What makes the bible any different than other old stories?

[narnia4]

There is a marked difference between proof and persuasion. Some will never be persuaded regardless of the proof offered. Others will be persuaded by far less. One of the advantages of being a Calvinist is that I don't have to convince anyone. That's not my job, and that's a good thing. It's the Holy Spirit's job to convert the unbeliever. It's mine to contend for the faith (which is why good apologetics should always be accompanied by the gospel).

Responding to the "devil's advocate" scenario, I would ask the agnostic how he knows that knowledge doesn't have to be accounted for. I had a long blog debate with a relativist a while back who claimed that true knowledge is not possible. Not only is that a self defeating statement, but no one can live that way. We all claim to know something, and we all have methods of obtaining such knowledge. But can those methods, valid or not, be the basis for knowledge. Ultimately, the Christian epistemology of revelation (both natural and special) is the only valid view. All secular views are self defeating. All worldviews have a theory of knowledge and an ultimate authority. But anything outside of the Christian worldview can be shown to be foolish.

As far as circular reasoning goes, all worldviews are circular on the metaphyiscal level. "I think, therefore I am" is clearly circular, but few would object. One of the problems with evidential apologetics is that the Christian is always playing defense. The unbeliever is never called to defend his worldview, especially if it is naturalism. Many well meaning apologists assume the truths of naturalism in advance, and than try to argue for Christianity from that basis. But we should not grant naturalists such free capital. There are just too many things that naturalism cannot account for such as knowledge, intelligible experience, universal unchanging laws, logic, uniformity, moral absolutes, human dignity, etc. The Christian and non-Christian worldview are antithetical to each other, and only the Christian worldview can account for our ability to know anything at all. For example, when the naturalist appeals to science in his arguments against Christianity, he must acknowledge God's creative attributes and His Providence in order to even make the argument. Science cannot account for itself. It must rely on a priori things such as the validity of sense experience, laws of logic, uniformity of nature, etc. These are things that only the Christian worldview can consistently justify. In other words, unbelievers must rely on God's natural revelation in order to argue against his existence. It is the height of irrationality.

Spot on. Even before I began really looking into apologetics I noticed the rather obvious problem with letting the naturalist assume his own worldview. I've seen it time and time again, if you assume that there must be a natural explanation for everything NO amount of reasoning is going to make a difference with that "skeptic" (I use the word skeptic lightly, because the skeptic generally isn't skeptical of his own worldview). Literally no amount of reasoning or evidence will make a difference if you assume naturalism. Miracles? There must be a scientific explanation? Empty tomb? There must be a historical/cultural explanation. Objective morality? There must be a philosophical explanation without supposing the existence of anything outside the established box. And so on, if that worldview isn't challenged then the naturalist will maintain cognitive dissonance despite what seems obvious to most Christians.

[wrain62]

He resurrects Himself back from the dead in order to claim His bride back...
And she loves Him too... She is tired of playing the harlot. You see, she finally realized that all she really needed was Him...

Blessed be His name...

Yup..

[dayage]

Wrain62, here are some evidences that might help.
Parting the Red Sea
https://www2.ucar.edu/news/2663/parting ... cape-route

Pages 27-28 gives Egyptian evidence that the Bible was correct about giants in Cannan. Jewish men of the time were 5'-5'3".
http://www.tccsa.tc/articles/goliath_and_giants.pdf

King Solomon?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 094757.htm

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2575442/

King Hezekiah
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn4 ... unnel.html

A lot could said about Genesis one, but I'll leave it here.

[Ivellious]

No, what I am saying is that, without God revealing truth to us, we cannot justify a knowledge of anything at all.

P1: If the human mind can obtain knowledge, the God exists, since God is the precondition of human knowledge.
P2: The human mind can obtain knowledge,
Conclusion: God Exists.

Granted, I am not saying that humans must consciously acknowledge God in order to obtain knowledge. Many unbelievers obtain knowledge about many things despite themselves. They rely on God's creative attributes and his Providence to do so, while denying the very God that they rely on.

If atheism is ever to become a rational worldview, it must first come up with a valid epistemology. Atheism assumes that the human mind is capable of meaningful activity outside of God's creative attributes and his Providence. Until this can be proven, atheists cannot rightly claim to know anything.

This is an invalid argument in this context. As previously stated, we are discussing the validity of the Bible compared to all other religious teachings. So tell me, why can't an ancient Greek use the exact same logical puzzle to "prove" that their Gods created knowledge?

P1 is just dumb. I'm sorry, but you can't argue the validity of the source material by using the source material itself as your entire argument. Again, if I wanted to argue that Islam is the correct religion based on its teaching, and my whole argument was "Because what the Islam says is true is obviously true, I win" you'd call me out for a logical fallacy. You just tidied it up with fancy language and called it good.

Also, saying that atheists need to prove their idea of knowledge, and if they can't that you are right, is another logical fallacy. That's like the creationists in recent court cases trying to eliminate evolution from schools...they said "well, because evolution can't be proven, we're right." If you want hard evidence supporting atheist views, you had better present legitimate, comparable evidence in return. And in doing so, you can't use your Bible, otherwise I'll just say that the atheists are right on this because they don't believe in God.

But, if you really want some kind of argument over thinking and knowledge without God...The brain stores information electrically by forming neural pathways. That is how we collect, recall, and store knowledge that we gain through experience. The brain evolved over millions of years to its present state. All creatures with a brain have some degree of ability to collect and store knowledge using its neural pathways. The end. I just showed you how knowledge can be gained without God.

[wrain62]

Also, saying that atheists need to prove their idea of knowledge, and if they can't that you are right, is another logical fallacy. That's like the creationists in recent court cases trying to eliminate evolution from schools...they said "well, because evolution can't be proven, we're right." If you want hard evidence supporting atheist views, you had better present legitimate, comparable evidence in return. And in doing so, you can't use your Bible, otherwise I'll just say that the atheists are right on this because they don't believe in God.

But, if you really want some kind of argument over thinking and knowledge without God...The brain stores information electrically by forming neural pathways. That is how we collect, recall, and store knowledge that we gain through experience. The brain evolved over millions of years to its present state. All creatures with a brain have some degree of ability to collect and store knowledge using its neural pathways. The end. I just showed you how knowledge can be gained without God.

There are just too many things that naturalism cannot account for such as knowledge, intelligible experience, universal unchanging laws, logic, uniformity, moral absolutes, human dignity, etc. The Christian and non-Christian worldview are antithetical to each other, and only the Christian worldview can account for our ability to know anything at all.

In defense of PL I will ask how we know things.

How do we know that something is true or exists?

We feel or sense it.

How do we know that what we are feeling and sensing are correct knowledge?

Our senses and feelings are corroborated with other senses and pieces of information from these senses to give coherency.

How do we know that these pieces of information from the senses are coherent?

We sense or feel it strongly.

Ultimatly knowledge and logic can't account for itself because when it does it is always circular. And when something is circular like this there is something there that we are taking for granted. Logic is taken for granted without anything to account for it.
Puritan Lad is this what you are talking about?

[Ivellious]

But my feeling is that some higher power still doesn't need to be involved. Evolution says our nervous system and senses developed and synced with our brains (and by "us" I mean our distant ancestors). If the brain developed with all the capabilities it has now, then no God needs to be involved in that process.

The logic problem PL presented was that, by presuming that you are already correct from the start, you eliminate every other possibility, and thus you are right. That doesn't really work logically because you are just saying "I'm right because I'm right" in a flowery way. My example did the same thing (I was just trying to show a way using his argument that didn't include God, to show that you easily could). And that is why you can't use that sort of reasoning in this particular context, because of the initial presumption that everyone else is wrong and your idea is the only remaining option.

[wrain62]

But my feeling is that some higher power still doesn't need to be involved. Evolution says our nervous system and senses developed and synced with our brains (and by "us" I mean our distant ancestors). If the brain developed with all the capabilities it has now, then no God needs to be involved in that process.

Then what does need to be involved for logic to account for itself? Evolutionary theory was developed using logic. I am not saying that logic is unreliable but that it is taken for granted. Evolution says that organisms became more logical over time because of their quest for survival. But we are not talking about accounting for logic in the making of our brains and systems. Since ideally logic is true even outside our existence. Logic cannot account for itself because that requires logic to explain it in naturalism, which is circular reasoning. Therefore by logic logic cannot account for itself. When logic cannot account for its own existence then niether can knowledge because it is based off of logic.

[Ivellious]

I see your point, but when you discuss the absolute origins or logic you run into the problem of "can I actually and logically come up with the origin of logic without using logic?" Even using religion requires some degree of logic, so the discussion inevitably just runs into philosophy, which is rooted in logic, so you really can't explain that without driving everyone to insanity. I can't demonstrate, you can't, nobody can, regardless of how you want to rationalize it, so I think it's a dead end conversation.

[puritan lad]

Ivellious,

Why can't I use the Bible? Do you have another standard for knowledge that can be shown to be trustworthy, or for that matter, explain the basic foundations of knowledge that we need to even function? You will have to provide a valid alternative. Other possibilities eliminate themselves. Since you brought up Islam, they have a view of transcendence that says that God cannot be described with words, thus eliminating the possibility that the Quran is God's self revelation.

As far as being circular, all worldviews are circular at the metaphysical level, including yours. But Christianity is the only worlview that is logically consistent. As for the charge that I assumed what I needed to prove, I actually assumed the opposite, and proved my premise by Modus Tollens (denying by denying). My proof is logically sound, the premises have been shown to be true, and thus the proof stands.

To summarize, Christians assume the truth of God's Word because:

1.) There is no higher standard by which it can be judged (including science and logic, both of which depend upon the Christian God).
2.) As I have already shown, the denial of it leads to irrationality.