker of all things.

The earth proclaims His handiwork—

The beasts, and trees, and stars.

Our love and care for all declares

His imprint on our hearts.

“You fool, it all designed itself!”

The atheist insists.

“For if the Maker I can’t see,

Your evidence dismiss.”

“Evolution answers all,”

They add with smug contempt.

But evolution couldn’t start

Until the stage was set.

Gravity had to be right

For anything to form;

And there was nothing to evolve

Till DNA was born.

But who set gravity within

A fraction of a hair?

And who wrote out the language that

Our DNA declares?

This self-built masterpiece is quite

The wild atheist thought.

I would sooner hang my faith

Upon a self-built watch.

Morality

Strange to say, a self-built world

Is not their wildest view,

For they’re naive enough to trust

In self-built moral rules.

“I’m moral by myself,” they say.

“So, I don’t need your God!”

As if a person all alone

Could be a useful law.

They give no thought to what happens

If other people wish

To invent moral rules the way

Nietzsche and Nazis did.

They look upon the Christian past

And gloat at what they see:

“Look how evil Yahweh is,

Your blood-soaked history!”

Yet if the atheist is right

And all our mind was built

By evolution, then the rule

Is “Kill or else be killed.”

And how could anyone derive

Morality from this?

That’s why the worst atrocities

Were caused by atheists.

Morally outraged, they say,

“I’ll do without your God.”

And so cut off the branch that they

Do their grandstanding on.

Fight for morals—reject God;

You cannot do them both.

When you cut God out of the scene,

All morals with Him go.

Evil

“But look at all the evil God

Allows,” they still repeat.

“The God who would do all of this

Is not the God for me.”

“For if He were a loving God,

And powerful, and wise,

Then He would intervene and not

Let all these evils thrive.”

“And even if He did, He would

Not do evil Himself.

He’d never murder, or enslave,

Or cast men into Hell.”

Yet what could evil even mean

If atheists are right?

Evil would just be weakness, and

Goodness would just be might.

If God would make us lovable,

He had to make us free—

Free to love and trust in Him,

Or else from Him to flee.

Of course, such freedom has a cost,

Which men and angels found:

Fleeing from their Maker they

Made suffering abound.

And yet the Maker never had

To give us life at all,

Nor did He have to send His Son

To lift us from our fall.

The Father suffering with His child,

The God who becomes man

Answers evil far better

Than any atheist can.

What’s more evil, do you think?

That evil gets erased;

Or that what we believe is wrong

Is really only taste?

The Christian trusts that evil will

Be set right in the end;

The cold comfort of atheists

Is, “That’s just how it is.”

So, let them go on highlighting

The evils that persist;

For if the atheists were right,

Evil would not exist.

Jesus

And if the atheists are right,

Then Jesus didn’t rise

Despite the multitudes who saw

Him days after He died.

Then, so convinced of what they saw,

They died most gruesome deaths,

Believing that, as their King did,

They too would resurrect.

“How can you be so foolish?”

Says the atheist again.

“If people could rise from the dead,

Why don’t more do it, then?”

As if the Christian doesn’t know

How final death should be.

Rising from the dead was how

He proved Himself the King.

The miracle of Jesus’ life

Is why it earned Him fame;

If rising had been commonplace,

No one would know His name.

But if, to show a foretaste of

His life, He conquered death,

Then now it’s time to celebrate,

And follow in His steps.

Yes, cry for joy and gratitude,

Then go where His feet went.

There’s no path happier on Earth,

And this one never ends.