12 steps to demonstrate Christianity as true

In the introduction of the book I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, authors Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek give a 12-step summary of how they demonstrate that there is credible evidence for the theistic god described in the Bible. These are the most typical apologetic arguments, and there are lots and lots of extensive refutations for them out there, but I thought I'd write briefly, equally as a kind of summary, why the arguments are flawed.

The twelve arguments are:

1. Truth about reality is knowable.

 This sounds more like an assumption, not an argument, but whatever.

2. The opposite of true is false.

A tautology is not an argument. It's a tautology.

3. It is true that the theistic God exists, as evidenced by
a. the beginning of the universe

The beginning of the universe is an unknown, and arguing for the existence of any god, much less a theistic one, from an unknown is just a blatant argument from ignorance.

Moreover, even if the beginning of the universe were caused by some form of god, that doesn't mean said god still exists, or that there was only one.

b. the design of the universe

The argument from design makes very spurious and unjustified assumptions about the alleged "design" of the universe (there are very good scientific reasons to believe that the universe is not designed at all, so simply assuming that it was is unjustified.) And again, even if it were purposefully designed, that doesn't tell us whether a god still exists, there was only one, or even if it was theistic.

c. the design of life

Same as above. Completely unjustified assumption, there are very good scientific reasons to believe that there is no design, and even if there were, it tells nothing about what possibly designed it or if it even exists anymore. Moreover, even if life were designed, there's no indication that it was a god that did it.

d. the moral law

Unjustified assumption that there is a "moral law" outside of what humans as a society has come up with. Also, even if there existed such a thing, there's nothing to indicate that whatever came up with it is actually any kind of god, or is what caused this universe to exist.

4. If God exists, then miracles are possible.

This is just outright faulty logic. Even if a god did exist, the possibility of miracles is in no way an automatic consequence of that.

5. Miracles can be used to confirm a message from God.

Again, completely faulty logic. Even if miracles did exist, we don't know what causes them. A connection to a "god" is completely unjustified. (Also, even if they were caused by a god, there's nothing that would indicate that this god created the universe or us, or if there was a creator god, that it's the same god.)

6. The New Testament is historically reliable, as evidenced by
a. early testimony
b. eyewitness testimony
c. authentic testimony
d. eyewitnesses who were not deceived

Eyewitness testimony is anything but reliable, and there's ample empirical, testable evidence for this. Claiming that something is reliable because of eyewitness testimony is one of the worst argumentative mistakes that one could ever make.

And this is assuming that such eyewitnesses actually existed. In reality, the very existence of the vast majority of those eyewitnesses is a claim made by the New Testament itself, making this a blatant circular argument. ("The New Testament is reliable because there were eyewitnesses. There were eyewitnesses because the New Testament says there were.") It is perfectly possible (and even probable) that the authors of the New Testament made things up.

7. The New Testament says Jesus claimed to be God.

This goes even further in the argumentative fallacy. The reliability of the New Testament can most certainly not be attested by how many eyewitnesses the New Testament itself claims there to have been. Moreover, even if there had been eyewitnesses, eyewitness testimony is unreliable in itself. And moreover, even if the testimony itself were reliable, that gives credence to only some parts of the New Testament. There may be some parts that really happened, while others are embellishments by the authors (if not outright fabrications.) There's absolutely nothing that would corroborate the claim that there indeed was a person in those times who claimed to be God, or that there was only one such person, or if any of these hypothetical people are actually the "Jesus" described in the story. (It's, for example, possible that the "Jesus" in the story is an amalgamation of several people, assuming he's not just outright fiction.)

8. Jesus' claim to be God was miraculously confirmed by
a. fulfillment of prophecy
b. sinless life and miraculous deeds
c. prediction and accomplishment of resurrection

I don't think it's necessary to repeat one more time what I have already written above. In addition to that, there's yet another problem with this argument: Let's assume for a moment, for the sake of argument, that all those events did indeed happen. On what basis were they caused by Jesus being God? Even if they did happen, we don't know how these things were achieved. We cannot jump from an unknown to a claim of godhood, or even to the existence of a god.

9. Therefore, Jesus is God.

Fallacious logic.

10. Whatever Jesus (who is God) teaches is true.

More fallacious logic. Even if Jesus had existed, and even if he where a god, it doesn't somehow automatically follow that what he taught is true. (Even if a god existed, there's nothing that would stop him from lying to us.) This is just faulty reasoning.

11. Jesus taught that the Bible is the word of God.

This is actually untrue even within the context of the Bible itself (making this argument quite astonishing, I must say.) What we know as "Bible" was not created but hundreds of years after his death (assuming he even existed) by the Roman church, and there is no mention of "Bible" in the Bible. Even the books of the New Testament were written long after Jesus' death, and this is something that even the most conservative Bible scholars agree with.

But even if there were such a passage, there's nothing that would indicate it to be factual. It would, once again, be circular logic: The Bible is true because the Bible says it's true.

12. Therefore, it is true that the Bible is the Word of God (and anything opposed to it is false.)

By this point it shouldn't be necessary to repeat how many fallacies must be committed to arrive at this conclusion.