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.
I suppose I would put them all in the once elect always elect category (Not OSAS), except that those angels have no original sin or remnant of sin to harass them through time, as we do on earth. Once in Heaven, I would think we would be like the elect angels and be incapable of sin.
THANKS FOR YOUR VERY HELPFUL ENCOURAGEMENTS DEAR SISTER IN CHRIST.
FK: Yes, but if we compare Adam with the angels they were both created sinless, but with the potential to sin. God protected today's Heavenly angels from sin, but did not protect Adam or the fallen angels from sin.
Interesting claim. What do you have as proof?
I can't imagine there would be controversy over Adam being created without sin, but with the potential to sin. For angels we know the Bible tells us that God created them before sin existed:
This passage seems to make the entire point:
As for protection, we are told that angels have wills:
Therefore, if they have wills, and if they have the potential for sin, then since some do sin and some do not, I infer that God protects some and others not, using Adam as a model. If that is valid, then in every Biblical case the potential for sin is ALWAYS realized absent God's protection.
That makes God the author of sin, which the Bible teaches that He clearly is not.
I agree that God is not the author of sin. I am postulating that God can use what He did not author and that this is a part of His plan. What is wrong with that?
FK: The easiest example is the crucifixion. It was not by accident but by Divine design, and required sin.
Did Jesus sin?
Never.
Did God require Judas to sin? Where does it say that Judas was made to sin?
Yes, first we know that satan entered Judas and that God allowed this. Further, we have this passage showing that Judas' betrayal was necessary and planned by God. Jesus protected all, but not Judas. This was deliberate.
[Quoted by FK:] Gen. 50:18-20 : 18 His brothers then came and threw themselves down before him. “We are your slaves,” they said. 19 But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? 20 You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.
Are you then claiming that God made his brothers sin?
I am not saying that God made his brothers sin in the sense that God zapped them and then they were compelled to sin as God wished. Instead, God withdrew His protection from them such that they were left to their original sin natures to the extent that it was inevitable that they would sin according to God's plan. The core sin came from the brothers. It was protected by God for a while and then allowed to come out. Since God has no duty to protect anyone from sin to any extent there is no responsibility on God for choosing to withhold protection if He sees fit. The responsibility remains on the brothers for their sin.
The enemy of our souls is a mimic.
For what they all seem to exemplify is an experience that is deeper than any particular human doctrine or particular cultural tradition can explain. [E.g., why the ubiquitous “tunnel?” Why the “light at the end of the tunnel?” Why the sightings of departed dear ones? Why meeting/seeing angels?]
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Perhaps the enemy knows they are not going to stay, and appears as an angel of light, lest they should return to Earthly existence and repent.
The difference is that man was first condemned, then saved with eternal life, as opposed to the angels created with eternal life, but later condemned.
Exactly!
I think we have all seen Christians go through periods of intensity and dormancy in their faith. I know I have in my own life, but once Jesus has you he won't let you go. IOW, He will bring you around.
John 14: 16 And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever-
For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. – Romans 8:38-39
What a perfect passage to illustrate the point.
AMEN! AMEN!
THX THX
Thank you FK. Bottom line is: by definition, God cannot be lacking, something, be unhappy about something, or need something, ergo all references to his unhappiness, or needs, etc. are anthropomorphisms that cannot be taken literally.
"Elect' angels is another Pauline innovation. The idea of 'chosen' angles is Paulianity, not Christianity. In Judaism, all angels are 'chosen' as obligate servants of God. Judiasm does not recognize the devil or a the concept of a 'fallen' angel because angels cannot resist God's will.
Christianity introduced the devil who, on his free will rebelled against God and fell from grace, and 1/3 of angelic hosts followed him, on their own free will. Those who remained loyal did so on their own free will and not on some predestined 'election,' Pauline innovation notwithstanding.
This is made manifest by the presence of angels who are also considered saints in the Church, a concept incompatible with pre-election.
What about Adam? Theoretically, if Adam (as created) had never sinned, wouldn't he have lived forever and not needed saving? I agree with your distinction vis-a-vis man today, but it would seem there would be a comparison with mankind as created in Adam.
Another distinction that occurs to me is that angels cannot be saved. They are either elect and never need saving or "reprobate" and cannot repent. The human elect do need saving and do repent.
3 yr old boy drowns & comes back to life.
Resuscitated after 3hrs,18min.
He said he was with Oma (granny) in heaven who told him to come back quickly.
TBTG!
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,590566,00.html
Yet there is no significant Scriptural support for this inference. In fact, the opposite is indicated throughout the NT and the OT both. Christians of the NT, whether in the Gospels or in the rest of the NT are exhorted over and over to do the right thing, to stop sinning, to repent, to forgive, to love both God and fellow men, and the ever repeated theme of perseverence.
If God's Grace were irrestistible, then there would no need of these repeated exhortations. Plus, you must admit that Adam had a great deal of God's attention, not to mention protection. He was in the Garden of Eden, after all.
If God is the Creator of all, and He causes everything to happen or not happen, then that makes Him the creator of sin. Are there other things in the universe that God did not Create?
John 17 does not say that God withdraw anything from Judas. It says that one was lost (Judas).
I am not saying that God made his brothers sin in the sense that God zapped them and then they were compelled to sin as God wished. Instead, God withdrew His protection from them such that they were left to their original sin natures to the extent that it was inevitable that they would sin according to God's plan.
But it doesn't say that anywhere.
Since God has no duty to protect anyone from sin to any extent there is no responsibility on God for choosing to withhold protection if He sees fit. The responsibility remains on the brothers for their sin.
Matthew 5: 43 27 "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44 But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.
God's Grace falls upon all. It is up to them to love their enemies and pray for them. If they do not, it is not because God withdrew any protections or Grace from them.
John 14: 16 And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever-
For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. – Romans 8:38-39
What these verses actually say - read their exact meaning - is that God will never abandon us. It never does say that we cannot abandon God. Most of Jesus' teachings are about God's eternal love for us and exhorting us not to abandon God. We have that choice - that is plain - but Jesus also lays out the consequences should we choose wrongly.
The nature of Adam's fall and the fall of angels is different. Adam and Eve were tempted. The angels were not. Humans failed the test. With angels it was pride.
Sin is simply missing the target. Too many people confuse the meaning of sin with the meaning of immorality. While immorality may be sinful, sin is simply missing the mark in or target He provides in His Plan for all things.
God is not the author of sin. Those creatures with volition have the ability to either aim at the target He has provided, in which case He provides all the solutions, or we might stray from the target by any number of mechanisms other than through faith in Christ. When we sin, now that we are redeemed, we are forgiven of that sin at the time we return our face towards Him (repent) and confess our sins to Him, then He is sure and just to forgive us those sins.
There is no temptation too great than that which may be resisted through faith in Christ. It is only when we turn away from Him, that we end up in missing the target He has provided for us in each of our lives.
Thank you.
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