Seemingly basic yet difficult question

Faith & Science Conversation
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First of all one thing must be stated: The stories of the old Testament were around way before the birth of Christianity. Our faith doesn´t center around the literally (as we understand it today) truth of Genesis (YEC position), but around the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Keep that in mind when we work on your points. Genesis was written by ancient people, and contains story that has been passed orally for a long time before it was written down. I personally believe the bible is written by fallible humans about their experiences with God and is therefore divinely inspired, but of course not the word from God himself. That´s why I have a differing view on biblical inerrancy, since there are several passages in the old Testament, where the author has an added reason to write a text in a certain way, may it be propaganda in the passages of divine power or exaggeration in the passages describing the kingdom of David. If you want to learn about biblical history here, I recommend reading the many discussions between George Brooks and Jon Burke, tremendous stuff.
Back to your points, iregarding the old Testament I´d subscribe to your third point to a certain grade, meaning that added motives by the author doesn´t automatically take away the historical worth of the texts, it just has to be compared to 1) the archaeological data and 2) especially regarding chapters like Genesis, compared to contemporary stories, since the premier purpose was certainly not amusing people a few thousand years later, but to understand the world around them with contemporary knowledge. And including stuff into the stories, which doesn´t fit modern data, does not take away the meaning the text had and has, especially since it was very common at the time to mythologize history.
The case for the New Testament luckily is entirely different, and this is important, since it´s the ground our faith is built up on. I could write my points down but I rather give you this video of Gary Habermas, a distinguished New Testament scholar. Watch it when you have got the time.

First of all, much respect, that is an incredible amount of time. Secondly I don´t think reading the bible alone is enough unfortunately, since I think that we made the big mistake in the past that we read ancient texts through modern eyes, rather than taking the “right” road and read in contemporary context, since we are in danger reading something into it, which was certainly not meant, for example Hugh Ross, who uses passages of Genesis to say that the bible predicted an expanding universe. I know that it is hard to find the right context of the chapters to read the bible appropiately, but it´s also the reason, why you´re never really “finished” with it. I have to admit, that I find some sense of peace in this thought.

Let´s think a bit further and take a look at our contemporary knowledge. I would think that we ourselves couldn´t handle the data of revealed creation in the way, that I think, that our scientific knowledge even today is by far not vast enough to understand it. Also I admit, that I myself am not that much interested in the creation aspect itself, because my focus lies mostly on Jesus. The creation aspect will come over time with our increasing knowledge about nature. And the most imporatant point I´d make is , that nowhere in scripture does the focus lay on knowledge, but on grace. It´s not stated, that we have to know the ultimate truth to receive God´s grace. The bible is not a science book. Once you realize that statements like

become useless.

E: I´m gonna need some time to respond to the rest, the direction of the conversation was rather unexpected

42

The authors intention for writing the text has to be extracted. It doesn´t mean that it has to be thrown out, nor does it require every word viewed through our modern glasses to fit our scientific data, if the text is written through the subjective account of fallible human.

First of all, your points are confusing. I wouldn´t hold God guilty for our terrible ability to judge what to do with gained knowledge. Also it sounds a bit like bargaining “Yeah, we screwed that one up, could you help us out here with some other knowledge?”. It sounds very similar to Calvinism.

I don´t see the NT as a message of fear but rather as one about hope

43

The problem there is that when my children ask me how the Universe began and how we got here, do I tell them something that may just be added or made-up fluff by either exaggerators or plain liars 2000+ years ago? Leading them to become just as confused as I am today. OR do I explain to them the Big Bang and abiogenesis of life? Things we have evidence for. If Hugh Ross is right, I can kill two birds with one stone and everything is wrapped up in a nice little package. If he is wrong, I have no reason to read my children the Biblical account at all.

How would you respond if I told you that I despise the idea of faith? That it has been nothing but a never-ending source of pain and frustration for me since day one? That I NEED some kind of revelation based on FACT in order to accept the possibility of miracles, which Christianity is solely based upon? Jesus is useless to me if I cannot believe in Him. Faith is useless to me if I cannot have it. If God cannot provide me with SOMETHING I can hang my hat on and say ‘yep, wow, no way some stupid cave-dweller 5000 years ago could have known that! Must have been a God involved!’ then I’ll go nowhere with it and neither, as far as I can understand, will anyone else.

Humans that, for all I know, were stoned in the desert one night and had a sudden existential crisis, resulting in a story where a God helps the scary world make sense? (Forgive my crass language, I am frustrated).

And I want so desperately to share that hope with you all. But my mind will not relent until it is satisfied. Until I have something to hang my hat upon, as I mentioned earlier.

44

I didn’t mean to come across that way. I was being sincere without such intent. After my post, you made the following statements:

If this is what you believe, then we start from very different presuppositions about scripture. This is not an attack on you or a judgment about your authenticity whatsoever. I’m sincerely glad you’re here. I just meant I was doubtful I could propose something of help to you from biblical theology because doing so requires accepting the presupposition of the internal coherency of scripture. I have no argument with you, friend.

46

I can’t believe in an ancient book without it containing something that must have come from God. Some revelation. I could never put my trust in mere humans. Especially ancient and ignorant, desert-dwelling ones, pulling ideas from all the horrid little vermin of the land and mixing them into what we call ‘The Bible’… If this is what you are all proposing I do, then I am without hope.

To have the chance Thomas got… That would be a gift greater than all the treasure in the Universe. Yet here I am, writhing in frustration and doubt. Spending night after night scouring whatever I can in order to hopefully become satisfied enough to get through this fragile existence with some semblance of real meaning and purpose…
Imagine if tomorrow, you found out there was no God. You would suddenly be struck with the realisation that all possible point to existence was nothing but a delusion… You would be forced to react accordingly. Your only peace would be to immediately become nothing. What a nightmare!
I’m not expecting Jesus to appear to me and tell me to stick my fingers in His side, of course. But you have to admit, Thomas was the most privileged person in all of Human history… To immediately have all his doubts dissipated…

That is how important the Judeo/Christian God is to me. It is how important He should be to us all.

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47

That I´m with you in the sense that pure faith with no rationality is intellectually unsatisfying and I´m not believing this way.

Correct me if I´m wrong but you seem to be open/attracted by the ID movement and their arguments. One problem I see is, that you seem to value natural theology and believe that revelation theology can only stand on the ground prepared by the former. However although I view natural theology in a high regard, it can only bring you so far, to Deism at best I´d say. I don´t believe that we can approach to the miracles of Jesus with natural science. History is our best shot at getting there and I see the evidences are strong enough to be the ground of a reasonable faith in Christ.

I´m not quite sure what you´re saying here.

Okay, this is important to remember for the further direction of this discussion. I have to admit, that the last twenty posts here made it seem like this would be a dead end, but I see you have serious concerns. I think you will stick longer with us and soon you will realize that several people have already brught up very similar topics. In this and in the quality sense I´d say this site is pretty much unique. I can only tell you what helped me tremendously. One of the most interesting threads on this board, maybe usefull here: Pevaquark Doesn't Like Fine Tuning Apologetics and Neither Should You
Of course, when faced with doubt one tries to find proof and obviously the first thought goes to the natural science. But after a time I came to two important conclusions: 1. Finding proof about the supernatural in natural science is an oxymoron and 2. natural theology is most usefull for those already believing, since it makes yet another perspective on new findings possible. Of course there are exceptions, most notably Anthony Flew, but for me the hints of the other realm which I could see in nature aren´t so strong like the historical evidences to the events in the NT in overwhelming ones doubts.

E: Writing all of these reminded me of one important thing Joshua Swamidass said (I paraphrase here):" The evidences you find in nature (natural theology) will only lead you to a generic God. The Christian God is revealed in Jesus."

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48

It seems as though your experience with religion has given you the expectation that it should give you confidence that you have the answers to all questions. That just seems like you’re putting way too much pressure on yourself and your religion. I can certainly see how wanting to do right by your children adds even more urgency to your quest.

I wonder if you couldn’t provide them with the truth just by being forthright about your own doubts along with your desire to believe? There wouldn’t seem to be any shame in admitting that no one really knows why the world exists or how life began. You could just tell them that some believe it just happened naturally while others believe in creation by a higher power, though there doesn’t seem to be any way to convince everyone which is true. But as human beings we can ask the question and, even in the absence of certainty we can still discover what it is we believe.

Now I personally am not a Christian. But I do not hold that abiogenesis is a fact. It is simply what I believe most likely to be true. But I don’t think less of people who believe differently than I do, leastwise not if they don’t overstate the case for what they believe. On either side of that divide, humility is the best way to respect yourself and others.

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49

You seem committed to a very stark divide. The only god you will acknowledge as existing must be one who made sure to carve out some useful employment for himself among all the otherwise independently running tasks of nature. You want him available for inspection of his bit of the assembly line to make sure that …

  1. It is his work and not done by anybody else,
  2. that it isn’t replicable work that could easily be done by a less expensive robot (unaided nature)
  3. that it is up-to-snuff.

On the Christian view God isn’t above stepping in to actually accomplish some of those three things from a creaturely point-of-view, hence the incarnation. But you seem more interested in other parts of the factory where you feel this deity/[employee!] should be found clocked-in, working, and taking the occasional breaks among all his other peers; and you seem distressed not to find him there. What doesn’t seem to be occurring to you is that he might be the CEO in charge, running the whole shebang, and not one of the 9-5ers who clocks in and can be seen oiling the cogs on the factory floor.

Shortened a bit for clarity.

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50

Neither do I. I reject all 5 points of TULIP Calvinism. I am an open theist – as far from being a Calvinist as possible. You are jumping to conclusions based on the presumption of another thing which I do not believe in … that our salvation depends on believing in God.

@jasonbourne4
Yes, I think that is quite accurate. We are being taken for a ride here on a merry-go-round.

Then by all means, walk away! There are plenty of other places to look for something which makes sense to you. I have no doubt whatsoever that you can stare at the same inkblot and see something quite different, but arguing that what you see is the correct thing is a complete waste of time.

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I thought the same or worse to begin with. Now I think he is genuinely in conflict.

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52

There are reasons a-plenty for conflicted thinking. Even scientists experience this in the conflict between the the findings of quantum physics and the very premises for scientific inquiry itself.

But there is a question about the reasons for this conflict which are tied to whether productive discussion is possible. At this point the only productive purpose I am seeing as possible is the opportunity for him to vent his frustrations with a rather narrow-minded community. It is not a very nice role for the rest of us. And though I suppose it can be seen as being a servant of servants to go along with this, requiring other people to be a servant of servants to you isn’t something I can approve of. It seems more in line with the function of a forum to shake him out of this rather small world which he has been a part of to realize that Christianity is much much bigger than this.

53

I’ve already explained where I think the authority of Scripture comes from, and it isn’t from it’s literal correspondence with reality. If I believed the Greek or Norse gods were true God’s, I would look at their stories differently. My determination that Scripture is true has not come about because it passed a rigorous fact checking session. Using the Bible as an information encyclopedia is misusing the Bible. It’s not surprising that it disappoints you if you insist on making it something it was never intended to be.

Because I have a relationship with the God of the Bible. I KNOW God. What I read in the Bible about God can be cross-referenced with my personal experience relating to God. I don’t know what your background is or how you personally identify, but it seems you were at least raised in a Christian context. It also seems like you view faith as believing the right things really hard. So, when reality and the things you think Christians must believe really hard don’t line up, you are left with nothing. But faith is more than a mental exercise. Faith is spiritual. It involves a spiritual dimension and a spiritual component of humanity. Don’t you have any spiritual experiences to fall back on when you have doubts?

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54

I just wanted to say that I’m sorry your wrestling with these questions has been such a painful and dark experience. But you aren’t alone in going through a painful paradigm shift and lots of people come out on the other side with a healthier more resilient faith. It doesn’t have to end in despair and nihilism. I’ll pray you find peace and a better place.

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55

Okay, Mitchell, turn on your empathy for a minute or go discuss stuff on a more purely intellectual thread. If someone comes out and clearly communicates that they are struggling and frustrated they don’t need to be scolded for being in a distraught place. Emotions happen to some of us. :slight_smile: It’s acceptable for people to come to this forum and try to work out their baggage, even if they can’t always do it in a detached and perfectly rational way.

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56

Benjamin, like @Christy and many others, I encourage you not to give up your pursuit of soul rest in the person of Jesus Christ. Sit under his words in the gospels and see if he stands forth and commends himself to you as a real person who wins your trust. Just after Thomas had his doubts removed, Jesus says: “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed" (John 20.29). Jesus specializes in granting rest to the soul weary and burdened by doubt and sin.

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57

And thus I am quite properly scolded! Though… not all of us are equally talented at empathy.

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It wasn’t a scolding, just a little nudge. I guess I could have put in more emojis. :stuck_out_tongue: It’s not the first reminder issued to all the Spock-like scientists running around here, that’s for sure. :vulcan_salute:

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61

You aren’t alone in wishing for that certainty. Why doesn’t God just come down and announce himself to us face-to-face if he really exists and wants us to believe in him? Both believers and non-believers have opined after that all through the ages. Atheists have a ready and plausible answer for why no such appearances seem to happen in any universally accessible or documented sense. And some of us Christians tend to reply that we think that is what already happened around 2000 years ago, and then we nailed him to a cross. It came complete with face-to-face, and (eventually) documentation! But that doesn’t seem to be the type of God we all wish for. We want somebody a bit more under our control and to shore up our uncertainties under our own terms - and be at our beck and call according to our own agendas. But instead, a transcendent, personal creator God (if He exists as such) has the audacity to think that we should be answerable on His terms rather than vice versa. And we do chafe so under the cheeky presumption!

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I think there is a fundamental different between starting with belief and making everything else fit the belief and starting with experience and understanding other things in the context of that experience. I’m starting with knowledge I gain from my experience with God. That is not the same thing as starting with “belief.” You could argue that any epistemology that starts with human experience is fundamentally unreliable, but I’d argue back that if that is the case you have to rule out a lot of things people claim to know as unknowable. I know what I ate for breakfast this morning. There is no amount of math or logic that can get you to that knowledge.

I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like you before. One part of the Bible that has consistently spoken to my non-rational side is found in Isaiah 42:3. “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.” God’s grace covers our lack and I believe he can take that little smoldering candle of faith you do have and work with it. I hope you don’t give up.

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63

Why should my reasons for how I choose to live MY LIFE be good enough for you??? I sincerely don’t care one way or another.

I like math and science. But I see no reason why others have to share my interest. I like existentialism. But I see no reason why others have to share my interest. I like the board game called go. But I see no reason why others have to share my interest. I like Christianity. But I see no reason why others have to share my interest. There are plenty of things that I also have very little interest in… such as reality tv shows, spectator sports, the Quran, the French language, cross-dressing, and the Bhagavad Gita, and no doubt many many more things.

These don’t interest me either. Not only hearing about them but even having them doesn’t appeal to me.

I respectfully disagree.

LOL It would be amusing to see you try that one.

Well since you put it that way I will start a new thread with this topic. But again… why in the world should they be good enough for you???

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