I’m catholic and I don’t have a problem with them, also I have to accept reality for what it is, personally. Also I don’t see how someone seeing their loved ones for a last time contradicts biblical teaching.
Today it’s quite common to date that Creed very very early.
I’ve come up against that more than once myself, and I always go back to the evidence for the Resurrection.
I know many people who say that it is only because God sustains everything every moment that there is any such thing as freedom.
In other words, he’s making an artificial dichotomy.
2 Likes
Vinnie and @Terry_Sampson thank you so much for clarifying on this. I am sorry I was speaking from my ignorance! I appreciate your humor and patience. I need to read more
2 Likes
Eventually, the Theists who interact with Atheists on BioLogos boards will
become disciplined enough not to take the bait about trying to convince
Atheists that Theists are justified in their faith.
Christian Evolutionists don’t owe Atheist evolutionists any explanation.
G.Brooks
Or… maybe they just need to change what they mean by justified. Is someone justified in saying they like their ice cream to be chocolate flavored? Of course they are.
The wild goose chase challenge is not justification but something more like “make me believe it.”
John 6:44
”No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day.”
Revelation 3:20
“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.”
No words born of human wisdom can change the heart of someone who is firmly set in rejecting God—unless that person allows God’s grace to work within them. There must be a fundamental openness in his/her heart; without it, no human argument—and not even divine miracles (see Luke 16:31)—will make any difference.
Clearly, God’s grace does not operate unilaterally (otherwise, we would have to believe in the horrifyingly evil ‘god’ of the Calvinists—a deity who creates some people predestined to go to Hell) : while no one can come to faith without God’s prevenient grace, the individual must still choose to allow that grace to work within their heart.
But the point remains: neither you, nor I, nor anyone else can “make someone believe”. Without the fundamental openness of heart, even witnessing the greatest divine miracle would not lead them to conversion—just as stated in Luke 16:31.
1 Like
I believe you totally missed my point.
My point is that the role of Christian Evolutionist is not to convert Atheists to Theism.
Follow what I mean?
G.Brooks
3 Likes
That’s been my experience here as well. It is also not my role here to convert Christian Evolutionists to Atheism. There are times where we discuss our disagreements because we are humans, but conversion is never my goal.
3 Likes
I agree. In my view, the goal of Christian evolutionism should be to demonstrate that our faith is fully compatible with scientific inquiry, not in conflict with it. We must not forget that evolution has often been—and continues to be—used as a tool to attack Christianity. This stems from a widespread misconception, shared by both some Christians and atheists, that evolution is inherently toxic to or incompatible with Christian belief.
This mirrors the reason why, conversely, there have been persistent efforts to sideline the Big Bang theory and the idea of a definitive beginning. Some propose entirely unproven theories, such as the multiverse, to avoid the implication of a purposeful origin. The multiverse concept allows materialists to argue that if an infinite number of universes exist—with varying physical constants—then it’s no surprise that we happen to live in one fine-tuned for life. In essence, this is a form of neo-Darwinism applied to cosmology.
“Philosopher of religion Mary-Jane Rubenstein asks at Nautilus, “Why is the universe so well suited to our existence?” She answers herself:
The weakest answer is that it’s just a brute fact. If the constants of nature were any different, then we wouldn’t be here to ask why we’re here. The strongest answer verges on theism: The cosmological constant is so improbably small that a godlike fine-tuner must have fashioned it into existence.
“She doesn’t like that “strongest answer” at all. She suggests cosmic pantheism intertwined with the multiverse instead. When evidence points people away from what they want to believe, they often respond by undermining the evidence. That strategy is particularly difficult in science. Readers may remember the slogan popularized nearly half a century ago by Carl Sagan, to discredit miracles: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” But that won’t work here. As David Deming writes at Philosophia, “Extraordinary evidence is not a separate category or type of evidence — it is an extraordinarily large number of observations.” Fine-tuning of our universe for life easily meets that standard.”
[…]“Multiverse proponents are simply saying that whatever created our universe, a quantum fluctuation or whatever, created other universes as well.” But that is like saying that whatever created horses created unicorns as well.”
[…] The very language of Darwinism finds its way into undemonstrable cosmology. We are told that a “cosmic version of Darwinian natural selection could apply, in which the most common universes will be those most suitable for producing black holes” (Science Focus.)
1 Like
Exactly. And good response. This is why this is a wild goose chase to avoid. Though that is what traditional apologetics typically attempts, which is why I don’t support it and suggest instead limiting ourselves to justification only – why we are perfectly justified in choosing faith.
My usual way of doing this is two-fold…
- Faith is actually the foundation of all knowledge. Logic does nothing without first accepting premises on faith. To be sure, the objectivity of science is great. But even science rests on premises accepted on faith: we have to believe nobody is arranging the evidence to deceive us. Sure it is a fairly reasonable assumption. But it is not something we can prove.
- Science requires objective observation (where what we want and believe is irrelevant) but life requires subjective participation (where what we want and believe is crucial). Again science is great, but it cannot tell us how to live our life – and acting like it can is just plain delusional. We must make choices. To be sure that choice might be to discard and ignore all the religious stuff. It is a minimalist approach I suppose, but many don’t find it very helpful or satisfying.
That is justification – for OUR choices. What it doesn’t do is justify imposing our choices on other people. Accept it.
On the other hand… as evangelical Christians we are called to share the good news. But consider the wording of that. It says nothing about proving everyone else is wrong… or making other people believe. It is just sharing information. After that, you have to leave the choice of faith to them and… God (His calling them). After all, I don’t think we should be assuming we know what is best for them.
I believe you totally missed my point… because this is exactly the point I was agreeing with.
make me believe == convert atheists to theism
4 Likes
And Mary-Jane Rubenstein would be wrong.
Imagine this scenario being applied to bacteria living miles underwater
in fringe micro-environments around volcanic vents.
If the bacteria were conscious - - would they be correct that
their very existence proves a God that created their “perfect
fit” environment?
G.Brooks
To be more accurate, it’s what recently traditional apologetics aims at – it wasn’t so back in say the 1970s; then the point was to show that Christianity is not unreasonable. I don’t know where the penchant for “proof” came from, but it hasn’t been healthy.
As one astute theologian put it, “Let the Word do its work”.
2 Likes
But most of the proofs are quite a bit older than that. So at most, all we can say is the aim of apologetics fluctuates. IOW sometimes we realize justification is the more reasonable approach. But there is almost always enthusiastic people in every generation who think they have a proof. They often don’t see their own hidden assumptions.
Frankly, I think it is a basic pattern in human behavior. Our dedication to our own choices often becomes a conviction that the rest of the earth need to do the same. We see it in the rise of empires and imperialistic influence: pan-Frenchism, pan-Britainism, pan-Germanism, pan-Slavism, pan-Asianism, and pan-Americanism. It is certainly typical of religion, especially Islam and Christianity.
Would the eventual discovery of a collective and authentic declaration by the Roman Senate—stating that the risen Jesus had appeared to every single one of them, and that they themselves confirmed the Gospel accounts concerning the capacities of the glorified body—be rationally a proof of the reality of His resurrection? Yes. Would it be accepted as such? Not even close.
Even as things stand now, the Resurrection remains by far the best explanation for what occurred (unless one begins with the a priori assumption that God certainly does not exist and cannot intervene in history). In the hypothetical case just mentioned, the evidence would be virtually bulletproof. And yet, you can be quite certain that most people who are atheists today would remain atheists even under those circumstances.
Because the issue is not ultimately one of “proofs.” That is not why people reject God and Christianity.
Romans 1:20
“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”
1 Like
Which doesn’t actually speak of God’s existence. No. This is about God’s qualities. It is frankly saying those who believe there is such a thing as God have two sources for understanding God. Not just scripture, but also what God has created.
So why does it speak of having no excuse?
…well we could just read the rest of the sentence …even the rest of what it is talking about.
Romans 1:21 for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles.
24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen.
So it is speaking of people who knew God but did not honor Him.
Why would they do that? Why would they prefer the pagan practices?
Power.
Control.
Why deal with this all-powerful being when the pagans offered this way of dealing with life by appeasing all these smaller gods you just needed to make a few offering or rituals to, in order to make your life work out better. I have often thought it sounded an awful lot like the insurance business as practiced by the ancients. Just visit the temple of Poseidon to make sure your ships full of goods arrive at their destination without trouble.
1 Like
I mean, atheism—as we understand it today—was hardly a thing back then. But the point remains: people don’t reject God or refuse God after having known him due to a lack of evidence, but for other reasons. This was true in the past, and it’s still true today. Even Luke 16:31 makes this clear: not even witnessing the greatest divine miracle can convince someone who is firmly determined to reject Him.
There are many people who not only don’t believe in God, but actually want atheism to be true—which is completely incomprehensible to me, and I say that as someone who was an atheist for a long time. Even back then, I couldn’t understand how anyone could possibly want that worldview to be true. I believed it was true—but I certainly didn’t want it to be.
1 Like
Well that is kind of a blank check – something you can fill in with whatever you want.
The fact is that people who have been raised Christian do decide there is insufficient reason or evidence to believe the God they were taught as a child exists.
Perhaps. Certainly, I do not think it is the same as what the Bible means by “godless,” which seems to be more about a decision you can do whatever you want without consequences. And the idea of objective scientific evidence wasn’t so clearly formulated.
It is my observation that modern atheism is more about thinking that you can do better at morality without all the religious stuff.
1 Like
It certainly is a fact. I just don’t believe it’s due to a lack of “proof,” nor do I think that stronger evidence for the historical truth of the Gospels would have made much of a difference—that’s all. I firmly believe that God reveals Himself and provides more than enough proof to those who seek Him with a sincere and open heart—perhaps not immediately, but certainly before the end of their mortal lives. And I believe that all atheists who have an open heart will be given the “proofs” they require, at some point.
That said, there are people (and I’m by no means referring to all atheists, not even close) who are willfully closed off to God’s action and grace. The same people who, for their own reasons, want a view of the world to be true—one in which there is no inherent meaning, and their loved ones simply vanish into oblivion.
For me, as a former atheist, this is the greatest mystery of all—not how someone couldn’t believe in God, but how someone could want a godless, soulless reality to be true, with all the implications that come with it. That, to me, is something I genuinely cannot wrap my head around, no matter how hard I try. It’s simply inconceivable. When I was an atheist, I believed there was no inherent purpose and no form of survival after physical death—but I certainly didn’t think those were good things nor did I wanted to be right about that even if i genuinely thought that I was right.
The demonstrable fact that there are people who actually wish that particular worldview were true is, to me, the greatest mystery of human nature.
1 Like