Posted on 04/03/2010 9:50:37 AM PDT by betty boop
Review of Life After Death: The Evidence
by Stephen M. Barr
Life After Death: The Evidence
by Dinesh D’Souza
Regnery, 256 pages, $27.95
While much apologetic effort has been spent arguing for the existence of God, relatively little has been spent defending the reasonableness of belief in an afterlife and the resurrection of the body, despite the fact that these are among the hardest doctrines of biblical religion for many modern people to accept. D’Souza brings to the task his renowned forensic skills. (By all accounts, he has bested several of the top New Atheists in public debate.) He understands that persuasion is less a matter of proof and rigorous argument than of rendering ideas plausible and overcoming obstacles to belief.
One obstacle to belief in bodily resurrection is the difficulty of grasping that there could be places that are not located in the three-dimensional space we presently inhabit, or that there could be realms where our intuitions about time, space, and matter simply do not apply. D’Souza rightly points out that modern physics has broken the bounds of human imagination with ideas of other dimensions—and even other universes—and has required us to accept features of our own universe (at the subatomic level, for example.) that are entirely counterintuitive. He shows how blinkered, by contrast, is the thought of many who think themselves boldly modern, such as Bertrand Russell, who asserted that “all experience is likely to resemble the experience we know.” Another impediment to belief in life after death is our experience of the disorganization of thought as sleep approaches and the mental decline that often precedes death. While near-death experiences do not prove as much as D’Souza suggests in his interesting chapter on the subject, the discovery that many have a surge of intense and coherent experience near the very point of death does counteract to some extent the impression of death as mere dissolution.
D’Souza approaches his subject from many directions. In two chapters, he gives a very accessible account of recent thought on the mind-body problem and the reasons to reject materialism. In the chapter “Eternity and Cosmic Justice,” he bases an argument for an afterlife on our moral sense. Our recognition that this world is not what it objectively ought to be suggests not only that there is a cosmic purpose, but that this purpose is unfulfilled and unfulfillable within the confines of this world. Some of his philosophical arguments, however, are less happy. In particular, his use of Hume and Kant to undermine what he regards as the pretensions of science will provoke not only scientists, but all those who have a strongly “realist” epistemology. D’Souza can also be faulted for sometimes claiming to demonstrate what cannot be demonstrated. Nevertheless, even those who find loose ends in his arguments will be rewarded with many fresh perspectives on the only question that really is of ultimate importance.
Or if resisting the outward expression of the sin, at least wishing it for an intelligible moment.
FR wouldn’t HAVE such a ban if we possessed a device which could reliably do that :-)
YUP . . . the old ‘adultery [or whatever] in the heart’ problem.
I’m quite sure accuracy isn’t important. It’s making it personal that counts.
First, going back, the issue is about God being "dissatisfied" or "unhappy." My contention is that God cannot be unhappy or dissatisfied and be God. After all, even though he hates sin, he allows sin because he finds it useful and even necessary that sin exists or else he would not allow it. So, while he may hate sin, he is not dissatisfied because of it.
You present your well known POV response, whereby, on some "level" God can be unhappy with his Son having to be crucified but on another, higher, "level" he is happy because it is for the greater good and it is, after all, part of his plan.
But if God is God then he should never be forced to make a decision that makes him unhappy, nor should he ever regret it. Because he is always in charge and control, his decisions are by necessity always just and perfect (so why would he regret them?!?), and because the world by necessity must be just the way he wants it or else he is not God.
However the Bible tells us otherwise. So, either the Bible is wrong or God is not in charge on all "levels" but has to "put up" with things not according to his will and satisfaction.
So, the plot thickens...
Where do you get that idea?
Jesus wrote in code.. the code is called parables..
Many didn't "get them"........ Still...
**example: John ch 10...
My quotation of the passage provided original language so as to discern the explicit meaning provided.
The mind is a compartment of the soul, distinct from the heart. The spirit is a different object used in the Greek, than the heart, mind, or soul. It is the human spirit which is a consequence of our rebirth as the new man, not the soul or heart, however, via the human spirit, through faith in Christ, God the Holy Spirit is able to also sanctify the soul first by the mind and then the heart.
The doctrine of kenosis also provides insight as to how our Lord Christ Jesus lived His life as a human, remaining humble to the Father and performing all divine action through the action of the Spirit in the First Incarnation. He also had a separate human spirit, not mixed with the Divine Holy Spirit as the Son of Man. His Spirit refers to the Holy Spirit, while His spirit refers to His human spirit.
I’ve often wondered the implications of those angels who were not fallen, were described as elect, just as believers are classified as the elect.
In my limited experience I've seen this as well.
That is His message for us - We are safely in His arms, in His Care; we know that with certainty; and being there and knowing that we are, we are to enjoy it.
Amen
Forsaking All I Trust Him.
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with [him], that we may be also glorified together. - Romans 8:14-17
Ditto for nations:
He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. - Psalms 2:1-5
I can answer it, because I’ve spent the time studying the scriptures. You are the one who can’t answer it.
Pray.
VERY BLESSED BY YOUR ELABORATION, DEAR SISTER,
THANKS TONS.
I am sure not . . . I don’t think any of us are good at keeping myself/ ourselves in any sense of the word.
He has to keep me in His Faithful hands.
I persistently crawl off the operating table and into all sorts of troubles. Sigh.
I earnestly endeavor to cooperate with Him in being conformed to the image of His Son.
Yet, my heart, too is deceitfully wicked . . . in need of moment by moment application of His Blood and Mercy.
Praise Him that His Mercies are new every morning.
Well then I guess I must not be Catholic yet, for I have not undergone catechesis.
What a strange, convoluted way to put the problem, spunkets! And so tendentious — a real "strawman" argument!
Where did I even suggest that "all anyone needs to know [is] that animating spirits, created by god are what enables, drives and moves the nonliving material body"? The implication being that I am personally "anti-science." So add to the strawman maneuver an ad hominum argument....
Why should I suppose you to be a good-faith correspondent on this issue?
The above italics is not an example of witness testimony from the human past that I alluded to. What I meant was such "records" as cultural and religious traditions; the great myths; written histories; poetry, literature and the arts in general; philosophy; and philosophy's offspring, systematic natural science.
These human activities have been going on for millennia. Do they become worthless because they do not correspond to the "expectations" — the "what everybody knows" doxa — of the thoroughly corrupt, degenerate post-modern climate of opinion, of which you seem to be a self-selected spokesman?
The "kultursmog consensus" utterly devalues the individual human person and all his works....
On what basis can such an expectation rest, dear kosta? There is nothing in human history that would seem to support such a sanguine claim.
Plus what is this business about some unspecified "we" possibly not wanting to make the world a paradise?
But since you've made the claim, please tell us: What is your programme for making "this world a paradise?"
It's nice to know, dear sister in Christ, that some people (at least) read attentively. I put in that adverbial modifier "seemingly" to denote that I was only speaking from my own observation and experience, not as any kind of authority on church doctrine, let alone divine Truth.
Thank you so very much for the citations from scripture, which support my observation and moreover further inform its meaning, as I understand it.
If found your insight particularly interesting: "My understanding is that they [the created angels] only got to choose once and it was then. After that their fate was irrevocably sealed. I can't recall where I heard that, but that's the gist of it."
Possibly your source here is the Book of Enoch — which is not included in the corpus of the Holy Bible, but seems ought not to be denigrated on that score alone. (I'd ask Alamo-Girl for her insights here, but I know she's been a little "tied up" lately....)
It seems the angels had a decision to make and it was a one-time, eternally-binding choice. Perhaps God is more lenient in this regard with His human creatures. That is, they can "change their minds" about their decision for/against God, while angels never can, after having made the one choice, once, available to them.
Still, I find it difficult to understand how a human person, once deciding to live in Christ, would want to change his mind....
Maybe kosta might be a good source for illuminating this question???
Amen to that, dearest sister in Christ!
But the mysterious question remains: Why this "desire to separate from God?"
That's the part I never seem to get....
Thank you so very much, dearest sister in Christ, for your eloquent, insightful essay/post!
Truly, God's Name is I AM.
I think we make a mistake when we think of angels along the same lines as humans. We are physical flesh that has a spirit within it until death. Angels aren't born, don't procreate and were created in the heavenly realm. IOW, I wouldn't use the argument for free will because angels were given the opportunity to choose to be for God or against God.
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