What Would It Take For Me To Give Up Belief In Jesus Christ?

Excellent post.
And of course if someone presented an alternative view that provided *notably* better explanations for *some* of those points but not for others — well, it would have to be judged on a case-by-case basis. But that is not nearly as easy a job as most of the cultured despisers believe.

Great article, Tom!

Gregory Dawes (per Skep) has a book, “Galileo and the Conflict between Religion and Science” and the publisher review states:

Quote:

For more than 30 years, historians have rejected what they call the ‘warfare thesis’ – the idea that there is an inevitable conflict between religion and science – insisting that scientists and believers can live in harmony. This book disagrees. Taking as its starting point the most famous of all such conflicts, the Galileo affair, it argues that religious and scientific communities exhibit very different attitudes to knowledge. Scripturally based religions not only claim a source of knowledge distinct from human reason. They are also bound by tradition, insist upon the certainty of their beliefs, and are resistant to radical criticism in ways in which the sciences are not. If traditionally minded believers perceive a clash between what their faith tells them and the findings of modern science, they may well do what the Church authorities did in Galileo’s time. They may attempt to close down the science, insisting that the authority of God’s word trumps that of any ‘merely human’ knowledge. Those of us who value science must take care to ensure this does not happen.

End quote.

My, my. Such broad brushstrokes. How many fallacies are there? Should we count them? I guess that is what passes for “explanation” and “knowledge” these days.

Falsifying the Christian *God* vis-à-vis “Being Itself” is something the Non-Theist needs to do within his own paradigm as his own being (reality) presses in. Given that neither physics nor cosmology suffice as ontology, they’ve got some work to do with this challenge.

scbrownlhrm said:
My, my. Such broad brushstrokes. How many fallacies are there? Should we count them? I guess that is what passes for “explanation” and “knowledge” these days.

Seeing as how you’re responding to a review of a different book than the one I recommended, I’m not sure what the relevance is here.

Skep,

Note this from the review: Newton attributed the orderliness of the solar system to God,[2] while we now know that the orderliness is explained by natural law.[3]
   
Now, the word “explains” and the phrase “natural law” used in that way, together, reveals a complete lack of understanding (in the author of the review, not in Dawes). Describing observed patterns explains nothing.

The reason I post all of this is that Dawes comes up often in Christian blogs and he is (also) liked by skeptics. It’s a mixed appeal.

It’s good to offer the Christian a methodological approach to evaluate claims, but if scient*ism* is the end of the line for Dawes, then he really cannot distinguish the rational from the scientific.

As far as his appeal to skeptics, well, it’s at least (for sure) to the sort of skeptics who think “natural law” is an “explanation”. That’s as uninformed as asserting that physics or cosmology are in fact ontology.

Hence the challenge earlier: Falsify what??

Falsifying the Christian *God* vis-à-vis “Being Itself” is something the Non-Theist needs to do within his own paradigm as his own being (reality) presses in. Given that neither physics nor cosmology suffice as ontology, they’ve got some work to do with this challenge.

scbrownlhrm, I’m not sure what you think is going on here, but I recommended Dawes’ book to Tom because it deals with the same topics he wrote about in his original post, it’s well-written, and I think he would enjoy reading it. Not because I think it would serve as a counter-argument to his post. Quite the contrary – it would supplement and refine his views, for the most part.

On Dawes, explanation, and the rational:

Those were brought into this thread as a move in merely differentiating the author’s (Dawes’) apparent approach to explanation with respect to other approaches. One of the things that is attractive about his approach is (borrowing from the quote of L.B. up-thread) that he recognizes (or at least seems to) the need for a causal break with a pure naturalism (causality / causation of “physics — full stop” forces an ultimately deflationary view of truth value). In Sean Carroll’s “The Big Picture” we see “physics — full stop” traversing semantics into the illusory. “Useful but untrue” ultimately ends all sentences. Dawes seems to go past the causal (physics-full-stop…… although even “causation” seems illusory there via Carroll) and into the intentional.

Now, this business of causation and intentionality isn’t new, and it’s not clear if Dawes really does mean to “go further” and actually claim that irreducible intentionality outreaches physical causation. Interestingly, quantum indeterminism doesn’t help the naturalist here, and in fact removes even more stability from the naturalist’s ultimate/cosmic truth value. But that’s a different topic.

So, the point of bringing these items to the surface is to challenge Dawes’ approach to the *explanatory* for if he does mean to go further than “Physics — Full Stop” then in fact the rational in fact does outreach and outweigh the scientific for the former necessarily precedes and gives life to the later. That is to say, the former qualifies as explanatory and provides ontic-closure as it carries us into the necessary and sufficient, whereas, the latter, being purely descriptive, never can (cosmology and physics never can sum to ontology).

If that is where Dawes’ means to go, then his conclusions don’t line up with his premise, as per the quoted review of his book, for he wants to rest atop, not the irreducibly rational, but the ever-morphing descriptive.

Wow. That’s a lot to address, but let me attempt to do so briefly.

Your arguments in the first three categories are not arguments for Christianity, but arguments for generic Theism. Substitute Allah, Lord Krishna, etc. in place of the term “God” and Muslims and Hindus can make all the same claims you are.

Let me address your “history” category:

-Why does the Bible have a unified theme? Christians say it is because a divine Author is behind the individual books. Skeptics say that the reason there is a unified theme is because the men who compiled both the Hebrew Bible (the Christian OT) and the Christian New Testament intentionally selected works which agreed with their doctrinal positions and rejected those which did not. There is zero proof that a God hand picked the 66 books of the (Protestant) Christian Bible. These books were selected by men. Christians can point to Jesus confirming the inspiration of much of the OT, but neither Jesus nor any of the Eleven officially sanctioned even one book of NT. The Christian New Testament is a human compilation. Divine inspiration is simply an assumption.

-the long existence of the Jewish people?

So what. The Basques have been around much longer and have maintained their cultural identity for millennia while “oppressed” by other peoples.

-the uniqueness of the Genesis Creation account?

Most experts see the Hebrew Creation account as very similar to the creation stories of surrounding peoples in ancient Mesopotamia/the Levant.

-“Archaeological discoveries confirming biblical data”

I don’t know how you can use this claim when the overwhelming consensus opinion of experts is that the Exodus, Forty Years in the Sinai, and the Conquest of Canaan are fictional. There is no good evidence to support these claims, as per the majority of experts.

-“The perfect self-sacrificial goodness of Jesus Christ presented without flaw in four distinct narratives, unlike any other character in history or literature”

Many of the traits of Jesus are very similar to the traits of the Buddha…who lived many hundreds of years before Jesus.

-“The set of broadly accepted historical facts surrounding the narrative of Jesus’ resurrection”

Such as? The only “broadly” accepted fact about the Resurrection story might be the claim of an empty tomb and that some of the disciples believed that they had been visited by the dead Jesus. That’s it. There are many natural explanations for an empty tomb and many natural explanations why grieving family and friends would believe that their dearly departed had paid them a visit.

-“The conversion of Saul of Tarsus”

Odd conversions are not proof of the new religions validity, only that human beings are well known for making very odd life choices. There is a former orthodox Jewish rabbinical student living in Israel today who is now a radical Muslim cleric. Remember, at the time of Paul’s conversion, Christianity was still considered a sect of Judaism. I would consider a conversion from orthodox Judaism to radical Islam a much more surprising conversion.

-“The quick onset (within 3 to 5 years maximum) of Christian teachings regarding Jesus’ resurrection”

Rumors spread very quickly, especially among the superstitious, uneducated, lower classes.

-“The successful rise of the Christian church despite strong opposition”

Take out the word “Christian” from this sentence and replace it with “Mormon”, “Jehovah’s Witness”, “Shiite Islam”, etc. and the statement would still be true.

-“Christianity’s resilience over time: despite millennia of intellectual and social attack, it stands strong and remains (on some measures if not all) the world’s fastest growing religion”

The same could be said of Islam, which many experts believe will become the largest world religion with the next 100 years.

Sociology and Medical:

Wow. Where did you get this information?? My guess is that by “Christian” you are limiting your definition of that term to “born again, evangelical Christians”, because the entire western world is “Christian” yet many of these countries, including the United States, have very high crime rates.

Let’s compare a Christian country like the United States to the non-Christian country, Japan. Japan has a much, much lower crime rate. A much, much lower murder rate. The Japanese as a people are on average healthier than the average American. Poverty is much lower in Japan than in the United States.

However, let’s go with your use of a more restricted definition of “Christian”. Compare the morbidity (sickness) and mortality (death) rates of American evangelical Christians to that of the average Japanese and I will bet that you will find that the Japanese still come out ahead. And what about divorce? Some studies have evangelicals with a higher divorce rate than the American average. And why don’t you check with the insurance companies. If evangelical Christians have lower morbidity rates and lower mortality rates, insurance companies should see this in their statistics. They don’t. Christians have the same morbidity and mortality rates as everyone else in society. (Tells you something about the effectiveness of prayer, doesn’t it?)

Then we come to the Big Daddy: Personal experience.

I believe that this is the biggest reason why most conservative Christians just can’t fathom the possibility that their supernatural Christian belief system is false: Because their feelings and experiences tell them otherwise. Now, if only Christians had these experiences, that would be good evidence. But, devout Mormons, Muslims, and Hindus all describe these same intense feelings and remarkable “miracles” due to prayer to their gods.

So you see, the evidence is NOT good, my Christian friends.

Gary,

You’re perpetually conflating descriptive power for explanatory power.

That’s why you mistakenly shove the word “proof” into the wrong places.

You do it first on your end where there is none but where it is claimed, and then you switch gears and say there is a claim of such by the Christian where there is none.

Be careful about what is and is not being claimed.

Evidence is data, and descriptive. Whereas, convergence of data with explanatory power is where the action is.

That’s why a City X without crime misses that larger picture.

Gary,

“…you believe that ghosts can impregnate virgins and that dead bodies can be reanimated to fly off into outer space…”

False.

Apparently you believe people believe it. If you actually embraced facts then you’d not have such false beliefs.

Try again.

“.. Martian spaceships really do abduct Midwestern milk cows…”

False.

Apparently you believe people believe it. If you actually embraced facts then you’d not have such false beliefs.

Try again.

Regarding crime:

First: Define it.

Second: Mankind’s mindset upon the world stage morphs and fluxes and if you think [A] such is not related to reciprocity’s trajectory across centuries or [B] such is not related to a real (actual) ontological history of becoming then you are basing your own worldview (and your arguments here) upon fictions.

Just like the fictions you listed above.

You may want to educate yourself about on what the Christian means by the term *God*.

Tom,

Yes. I do come across too strongly at times. I apologize. I will attempt to be less “smug” in our conversations.

You seem to suggest that I have not thoroughly investigated the Christian religion. I disagree. I am a former devout conservative Christian. I once had a conservative Christian blog. I have read many Christian articles and books, including NT Wright’s, “The Resurrection of the Son of God”, and “Making the Case for Christianity” among others. I have listened to debates and lectures by William Lane Craig, Mike Licona, Craig Evans, and others.

Yet it is never enough. Every time I discuss my deconversion from Christianity, conservative Christians tell me I need to read MORE books. They are never satisfied with what I read. I get the impression that they will NEVER be satisfied with the number of books by Christian scholars that I read until I reconvert to Christianity.

Here is my perspective, Tom. If the Creator of the Universe has revealed himself (themselves, herself, itself, etc.) and has revealed his true religion, I don’t believe that he would require me to read a stack of books by human “scholars” to find him. The evidence should be simple and straightforward.

Here is what the evidence does reveal, in my opinion: There may well be a Creator, but he (masculine singular pronoun for simplicity) is not interested in being “known”. He created the universe with a set of inviolable natural laws, which even he doesn’t not violate. He is indifferent (or impotent) to the suffering of living creatures, including humans. He caused the Big Bang…and then left the universe to itself.

I don’t believe in miracles or supernatural events because the only claims of “miracles” today involve events which could simply be very rare, but natural events. You say that someone was healed of end-stage cancer after prayer to Jesus? Well, once in a great while people with end stage cancer do recover. Rare, but does happen. Show me a case where someone was decapitated and after prayer his head was reattached and he started speaking…THAT would be a miracle. Show me a car that levitates 100 feet off the ground. That would be a miracle. But such events do not happen. I believe that the evidence is overwhelming that the Creator’s natural laws are NEVER violated.

This is one of the many reasons why I do not believe in your god, Yahweh. He claims to perform amazing miracles but never performs miracles that cannot be explained as rare, but natural events, or, his followers claim he did amazing feats IN THE PAST…when there where no television cameras or cell phone cameras…but refuses to do them now…and be photographed.

There is good evidence for a Creator, but not for Yahweh.

Now, as to accepting your alternative world view. I hope I can explain this without offending you, but I need do it with my analogy of Martian milk cow abductions: How would YOU react, Tom, to the following situation: Someone walks up to you on the street and tries to convince you that you must join his sect to fight against Martian milk cow abductions. If you don’t join, you might be the next abduction victim! He is very sincere.

You of course think he is nuts, but to humor him, you ask him for evidence.

He tells you that thirty years ago, a group of 20 people in the Mid-West reported seeing a large space ship descend over Farmer Brown’s farm; little green, antennaed beings walked down the space ship plank, beamed twelve of Farmer Browns milk cows into their oval shaped craft, and then sped off at the speed of light.

He states that these twenty people signed legal affidavits of their eyewitness testimony, copies of which can be read online.

He then pulls out an I phone and shows you the affidavits online.

You suppress a snicker, but tell the man that this is not very good evidence. People have sincerely claimed to have “seen” strange things all throughout human history. He then replies, that to believe this claim one needs to study philosophy and read a stack of books by Martian scholars. Only THEN will one see the truth.

“No.” you reply. “I just need good evidence, friend. And you don’t have it. Have a good day.”

And that is how we who do not believe in the supernatural view YOUR Christian supernatural claims. One does not need to understand philosophy. One does not need to read a stack of books by Christian scholars. One needs good evidence. But you don’t have it. That is why you insist that non-believers study philosophy, read stacks of books by supernaturalist Christian experts, and accept as fact, without good evidence, that your ancient middle-eastern deity exists.

Because your evidence is poor.

It could also be added that while Christianity could be falsifiable in principle, it would not be falsified in practice given that the evidence / arguments for it are so strong that they simply cannot be overcome. Let me give you an example of what I mean: eliminative materialism could, in principle, falsify the idea that I am conscious or that I have thoughts, beliefs, and desires, but my direct experience of being conscious, and of having thoughts, beliefs, and desires will always be stronger evidence for the truth of these things then the arguments for eliminative materialism would be for their denial. And so, even though eliminative materialism could, in theory, falsify my belief that I am conscious, it never would do so in practice given that the arguments for it would never outweigh the evidentiary value of my direct experience that I am conscious. And the same could be said in the case of theism: a direct experience of the divine could be so powerful that nothing could compare in evidentiary strength against it, even though in principle, the belief could be falsifiable.

Tom, You said, “Martian milk cow abductions would be impossible to fit in with any view of reality.”
Not true. There are thousands of people on earth who believe in extra-terrestrials. Do a google search and you can find their websites. You don’t consider alien abductions as realistic because it violates YOUR worldview. I find your conservative/moderate world view just as unrealistic as you view Martian milk cow abductions. If we allow for the supernatural (and extraterrestrials) anything, including the abduction of milk cows and ghost-impregnations, is possible.
“Multiple attestation by witnesses who have put their integrity on the line.”
Please provide one CONFIRMED eyewitness who states that he or she saw the resurrected BODY of Jesus. Seeing bright lights does not count (so Paul is out). By “confirmed” I mean that the majority of today’s scholars believe that the account in question is eyewitness testimony.
“Your standard for miracle claims is way too high.”
Maybe. But maybe your standard is too low. Why is it that if Jesus answers prayer for amazing cures he NEVER heals amputees (of major limbs)? Why does he never heal persons whose heads have been decapitated? Why does he never reassemble someone who has been blown into a thousand pieces by a bomb? See, if Jesus performed these miracles, even rarely, I could buy your claim of miracles. But Jesus NEVER performs these miracles. Jesus only seems to perform miracles for which a natural explanation, even though rare, is possible.

Gary said:

“You are confirming my previous point that personal feelings and experiences are the real evidence for many/most Christians.”

I never said that this was the case, for many Christians have never had a personal experience and yet are entirely rational in holding to Christianity as being true beyond a reasonable doubt.

But my point still stands unrefuted, which is that a direct personal experience of God could be so powerful as to defeat, in practice, any argument against God, just as my personal direct experience of my own consciousness and thoughts and desires will always be more powerful evidence for them than any argument for eliminative materialism.

And note as well that I am not saying that the experience is necessarily veridical. What I am saying is that I am rational to believe it, given my experience of it, even if it was false, just as I am rational to believe that I am conscious and have thoughts/desires even if, somehow, eliminative materialism turned out to be the truth about reality. This is in much the same way that I would be rational, as a juror, to find a man guilty of murder if there was a plethora of evidence against him even though, by chance, it turned out that he was actually innocent.

Regards.
http://www.reconquistainitiative.com

Gary,

First, the obvious: “Being Itself” isn’t falsifiable, and, granted, there’s always insanity. Of course, even that word requires, well, being itself.

Second: Your logical leap from [A] “I am conscious and that’s really hard to refute” to [B] “You see, personal feelings and experiences are the real evidence for most Christians…” is (to say the least) sloppy logic. The word “most” is used on purpose because you’ve been overreaching throughout. If you care to fuss and retract then please do.

Sloppy logic:

Non-Christians and Atheists will tell you, Gary, that they exist, that they are conscious and fuss at you for telling them they don’t exist, or are unconscious. I know you find that hard to believe that Non-Christians, and you too, believe you are conscious, that you exist, and wouldn’t believe anyone who told you that you are unconscious, that you don’t exist.

Let’s experiment:

Trial run “A”,

“Gary, right now as you are reading this, you are [A] not conscious and [B] your experience of being itself is not true – that is to say – you don’t exist.”

Your reply:

“I don’t exist? Well, maybe your right…..you know you may be on to something there. I may not exist.”

Trial run “B”,

“Gary, you exist. Your experience that you exist is telling you the truth. And, that’s really hard for you to refute.”

Your reply:

“HA! You see! Evidence that I am right! Personal feelings and experiences are the real evidence for most Christians…”

Now, that’s an awesome argument for you and you’re welcome to it. Earlier I stated that all you’ve demonstrated so far is one large un-discerning brushstroke and we see it again here as you somehow find a way to connect two dots separated by miles and miles of definitions and presuppositions, many of which are not unique to Christianity.

Once again you place far too much emphasis on feelings and not nearly enough on reason and evidence in their respective interfaces with feelings.

You would do much better if you didn’t focus so much on feelings and focus more on reasoning things through. The trio of feelings, reason, and evidence is the way to go, Gary. Try it some time. You know, just like Joshua and the evidence of ancient near eastern linguistics in relation to your emotions and feelings about that topic. You’re (demonstrably) living by feelings expunged of all inconvenient evidence.

Gary,

Your observation that people believe different things is, well, astoundingly trivial. Is there more? Or are you done?

You stated,

“Tom, You said, “Martian milk cow abductions would be impossible to fit in with any view of reality.” Not true. There are thousands of people on earth who believe in extra-terrestrials. Do a google search and you can find their websites. You don’t consider alien abductions as realistic because it violates YOUR worldview.”

False.

You’re missing the obvious every time here as all you do is say, “But there are people who believe X and you don’t believe X!” and then you simply fail to investigate the evidence.

Hint: This is not about claims, but, rather, this is about the duo of evidence in conjuncture with various claims. Further, you seem to think that alien life poses some sort of threat to Christianity’s landscape but you’ve not established that to be the case.

Disagreement isn’t evidence in and of itself, rather, the arguments pro/con and the evidence each side presents is where the action is.

Yet all you do is point to disagreement.

So much for gravity then, eh?

Any claim is fine to make. Each claim simply has to be unpacked and if, say, Gary tells us that Naturalism claims to be ontology or if Islam claims God did X, or of Bob tells us that he was abducted by aliens then the process of evaluating those claims is straightforward: gather the facts and follow the evidence.

You seem to suppose that the only evidence for Christianity is in the four Gospels. “Eyewitnesses Full Stop!”

But that’s false.

You seem to suppose that the only evidence for Christianity is, “-Cause da-bible -tells me-so”.

But that’s false.

See? This comes back to Islam and Hinduism and Naturalism and so on, as each comes as a body of statements which do *not* (contrary to your silly premise) exist in a vacuum but are in fact immersed in the whole of reality.

That is why all of this is a very different process than your lazy and un-discerning brushstrokes here which splash about all while claiming the untenable — that cosmology is ontology, is explanatory (and that all the experts say so), and that Joshua really did according to scripture and history kill all life in the land of child-sacrifices (Canaan). Now, those untenable claims of yours are not untenable because you claim them, but because there is rational evidence to the contrary.

Islam or Hinduism or Space Aliens or Naturalism’s baggage, it’s all the same. It’s not about the reality of disagreement. It’s about the reality of evidence in conjuncture with said claims pro/con.

We know lot’s of people believe lots of different things.

Well, as unimpressive as that observation of yours is, do you have anything else?

Or are you done?

—Please provide one CONFIRMED eyewitness who states that he or she saw the resurrected BODY of Jesus.

“James. Peter. John. Confirmed according to normal standards of historical investigation.”

Says who?

Not the majority of experts in the field, my friend. You are welcome to appeal to minority expert opinion, but don’t pretend that these eyewitness claims are “confirmed”.

” If I have experienced and observed multiple identifiable miracles, does the lack of miracle events somewhere else mean those weren’t miracles after all? ”

You claim to have experienced miracles, and many thousands of people all over the world claim that their dead relatives visit them, in the flesh, from time to time. People can claim all kinds of wild things, but if there is no evidence for such claims, there is no reason for the rest of us to believe these claims.

Provide real EVIDENCE, Tom. Not appeals to warm fuzzy feelings, minority expert opinion, and rare coincidences that you confuse with “miracles”.

Gary,

Why do you keep appealing to eyewitness accounts of cows and stuff?

It’s fine that people say stuff, but “eyewitness full stop” just doesn’t work.

They need more.

Hence you need more.

Sorry to disappoint you.

Tom,

Here is your worldview boiled down to the essentials:

1. An eternal, perfect, all-possessing being decides, after billions of years of existence, that he wants to create something.

Was he bored? Lonely?

2. A perfect, all-possessing being decides that he needs/wants to create mini-versions of himself who have a choice to love him or reject him.

Why does a perfect being need to be loved by inferior beings with a free will?

3. He then places a Tree of Temptation smack dab in the middle of the garden home of humans. Why not off in the very corner of the garden? He then allows a snake to tempt the humans to eat of the tree of temptation. It is almost as if he WANTS the humans to fail.

4. What is the sentence for the human’s forbidden fruit eating: Eternal suffering, in this life and the next. A punishment that does not fit the crime by any standard of justice.

5. Then, thousands of years later, this all-powerful being sends himself to earth in the form of a human , to be brutally executed, to appease the righteous anger of…HIMSELF.

Tom, this is NOT a coherent world view.

Reconquista said

“…a direct personal experience of God could be so powerful as to defeat, in practice, any argument against God, just as my personal direct experience of my own consciousness and thoughts and desires will always be more powerful evidence for them than any argument for eliminative materialism.”

IF you could prove that a god was responsible for your “direct experience” that would be one thing. Your problem is that you have zero proof that your god is behind these experiences. It is entirely possible that ALL your experiences were random chance.

Tom said, “He created out of the overflow of his love and his glory. He wanted the humans to have the chance to succeed, which entails the possibility of failing. Christ came to satisfy God’s love and his justice (read Romans chapters 1 through5).”

Out of the overflow of his love?? Unless you are a universalist, Tom, most of your God’s creation is going to suffer eternal damnation in Hell. So in the big picture of things, we humans would have been much better off, as a whole, if we had never been created, IF your Christian worldview is true.

Moderate and liberal Christians frequently want to prove the veracity of Christianity with appeals to complex philosophical and metaphysical formulations. Is this really necessary? I suggest that one can determine the probable veracity of Christianity fairly easily. Here it is:

Christianity is based on two primary claims:

1. The ancient Hebrew god Yahweh is the all-knowing, all powerful, perfect, good, Creator of the universe.
2. The bodily resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth in first century Palestine is historical fact.

Prove either of these claims false and you have discredited the veracity of Christianity. In my many discussions with Christians, they will often attempt to prove one of these claims true by appealing to the other as evidence without ever giving any evidence for the second claim. This is poor logic. The Christian needs to prove both claims correct, independent of each other, to establish the veracity of the Christian religion. Christians cannot prove the existence of Yahweh by appealing to the Resurrection of Jesus if they have not first provided evidence for the historicity of the Resurrection without appealing to the existence of Yahweh. Without the existence of Yahweh, the resurrection of Jesus is very improbable. And without the Resurrection of Jesus, the probability of the existence of Yahweh comes down to proving the veracity of mostly vague, disputed, prophesy claims. The evidence for each of the two major claims of Christianity are very weak on their own.

So which is more probable based on the available evidence:

1. Yahweh exists and is the all-knowing, all-powerful Creator
2. Yahweh is the invention of an ancient superstitious people.

Which is more probable based on the available evidence:

1. Jesus of Nazareth really was resurrected from the dead, an event never heard of before or since.
2. The claims of Jesus’ resurrection are based on visions, dreams, false sightings or other natural explanations for someone/someones believing they had seen a dead person alive again.

If you ask Christians to provide evidence for the two principle claims of Christianity WITHOUT presupposing the other argument is true, I believe that you can easily show that the probability of Christianity being true is very, very low.

I challenge you, Tom, to prove that the bodily Resurrection of Jesus is more probable than alternative naturalistic explanations for the early Christian resurrection belief WITHOUT assuming the existence of Yahweh. And, I challenge you to prove the existence of Yahweh without using the alleged Resurrection as proof of his existence. Prove one or the other…FIRST.

I don’t understand why that concept is so hard for you to understand. You can’t claim that A is true because B is true if you haven’t first proven B to be true!

Gary,

You’ve not refuted the evidenc in Bauckham.

Until you do we can sit on our hands.

Also, given Naturalism the resurrection 2000 years ago wasn’t improbable but impossible, whereas, given “Being Itself” (God) the (bodily) resurrection 2000 years ago literally can’t be more or less probable than any other (physical) occurrence.

This is about the tenth demonstration you’ve given us that you ignore reality when defining your premises.

Gary,

You said:

”Reconquista: You can dress up your belief system with all kinds of complex philosophical and metaphysical formulations, but at it’s very essence, it is a belief system based on forbidden-fruit eating.”

First off, that’s not an argument, so it is irrelevant and readily dismissible.

Second, it is rather easy to be uncharitable towards a belief system when you want to be. For example, watch this: “Gary: You can dress up your belief system with all kinds of complex philosophical and metaphysical formulations, but at it’s very essence, it is a belief system based on the absurd notion of something coming from nothing, on the unevidenced idea that life can just come to be from non-life, and on the use of magical words like “emergence” which somehow apparently justify you believing that consciousness can come from mere matter-in-motion without any evidence that this is actually the case.”

Third, far from your snide comment being detrimental to Christianity, it actually supports it, for at its essence Christianity is indeed about the fact that Man has sinned and is in need of redemption and is in search of justice. And when I look around the world, nothing could be more obvious than that man has sinned and seeks redemption. So, your snark aside, you actually remind us that Christianity’s main theme—that man has sinned and gropes for redemption and justice—is one of the most obvious facts of human existence, meaning that this points supports Christianity, it does not work against it.

Regards.
http://www.reconquistainitiative.com

Reconquista,

Where Gary is falling down is (as you point out) his attempt to embrace insanity as an escape from properly basic beliefs, without realizing that his own epistemic there is *itself* logically incoherent.

Experience and properly basic beliefs press in there.

But there is more.

We have to be careful to account for the duo of reason and experience. Expunging either one just won’t do. Hence the Christian enjoys an intellectual luxury which the philosophical naturalist never will.

The properly basic beliefs you referent make a good (valid) point:

[1] “The Witness of the Spirit as an Intrinsic Defeater-Defeater” at http://www.reasonablefaith.org/the-witness-of-the-spirit-as-an-intrinsic-defeater-defeater

[2] “Answering Critics of the Inner Witness of the Spirit” at http://www.reasonablefaith.org/answering-critics-of-the-inner-witness-of-the-spirit

One quibble:

Again, the properly basic beliefs you referent make a good (valid) point. Then: As Craig and Plantinga both demonstrate, that move does not place experience ahead of reason, but rather places reason ahead of experience. It is at “that juncture” where the metaphysical baggage of naturalism pretending to be ontology comes roaring in atop a wide array of reductiones ad absurdum (the plural of the proverbial reductio ad absurdum etc.).

Physics-full-stop is observed in Sean Carroll’s cosmic or ultimate “useful but untrue” landing zone, and such forces a total deflationary truth value across the proverbial board.

Therefore, to say “…even if somehow it turned out that naturalism were true….” is a nonsense statement for (given Non-Theism) the term “evidence” is itself entirely, or cosmically, or ultimately, deflationary in truth value.

Whereas, that same phrase, “…even if it somehow it turned out that someone was NOT calling for help….” (or in the earlier “juror / court / evidence” analogy) is *not* a nonsense statement in those contexts.

All meta-ontologies must speak their respective ontologese.

However: “Ontologese is the language spoken by the fictionalist when he says that abstract object statements are untrue. But given a deflationary theory of reference, we need not go so far as the fictionalist in treating singular terms as devices of ontological commitment, even in Ontologese.” Craig, William Lane. God Over All: Divine Aseity and the Challenge of Platonism. Oxford University Press.

A Beginners Guide to Understand and Answer Dr. Bart Ehrman:

http://christianapologeticsalliance.com/2016/08/18/a-beginners-guide-to-understand-and-answer-dr-bart-ehrman/

A brief excerpt:

Quote:

Ehrman is a double-faced accuser; he knows that the New Testament is 99% established yet he attacks the veracity of the New Testament, “…there are really two Bart Ehrmans that are on display…the scholarly Bart Ehrman and the popular Bart Ehrman. The scholarly Bart Ehrman knows that the text of the New Testament has been established to 99% accuracy. That is to say, the original wording of the New Testament is now established to about 99%. So the degree of uncertainty of the text of the New Testament is only about 1%. There are about 138,000 Greek words in the New Testament. Of these, only about 1,400 are uncertain today. 99% are established with real certainty. Of that 1% that still remains uncertain, virtually uncertain, bad Bart deliberately misrepresents the situation to lay audiences to make them think that the New Testament is incredibly corrupted and uncertain. It is very interesting that when the bad Bart is pressed on this issue by someone he will come clean and admit this. For example, I heard Bart Ehrman interviewed on a radio show some time ago about Misquoting Jesus and the interviewer was talking to him about how uncertain the text of the New Testament is, all the thousands and thousands of variants that there are…and finally the interviewer said to him, “Dr. Ehrman, what do you think the text of the New Testament originally really said?” And Ehrman replied, “I don’t understand what you mean. What are you talking about?” And the interviewer said, “The text of the New Testament – it has been so corrupted as it has been copied. What do you think the original text actually said?” And Ehrman said, “Well, it says pretty much what we have today – what it says now.” And the interviewer was utterly confused. He said, “I thought it was all corrupted” and Ehrman said “We’ve been able to reestablish the text of the New Testament as textual scholars.” So he knows and when pressed admits that the text of the New Testament is 99% established.”

Ehrman argues like a fundamentalist and is frequently guilty of the fallacy of the excluded middle, says Dr. Craig Evans, “The problem is that, in his popular books, Ehrman is frequently guilty of the logical fallacy of the excluded middle, the idea that there are only two options — either we have every word of the original text or we do not; either we have harmonious accounts of the teaching and activities of Jesus or we don’t. Bart Ehrman is arguing like a fundamentalist. It is an all-or-nothing approach. If the Bible is truly inspired (and therefore trustworthy), it must be free from discrepancies. But this is not how most seasoned scholars think, including evangelicals. Nor was it the way early Christians thought.”

End quote.

I’ve just discovered this website and the many interesting articles and conversations. I’ll admit that I haven’t read through all the comments in regard to this particular article by Tom Gilson. I’m not sure which branch of Christianity this website represents. There are so many; but I’ll assume a Baptist evangelical perspective until I’m told otherwise. I like the title of this article, “What Would It Take for Me to Give Up Belief in Jesus Christ?” I really liked how Gary responded to the question in response #16. He really hit the nail on the head, and in my opinion sent the rest of you away whimpering. Like Gary, I have a long history in Christianity, so the wool isn’t so easily pulled over our eyes.

In the late 17th century, John Bunyan wrote the allegorical novel “Pilgrim’s Progress.” It told the story of a young man, Christian, on his journey to the Celestial city, along with all the trials and temptations that he encountered on this life long journey. Of course, this was the story of every Christian’s life leading to heaven. In 1900, L. Frank Baum, also wrote a similar allegorical novel, entitled the “Wizard of Oz,” the story of Dorothy and her three friends, Scarecrow, the Lion, and the Tin Man. It was a story of these four companions traveling a yellow brick road leading to the Emerald City. They had to stay on this road, although they faced many trials and temptations, if they were to arrive at the Emerald City to have an audience with the great Wizard of Oz. It was Oz, who was able to grant these four their greatest wishes, to find her way home, to have a brain, to have courage, and to have a heart. When they finally arrive at the Emerald City and were waiting for an audience with the great Oz, Toto, Dorothy’s dog, pulls down the curtain surrounding the great throne, only to reveal that the great Oz was an imposter, in reality a small man with bells and whistles to make himself appear great and imposing. He had no power of his own to grant any kind of wish. But what the wizard knew was that each of these characters had the power and ability within themselves to bring about what they wished for. Of course the allegory of this story is the atheist’s perspective on Christianity or any other organized religion. The Gods of all religions, including Christianity, are made up and nothing but imposters. The wishes and needs that we desire will not be granted by an imposter God, but most often are within our own capacity to accomplish. That is how the atheist looks at Christianity, bells and whistles but no substance.

Of course the atheist claims there is no evidence to support the reality of Christianity or any other religion. The creation account of the Bible, is the ancient and primitive account of what an early civilization considered to be the method by which their God brought about the universe, the world, and all of its inhabitants in a matter of just six days. And this is all considered to have happened only six to eight thousand years ago. Science has no interest in disproving the Bible’s creation account or any other religious creation account. By studying the empirical evidence, the scientific community has found that the earth is not only millions of years old, but probably billions, and that life on earth has developed through an evolutionary process. Are the findings for evolution conclusive? Far from it. Science may never come to an absolute and definitive view on origins. But nearly all the scientific community is in agreement that evolution is at the heart of the process. And science is increasingly adding to that basic premise with as time goes on. The atheist and those of other religions see our Biblical creation account, not only as mythical but as one of the evidences of an empty religion.

One of the slogans for effective prayer within Christian circles is “pray as though it all depends on God, and act as though it all depends on you.” The allegorical message of “The Wizard of Oz” is that it does all depend on you, and without your own effort little will get accomplished. The great accomplishments of Christianity have been brought about through great human effort, the same as the accomplishments of those who are not Christian. This is another reason atheists see Christianity as little more than bells and whistles and lacking in substance.

Of course, atheists also point to the resurrection of Christ as being more mythical than real. Christians claim that Christ was raised from death and ascended to God’s right hand where he rules in power and authority, much like Oz. But atheists ask where is the evidence of any kind of reign from God’s right hand, or is this just the bells and whistles of a religion with no substance? As to the return of Christ to earth, the apostle Paul expected it to happen in his life time. And throughout history countless predictions have been made, but nothing has come of them. Now nearly two thousand years later, we’re still waiting? The atheist and agnostic believe the curtain of Christianity has definitely been pulled down revealing an empty throne.

As one who believes in a God, I believe the creation (our existing world and universe) is God’s revelation. It’s his self revelation. Organized religions, including Christianity, are simply primitive human attempts to understand and explain the God of creation. With the passing of time and the expanse of knowledge, it has become obvious how primitive the tenets of these religions are. Bells and whistles, but no substance. Thanks for the opportunity to express different opinions.

Tom Gilson

What would it take for me to give up belief in Jesus Christ? Christians talk of the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Christ came to earth from heaven to offer salvation to a lost and fallen humanity. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime. By faith those destined for damnation are given the opportunity to appropriate a present and future acceptance by God. This sounds wonderful. This is one side of the coin. This is the side of the coin that most Christians glory in and seem to emphasize.

But there is another side to this coin, that is much less attractive. Christians tend to overemphasize only the one face of the coin, the attractive side. It’s the side of the coin that gets emphasized in Christian evangelism. It’s this side of the coin that writers like yourself and other Christian websites seem to glory in. But if a realistic view of Christianity was presented to the world, a view revealing both sides of the coin, most people would run from the gospel. It’s this dark side of the coin that makes me question the Christian religion or to have doubts in regard to Jesus Christ and his so-called mission.

This dark side of the coin involves the question and answer of what happens to those who don’t believe? The answer is that all unbelievers are sentenced by the God of the Bible to a destiny of eternal damnation. It’s important to understand the Biblical perspective on God’s damnation of all unbelievers. Christians seem to quickly point out that those destined for damnation are deserving of such condemnation by God as the consequence of their sin. After all, all have sinned and fall short of God’s standard of perfection and therefore are deserving of eternal damnation in hell. Therefore he is just in his condemnation. God is not just loving to those who believe, he is just in his condemnation of sinners, and everyone falls into this category of being sinners. This is the loving God that Christians speak so glowingly about.

But there is more to this unattractive side of this coin. Realize that this coin is the two sided depiction of God’s character. I want you to consider this unattractive side of the coin. As a result of the fall of Adam and Eve, all people come into the world as sinners. Before taking their first breath, God’s declares everyone a sinner worthy of eternal damnation (being credited with Adam’s sin). But beyond that everyone comes into the world with a sinful nature, as the result of Adam’s fall into sin. Everyone (whether by God’s decretive will or his permissive will) comes into the world declared guilty of having failed God’s standard of perfection and also having a handicap (a fallen nature) that prevents them from obeying God in their lived out lives. This is the Bible’s description of all people from birth on, guilty sinners with a serious birth defect (handicap) that prevents them from living obedient lives to God. That is the Bible’s description of all people. And God condemns all such people to an eternal damnation, even though they couldn’t help but to fail God’s test. God condemns and damns handicapped people. This hardly sounds like justice to me.

I want to demonstrate this ugly side of the coin with the life of the apostle Paul. Romans 7 speaks of Paul’s own experience apart from the influence of Christ, which also, according to the Bible, is everyone’s experience. Paul says apart from Christ, he was completely dominated by sin. Although he knew the right and good, he found himself in bondage to sin, unable to do the right thing he knew and believed. He declares himself one miserable person. Paul is describing the state of all people held in bondage to their sinful nature, the very nature that all people are born with. And even though, like Paul, they are incapacitated from being able to do good, God declares all such people worthy of eternal damnation. Like Paul, all such helpless people are condemned by God.

But of course, Paul ends by saying, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me out of the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Christians quote this verse as though everyone has this same opportunity as Paul, to turn to Christ for deliverance. But of course Paul isn’t saying that at all. He is thankful that God in Christ took hold of him and delivered him. All one needs to do is read of Paul’s own conversion experience on the road to Damascus to realize that Paul’s conversion was one by which he was overwhelmed and blinded by Christ, taken by force if you will. Paul’s conversion was not a matter of Paul’s choosing, but of God’s. Throughout Romans, as well as his other letters, Paul speaks of being chosen (even predestined) by God for salvation. God hasn’t done this for all people, but only the limited number of people chosen to be among the elect of God. Matthew 7 speaks of the narrow gate or door that leads to heaven and the few who find such gate in comparison to the wide gate that leads to destruction. God chooses the few and damns the many handicapped people whom he sends to hells. Paul is speaking to the “few” in his writings, not to the many other handicapped people who receive no assistance or salvation from God. Although many are called, few are chosen (Matt. 20).

This sinful nature which incapacitates everyone according to the Bible (whether inherited from Adam or imputed by God) is something appointed to everyone prior to birth apart from any conscious decision by human beings. That God would sentence such people to eternal damnation is a poor reflection on a God that Christians call loving. Oh, but the loving God, is the side of the coin that Christians like to talk about, as though there is only one side to the coin. If more people were aware of the sinister face of God on the other side of the coin few would choose to belief in Christ. Christians often accuse other religions of hiding knowledge about their religion to outsiders. But Christians also have hidden knowledge about their God that they hide, not only from outsiders but insiders as well. The Christian God is a loving God to the few who are chosen for salvation, but to the rest of humanity he is a sinister God who condemns a handicapped humanity to eternal damnation. That’s enough to make me give up my belief in the Christian God.

The answer is that all unbelievers are sentenced by the God of the Bible to a destiny of eternal damnation.

Actually, all unbelievers choose a destiny of eternal damnation by rejecting the grace and mercy of the God of the Bible. What? Would you have God force those who choose not to embrace him and his offer of salvation to live with him for all of eternity?

God hasn’t done this for all people, but only the limited number of people chosen to be among the elect of God.

And again, you fail to account for the existence of free will in a universe with a sovereign God. They exist, side by side. It’s us who choose. And you are an example. You choose to reject God (“That’s enough to make me give up my belief in the Christian God.”) because you believe he isn’t fair and just. It’s you have made that decision as you plainly state.

Roger,

Your main thesis is this:

…mainly that God condemns all unbelievers to eternal damnation, even though they had no ability to do what is asked of them by God, to live sinless lives. By being credited with Adam’s sin, as well as a sinful nature, all people are handicapped from birth, making such a demand an impossibility. And yet God, unjustly condemns all such handicapped people to an eternity in hell….

Not sure which God that referenced. It’s not the incarnate God of the Christian.

Just FYI.

Can’t blame you for rejecting Non-Christian X’s such as that and the many others you list.

I’m glad you believe in Cosmic Fairness laced through with Cosmic Grace. I’m glad you’re affirming a T.O.E. which is top heavy with the Judgement of Forgive-For-They-Know-Not. Though you’ve offered no evidence to support that part of your T.O.E., the Christian (who actually knows the evidence) agrees with you.

Quite a religion you’ve got going there. Very Christian-esc in fact.

I’m sure it’s evidence based.

BillT

Thanks, Bill, for your comment. A few things. First, you are wrong that all unbelievers choose a destiny of eternal damnation by rejecting the gospel. As pointed out to scbrown, most of the human race have never heard a valid or convincing offer of salvation in Christ. Most of the world’s population have never heard of Jesus, and even if they have (or had), it wasn’t a convincing presentation of the gospel that they heard. And if Christ is the only name under heaven by which one can be saved, most of the world is plain out of luck. They’re going to hell. For the rest, like myself, according to the Christian faith, I’m so handicapped, like the apostle Paul, that without the persuasion of the Holy Spirit, I am unable to respond to the gospel. You must remember Paul’s conversion. His wasn’t a willing choice, but rather God’s choice of him.

As to free will, a blind man is free to walk on a high wire tight rope, but because of his handicap (sinful nature) he is unable to do that which he wants . He will instantly fail. Or a drug addict has free will to not use drugs, but because of his addiction is unable to resist the urge to use. Christians freely acknowledge that no one comes to Christ apart from the persuasion of the Holy Spirit. People, hearing the gospel, are free to respond to the general offer or call of the gospel, but are unable to because their sinful nature prevents them. Humans have a fallen nature, given before birth, by which they are bound by sin. Unless the Holy Spirit persuades a person of his/her need for salvation, the response (according to the Bible) will always be to reject the gospel. Read again Paul’s testimony in Romans 7. He didn’t come to Christ of his own free will but rather by God’s choosing and by the effectual persuasion of Christ’s Spirit. Read of his conversion for yourself in Acts 9.

scbrown

I didn’t say I believed in cosmic fairness, or cosmic justice, or cosmic grace. I’ve merely been pointing out the inconsistencies of the Christian religion which in some form makes such claims but does so inconsistently. It’s the inconsistencies of the Christian religion that makes it so unbelievable. A just or fair God doesn’t condemn people who are incapable of living perfect lives. But apparently your God does this very thing. Go back and reread comment 65.

You say you are not sure what God I am talking about, but it isn’t the incarnate God of Christianity. The God that Christians believe in is the Triune God, of whom Christ incarnate is just one member. So I am talking about your God.

Answer this if you can according to Christian belief:
1. Are all people credited by God with the sin of Adam?
2. Do all people begin life with a sinful nature (inherited from the fall) that seriously inclines them toward sin?
3. Do all people (universally) have the opportunity to hear the Christian gospel?
4. Does God provide an alternate means of salvation for those who have not heard the gospel?
5. What happens eternally to the many people never hearing the gospel and why?
6. Is there salvation for those not hearing the gospel?
7. If there is no alternate plan of salvation (other than Christ), then what would be the basis of God’s judgement on those never hearing the gospel?

If you answer those questions the way the Bible does, then you know I’ve been talking about the Christian God, all along. Just as you don’t like the explanation of the Christian God that I have given, nor do I. That’s why I refuse to buy into Christianity. Christianity’s God is unjust and sinister. Why do you keep believing a false and inconsistent representation of God?

Since our Non-Theist friends seem unaware of the fact that there are actual differences with respect to Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Non-Theism (…which includes Buddhism and etc….), Judaism, animal sacrifices, love’s self-sacrifice, and various paradigmatic claims as to [1] *Means* to various *Ends* that are [2] that which is “The Good” or “The Beautiful“, perhaps a brief review of the obvious:

It’s always amazing how illogical so many assumptions end up being. For example: In all genres but one we are told that mutable and contingent X’s are the *means* by which other mutable and contingent X’s are ushered into the *ends* that *is* the permanence of The Good. But of course that is an absurdity unless “The Good” is forever illusory and mutable. No. That won’t do. The *means* to any coherent *ends* cannot be anything less than the All Sufficient Himself, the Immutable Himself, the Timeless Himself. In short, God is the only coherent means and should anything less pour out, well then we can drink of that cup of “anything less” ad infinitum and we will have progressed to nowhere at all.

There is only one genre on planet Earth which has offered Mankind a coherent metaphysical wellspring of all ontological possibility. It is the genre wherein God Himself pours Himself out. Creation is not needed there, because in Trinity of course such timeless reciprocity amid love’s self-giving constitutes those Trinitarian processions which *are* themselves the metaphysical wellspring of all ontological possibility.

So we come then to the complaint of the Non-Theist against the notion that only one ultimate path to truth subsumes all others. That illogical move of the Non-Theist to label love’s self-outpouring for the beloved as asinine is deeply troubling.

The illogical move to equate [A] love’s timeless self-outpouring for the beloved to [B] animal sacrifice is equally troubling. That foists a false identity claim between those two, or else a conflation. That move is either uninformed or else dishonest

We must ask our Non-Theist friends, “What is ‘The-Good’?”

What are Man’s means to get “there”? Do our Non-Theist friends really believe that the Means within Christianity to the Ends that are The Good are the *same* as in Judaism or Buddhism or Islam or Naturalism or Hinduism?

It’s pretty simple: there’s Man. There’s our humanity and nature. There is (or is not) the Good. There’s the path from our nature to the Good. Everybody has that in their background information. Even our Non-Theist friends appeal to their own proverbial “explanatory terminus” here.

If one wants to be complete in his analysis then he will have to tell us how his own Non-Theism finds something that is *not* eternally open-ended as such relates to the *goal* of the *good*. That’s important as it has direct ties to those same Means/Ends which we, here, *are* (…whether the Non-Theists know it or not…) discussing and defining.

Moral Excellence within the contours of immutable love’s timeless reciprocity is at once our deepest desire – our final good – and yet forever just out of reach (…..well, but for *GOD* as such relates to the immutable love of the Necessary Being….). It is unfortunate that some think otherwise — that some do not hold that — in fact — love is the highest ethic. Not in an ultimately or cosmically illusory fashion, but ultimately, irreducibly, timelessly.

I’m a little surprised that Tom Gilson has not weighed in on this debate, seeing as the original comment (#65) was addressed to him. Either he is very busy (this happens) or he doesn’t have an answer of his own. I don’t think that either scbrown or BillT are doing especially well in this debate. They may get better though.

Roger,

My apologies. I thought you actually wanted to discuss this with me. Since you obviously didn’t even read the com-box which I pointed you to you apparently had no intention of us working through this together. And since the premises you’ve just referenced are again Non-Christian premises it seems you really do believe your own fiction.

My mistake.

I’m curious, where did I go wrong in that com-box?

Quote it please.

Then explain where I got it all wrong.

If you want to talk about these things, that is.

Here’s a contradiction of Tim (made by Roger),

“And the standard for these unevangelized people is perfect holiness (Matt 5:48Open in Logos Bible Software (if available)) which is absolutely impossible for anyone to accomplish. And yet God condemns all such people to an eternity in hell.”

Roger — if you’re reading — one never knows with you — you’ll have to try harder as you are obviously quite fond of one-verse exegeses. It’s not helpful to read s few comments and verses and leave out several other comments and verses. As your mistaken conclusions reveal.

Roger,

Perhaps you should actually comment on the content of the [essay + com-box] I referenced rather than on your own fantasies about possible worlds in which frail and mutable contingencies such as Time and Circumstance are just too much for the reach of *GOD* — especially given the fact that Scripture affirms that in fact His reach *does* out-perform those very contingencies.

Roger,

You’ve made claims about the content I referenced that are false.

What? You just misrepresent and then ask to move on?

Bold.

While that would support your evasions it wouldn’t help unpack what Christianity actually states about God, Man, and reality.

Isn’t that what you’re interested in?

I don’t think that either scbrown or BillT are doing especially well in this debate. They may get better though.

Well Roger, I’m glad to see your so pleased with yourself. However, I find you constantly avoid really addressing the points I’ve made. And, it’s become boring talking to someone as poorly informed as you are. I hope your self satisfaction keeps you warm at night.

Roger,

“…I read enough to get the idea you are a bit of a universalist…”

What gave you that odd idea? Quotes in context please.

What happens to the unevangelized and underevangelized was specifically discussed. I even used those two terms… the un/under-evangelized etc. All sides of the coin are there.

Are those two terms the part that is tripping you up? Or is it something else?

Please explain.

Roger,

You have yet to respond to this point, whether in support or non support, or to give reasons why or to give supporting Scripture. If you can’t do that, I guess you don’t have a case, or have any evidence for your view other than your opinion.

Oh well. There’s always mouse pads, mouses, touch-pads, and the [Essay + Com-Box] over at http://www.str.org/blog/pauls-solution-problem-unevangelized-gospel#.WJATczw8KaM

scbrown

I get the feeling that you are hesitant to state your personal view (what you think is the Biblical view) of what happens to unbelievers at death on this website. Is it so difficult to state your view on this website, seeing as we are debating the issue here. I’m not involved at the other website. There must be some reason for your hesitancy.

Tom Gilson

Have you gone AWOL from your own website? It would have been interesting to get your take on the string of comments that begin at #65. Maybe you have given the reigns to scbrown for a period of time. But I imagine your take would be different from his.

scbrown

Here we go again. I did go back to the other website and read some of your comments. They are longer than the original article and make much less sense. From what I can gather your Christian faith has little concern for what humanity has done and mostly about what God has done. God desired the salvation of the world (all of humanity) so sent his Son as a propitiation (appeasement of God’s wrath) for the sin of all. From what I can tell, the faith of people has nothing to do with God’s salvation. Are you saying that a person can sin as much as he wants, harbor hatred, lust, greed and envy in his heart and he is safe from God’s judgement if he/she hasn’t heard the gospel? You must be reading a different Bible than I know of. Is sin of no consequence in your Christian viewpoint. The heathen nations, enemies of Israel and Israel’s God were continually being condemned by God and were promised present, as well as eternal destruction Again in your view, salvation is God’s act and he desires the salvation of all, so all will be saved. That’s the short of it. Maybe you should read the opening chapters of Genesis to understand God’s disdain for sin. No need to copy and paste. It would be nice if you could state your opinion succinctly and clearly on this website. But I think that is asking too much of you.

From what I can understand of your opinion, you put little stock in the historic creeds or the understanding of Scripture that went into those creeds. That’s not the Christianity you believe. For instance the Athanasian Creed says, “Whoever desires to be saved should above all hold to the catholic faith. Anyone who does not keep it whole and unbroken will doubtless perish eternally.” Or at the end of the creed it says, “This is the catholic faith: one cannot be saved without believing it firmly and faithfully.” And of course the creeds speak of the final judgement. The Heidelberg Catechism explains the Bible’s position, as well as the historic Christian position on the ultimate destiny of unbelievers in this way, “
Q. Does God permit
such disobedience and rebellion
to go unpunished?
1. A. Certainly not.
God is terribly angry with the sin we are born with
as well as the sins we personally commit. As a just judge,
God will punish them both now and in eternity,1 (Eph 5:6)
having declared: Cursed is everyone who does not observe and obey
all the things written in the book of the law.

According to the historic Christian faith that judgement would also include those who have not heard the gospel, as God is just as angry with the sin they are born with, as well as the sins they personally commit.

So I’m assuming you are a follower of Karl Barth, who like you, is a universalist. I have been arguing from the beginning against the historic Christian faith, not your brand. As I see it from scanning Tom Gilson’s “Turning Points,” you probably disagree with his perspective on the final judgement, as well. That’s one of interesting things about the Christian religion, you can make it say just about anything you want, even by using Scripture to back your opinion. You realize, sc, you stand in the minority of Christian scholarship, when it comes to this topic of God’s judgement. At any rate, I don’t buy into a historic Christian religion or your brand either.

Roger,

“From what I can tell, the faith of people has nothing to do with God’s salvation.”

False.

“Is sin of no consequence in your Christian viewpoint…”

No.

“Again in your view, salvation is God’s act and he desires the salvation of all, so all will be saved. That’s the short of it.”

Show me the quote to support that claim – did you really read anything or just skim?

“Maybe you should read the opening chapters of Genesis to understand God’s disdain for sin.”

God hates sin. We agree. I never said nor implied otherwise. Show me the quote to support that claim – did you really read anything or just skim?

“You put little stock in the historic creeds or the understanding of Scripture that went into those creeds. That’s not the Christianity you believe.”

False. Show me the quote to support that claim – did you really read anything or just skim?

“….who does not keep it whole and unbroken will doubtless perish eternally.”

We agreed with each other there in case you forgot. Only God is All Sufficient. Man in isolation isn’t All Sufficient and I’m glad you agreed with that earlier – God alone is Perfection and He does not require perfection from us (…from imperfection…) but rather gives Himself, which is sufficient.

I’m glad we agree. What about the un-evangelized and the under-evangelized. Show me what I said about those two terms and then show me where I contradicted Scripture.

God hates sin you say? Again we agree.

“So I’m assuming you are a follower of Karl Barth, who like you, is a universalist.”

Again you’ll have to quote me to show me why you keep making that odd conclusion. Did you really read anything or just skim?

“I have been arguing from the beginning against the historic Christian faith, not your brand.”

I saw quotes of others from you and then I saw you saying I disagree. But I don’t recall agreeing or disagreeing with those quotes of other people in anything I wrote.

You’re just making stuff up now.

Note: I even wrote about hell. Did you even read what I wrote – or just skim?

“As I see it from scanning Tom Gilson’s “Turning Points,” you probably disagree with his perspective on the final judgement, as well.”

Show me the quote to support that claim – did you really read anything or just skim?

In short: you clearly did not read anything I wrote but have simply mischaracterized and half-quoted me here.

Do you know it’s dishonest to do so?

Though, I’m quite glad we agree on some of those key issues.

scbrown

How much more easily it would have been for you to just simply and succinctly state what you believe. Instead you did a series of quotes from my comments and said, wrong, wrong, wrong. I have said over and over again that I don’t understand you philosophical speak so if I misrepresented you, it is likely that you didn’t make yourself clear. I did the best I could. From what I read in your reply to Tim Barnett’s article, you sound like a universalist, the idea that all will be saved, regardless of faith. I would really like to understand (in plain English) what you believe so that this conversation can proceed. Otherwise, it seems I’m shooting into the wind, as far as you are concerned. Your comments to me, as well as in response to Tim Barnett’s article are always in the form of a reply to what others believe. But you don’t state clearly what it is that you believe. Help me out so we can move on.

scbrown

I will not make that accusation again. I apologize. I don’t think my aversion is as much to what you believe (I really don’t know what you believe) as to what I might call historic Christianity, the Christianity of the church’s early creeds and confessions. So starting a fresh, I will go back to one of those early confessions, the Heidelberg Catechism. It’s a Reformed confession, but also had a lot of similarity to Lutheranism because of the context in which it was written in. That’s beside the point. It’s a confession that is still used today in many churches and so represents the historic Christian faith. To make this simple I’ll quote from the section addressing the Fall of humanity and humanity’s resulting condition. I’m quoting Q&A’s 10 and 11.
Q & A 10
1. Q. Does God permit
such disobedience and rebellion
to go unpunished?
A. Certainly not.
God is terribly angry with the sin we are born with as well as the sins we personally commit. As a just judge, God will punish them both now and in eternity,1 having declared: Cursed is everyone who does not observe and obey all the things written in the book of the law.”2
1 Ex. 34:7; Ps. 5:4-6; Nah. 1:2; Rom. 1:18; Eph. 5:6; Heb. 9:27
2 Gal. 3:10; Deut. 27:26

Q & A 11
Q. But isn’t God also merciful?
A. God is certainly merciful,1 but also just.2 God’s justice demands that sin, committed against his supreme majesty, be punished with the supreme penalty — eternal punishment of body and soul.3
1 Ex. 34:6-7; Ps. 103:8-9
2 Ex. 34:7; Deut. 7:9-11; Ps. 5:4-6; Heb. 10:30-31
3 Matt. 25:35-46

According to the historic Christian faith, the fall has so poisoned humanity that all people come into the world stained by Adam’s sin along with having a sinful nature by which they cannot help but to sin. According to this catechism, God is terribly angry with the sin we are born with as well as the sins we personally commit, so angry in fact, that he will punish such sinners with the “supreme penalty – eternal punishment of body and soul. The catechism will go on to say that God is not only just but also merciful, merciful to those who trust in Jesus Christ. As Q&A 20 of this catechism says,

“Q. Are all people then saved through Christ just as they were lost through Adam?
A. No. Only those are saved who through true faith are grafted into Christ and accept all his benefits.”

My argument from the beginning has been that this original sin and sinful nature inherited from Adam makes humans incapable of not sinning. This sin and sinful nature is infused into all humans from before birth, it was not a conscious choice to be controlled by a sinful nature. So how can God be terribly angry and hold people accountable for something they couldn’t help? This is an injustice on God’s part and contributes to a dark side of God, or the flip side of a so called loving God (the God of the Bible).

Question for you scbrown, do you agree with those questions and answers from the Heidelberg catechism? And secondly, if so, is it just for God to hold people responsible so something they couldn’t help but to do?

scbrown

I think I have to give up on this, at least with you. You say that I agree with you and Christianity that God is “good” and “does not require perfection” of anyone as perfection is impossible. False. I said that the God of Christianity is unjust (not good) because, apart from Christ, he does require perfect obedience of everyone, which is also unjust. So we do not agree.

scbrown

So if God in Christ is given both for and to the whole world so that all that is impossible for us to do, he does for us, how then is Christ’s accomplishment appropriated or applied to the whole world. If you’re not a universalist, who gets included and excluded from the application of what Christ has accomplished. Many (most) Christians will say that Christ’s sacrifice is sufficient to cover the sin of the world but only is applied to those who have faith, or possibly to the elect or chosen of God. Can you help me here? Thanks

scbrown

Would it be too much to simply answer the question asked, without suggesting to go to such and such a comment and look at the trio listed there? I don’t see how that trio answers the question of how Christ’s sacrifice gets applied to the intended recipients and who those recipients are that receive the benefit of Christ’s accomplished salvation. Are you going to answer the question or refer me to a previous answer?

Tom Gilson

Once again, what would it take for me to give up my belief in Jesus Christ? I’ll come at your question from a different direction. As I see it, Christianity is a failed religion. It’s a religion in which the God of the Bible has been unable to accomplish his mission for his creation and for his chosen people, expressly to bring glory to him. As the Westminster Shorter catechism say, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.” It’s this failure to glorify God that makes me realize that the God of Christianity (which includes Christ) is no better than the Gods of other religions, and in fact are falsehoods, like Christianity.

According to the Bible, Christianity’s God created the heavens and the earth and everything in them including the animal kingdom and the human race. This all gets off to a wonderful start. Everyone (God and Adam) seem to glory in this wonderful thing that God has done. But no sooner than God has completed this wonderful thing, Satan, the demigod, God’s competition, steps onto the scene and challenges God’s great accomplishment. The demigod, Satan, disguised as a snake, approaches Adam and Eve and challenges God’s great accomplishment, offering them something even better, the knowledge of good and evil. They will be as God himself with such wonderful knowledge. And almost immediately Adam and Eve fall for Satan’s deception. Satan didn’t completely lie, for as this demigod suggested, their eyes were indeed opened to know both good and evil. (Side note – for an interesting take on the fall of Adam and Eve, watch the movie “Pleasantville” with Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon.) So right off the bat, it would seem as though Satan foiled God’s plan and purpose for a good creation. God’s first failure.

But, as Christians will point out, the failure is not complete, for even as God promises that the seed of the woman will bruise the seed of Satan, so God will defeat the demigod in the future. This is apparently (according to Christians, not Jews) a reference to Christ’s first advent.

In the meantime, God’s good creation no longer appears so good, even as God is sorry about his failed attempt to create a good humanity. At the tower of Babel humanity is glorying in itself, not God. The same is true in the time of Noah. So God comes up with an alternate plan, to show his greatness through a single nation which in turn will spread his glory in and among all nations. God’s chosen people will be such a bright light that all the world will bow before God. (Isaiah 45:23, Romans 14:11) and proclaim his praise. But of course, we both know this didn’t work. When it came to the leadership of Israel as a nation, the Israelites didn’t even want God as their leader but wanted kings like their surrounding nations. In fact the leaders of other nations mocked Israel and its God. Israel, eventually got broken apart and dispersed and exiled from their chosen and promised land into the lands of their enemies. No praise for God there, but rather Satan continues to have prominence.

But God promises, even in the midst of failure, that his special and chosen people will make a comeback. And indeed, a remnant does return to Jerusalem, but again even this remnant can’t make a go of it, showing the Bible God’s failure to be a light or to show forth his glory to the world. And all the while the world, including God’s chosen people, demonstrate the continuing victory of the demigod, Satan. More people are bowing before this demigod than are bowing before the God of the Bible. It’s kinda disheartening.

But the God of the Bible is not finished. He will not be defeated by this demigod, Satan. So God (all of sudden a three person God) decides to come down to earth in the second person of God (Christ) in human form, now fully God and fully human. Certainly, such an astounding plan will cause the defeat of Satan. In fact, according to the Christian faith, this is the promised occasion when God would come back to finally defeat Satan, which was promised way back in the Garden of Eden. Did it work? Apparently not. For this very God-man met with defeat at the cross of Calvary. Once again the demigod, Satan, beats upon his chest in victory over the God of the Bible.

But it’s not done is it? For even as those who had put so much hope in Jesus, come up with a new and further plan in which their God will indeed win the final victory over Satan. Unbeknown to most people at that time, some of the followers of Jesus claim that their Lord had indeed risen from the grave, as was supposedly witnessed by some of his followers. And after having appeared to these so called witnesses, Jesus rose in victory, visibly ascending back into heaven where he is presently seated at God’s right hand, where he rules in all power and authority. And it is from there on his heavenly throne that he will return to finally and completely defeat the demigod, Satan. Then God’s kingdom will be finally and perfectly established.

But wait a minute. The Bible teaches, and Christians believe, that Christ has ascended to a heavenly reign over all of creation. Or is his present reign only over the church? Either way, there is no evidence of Satan being hindered from creating havoc on earth and even within the church. Paul’s several letters to the churches give little evidence of Christ’s present reign even in the church, and the seven letters to the churches in the book of Revelation demonstrate Satan’s present dominion. Things are continuing as they always have, with Satan in dominion. Where is this present reign of Christ? And wouldn’t a present reign be the proof that he did indeed rise up from the grave? If his ascension is certain, and his present reign is certain, where is the evidence of such ascension and reign. To the onlooking world there is nothing to give such evidence, which is indeed the evidence that he didn’t really rise from the grave. The world continues on as it always has. Again, Satan, the demigod, has his day in the sun.

As I see it, even the Bible itself presents the evidence that God’s creation failed to produce the effect that God intended, even as his mission through the Jews and through Christianity has failed. You may feel that God is not finished yet, his victory will be swift and sure. But we are still waiting for this “soon” return of Christ to claim victory, even as the apostle Paul was waiting some two thousand years ago. Even as the Bible’s God has had little success so far, who is really to say that he will be successful in the future. Christianity’s God has a pretty dismal record of accomplished victories. That is another reason why I would easily give up belief in Jesus Christ.

Just read the narrative of the Bible. Even the creation is a fallen creation, waiting for redemption. The Bible’s narrative depicts a failure by God to accomplish in humanity and creation what he intended.

Roger,

You forgot something else too:

Given the definition of *GOD* with respect to the Necessary and the Contingent, please name an X — any X — which even in principle *can* steal glory from *GOD*.

Roger,

Even Jesus pronounces Old Testament religion a failure…

The Old Testament and Christ both pronounce Sinai as that which is to be replaced by “The Good” and it is the fact of “The Good” which you are asserting does not exist right now, namely love’s timeless reciprocity (…the irreducible nature of the Triune God…), which in fact *is*, still, the highest ethic, which therefore still *is* God’s created paradigm and His Decree of *that* terminal substratum. If “The Good” cannot exist unless Man volitionally embrrace it then you are now talking about some peculiar Non-Christian religion in which [1] Man is God and [2] the necessary is beholden to the contingent.

And so we arrive again at your logical absurdity:

Reality’s fundamental “rock-bottom” can be changed (…you are telling us…) by the volitional motions (…whether inside or outside of Eden…) of a contingent being (…Man…) within that reality.

You are asserting that God did create such a world and that Man’s volitional motions magically changed that world’s irreducible substratum.

Think about how absurd that claim — your claim — is as it makes of Man the final metric.

That assertion — your assertion — that God created an Ocean and that Man changed the fundamental nature of that Ocean again turns on the bizarre and even impossible premise that a fish in an ocean can change the fundamental nature of that ocean by its volitional motions within that ocean. But, again, not only is that absurd but it also contradicts both the OT and the NT as they each appeal to reality’s fundamental nature.

The Living Water never has left, nor changed, just as the fabric of love’s timeless reciprocity which defines our world never has stopped existing.

If it *were* to stop existing (…and you say it has…) then our created reality would by necessity also stop existing.

Think about it.

scbrown

You have it quite wrong scbrown, man is not the competition of God or man is not trying to be God. It is the demigod Satan that is in competition with God from the beginning and has been winning from the start and is still winning if you follow the Christian historical record of history. The suggestion that God will be the victor in the end has no support from the Biblical historical record and clearly is not evident today in our world. To claim a future victory does not assure a future victory any more than the claim that Christ is presently on his throne in heaven assure that he actually is. There is no evidence to support such a reign. So if past history shows anything, it is that God has met his match. So man is not necessarily the victor but, up till this point in history, Satan is still beating his chest in victory over his competitor. There are lessons that we learn from history. You might want to say, “We can not trust the historical record as given in the Bible. It’s just a story.” But if the Bible is true, history does teach us lessons. Even Paul suggested that the church should learn from the failure of the Jews, or is that the failure of the Christian God?

Roger,

Since we want to stay on one specific topic, the “Ocean” in the last comment is the same as the following from the comments which preceded it, only now it is a fish you’ve described as Satan:

That assertion — your assertion — that God created an Ocean and that Satan changed the fundamental nature of that Ocean again turns on the bizarre and even impossible premise that a fish in an ocean can change the fundamental nature of that ocean by its volitional motions within that ocean. But, again, not only is that absurd but it also contradicts both the OT and the NT as they each appeal to reality’s fundamental nature.

Therefore:

You are still in those superficial “layers” and not following through to something fundamental, something irreducible, to something akin to a Divine Decree.

Short version: The Decree of the Imago Dei in “Let Us create man in our image…” finds those irreducible Trinitarian processions amid love’s timeless reciprocity unavoidable such that they cannot be otherwise.

Roger,

You mean Satan really did change the fundamental nature of the world which God first created and which God now through every nano-second maintains in existence?

Explain how that fish did that to the Ocean.

Is it a fish named Satan that is now through every nano-second is maintaining reality in existence?

Or is some other fish in the Ocean?

You really seam to no understanding of what the term “God” necessitates.

scbrown

“You mean Satan really did change the fundamental nature of the world which God first created…”

And

“You also seem to presuppose that when God creates volitional beings it means their volitional motions actually out-reach and out-travel God’s reach”

SC, what do you think the Fall of humanity did to the fundamental nature of the world (according to the Bible). It put the creation and humanity in opposition to God. The result is a fallen creation and humanity, changing the fundamental character of each.

scbrown

Did not the Fall bring a fundamental change to creation and the human race? Every Christian source that I’ve read says it did. They must be wrong, according to the authority, scbrown.

The Bible records repeated attempts by God to engender praise by his chosen people which always ends in failure. But this apparently means nothing to you. Do you really think the story is going to end well for the Christian God and for his chosen people? Or does the Bible’s historical record mean nothing to you? After all, isn’t the Bible the special revelation of God? Who needs the Bible when we have you.

Roger,

In Scripture’s narrative, is love’s volitional reciprocity God’s Decree as to the topography of Reality? Or was that irreducible nature, that immutable law, non-existent until Satan came along and Re-Created everything?

What about in your fiction? Is it the same or different? In your fiction is Man free of reality’s immutable laws? Is Satan? Is *reality*?

Roger,

Once again right out of the gate you get it wrong.

I described God’s Decree which [2] cannot be otherwise and [2] is Man’s irreducible volition within love’s reciprocity (…as in the context of self/other…).

You took that and expunged the irreducible volition “part” and thereby came up with this:

God is the primary mover or primary cause of all and human action is only secondary.

You then prove that you mean that in only one sense which is that you leave Man void of God’s obvious Decree with respect to volition amid the “Direction” and “X” and “Z” alluded to earlier.

That’s funny because earlier you made it Satan who was controlling the show and when that is shown to be incoherent you now just flip a switch and tell us what you attempted to assert much earlier and label Man as Puppets and God as the Puppet Master.

You don’t seem able to make up your mind there as you demonstrably dance and hedge between Satan and God.

If you’re only going to twist people’s words into obvious contradictions of what they say then of course you’re going to be all over the map like that.

Roger,

You’re not on the map. You’ve got Satan and Man free of reality’s immutable laws (…one of which happens to be God’s Decree of volition…among others…).

Which is an impossibility.

scbrown

You have it wrong again. My only contention has always and only been that Christianity, including your perspective, has it wrong. Christianity has so many options and perspectives, even as to who Jesus Christ is, that it is totally inconsistent and irrelevant. It’s amazing that there is anything that coherently holds Christianity together, other than to say all branches and perspectives claim the Bible as their authority. I’ve not given any specific perspective or opinion other than to say Christianity doesn’t make sense. That’s been my contention. And that’s why I would give up belief in Jesus Christ.

Roger,

You claimed that a mark against Christianity is the fact that Satan is running the show and thereby engaged in actions which the reality created by God never made possible.

So Satan made it possible.

By changing the fundamental nature of reality and freeing himself from reality’s immutable laws (…which God Decreed…).

You’re retracting it now, and I commend you for that.

Roger,

Since you’re retracting:

In Scripture’s narrative, we find volitional choice between man and God in love’s reciprocity, but is that God’s Decree as to the topography of Reality? Or was that irreducible nature, that immutable law, non-existent until Satan came along and Re-Created everything?

Or are we all puppets of Satan who is running the show and doing actions which God’s Decreed immutable laws made impossible for Satan to do?