Christian Theological/Philosophical Book Club discussion
The Forum - Debate Religion
>
If Christianity was true...
Your interpretation of the question imports a huge set of unspoken assertions into the equation. None of them are present in the question.The actual question is about truth: "If X is true, will you act on it, or not?" Seems pretty straightforward to me.
That said, I like your wording of the question better than Turek's. But I don't see that the question is really different.
For the record: I understand the reticence of atheists to answer his question "Yes." I spent many years hedging in a similar fashion, but in the other direction. I believed God because I experienced Him, and that was not negotiable. For any given conversation, though, I admitted the possibility that particular things I said could be proved wrong -- but I reserved the right to walk away from the conversation, consider it carefully, reassemble my position using better arguments or evidence, and return to fight another day.
That may sound like resisting the truth, but it's not. It's a humble position: it acknowledges that I am not the best defender of my own position, and that the outcome of any particular discussion rests more on skill and preparation than it does on truth. So even if I can't defend my position correctly today, I don't regard that as proof that my opponent's position is correct. I have the right to reflect, research, and reconsider the particulars.
In any case, my experiences with God do not change. Whatever else we prove, that needs to be explained.
Truth has little to do with it. Until a perspective convert, in answer to an unspoken "What's in it for me?" is willing to give Jesus a try because his current lifestyle fails him, reason is a nonstarter. Once Jesus is pursued and the commensurate light goes on, the Truth is obscured as is written: "they have eyes but do not see, and ears but do not hear."
Of course I bring unspoken assertions to the question! That is my point - we all do. Every word we hear or speak is loaded with meaning, much of which is contextual. What I was trying to figure out are the unspoken assertions that the college students I work with bring to this question.Incarnation and grace are two cornerstones of our faith. God did not stay up on high spouting off on his own majesty; instead God came to us as a human. God does not demand we get our act together, God comes to us and meets us where we are. It is in light of those two things - grace and incarnation - that I think we need to speak in a way people fully understand. There is enough about Jesus to drive people away without us adding to it.
I think it is different - Jesus and Christianity bring up different emotions in people.
I think our model ought to be Jesus in the gospels. Those who followed him had lots of wrong theology, wrong beliefs about truth and all sorts of other crap. Yet Jesus called on them to follow him. Maybe I am optimistic (or naive) but I think a lot of people would be willing to follow Jesus if given the chance. It might be messy when all sorts of different people form community centered on Jesus but I imagine having both zealots and tax collectors was messy too.
Robert wrote:"What I was trying to figure out are the unspoken assertions that the college students I work with bring to this question... Jesus and Christianity bring up different emotions in people."
Fair enough. I've heard Greg Koukl speak about this, and his point is similar to yours. He does not talk about the Bible, he refers to what "Jesus says" or what "Paul says," for the same reason. And I gave up Christianese phrases like "the Word of God" and "being saved" many years ago for similar reasons; I try to talk to people in terms they can apply practically.
Of course, Turek is not presenting some huge, authoritarian system to them. "I Don't Have Enough Faith..." is philosophy, cosmology, physics, biology, and textual criticism, both internal and external. The claims he makes are simple and are made in secular terms: truth exists, God exists, miracles are logically possible if God exists, and the New Testament accounts are historically and textually reliable. He's really gone a long way already to de-Christianize his presentation. I don't think we can really blame him if somebody in his audience brings that huge a set of assumptions and affixes them to the word "Christianity" in that context.
Also, I wonder if you're overestimating how much Jesus bent backwards for his audiences. He seems to have gone out of his way to scandalize His Jewish audience just a little every time He opened His mouth. Are you aware, for example, that the Beatitudes are a common form of Jewish prayer that modern Jews would call "b'rachas" -- but that b'rachas are always directed toward deity, whereas Jesus directed His b'rachas toward his disciples? I'm fairly certain that the Beatitudes made Jesus' audience pretty uncomfortable.
David - the "What's in it for me?" comment WAS an unspoken assertion of what your college students are weighing when they assess Christainity. They don't really know if "crime pays" or not, are still in their infancy sexually, and really aren't even accomplished liars yet. Until they get their fingers badly burned, why would they come to Christ, which even with modern liberalization, is still a lifestyle of "thou shalt not"? I rather liked thou shalt and thou will much better at that age and I doubt if things have changed much over the years. I suppose you can still sell the gospel to the do-gooder nerds.
Phil, that's a fascinating insight. The Beatitudes being in the form of b'rachas and thus usually being directed toward deity, I mean. How do I learn more about this?
How does someone become 100% convinced Christianity is true? I don't think it's possible. :DI have watched hundreds of people go in/through/and out the backdoor of Christianity. It's sadly comical.
Rod, I'm trying to figure out what you mean by the "backdoor of Christianity." Might be really simple, but you've got me confused. Also, I think someone can only be convinced that Christianity is true if God reveals Himself to that person. If we continue to rely on ourselves to convince others of the truth and not God, then we'll continue to mess up. Not saying that we shouldn't still try ;)
yeah, it's pretty simple...People attempt to play church for many reasons. But when the church doesn't meet all their expectations they eventually fade away into agnostic nothingness.
So how does God reveal himself to people Caleb? I prefer the Spiritual insight and life/heart transformation.
I'm currently trying to understand people's desires for religion.
If a person doesn't want the Jesus of the Bible, or the God of the Bible - or Christ's Church...then it's probably better if they move on to another religion more to their liking. Yet we Christians insist they join our churches, teach sunday school, and pledge allegiance to the all accepting tolerant deity of commercialism and niceness. :D
Isn't apologetics FUN?
(were just getting started. The hardest part is figuring out what's WORTH defending.)
Well, I've always believed that God uses people like us, normal people that are believers in His word, to shoe unbelievers how God transforms our hearts and minds and gives us a joy and peace that passes all understanding. I don't believe that just one conversation with a person will automatically convert them to Christianity; unless there's already been that seed planted in their life, and someones been willing to invest in them as a person w/o passing judgement but loving them like Jesus loves us. Just the thoughts of a young Southern Baptist. I'd love anyones input; that's why I joined this group haha
A bible and joy is a good place to start.
Of course, it's just a start. I don't have my full-proof plan all mapped out yet haha
Phil, I agree Jesus scandalized his audiences and said things that challenged people. But I also think, based on my belief in the Trinity, Jesus could not have bent over backwards anymore. I'd argue we underestimate it.Read Philippians 2:5-11. Jesus had all the rights as God, equality to God, existing in perfect harmony with God the Father in heaven. Since forever God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit had been in a perfect relationship of indwelling love. In the incarnation the second person of the Trinity laid this all aside, gave up all these rights, to be born as a weak, helpless human baby. God appeared in human form, and not as a king but as a peasant. And if this wasn't enough, this human then became a slave and died a torturous death on a cross.
So yeah, I think Jesus bent over backwards pretty far to get our attention...because I believe in the Trinity.
I'm not saying we can blame Turek or any presenter for the views their listeners bring. I am saying we need to be aware of those views. In my awareness of the views around me, I don't think it is helpful to say if Christianity is true would you be a Christian.
Robert, I agree that "what's in it for me" is an unspoken assumption. What I find most challenging among young people (probably all people, really) is that most are not antagonistic against Christianity, most just don't care. A small percentage are "angry atheists" or people interested in realigion/God people who will be more than willing to argue with you. Such people are easy to engage with because they are interested, whether they want to prove you wrong or sincerely want to learn.But most people just don't care. Whether they would rather just party or they see Christianity as irrelevant or whatever it might be, they are not interested. And I imagine their "what's in it for me" attitude is part of the reason.
Interesting that Rod would confess he's not 100% convinced Christianity is true...and even speculate that nobody else is convinced either. Why, then, do so many Christians approach these discussions as if it is a sin to admit doubt? Is it because they feel they are doing God a disservice, by not bolstering the faith of others? This doesn't seem like a very productive means of actually LEARNING the truth, if you're not convinced.I'd love to take a poll. How many know with 100% certainty that Christianity is true? (yeah, it's a word game, I know, but you can play the game anyway).
Define "Christianity."Whose Christianity?
Doubt is a very interesting thing. Is there really faith without doubt?
Lee - I have 100% faith in a creational God and that Jesus is who he said he was. I know the sum of the angles of a triangle equals 180 degrees - not near as exciting!
But faith doesn't often equal truth Robert. Many people have 100% faith in the wrong things.
I think this whole discussion on faith and truth kind of misses the point of discipleship. I imagine that when Jesus called his disciples they had little faith and were not sure about the truth; same with the jailer in Philippi in Acts 16. The whole point of being a disciple of Jesus is that you learn as you go. I think it is these sorts of discussions that we Christians have that the rest of the world looks at, shrugs their shoulders and moves on. I would even say the rest of the world is content to let us argue among ourselves about what true faith is, what truth is and so on while many of them...well, in the words of Jesus, many of them enter the kingdom of heaven ahead of us.
So as long as people are sincere and kind they are heavenbound David? I don't recall anyone stating that in my Bible. But I have some atheist and Wiccan friends who will be overjoyed that you said that David.
You are correct about having room for growth though. But if someone is not questing for truth - then they aren't questing at all. Game over.
I'd be curious where the Bible says ANYBODY is heavenbound. But I guess that's a different topic.David, I see where you're coming from now, and what discipleship means.
Q for Rod: Who among us do you think is questing for truth? Anybody? Is it game over for all of us?
That's not what I said Rod.Jesus said to the religious leaders - “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you" - Matt. 21:31. My point is simply that when we spend all our time obsessing on making sure our theology is 100% true we sound/look more like the Pharisees. Heck, your message would probably be the exact thing they would have said to Jesus! If you're view of truth puts you closer to the Pharisees and in opposition to Jesus, maybe you should step back a bit.
Maybe we need to call people to follow Jesus (who is the truth) and hold lightly (or get rid of) all the other truths we have created (this thing we call "Christianity")
Ok, Rod, you've forced me to bring out the real gobbledygook - I've 100% faith that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the light.
Me too Robert. I chat with Muslims everyday who claim to have 100% faith in Allah and the Quran. So faith is only good if it's pointed at truth.
I'm on Jesus side and Not the Pharisees David. Truth is allowed to be somewhat arrogant and defiant. I've chatted with people from numerous false religions who all claim to be followers of Jesus. Are they? What is the deciding factor David?
Somewhat arrogant and defiant? Quite an understatement - Truth is the last thing standing.
Well put Robert. Sounds kind of gunslinger Old West. Indeed it is. The Bible is full of this. :D
Lee question:Q for Rod: Who among us do you think is questing for truth? Anybody? Is it game over for all of us?"
I don't honestly know. You may all be in different stages of spiritual growth - that's a good thing. Unless of course: you don't think (or want to think!) the Bible is the official Word of God...then you're pretty much doomed to liberal oblivion. (eventually that equals HELL.)
What is the deciding factor David?How about by their fruits you will know them? Or we could use the top two commandments - love God and love your neighbor. Speaking of love, how about how well we love our enemies? Or real love has nothing greater than laying down life for one's friends.
Either way, I know I don't have the authority to be the deciding factor.
Unless of course: you don't think (or want to think!) the Bible is the official Word of God...then you're pretty much doomed to liberal oblivion. (eventually that equals HELL.) So where in that Bible that you worship and idolize does it say that if you don't believe the Bible is the official word of God you are going to hell?
Rod, you need to read Galatians, slowly. You are adding works to salvation that comes by grace through faith in Jesus. We are not saved by proper beliefs in the Bible and wrong beliefs about it (neither your wrong beliefs nor mine, and we both have a lot) will not lead us to hell.
Lee wrote:"I'd be curious where the Bible says ANYBODY is heavenbound."
Just off the top of my head (and verifying by looking up the verses I'm thinking of):
Matthew 25:32-46 verse 46:"These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."
Matthew 13:36-43 verses 41-43: "The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire; in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. "Then THE RIGHTEOUS WILL SHINE FORTH AS THE SUN in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear."
John 14:2-3 "2 "In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also."
Isaiah 66:22-24 "22 "For just as the new heavens and the new earth Which I make will endure before Me," declares the LORD, "So your offspring and your name will endure. And it shall be from new moon to new moon And from sabbath to sabbath, All mankind will come to bow down before Me," says the LORD. "Then they will go forth and look On the corpses of the men Who have transgressed against Me. For their worm will not die And their fire will not be quenched; And they will be an abhorrence to all mankind."
Revelation 21:all Just go read it.
We can discuss what "new heaven," "new earth," "my Father's house," and "kingdom of my Father" actually mean, and whether they're exactly the same as what most people think of when they say "heaven," but the teaching of the prophets and of Jesus was pretty clear on the subject. There's an afterlife, God is preparing good stuff for the righteous, He's going to remove the wicked so they can't muck it up.
Lee, I understand the appeal of challenging commonly-held notions within America's folk religion; I do the same. But an awful lot of that "folk religion" is actually well-founded. This is one part where it is.
David wrote: "So where in that Bible that you worship and idolize does it say that if you don't believe the Bible is the official word of God you are going to hell?"
I don't disagree with you, David, but I usually say it more gently. The folks who use inerrancy to test the faith of other believers may have gone too far, but one is not too far off the mark when one idolizes the scriptures.
In the same spirit as you're trying to achieve by questioning Dr. Turek's question about Christianity, try this:
"Can you show me where the Apostles justify using a person's opinion about the scriptures to judge the condition of their soul?"
And then I say, "You know, don't you, that a person can 'get saved' without believing that the Bible is God's word, right? All they have to believe is that the person who is standing in front of them telling them about Jesus is telling them the truth." Hardly anyone ever disagrees.
Yes, they have an idol. Which of us does not? Why hammer them for theirs if you think it's ungodly to hammer others for different idols?
Phil, I am not insinuating there are no verses that say there is an afterlife. That belief was held by various Jewish sects. I'm asking where it says that afterlife will be up in heaven. The closest I can find is verses that say the REWARD is in heaven, which sounds sort of like the New Jerusalem ... which comes down out of heaven to earth when the time is right.Revelation 21, for example, is very clearly not up in heaven. It is on earth.
Lee, like I said:We can discuss what "new heaven," "new earth," "my Father's house," and "kingdom of my Father" actually mean, and whether they're exactly the same as what most people think of when they say "heaven...
The location of anything after life is debatable. None of us have been there. Nobody who writes about it has been there (except in visions, I guess...)
Rev 21 is not on the earth as we know it, because (1) there's a new heaven and a new earth, and
(2) just about everything in Revelation is metaphoric anyhow, so it's impossible to say.
So it's reasonable to simply refer to the whole afterlife THING as "heaven," and let it go. It's truly not worth the discussion. We'll go there and find out, and that's that.
:) Now we are in agreement, sort of. I just finished a book by Mouw, a believer, in which he spent the whole time talking about heaven on earth, and simply assumed that everybody understood heaven was a state and not a place up above the clouds. Not once did he bother to contradict the traditional understanding of heaven. I found that refreshing.http://www.dubiousdisciple.com/2013/0...
Which brings us back to the topic. If heaven could be understood as what we (God and you and I) reform out of this earth, then I would rephrase David's question further to "If you are convinced the way of Jesus will make earth (or our collective state of being, if you prefer) more heaven-like, would you become a disciple?"
Thanks for the comment Phil. I used the tone I did because I feel like Rod and I have been around long enough to be a bit...harsher, if you like, with each other. Rod tends to write with a certain tone, asking questions in a way that pokes people so my hope was to do the same with him in my question.
I don't think it is "ungodly" to hammer others for their idols, though I do think you need a degree of knowing people to do that. I feel like I get Rod (and Lee) as much as you can understand someone solely from internet conversation.
I think you insult a lot of ordinary believers when you call the traditional understanding of heaven "a place up in the clouds." I don't know any adult who actually thinks that. It's just a way of talking, 'cause we don't have words for things we have never experienced.Since God is immaterial, heaven can't really be a "where." It's more like a "with Whom."
Lately I've been mulling over the fact that since human reason is rooted outside of nature and everybody lives forever in some sense, "eternal life" can't possibly mean anything about longevity or time. It means something about the quality of existence in the presence of God. Likewise, "death" as God meant it in Eden (Gen 3) did not mean physical death at all. Yeah, people started dying at earlier ages and all that, but He had to mean something like "the misery, loneliness, hopelessness, and ignorance that you fall into when you're separate from Me." That's why I pay little attention to the YEC arguments about death before the fall. I think it's entirely possible that physical death occurred prior to sin, and I don't think that contradicts what the scripture says at all.
Anyhow, that's all speculation. Back to real life...
Rod wrote: "I enjoy a good poking."I won't touch that comment with any sort of pole.
Phil - we live forever and are outside of nature because of human REASON? We are dead in our sins because of reason. All of us are unrighteous because of reason. It's only when we forgoe reason and accept what Jesus UNREASONABLY did for us that we escape our corporeal captivity and attain the longevity of eternal life that you disdain. Obedience to something supernatural certainly isn't reasonable - only faith will take us where we don't want to go intellectually.
Robert wrote: "Phil - we live forever and are outside of nature because of human REASON?"{sigh}
Robert, I refuse to respond to you because you never -- and I do mean never -- read anything correctly, nor do you reflect back what anybody says correctly. I don't mean to be nasty, but there is something seriously wrong with your thinking processes.
Gosh Phil, you've only been on this board a short while. I'm flattered that you went through ALL my posts so that you could unequivocally state that I don't respond properly. I'm sure all your other research exhibits the same dedication and should be treated with the same degree of deference as this current post.
And here we have the crux of the problem of why many can't fathom Christianity. Our ability to reason, accomplish civic tasks, do benevolent works or live a moral lifestyle is utterly useless unless we believe the Resurrection account. It was what Jesus selflessly did that saved us, not ANYTHING we have done or will do. Our salvation merely depends upon heeding His call. Way to simple for complicated mortals.
Whose opinion are you quoting, there, Robert, or is it only your own?
I'm guessing Robert refers to Paul. I read a very interesting take on Paul's beliefs about salvation in Paul & Judaism Revisited. In a nutshell, the author (Sprinkle) identifies two salvific events: the inbreaking of the kingdom, and the final judgment. He quotes verse after verse after verse that seems to imply Paul believed God gave opportunity to us as a gift of grace, but that we earn our place in eternity through our works.
Sorry Lee, all your imagined good works of compassion brought about by the denial of sin get you no kudos from God in this world or any to follow.
Robert wrote: "Phil - we live forever and are outside of nature because of human REASON? We are dead in our sins because of reason. All of us are unrighteous because of reason. It's only when we forgoe reason and..."Robert, I'm trying to understand your point. Perhaps my difficulty is that you're using the word "reason" differently than I am used to. I think of reason as inferential thinking. Is that what you mean or do you mean something else? I'm not trying to be difficult -- I just want to comprehend your point.
Who sabotaged my thread! :)If you want to argue about heaven/new creation etc. read Lee's book and bring it up in discussion related to that.
The question is: "If you were convinced Christianity was true, would you become a Christian?"
I don't like that question. I can see why college students (or anybody) struggle with it. It sounds like, "if you think this huge authoritarian system I just presented to you, which you probably don't fully understand, is true will you sign your soul away and join us?"
I would rather say, "If you are convinced Jesus is who he said he was, will you become a disciple?"
Thoughts?