In my philosophy class we have been studying theistic proofs. These are various evidences that support the existence of God (DNA, Design, etc.). The interesting thing is that one of the world's most renowned atheists has converted to theism, not Christianity, because of the evidence produced by the Intelligent Design movement. This is exciting and if you are interested in hearing the report from Antony Flew's own mouth you can go to the interview at this site:
http://www.biola.edu/antonyflew/flew-interview.pdf
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Monday, November 14, 2005
Truth and God
I had some interesting questions come up in response to my blog on truth. Pablo I will get to all of your questions but because of business I will have to answer them over a period of time. I would like to focus our thinking on your question concerning God. How do we come to knowledge of the true God? Is there one God or many gods? Is God a person or is he a force? I would like to make something very clear. In asking these questions we are asking for a true answer. Something is true when it corresponds to reality. When we say of what is that it is and of what is not that it is not, this the definition of truth (Aristotle). This is called the correspondence theory of truth. I won’t get bogged down in the other theories concerning truth but with a few examples I believe it is reasonable to believe that the entire world lives by the correspondence theory of truth.
When you get into your car in the morning and you see as you are driving down the road that your gas gauge is on empty you can choose to believe that your car doesn’t require gas to operate but then truth will quickly inform you that your car truly does require fuel to perform because your car will slowly sputter and cease to go anywhere.
In 1st or 2nd grade we learned in basic mathematics that 2+2 = 4. It is true that 2 +2 =4 always and no matter how much you want to believe that 2+2=5 you would be wrong. Our world has confused the word “believe” with the word “truth.” You hear this all the time when someone says, “Sex before marriage may be wrong for you but not for me.” Well what is the truth? Is sex before marriage really wrong or really right?
One last thing about truth. Things that are true are true regardless of how we may feel about it.
So how do we know the true God? I believe we must come to a knowledge of the true God on the basis of trustworthy evidence. To this I am fully confident that the God whom Jesus told us about is true because of the evidence of Jesus’ resurrection. Jesus’ resurrection is the ultimate witness to the truthfulness of his testimony. I would challenge you to examine the evidence:
If the resurrection were not true then why did the belief that Jesus was resurrected start in the very city it would’ve been easiest to disprove? On the contrary the church began in Jerusalem where Jesus was crucified and buried and if Jesus’ body were still in the tomb it would only take 15 minutes to go to his tomb and see that he was truly dead. But within weeks the church had grown to easily over 15,000 people in Jerusalem alone.
If I wanted to convince people that 9-11 never happened I wouldn’t be able to spread that lie in the very city where people saw the planes crash into the buildings with their own eyes. They would put me in a psychiatric ward because everyone knows that the world trade centers were truly destroyed by terrorists.
The most reliable kind of historical evidence is called “hostile eyewitness testimony.” Concerning the tomb that Jesus’ body was placed in we have this historical evidence. The Jewish leaders who were the very ones who killed Jesus never told the disciples, “You fools, Jesus is dead and we can show you his body in the tomb where we buried him. He isn’t alive!” No! They never argued that Jesus wasn’t in the tomb they always explained WHY the body wasn’t in the tomb (they claimed his disciples stole his body).
All the apostles of Jesus the Christ eventually died as martyrs for the sake of their testimony that Jesus had risen from the dead. They never recanted. If Jesus hadn’t been truly resurrected why did those closest to him give their lives for the sake of their testimony? People will not die for something they know is not true, yet all the apostles were tortured and killed because they held to their conviction that Jesus had risen from the dead! Not only that but during their earthly lives they lost everything for the sake of telling others that Jesus was God and that he was resurrected! They lost their security, social standing, families, jobs, etc.
I have just written briefly but I do hope this provokes you. Christianity isn’t the faith of fools. It is solidly grounded in evidence and truth. Truth bears investigation. What I have written I have written from my memory and these evidences aren't exhaustive. There are many more convincing evidences which point to the truthfulness of Jesus and his words.
When you get into your car in the morning and you see as you are driving down the road that your gas gauge is on empty you can choose to believe that your car doesn’t require gas to operate but then truth will quickly inform you that your car truly does require fuel to perform because your car will slowly sputter and cease to go anywhere.
In 1st or 2nd grade we learned in basic mathematics that 2+2 = 4. It is true that 2 +2 =4 always and no matter how much you want to believe that 2+2=5 you would be wrong. Our world has confused the word “believe” with the word “truth.” You hear this all the time when someone says, “Sex before marriage may be wrong for you but not for me.” Well what is the truth? Is sex before marriage really wrong or really right?
One last thing about truth. Things that are true are true regardless of how we may feel about it.
So how do we know the true God? I believe we must come to a knowledge of the true God on the basis of trustworthy evidence. To this I am fully confident that the God whom Jesus told us about is true because of the evidence of Jesus’ resurrection. Jesus’ resurrection is the ultimate witness to the truthfulness of his testimony. I would challenge you to examine the evidence:
If the resurrection were not true then why did the belief that Jesus was resurrected start in the very city it would’ve been easiest to disprove? On the contrary the church began in Jerusalem where Jesus was crucified and buried and if Jesus’ body were still in the tomb it would only take 15 minutes to go to his tomb and see that he was truly dead. But within weeks the church had grown to easily over 15,000 people in Jerusalem alone.
If I wanted to convince people that 9-11 never happened I wouldn’t be able to spread that lie in the very city where people saw the planes crash into the buildings with their own eyes. They would put me in a psychiatric ward because everyone knows that the world trade centers were truly destroyed by terrorists.
The most reliable kind of historical evidence is called “hostile eyewitness testimony.” Concerning the tomb that Jesus’ body was placed in we have this historical evidence. The Jewish leaders who were the very ones who killed Jesus never told the disciples, “You fools, Jesus is dead and we can show you his body in the tomb where we buried him. He isn’t alive!” No! They never argued that Jesus wasn’t in the tomb they always explained WHY the body wasn’t in the tomb (they claimed his disciples stole his body).
All the apostles of Jesus the Christ eventually died as martyrs for the sake of their testimony that Jesus had risen from the dead. They never recanted. If Jesus hadn’t been truly resurrected why did those closest to him give their lives for the sake of their testimony? People will not die for something they know is not true, yet all the apostles were tortured and killed because they held to their conviction that Jesus had risen from the dead! Not only that but during their earthly lives they lost everything for the sake of telling others that Jesus was God and that he was resurrected! They lost their security, social standing, families, jobs, etc.
I have just written briefly but I do hope this provokes you. Christianity isn’t the faith of fools. It is solidly grounded in evidence and truth. Truth bears investigation. What I have written I have written from my memory and these evidences aren't exhaustive. There are many more convincing evidences which point to the truthfulness of Jesus and his words.
Saturday, November 5, 2005
Understanding the book of Revelation
Wow I never knew that Osama Bin Laden was a tree! Oh gosh look at that! I never knew that Saddam Husein was a turkey. The tree and turkey with human heads, now that's amazing! I didn't know that George W. Bush actually rode a donkey! I wonder where the road "Common Sense" is in the world I would like to travel there someday!
If you don't know me you're probably thinking that I'm off my rocker, but I give you these to illustrate how ridiculous it is to interpret symbolic pictures literally! We all know that there is a true literal meaning behind the symbolic pictures but to look at these symbols and think they are true in reality would be a great mistake. For example, someone obviously thinks that George W. Bush is not using common sense in his decision making.
Many people interpret the book of Revelation the exact same way and it doesn't work! First and foremost we must understand that Revelation wasn't written to us 21st century Christians it was written to persecuted Christians of the late 1st century. The letter that was circulated in the ancient world had a message for the people whom the letter was originally written to. This is a foundational principle with regard to all Biblical interpretation. Most popular theories about Revelation would leave the original audience scratching their heads with no message. But that isn't the truth! This letter was a strong encouragement to the believers to persevere in the face of suffering for Christ and the message still applies today.
I just want to point out the fact that John (the writer of the book) gave clues as to how to interpret the symbols in the book. In the very first verse John writes,
"The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants—things which must shortly take place. And He sent and signified it by His angel to His servant John..." (NKJV).
I chose the New King James because it translates the word σημαινω (semaino) as "signified." The greek word semaino is related to the noun "semeion" which is a "sign, or a distinguishing mark." The angel put the message of Jesus into "signs" for John to write down. Don't forget that John didn't just write down things that he was told to write he was told to write down what he "saw."
There are several clues throughout the book that further support the fact that John's visions were symbols of reality but not reality in themselves.
Revelation 1:12, "And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands..."
Revelation 1:16 "In his right hand he held seven stars..."
What in the world is Jesus holding in his right hand? What are the golden lampstands? Jesus explains the symbols to John at the end of the first chapter! Revelation 1:20, "The mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and of the seven golden lampstands is this: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches." Wow! That was simple enough. These aren't the only glimpses we see of symbolic language though. Look at these passages: Rev. 5:8 (what are the bowls of incence?), 12:9 (the dragon?), 17:9.
I will tell you right now with complete honesty that I am clueless when it comes to much of the imagery in Revelation but I am learning more and I believe that this is the correct approach to understanding the book of Revelation.
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