Reasons for faith

[oholiab]

Im interested in Apologetics and Im browsing around looking for a discussion forum where the subject is pursured in depth. What follows is a brief outline of what I think is the main idea of Christian Apologetics.

It has been my experience that the people who need Apologetics the least are Christians. Most believers are persuaded by the Holy Spirit and Christian scholars are aware of this. There is a distinction made between 'knowing' faith and showing (demonstrating) faith. This qoute is from one of the leading Christian apologists of our time. He was on of the people that Lee Strobel interviewed in his book "The Case for Christ" where he investigated the Christian faith with skills he aquired as a journalist.

"In this section I shall address the question, How does a Christian believer know that Christianity is true? In answering this question, I distinguish between the role of the Holy Spirit and the role of rational argument and evidence. I shall argue that the inner witness of the Holy Spirit gives us an immediate and veridical assurance of the truth of our Christian faith and that rational argument and evidence may properly confirm but not defeat that assurance." (William James Craig, Classical Apologetics)

Methods of evaluation historical evidence:

The three I am most familar with are internal, external, and bibliographical testing.Internal evidence:

This would be to look at the Bible itself, Messianic prophesy would be one of the main topics under this heading. Any kind of an apparant contradiction would be considered an 'internal' evidence. It is critical to the internal evidence testing that you identify the heart of the message (i.e. the resurection) then the particulars indexed in descending order of importance. The old adage that a text without a context is a pretext is like the slogan that hangs over the door of this department of evidence.

External evidence:

This would be what you called corrabative or a secondary source. Simon Greenleaf's discussion about motive and the New Testement wittness comes into play here as would an historians insight into the events in question. Archeology, palentology, astronomy, form criticism, even metaphysics are all external to the primary source evidence and should be accumulated in mass to carry the same weight as primary evidence. Still if you accumulate enough in can negate even the best primary source evidence the same way circumstantial evidence can outweigh eye-wittness testimony if there is enough of it to be conclusive.

Bibliographical testing:

This is by far the most scientific of the methods since it evaluates the veracity of the Bible as a document without regards to the content. Primary source documentation is just another expression for best source document. Primary source documentation for the Constitution would be the Constitution at the National Archives of course (I think thats where they keep it) . Any question about what was actually ratified into law would go back to what was actually written there and attested to by those present. The document itself can be examined objectivly without regard to content even though the standard is relative and proof is a long drawn out process. This is a look at the Bible as a document, or the books of the Bible as compared to other writtings from the same period. Conte Anyone with another catagory I'll be glad to give it a whirl. Lets try external for 100 Alex. Legal evidence often goes to motive I will quote here from the greatest legal mind in the history of U.S. common law. Since we are talking about evidence his insight into the evidence that supports the Christian wittness might be usefull. The following is an exact quote from Therefore Stand, by Wilbur Smith. This book is possibly the best book on Christian Apologetics ever written:

"We next turn to an American, not a philosopher but an authority in jurisprudence. I refer to Simon Greenleaf (1783-1853), who became the famous Royall Professor of Law at Harvard University, and succeeded Justice Joseph Story as the Dane Professor of Law in the same univer­sity, upon Story's death in 1846. It is recognized that "To the efforts of Story and Greenleaf is to be ascribed the rise of the Harvard Law School to its eminent position among the legal schools of the United States." sa Greenleaf's famous work, A Treatise on the Law of Evidence, the first volume of which appeared in 1842, was "regarded as the foremost American authority," passing through edition after edition, is still con­sidered the greatest single authority on evidence in the entire literature of legal procedure. Greenleaf, trained in weighing evidence, while still professor of Law at Harvard, wrote in 1846, a volume that immediately took its place as one of the most significant works on the truthfulness of the Christian religion of his day: An Examination of the Testimony of the Four Evangelists by the Rules of Evidence Administered in Courts of Justice. The author devotes a number of pages to the consid­eration of the value of the testimony of the Apostles to the Resurrection of Christ and I trust that because the one who wrote these lines was the one who, by his legal works, was quoted thousands of times in the great court battles of our country, for three-quarters of a century, my readers will not be wearied if my quotation from his remarkable discus­sion of this evidence is extended to considerable length.
"The great truths which the apostles declared, were, that Christ had risen from the dead, and that only through repentance from sin, and faith in Him, could men hope for salvation. This doctrine they asserted with one voice, everywhere, not only under the greatest discourage­ments, but in the face of the most appalling terrors that can be pre­sented to the mind of man. Their master had recently perished as a malefactor, by the sentence of a public tribunal. His religion sought to overthrow the religions of the whole world. The laws of every country were against the teachings of His disciples. The interests and passions of all the- rulers and great men in the world were against them. The fashion of the world was against them. Propagating this new faith, even in the most inoffensive and peaceful manner, they could expect nothing but contempt, opposition, revilings, bitter persecutions, stripes, imprison­ments, torments, and cruel deaths. Yet this faith they zealously did propagate; and all these miseries they endured undismayed, nay, re­joicing. As one after another was put to a miserable death, the survivors only prosecuted their work with increased vigor and resolution. The annals of military warfare afford scarcely an example of the like heroic constancy, patience, and unblenching courage. They had every possible motive to review carefully the grounds of their faith, and the evidences of the great facts and truths which they asserted; and these motives were pressed upon their attention with the most melancholy and terrific frequency. It was therefore impossible that they could have persisted in affirming the truths they have narrated, had not Jesus actually risen from the dead, and had they not known this fact as certainly as they knew any other fact. If it were morally possible for them to have been deceived in this matter, every human motive operated to lead them to discover and avow their error. To have persisted in so gross a falsehood, after it was known to them, was not only to encounter, for life, all the evils which man could inflict, from without, but to endure also the rangs of inward and conscious guilt; with no hope of future peace, no Testimony of a good conscience, no expectation of honor or esteem among men, no hope of happiness in this life, or in the world to come. "Such conduct in the apostles would moreover have been utterly irrec­oncilable with the fact, that they possessed the ordinary constitution of cur common nature. Yet their lives do show them to have been men like all others of our race; swayed by the same motives, animated by the same hopes, affected by the same joys, subdued by the same sorrows, agitated by the same fears, and subject to the same passions, temptations, and infirmities, as ourselves. And their writings show them to have been men of vigorous understandings. If then their testimony was not true, there was no possible motive for its fabrication."

[Petro]

oholiab,

I enjoyed reading your article, it is good, and a concur with what you have written.

As I considered your closing pragraph, especially that concerning the Apostles, I thought of these verse;

Acts 4
8  Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said unto them, Ye rulers of the people, and elders of Israel,
9  If we this day be examined of the good deed done to the impotent man, by what means he is made whole;
10  Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole.
11  This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner.
12  Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.
13  Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.

This little verse 13, speaks volumes to me, while it may be politically correct to address the truth of the gospel, to educated and learned people, in a format that they can understand and would expect, when defending the faith, by rational argument,  it is not necessary since;

The word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart./b] Heb 4:12.

It is easier, for ignorant and unlearned people to come to God by Faith, than ity is for those who seek to be convinced by the wisdom of this world, which is the basis for all rational argument, and, ultimately, the final step is by Faith, which requires rationale to be left outside on the steps of the Door of the sheepfold.

I appreaciate your points, they are good, and I know what you posted is true, but not really absolutely necessary, when dealing with the unbelieving masses.


God Bless,

Petro