Posted on 05/04/2014 12:34:25 PM PDT by Olog-hai
If the Bible is true, all our desires for relationships are nothing but earthly version of an ultimate desire for relationship with God. In heaven, this apparent conflict will be reconciled.
If the Bible is true, all things of this world will go away. The only way this can be said to be devoid of reason is if we refuse to see it other than through the lenses of the world.
It doesn’t seem to make sense only if we expect things to be as we would have them.
The only way it wouldn’t come close to resembling reason, truth, or justice in any rational sense is if we were the authors of reality.
But we’re not, we’re merely participants. In some cases, this is probably the most difficult truth to accept—the greatest barrier.
Well I do have to admit that I like Greg Bahnsen's work and have adopted his methodology because his application of Cornelius Van TIl's Transcendental Argument does work, as you are demonstrating. Van Til was a philosopher as well as a theologian. So was Bahnsen. Bertrand Russell was a philosopher, too, in addition to being a logician and mathematician, not to mention and atheist. Russell at least understood that these are real problems in philosophy and that philosophers have grappled with with for centuries, if not millennia. The problems apply not just to logic, but to any abstract type or class of universals, including morality.
Non-theists always hemmed and hawed, and reasonably so because it is an extremely difficult issue. But the question itself, "Where does your morality come from?" is altogether meaningless.
Then perhaps you can explain why professional philosophers have been writing about these philosophical problems for so long, and why do they continue to do so if the issues are altogether meaningless? Can you cite one philosopher who writes that these issues are altogether meaningless?
t doesn't "come from" anywhere in the sense that there's no central authority figuring it out and writing it down for us all to follow.
There you go again. In paragraph one you tacitly admit that you don't know everything. Now here, by making a universal claim, you are tacitly assuming that you know everything, You are contradicting yourself. Have you searched everywhere throughout all time and eternity to discover that there's no central authority figuring it out and writing it down for us all to follow? There is no way you could know such a thing. So which is it - do you know everything or not? Where did you get your epistemology?
OK, you have a model for morality, but it's dependent on logic. Where does you logic come from?"
No, the argument is NOT that morality depends on logic, but that both logic and morality belong to the same class of a whole host of things; namely, abstract, invariant universals.
Understand this very clearly; answering any question about origins by saying "It comes from God" is entirely, completely, and totally meaningless. It doesn't mean anything more than that saying "Morality, knowledge, and logic come from Odin."
What is Odin? Does Odin have the same unchanging, eternal nature and attributes as the God of the Bible? Is Odin both infinite and personal? Is Odin the One and Only True God? I don't read much of philosophers and theologians arguing over Odin very much. Maybe I ought to get out more.
The fact that logic might change a million years into the future does not keep one from understanding and accepting it, no matter how many times you cut and past Greg Bahnsen quotes.
Why do you understand and accept things you haven't seen? I'll try a different quote. If logic can change then Chuck Norris can cut through a hot knife with butter. If logic can change why are you arguing with me? If logic can change why don't we just agree that all Christians are atheists, and all atheists are Christians, in the same manner at the same time?
Cordially,
If you're convinced that the Bible must be true no matter what, then you've made a presupposition that makes history and reason secondary.
I will say that I don't respect beliefs simply because people have them, but I can empathize with the philosophical gymnastics you've put yourself through in order to accommodate a religious text, even convincing yourself that your family is irrelevant in the long run and are of no consequence in the afterlife.
You haven't adopted his methodology as much as you're just regurgitating it word for word, without a true grasp of its incoherence. You even ripped off his use of the example of "sequential counting" being impossible without "universal laws" of logic. Maybe you've never heard Bahnsen answer his own question, but he's said that he trusts the laws of logic and relies on induction because "he believes in a sovereign god who controls the universe", which is a meaningless statement that provides no evidence or argument for his suppositions.
Then perhaps you can explain why professional philosophers have been writing about these philosophical problems for so long, and why do they continue to do so if the issues are altogether meaningless? Can you cite one philosopher who writes that these issues are altogether meaningless?
The way the question is phrased by theists is meaningless, because the standard that they're looking for is for a response that quotes some universal, divine mediator. No earthly or empirical answer will ever, EVER satisfy the theist, who will continue the regression until they hear something that they recognize as God.
The roots, reasons, and justification for morality are legitimate and worthwhile questions, but asking where morality comes from as if there's a single universal source makes about as much sense as asking where health comes from. Contrary to the meaningless response of the theist (morality comes from "God"), the answers are complicated.
Now here, by making a universal claim, you are tacitly assuming that you know everything.
Not at all. People are free to dismiss things when there is no evidence to back up the assertions, and there's no evidence for a universal mediator who writes down the laws of the universe (including morality and logic) and reveals them to man. All of the evidence points to these supposed revelations being man made and geographically and sociologically specific, with the universal aspects of them being justifiable without any divine influence.
The holy books are products of their time, which is why for instance Jesus is much more concerned with whether women wear hats in church rather than condemning slavery.
Have you searched everywhere throughout all time and eternity to discover that there's no central authority figuring it out and writing it down for us all to follow?
No, but I don't have to, just like I don't need to search everywhere throughout time and eternity to know that that stars are not made of cotton candy and that leprechauns do not exist. If you have evidence, then present it. But something asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
What is Odin? Does Odin have the same unchanging, eternal nature and attributes as the God of the Bible? Is Odin both infinite and personal? Is Odin the One and Only True God? I don't read much of philosophers and theologians arguing over Odin very much. Maybe I ought to get out more.
I'll let the theists argue which one of their manmade gods is more powerful, eternal, and/or unchanging than the other. Reminds me of that scene from Conan the Barbarian where Conan and Subotai argue over which God is stronger, the Four Winds or Crom. The reason no one argues over Odin is that the Abrahamic religions became dominant in Eurasia and were spread by empire and invasion. The main reason you're a Christian is that Emperor Constantine declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. If you were born in medieval Japan, you wouldn't be a Christian. If you were born in modern India, you'd likely be a Hindu. If you were born in Saudi Arabia, you'd be a Muslim.
If the Nazis had won World War II however, it's likely that if not Odin, some sort of pagan Nordic blood myths would be a part of modern philosophy.
Why do you understand and accept things you haven't seen?
I sense a little projection going on here, since I've never claimed such a thing, nor made a claim that would cause any reasonable person to come to that conclusion. It's more relevant to ask you the same thing, considering that if you're ventriloquising Bahnsen to the same degree as you do on everything else, his entire basis for believing in logic is that he believes in God, a God for which there is no evidence.
To answer your question, it is precisely because I do not accept things I haven't seen and for which there is no evidence that I'm not a theist.
I would make a sincere effort to see things differently—such as from the perspective that life should turn out according to my personal expectations and my own subjective view of morality—but I cannot think of a good reason to think life should be like this. Other than for the same reason that I think I should be able to turn straw into gold.
If you are able to think of one, please let me know. If you have the wisdom to think of such a thing, you will probably also have the mental acumen required to state it concisely.
Actually, that's exactly what you're doing. You've come to the conclusion that the universe is actually set up for your benefit.
In a solar system that is a grain of sand in a galaxy, a galaxy which itself is a grain of sand in the cosmic web of galaxies, the creator of this web of galaxies actually knows about you personally and has a plan for you. The creator of the supermassive black hole at the center of the universe, distant quasars, and quantum particles beyond our own comprehension actually sent you a human sacrifice in the middle east 2,000 years ago, and has personally offered you redemption for a simple belief.
All of this was designed with you personally (or if you're more of a universalist, our species) in mind.
This creator of the cosmic web sent YOU a holy book, written back in the Iron Age, but this book that YOU happen to believe in is different from the thousands of other holy books in that it is literally true. And based on one single thought (that Christ was a God and died for you), you personally are offered a spot in another blissful dimension where such irrelevancies as family are of no consequence.
One of us is displaying an odd mix of solipsism and wishful thinking, and it isn't me.
it is precisely because I do not accept things I haven't seen and for which there is no evidence that I'm not a theist.
You have seen the uniformity of nature upon which all of your inductive reasoning is based? Which of your five senses have detected the uniformity of nature? If you were a consistent empiricist you would reject your own statement as un-sensed and non-empirical. You refute your own proposition by the very act of stating it.
You do accept many metaphysical things you haven't seen, such as the laws of logic that you are attempting to use to argue with me.
There are plenty of other types of evidence for the existence of God (see for example, this recent FreeRepublic thread} but you have already ruled all of it out-of-bounds as a premise - apriori - because of your naturalism and empiricism, not because it is a conclusion you reached by examining all of the evidence.
Your arguments themselves against Christianity have no consistent foundation in empirisism and naturalism.
I will leave you with the following. I doubt that you will actually read it and comprehend its philosophical subtleties and depth of insight, but then again I have been known to be wrong before.
Why I Believe in GodCornelius Van Til (1895-1987)
Cordially,
You'd think at some point you would feel compelled to provide evidence for these statements instead of just making them. How does seeing how the universe works through observation and experimentation require theism?
I'm surprised I haven't heard you say it yet, since I know how Bahnsen answers the question of where logic comes from and why it has to be unchanging.
I also know that saying that logic is unchanging because God made it that way is as nonsensical and meaningless as saying that we have free will because God says so.
I've yet to see one good argument that supports your belief that observing how things work in the universe requires a theistic creator (much less requires the God of Abraham).
If you read carefully, I didn't say that I accepted things I haven't seen, but that where there is a lack of direct observation, I don't accept things that have no supporting evidence. It's hard to see immaterial concepts like logic and morality, but there's plenty of evidence for their existence. Logic seems to work; orange trees don't grow apples and atoms function in a certain way, but I'm in no position to say that the function of logic will always be the same, as you do.
I haven't seen you defend against any of the criticisms of Christianity's veracity that I've made, so I'll take your statement as an unsupported opinion on that matter. I think that there should be an understanding that until we have evidence of the dead walking the streets of Jerusalem in Matthew 27 that the Bible shouldn't be called "historically accurate", but that's just me. You'd think a real life episode of The Walking Dead happening in the middle of the Roman Empire would warrant some scintilla of historical documentation, but again, I'm a stickler for real world claims of a zombie apocalypse needing solid evidence.
As to the loss of faith in the age of science, I think it will continue to grow for many reasons. But I think that the main reason is that theism has always in some way been a 'god of the gaps' argument. When Native Americans saw lighting on the plains, they thought it divine. When scientists before Darwin looked at how well creatures were adapted to their environments, they thought they must have been created that way, instead of what we now know, which is that creatures adapt to their environment.
And to tie in something Van Til said, he talks a lot in a deistic manner about creation, but scientists know probably better than anyone that for every bit of creation there is much more destruction. If we look at the heat death of the universe, exploding stars, and even our own soon to be collision with the Andromeda galaxy, if there is a God, he is much, MUCH more interested in destruction than creation.
The Bible self-describes as true testimony.
If you read, for example, the Apostle Paul’s epistles, he clearly states who he is and unequivocally states that what he writes he is declaring to be the truth.
Every book of the Bible is written testimony which is declared to be true by the writer.
This testimony, like testimony in court trials and law enforcement investigations, is evidence.
If there were falsehoods in it, we’d have false testimony.
It would either be intentional or unintentional.
For hundreds of years, secular colleges have been promoting the idea that the Bible is “folklore”, so most highly-educated people think this way. Oddly enough, without really considering that by implication they are believing that the Bible is all lies, either intentional or unintentional. Oddly enough they imply this without having honestly studied the book. Of course, this is done by folks who make sure to study their secular “college” texts at length before offering any contradiction to them. And certainly people “wandering off the reservation” in intellectual circles, that is, contradicting secular dogma, is an extremely rare occurrence, which is invariably followed by a rather thorough shunning.
If that's your standard, then there is evidence that Mohammed flew on a winged horse to the Temple Mount. Or more close to home, there is evidence in the Gospel of James that Jesus was born in a cave.
If we want to water down the word evidence to your standard, then from now on I'll just qualify it with "good evidence", or "evidence that stands up to cursory scrutiny".
The supernatural claims of the Bible (and a lot of the historical ones) are neither.
When I receive information from a source external to me, it’s precisely the opposite of a subjective view. So no, not solipsism.
And nothing about the relative size of humans or galaxies makes any difference as to the plausibility of whether or not God exists.
The record in the Bible stands alone compared with all other religious texts in that it is consistent with general historical and archaeological records.
The evidence for God’s existence found in creation—everything you and I experience—in combination with the particular strength of the evidence of Christ’s resurrection is overwhelming in comparison with anything related to any other religion.
Mythology and the like have a very distinct character in comparison with any historical record. This difference is not difficult to define by simple common sense or to establish through scholarly analysis. Texts from other religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam each fall into the genre of mythology, or something like mythology—not history.
Imagine the luck you must have, out of all of the homo sapiens who have ever lived, to have been born in a Christian country and exposed to the right type of Christianity at the right time in your life, in the exact way that it is meant to be believed in order to reach that dimension of afterlife.
What a wondrous coincidence that the religious beliefs that you hold, out of the many thousands of options, just happen to be the right ones, especially considering the punishment for NOT believing the right religion.
That's the solipsistic part.
As for the the general historical and archaeological record, we've already established that that's mostly bunk. Even the gospels can't agree on the central defining moment, the Resurrection, as far as who was at the tomb, when they were there, what they found, and where Jesus appeared. Not to mention the gospels were written years after (in some cases decades after) the supposed event, an event that appears nowhere outside of the Christian holy books, and claims an earthquake and a zombie apocalypse that there's no record of.
The Christ myth theory or the historical Jesus; take your pick. There's no evidence that stands up to cursory scrutiny that supports any of the supernatural events of the Bible, and are much more aligned with the myths of the Bronze and Iron Ages.
That’s not “my standard”.
If you are a member of a jury in a trial, you hear the evidence of the case, including witness testimony.
You then, taking all the evidence into account, decide which side in the case will win.
Sometimes a witness will tell seemingly fantastical tales which actually wind up being true in the final analysis.
If you told the average person hundreds of years ago that we would have heavier-than-air machines today that could fly across this country in less than six hours, most would think you were a lunatic.
Any good scientist will not dismiss things out of hand, but will simply say “I don’t know”.
My favorite supernatural event from the Bible is the “pillar of fire” from Exodus. May sound off-the-charts crazy, but there actually are fire tornados.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rULehi-U5hI
Of course, many times witness testimony will sound very convincing and seem to make perfect sense, and yet turn out to be lies.
The truth is all that matters in the end; the rest is meaningless nonsense.
It’s not self-centered if it’s true because I have no choice in the reality of it.
A solipsist is a person who has made himself the god of his imagined universe, and is in this sense the opposite of a Christian, who has accepted the need to die to self and submit to the one true God.
I hope, probably more than you imagine, that you personally will escape the terrors of hell by letting Christ into your life. I hope the same for all people, including but not limited to Hillary Clinton.
Those who have never had the opportunity to hear or understand the Gospel, such as isolated cultures or young children, are not condemned by their ignorance. Quite the contrary—they’re saved by the blood of Christ shed on the cross.
But hearing the Gospel and rejecting it is a different matter altogether.
The historicity of Christ’s resurrection is well established in higher levels of discussion—that is, in academia.
When people like Bart Ehrman write for a popular audience, they often come to different conclusions regarding questions of historicity compared with what they write for a specialized audience. For this reason I encourage everyone to focus more on the scholarly record than on pop culture versions such as History Channel or books by Ehrman written for a popular audience.
One method used by scholars to determine historicity is this: the testimonies by different individuals regarding the same witnessed event will always differ in the smaller details.
For example a car accident. The only way to get absolute consistency in smaller details, such as the color of the car, the speed it was going, or the direction it came from, and all the other details—is if everyone got together beforehand and conspired to embellish or to lie.
In this way you can see that the discrepancy between various accounts of Christ’s resurrection regarding nonessential details in fact helps confirm the historical reliability of it.
I'm not questioning that eyewitness testimony is often considered evidence, but rarely are court decisions made solely on eyewitness testimony, and it is very often unreliable and contradictory. I'm also not aware of any court decision based on testimony from anonymous authors who lived thousands of years ago, nor am I aware of any court decision in the modern era that found a supernatural claim to be true. Abigail Williams' testimony about being hexed was considered evidence at the time, but luckily we're not as credulous as they were in Salem or in the Iron Age.
Fire tornadoes are interesting in that they exist, as do burning bushes and red tides. But this type of faux open mindedness doesn't lend itself to how we make determinations about the nature of the universe today. There is some evidence that stands up to scrutiny, some that doesn't, and some that isn't really evidence at all and can be dismissed out of hand.
I would still love to see evidence of Matthew 27:52, but this never gets mentioned or defended by theists despite claims of Biblical historical and archaeological "accuracy", and for good reason.
If there is no sorrow in heaven, then there's no reason to worry about anything. It makes sense that Jesus said take no thought for the morrow, since this is all irrelevant.
It's somewhat contradictory for there even to be any evangelism. Leave things as they are, since it doesn't matter in the long run since there's no sorrow for the damned who are condemned because they didn't share the same thoughts as you do.
The more you expand on this, the more I'm glad that there's NO evidence that it's true, and I find the whole idea ghastly. Heaven as you describe it less a place of everlasting peace and more like Brave New World. God gives you some soma so that you don't care about anything enough to be sorrowful about the outcome.
The academic and scholarly acceptance of Christ's resurrection is an erroneous assumption on your part, and even some of the more religious scholars will admit that the Resurrection is more an article of faith than any sort of historical fact.
The consequences of the accuracy of a car crash are considerably less than the fate of every homo sapien soul, so I think the example is rather juvenile.
When claims are made that violate the laws of physics, biology, and nature, it's rather incumbent for the evidence to be air tight.
Christian apologetics is famous for saying that doubt and inaccuracy actually IMPROVES the case for historicity. But even if that were true, there's still the problem of Paul never mentioning in the 100,000 words of his letters anything about Christ's birth, Mary, John the Baptist, Pilate, a trial, or any of Christ's miracles.
For all we know, Paul was talking about a mythical Jesus living in a heavenly realm, that was very similar to the other mystery religions of the time that spoke of God(s) existing somewhere other than Earth.
It all comes down to what is more likely, and the evidence is clearly against the supernatural claims of religion.
I'm also curious as to how the opening passages of Genesis could be considered "eyewitness testimony", since even the author admits there were no humans around to witness it.
Then there's the problem of the Earth coming before stars (let there be light), since we know that the heavy elements that make up the Earth came provably before planets, since those elements originate from stars.
Minor point, but it makes you wonder why there aren't more "Biblical cosmologists", who claim that planets came before stars.
So maybe you’re right.
Maybe the reality we see is not designed by a creator as Christians believe, but rather as some scientists believe it is a result of the random interactions of subatomic particles mindlessly obeying the laws of nature, having popped out from nothing.
If your view is correct, randomness is the ultimate reality. This means that everything must be explainable as originating from an ultimately random and meaningless event or events.
But this view cannot be correct for many reasons—here are just two:
1) if the universe were ultimately of a random nature there could be no fine tuning.
2) A random universe fails to account for the existence of semiotics—information, language.
The only evidence today of Matthew 27:52 is the testimony of Scripture.
It wouldn’t make much sense to include this in the writing if it weren’t true, would it ?
I mean, who would believe it ?
How have people continued to believe the Bible is all true, after thousands of years of scholarship ?
Matthew’s testimony is easy to believe for true believers.
But those who are not among the God’s elect can not have true faith in God. To them, Scripture must seem like a giant conspiracy to “control the masses”.
Frequently, people who are most opposed to God’s Word, at some point in their lives, by grace through faith, they are saved.
Romans 8:29-30 “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.”
We humans are not able to set up a planet; we think we know how things work, but we know so precious little.
Proverbs 3:19 “The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth; by understanding hath he established the heavens.”
Job 26:7 “He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.”
Humans can’t possibly understand the mind of God, nor can we fully understand the world around us. Those whom God wills are counted among God’s elect children; all others are hopeless in eternity. Having no excuse for rejecting God’s Word, in the end, they will get exactly what they asked for, eternal separation from God.
Ecclesiastes 9
“1 For all this I considered in my heart even to declare all this, that the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God: no man knoweth either love or hatred by all that is before them.
2 All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath.
3 This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that there is one event unto all: yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead.
4 For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope: for a living dog is better than a dead lion.
5 For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.
6 Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.
7 Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works.
8 Let thy garments be always white; and let thy head lack no ointment.
9 Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the sun.
10 Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.
11 I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
12 For man also knoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them.
13 This wisdom have I seen also under the sun, and it seemed great unto me:
14 There was a little city, and few men within it; and there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it:
15 Now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city; yet no man remembered that same poor man.
16 Then said I, Wisdom is better than strength: nevertheless the poor man’s wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard.
17 The words of wise men are heard in quiet more than the cry of him that ruleth among fools.
18 Wisdom is better than weapons of war: but one sinner destroyeth much good.”
Even if you could prove deism tomorrow, all of your work would still be ahead of you, since a deistic creator does not give meaning or purpose to the universe, nor does it prove that Jesus rose from the dead.
Scientists have been aware of the fine tuning argument for a long time, but not only does it NOT prove theism, it makes us ask 'what is the alternative'?
The alternative is a universe where intelligent life cannot exist, and therefore cannot question it's own existence, so it's really a circular argument.
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