A Dissertation on The External Evidences of The Truth of The Christian Religion Text

If it were only meant by these words, that the religion of jesus could not, by the single aid of reasoning, produce its full effect upon the heart every true christian would chearfully subscribe to them. No arguments unaccompanied by the influence of the holy spirit, can convert the soul from sin to god though even to such conversion, arguments are, by the agency of the spirit, render’d subservient. Again, if we were to understand by this aphorism, that the principles of our religion could never have been discover’d, by the natural and unassisted faculties of man this position, i presume, would be as little disputed as the former. But if, on the contrary, under the cover of an ambiguous expression, it is intended to insinuate, that those principles, from their very nature, can admit no rational evidence of their truth, and this, by the way, is the only meaning which can avail our antagonists the gospel, as well as common sense, loudly reclaims against it.

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William lane craig is research professor of philosophy at talbot school of theology in la mirada, california. Is there any evidence to show that christianity is true? bill craig considers the question and describes the evidence that convinces him. And this attitude is in turn communicated to their students: there rsquo s not enough evidence. Most people are spiritually apathetic, too busy or unconcerned to be bothered about spiritual things.

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Or if they are into spirituality, they may be pursuing gods of their own making, as in the new age movement. One of the most interesting aspects of my work is the debates i participate in on university campuses. Typically i rsquo ll be invited onto a campus to debate some professor who has a reputation of being especially abusive to christian students in his classes.

We rsquo ll have a public debate on, say, the existence of god, or christianity vs. And you know what? i find that while most of these fellows are pretty good at beating up intellectually on an 18 year student, they can rsquo t even hold their own when it comes to going toe to toe with one of their peers. In their first speech they usually trot out the obsolete, 18th century objections of hume and kant, and after i answer these, they rsquo re just left with nothing much to say, so they start repeating themselves or making emotional appeals. Most of them turn out to be just big, inflated, intellectual blowhards who have no good reasons for rejecting christianity and ridiculing their students rsquo faith.

I know something about philosophy but i know absolutely nothing about economics, or chemical engineering, or agriculture, or business. Thus, it's possible to have a perfectly profound knowledge of one's area of specialization and yet have little better than a sunday school education when it comes go christianity. He was a brilliant philosopher of quantum physics, but knew nothing about philosophy of religion. Most atheists lost their faith when they were 11 or 12 years old, and they rsquo ve never studied it since. What that means is that most of these men reject christianity based on the objections of a 12 year old! c. So when people say, there rsquo s not enough evidence , what they mean is there rsquo s not enough evidence to coerce me out of my indifference. If i choose to ignore it, the evidence isn rsquo t going to grab me by the lapels and force me to believe.

Knowledge of god is unique in that it is conditioned by moral and spiritual factors. A spiritually indifferent person can have a profound knowledge of physics, or literature, or history, or sociology, or even of theology. According to the bible, the knowledge of god is promised to those who honestly seek him. Jeremiah: and you shall seek me and you shall find me, if you seek for me with all your heart. Jesus: seek and you will find, knock and the door shall be opened, ask and it will be given you.

For he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it shall be opened, and to him who asks it shall be given. He has given evidence of himself which is sufficiently clear for those with an open mind and an open heart, but sufficiently vague so as to not to compel those who hearts are closed. The great french mathematical genius blaise pascal, who came to know god through jesus christ at the age of 31, put it this way: willing to appear openly to those who seek him with all their heart, and to be hidden from those who flee from him with all their heart, god so regulates the knowledge of himself that he has given indications of himself which are visible to those who seek him and not to those who do not seek him. There is enough light for those to see who only desire to see, and enough obscurity for those who have a contrary disposition. in other words, the evidence is there for those who have eyes to see. But is there enough evidence for faith to be rational? of course there is! the traditional arguments for the existence of god and the evidences of christianity are not coercive, but they are certainly sufficient to make christian belief rational. There has been literally a revolution in american philosophy with regard to this question during the second half of the 20th century. Back in the lsquo 40s and lsquo 50s it was widely believed among philosophers that talk about god was meaningless literal gibberish.

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To say god loves you and created you to know him is as meaningful as saying, ''twas brillig and the slithey toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe. Complete nonsense! this movement reached its crescendo in america with the death of god theology of the mid 1960s. On april 8, 1966, in a dramatic red on black cover time magazine asked 'is god dead?' but at the same time that theologians were writing god rsquo s obituary, a new generation of philosophers were re discovering his vitality. time marveled: in a quiet revolution in thought and argument that hardly anybody could have foreseen only two decades ago, god is making a comeback. So today some of america rsquo s finest philosophers at major universities are outspoken christians.