“One of the primary laws of human life is that you become like what you worship; what’s more, you reflect what you worship not only back to the object itself but also outward to the world around. Those who worship money increasingly define themselves in terms of it and increasingly treat other people as creditors, debtors, partners, or customers rather than as human beings.”
NT Wright, Surprised by Hope
And further:
“These and many other forms of idolatry combine in a thousand ways… they pass simultaneously not only beyond hope but also beyond pity.”
Yes and no. While I don’t need or recognize any divine being apart from the cosmos I do recognize what I think gives rise to God belief from my recognition of the difference between what I can deduce at will and what can be received through insight and inspiration. The depths within is where we overlap with the divine. Those are gifts unlike any we could ‘just make up’.
Should we worship what bestows meaning? Well there is certainly reason for gratitude and respect but worship has has connotations which demean our own role in all this to being mere spectators. I prefer “devotion”. We should strive to be worthy by harnessing our conscious power of narrowly focused attention to its service. Our own deliberations and efforts are insufficient and so need to serve what is beyond us.
Yes In this November 2018 discussiontopic. I believe his first post there was about the 19th one.
I started listening to Craig Keener’s shorter book on miracles, and there was an interesting remark he makes about how certain individuals admit that if they were to witness a resurrection, it would necessarily have a natural explanation for them. So what point is in their saying there is insufficient evidence to establish the validity of miracles. I think this relates to your position, but I could be wrong.
I just finished Surprised by Hope also (and we talk about it in today’s podcast with him!
It really changed my world, as being raised as a Southern Baptist “go to heaven when you die or experience eternal conscious torment” ilk.
“As long as we see salvation in terms of going to heaven when we die, the main work of the church is bound to be seen in terms of saving souls for that future. But when we see salvation as the New Testament sees it, in terms of Gods promised new heavens and new earth, and of our promised resurrection, to share in that new and gloriously embodied reality, what I have called life after life after death, then the main work of the church here and now demands to be rethought in consequence.” Surprised by Hope (not sure what page, was listening on audio 
)
Yes natural explanations would need to be ruled out before accepting as conclusive anything like the biblical account of Jesus’ resurrection. For that matter even if we were certain no known natural explanation could explain it there would still be a number of dots you’d have to connect to establish the cause was the God of the Bible. But we are only talking here of sufficient justification for claiming as fact what Christians believe on faith. I don’t imagine it is or ever will be possible to render faith unnecessary, and I don’t think that is necessary a bad thing. If certaintly isn’t a strike against Christian belief.
I think there is an important difference between not being moved to accept Christian beliefs and not finding sufficient justification to establish those beliefs as fact. Faith in any kind of belief that underlies the personal significance one experiences in life will never be the kind of thing we can deduce from rational thought. Intellect cannot be the determiner of what is sacred so why look for some way of justifying what you hold as sacred?
Exactly.
He said to him, “…they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”
Luke 16:21
But we do have objective evidence of the Christian God intervening into our spacetime. For those with faith, those interventions strengthen and confirm faith, building confidence and resulting in the accusation of bluster from some. ; - )
I wonder if you think that the faith of someone like our mods who seem ready to concede their epistemic position is no better or worse than mine is any less adequate or satisfying to them than your sometimes blustery faith is for you? For that matter, how does your faith compare to the person that is convinced each leaf falling from a tree is a wink from God? How important is it for a Christian to hold their belief as absolutely certain, would it add to or subtract from their life satisfaction?
“For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory.”
I’m not sure if I have shared with you the “therefore know for certain” from Acts 2:36. In the passage you can see how Peter bases the argument on OT prophecy, eyewitness evidence for the resurrection (ie. historical arguments like Wright uses), and a self-evident work of the Spirit.
Keener handles this in his book as he looks at the spectrum of what may and may not be called the exceptional work of God. He compared it to whether or not a person has long or short hair. For there is long hair and short hair, and a fuzzy boundary between the two.
I’m not ready to judge anyone’s respective faiths [(except of course those with no faith ; - )], but since knowing God in reality is possible and desirable and not just something to be studied disinterestedly and academically, that fact ought to be motivating to anyone who has even a modicum of faith, to thirst for and not be satisfied without it.
Loving God means keeping his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome.
1 John 5:3
He who is having my commands, and is keeping them, that one it is who is loving me, and he who is loving me shall be loved by my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.
John 14:21
ETA: square brackets above.
Spurgeon addresses the desirability and reality of knowing – this is what I could find most directly:
(I just noticed he uses your favorite phrase, “gives rise to…” ; - )
To respond to your question, and then I’ll quiet down, the thing here is what we have discussed elsewhere, what reason can tell you about the world and what it cannot.
Why am I doing this?
One reason is that it was better than pursuing an academic career.
Hey, it’s your choice. If you like the fruit - good enough. That’s like what I say about Christianity. Had the hook been firmly set I’m sure I’d be defending it too. In fact, I do anyway. Like @mitchellmckain i only argue for the reasonableness and intellectual respectability of the choice. Of course the grounds on which any person, Christian or other wise, may make their choice can be more or less intellectually respectable. But in the end the proof is in the pudding: does it enhance your life satisfaction or not? For those expecting to get the bulk of that satisfaction after death, no one can prove you’re wrong … or right either.
It depends on the choice. I’ve had some people jump at the notion of ‘God’ as an uncaused cause being unaware of its action. It’s rationally possible, and so is thinking your self in a one to one relation with it. What if that was the goal of this life as Hegel alluded with the goal of history? And in so doing you could empower the present moment to become ‘God’ itself.
A lonely God no doubt, and so appropriate is what Jesus said about what does it do for a person to gain the whole world and yet lose their soul.
There isn’t any description of God as the original source of or embodiment of he cosmos that I’ll be jumping toward. I don’t personally find any use for such a notion. My only interest is in what it is which has made God belief so compelling for so long in so many places. I think there is something real and important at the source. I’m just not convinced anyone knows it’s name or agenda. And I don’t think it has any existence separate from the cosmos. But imagining it does and addressing ourselves toward That is probably a good way to seek to know that part instantiated within. There is much I like about Christianity but I will never read in or overlay what that is with a cultural script. It’s just a different approach which has the advantage of feeling familiar to me.
That’s good. It’s just pretty funny that it can’t be God, even when we have objective evidence.
You should pay closer attention. ; - )
Just to acknowledge that there is an infinite being, but not an infinite number of things would be absolutely astounding.
Better to keep it in the middle where people are certain, but anything goes with God.
What a puzzle: someone who knows something is real but doesn’t know what it is, while at the same time insisting that others cannot know what they know even when there is objective evidence. (That could be called presumption or even bluster, don’t you think? ; - )
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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