Posted on 02/13/2003 6:03:04 PM PST by scripter
I can say that in my experience Francis Beckwith is one of the smartest guys I've had the pleasure to hear or read. He's a Law Professor and a serious Christian apologist. Though I haven't read it yet, I believe one can safely assume that this article is well reasoned and well researched. Lets see if it can be sucessfully critiqued.
1. Was Dr. Martin an ordained minister?
2. Does Dr. Martin claim a Doctor's Degree that he doesn't have?
3. Is Dr. Martin's degree legitimate?
4. Did Walter Martin lie about being a descendant of Brigham Young?
5. Did Walter lie about having a suit against the church?
6. Is Walter Martin interested in being accurate?
Also: Walter R. Martin - Historical Figures in the Christian Counter Cult Movement
Good man to defend your view
"Birds of Feather Flock Togather!"
BTW that chart is greatly distorted! But what does anyone care who continues to Bare False Witness Right!
Frankly I don't think you have a clue. So maybe you should call in your reinforcements.
Be my guess to continues to believe this invalidating evidence.
You made your choice! You can continue to vacillate somedays you can honor the Lord and somedays you can honor yourself. For grace is all you need!
I think it was the author who started this and made a good living off of it! And the gravy train coninues today:)
Explain what it is about the article that is inaccurate or deceitful. I bet you can't because up to now the only weapon in your arsenal is an ad-hominem attack on the founder of the Organization that posted his article. Why don't you deal with Beckwith's article. could it be because you have no arguments and all you have is your ad-homnem attacks. I'd be willing to bet that you can't refute a single point.
Prove me wrong.
1. Personal and Incorporeal...God is also incorporeal. Unlike humans, God is not uniquely associated with one physical entity (i.e., a body). This is why the Bible refers to God as Spirit (John 4:24).
So does God have a body or not? Well, uh, sometimes. Christ came to earth as a mortal. He died and was resurrected. Did he later shed that resurrected body and become a "spirit" again? (We won't even get into whether a spirit is "incorporeal" or not.)
2. The Creator and Sustainer of Everything Else that Exists...the God of classical theism created the universe ex nihilo (out of nothing). Consequently, it is on God alone that everything in the universe depends for its existence (see Acts 17:25; Col. 1:16, 17; Rom. 11:36; Heb. 11:3; 2 Cor. 4:6; Rev. 4:11).
Check all the above references. Not a single "ex nihilo" in any of them. Perhaps this doctrine was created out of nothing.
3. Omnipotent. God is also said to be omnipotent or all-powerful. This should be understood to mean that God can do anything that is (1) logically possible (see below), and (2) consistent with being a personal, incorporeal, omniscient, omnipresent, immutable, wholly perfect, and necessary Creator.
Let's see now. God is all powerful, but he is not. He cannot do that which is logically impossible. Is God restricted by the illogical or merely the impossible? Perhaps "logical" and "impossible" are attributes which humans have assigned to God based on their own (mis)understanding of Him. At any rate, I find this whole argument logically impossible.
4. Omniscient. God is all-knowing, and His all-knowingness encompasses the past, present, and future.
The future? Been there done that.
5. Omnipresent. Logically following from God's omniscience, incorporeality, omnipotence, and role as creator and sustainer of the universe is His omnipresence. Since God is not limited by a spatio-temporal body, knows everything immediately without benefit of sensory organs, and sustains the existence of all that exists, it follows that He is in some sense present everywhere. Certainly it is the Bible's explicit teaching that God is omnipresent (Ps. 139:7-12; Jer. 23:23-24).
The above scriptures are used to illustrate that we cannot "hide" from God. He can "see" us wherever we are, or from wherever He is. That doesn't mean He is everywhere at all times.
6. Immutable and Eternal. When a Christian says that God is immutable and eternal, he or she is saying that God is unchanging (Mal. 3:6; Heb. 6:17; Isa. 46:10b) and has always existed as God throughout all eternity (Ps. 90:2; Isa. 40:28; 43:12b, 13; 57:15a; Rom. 1:20a; 1 Tim. 1:17).6 There never was a time when God was not God.
Did God's nature change when he "became" a mortal and suffered death on the cross? Did God really "die," and if so, how could he still be God?
7. Necessary and the Only God.
The Jews could also use this to argue that Jesus Christ is not God.
What surprises me most about this particular "Christian concept of God," is that not once is Jesus Christ mentioned. Is/Are not Jesus and God one and the same? Why have the left the Saviour out of their philosophy of God?
For example, although you MIGHT take the view that God is "subject to external laws," in fact His "oneness" with divine laws is what MAKES Him "God" in the first place.
Also, the notion that there are "many gods" is a vast oversimplification.
We can posit that there are "co-equal gods" but that is mere speculation. In fact, for us there is but ONE God, our Eternal Heavenly Father. There is no other. We worship no other. We contemplate no other. We are connected with no other. So the notion of "plurality of gods" is an academic exercise only, akin to wondering where the end of the universe might be.
And although it is true that we know that God has a physical, tangible body, the notion that this "limits" Him somehow is itself a limitation of mortal, physical experience. In fact it is WE who are limited, not God. Simply because we are coincidentally physical AND limited in our reach or influence does not mean that physicality is the root cause of our limitation.
In short, attempts at making "lists" like this are such vast oversimplifications as to be almost meaningless.
He is the embodiment of "Chri$tianity."
This is such a vast oversimplification, and reflects only the desire to distort so as to "attack," that it is a meaningless exercise.
If you want to say "oh, you see the universe differently from me, and I can't accept that," that's fine. I have no problem with it.
But don't go putting out distorted "explanations" of what "Mormons" believe, and then base your conclusion on those distortions. You don't understand our beliefs, because you don't WANT to understand. They threaten you, and so you don't want to hear it.
It's like the young man, a devout Baptist, who wanted to talk to me about how "wrong" I was to believe in the Book of Mormon. On what did he base this? He had just been to a seminar where a Chri$tian preacher told him what my beliefs were.
Then I offered him a Book of Mormon, and said "here, why don't you simply read it for yourself, and find out what it's all about?"
He held up both hands in a "warding off" gesture and said "no, I can't touch that unclean book!"
I mean, give me a break! Since when did Baptists start believing in the "magical power" of inanimate objects? And how can you belittle something you know nothing about, save what someone ELSE has told you about it?
It's just preposterous.
I have NO problem with someone believing differently from me, and even rejecting my beliefs based on what they actually KNOW about them. But it is tiresome to hear the same lies and distortions spouted constantly, and then have those LIES be the basis of judgement. It's intellectually dishonest, as well as vapid.
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