Does Proof of God Lead to Christianity?

[Seraph]

We spend a lot of time reasoning out the existence of God through methods like the cosmological and teleological arguments. But people often seem to make the leap that this is proof for the truth of Christianity, while many like myself say that this only supports Deism or a likeminded philosophy. What proof/evidence/support is there of the Christian version of God using reason and intuition, without assuming the truthhood of the Bible?

[RickD]

History? The person, Jesus of Nazareth.

[Silvertusk]

We spend a lot of time reasoning out the existence of God through methods like the cosmological and teleological arguments. But people often seem to make the leap that this is proof for the truth of Christianity, while many like myself say that this only supports Deism or a likeminded philosophy. What proof/evidence/support is there of the Christian version of God using reason and intuition, without assuming the truthhood of the Bible?

That is a good question and for me the answer is this.

If you agree that there is a God then logically you have to assert certain attributes to him - for instance - Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omnibenelovant. All Holy and with perfect justice.

Which those attributes in mind then the Christian God is the only one that logically is able to exist in my mind. For instance if there is a God that is All loving then he would want to have a relationship with his creation. The fact that he created the universe to begin with would imply that he has the love of a creator. Now if he is All Just then he would have to punish sin. An all loving God will create freewill beings. And in order to co-exist with those free-willed beings, then something has to be done about this problem of sin. Christianity is the only faith that offers a solution with the blood of Christ as it literally takes a God to solve the problem of an absolutely holy God. God is the only one that can meet his own standards of holiness and if he accepted any lesser standard - then he would not be God.

[Seraph]

History? The person, Jesus of Nazareth.

Islam is true because of the person of Muhammad. Can you prove that wrong, considering there is equal evidence for the existence of both Muhammad and Jesus, if not more for Muhammad since he lived more recently?

[Seraph]

That is a good question and for me the answer is this.

If you agree that there is a God then logically you have to assert certain attributes to him - for instance - Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omnibenelovant. All Holy and with perfect justice.

Which those attributes in mind then the Christian God is the only one that logically is able to exist in my mind. For instance if there is a God that is All loving then he would want to have a relationship with his creation. The fact that he created the universe to begin with would imply that he has the love of a creator. Now if he is All Just then he would have to punish sin. An all loving God will create freewill beings. And in order to co-exist with those free-willed beings, then something has to be done about this problem of sin. Christianity is the only faith that offers a solution with the blood of Christ as it literally takes a God to solve the problem of an absolutely holy God. God is the only one that can meet his own standards of holiness and if he accepted any lesser standard - then he would not be God.

I definitely respect your reasoning. However, does proving God exists also show that the Christian concept of "sin" as needing to be purged through blood also exists? Through both my own experience and looking at the universe, I think that God is indeed loving and benevolent (although benevolence isn't a necessary trait of a Creator, God could possibly be like a person torturing their characters in a game of the Sims), and because of his/her benevolence, creation is designed in such a way where one does not need to have their sin erased through the death of himself. Especially a belief that is largely defined by a person's physical geography and their own character traits. My own form of Deism has a solution to sin/evil as well, and that is that God does not require a person to believe in a messiah in order to enter into a relationship with himself/herself. Or belief in God for that matter, a God of omnibenevolence could save a person despite their own depravity and regardless of what they believe.

[PaulSacramento]

Every time we as humans deal with the pain of others, especially those we love, we "pay" for it, we give of ourselves and , in short, we sacrifice ourselves for them.
Sometimes that payment can even been physical.
When we forgive another person the wrong they have done us, we "pay" for that forgiveness, usually emotional but sometimes physical and even monetarily.
In short, any time anyone forgives or deals with the "sin" of another, a price is always payed.
God is no different.
As a matter of fact, because He is LOVE then He pays even MORE than we do.

A relationship, any relationship even the Trinity really, always and eventually involves "compassion", which means "to suffer with others".
In God's case it was suffering that He choose to endure for Us so that we ALL ( those that believe) can be reconciled to Him By the Resurrection of Christ.

[Seraph]

That's Christian theology, but the idea of forgiveness always requiring sacrifice is not very intuitive. What if I said I needed to kill a rabbit and have a person accept the death of that rabbit each time I needed to forgive a person? Any logical person would say "Why the **** did you have to kill a rabbit in order to forgive someone?"

Or if it has to be self sacrifice, what if a person said they needed to slice off one of their own fingers whenever they forgave someone, and that the person needed to accept the sacrifice of the finger? You'd get the same response.

To show the logic of Jesus' sacrifice being the only way to God, the ideas of Original Sin and Redemption through Death/Ressurection need to be shown logically.

[Jac3510]

That's not Christian theology, seraph, although you might find the argument being put in specifically Christian language. What it is, is the moral argument. If OM exists, then it means that a moral God exists. If a moral God exists, then justice demands fulfillment. I immediately grant that the fulfillment of divine justice need not be the death of Jesus on the Cross. There's nothing logically necessary there. But I do insist that when you look at all the world religions, none of them provide a means for redemption. The ones that even admit to the reality of sin in a meaningful way (that is, in a way that follows the reasoning of the moral argument, e.g., Islam) just posit that God can and does arbitrarily forgive those sins. But that goes against divine justice. So on this count, only Christianity is internally consistent.

Beyond that, the person of Jesus Himself demands explanation, and only the Christian explanation makes the best sense. The fulfillment of biblical prophecy demands explanation, which mandates that we take seriously the biblical message. And still further, I think a good argument can be made for the plurality of persons within the Godhead, and that by reason alone. While I don't think you can necessarily get to the Trinity, if reason can show that, if God exists, there must be a multiplicity of Persons within the One being that is God, then you exclude ALL religions save Christianity. The argument, by the way, runs in a simplified version as follows: If God exists, He is perfect; A perfect being can love; But a perfect being can lack nothing outside of itself; love, by nature, is others-oriented; thus, God must have someone to love perfectly, and that necessarily by His nature; but that someone to love cannot be outside of Himself, or else He would need something outside of Himself and thus not be perfect; thus, there must be a plurality of Persons within the Godhead that share in perfect divine love.

In short, any view of God that is not Christian is deficient and likely irrational.

[Silvertusk]

That's not Christian theology, seraph, although you might find the argument being put in specifically Christian language. What it is, is the moral argument. If OM exists, then it means that a moral God exists. If a moral God exists, then justice demands fulfillment. I immediately grant that the fulfillment of divine justice need not be the death of Jesus on the Cross. There's nothing logically necessary there. But I do insist that when you look at all the world religions, none of them provide a means for redemption. The ones that even admit to the reality of sin in a meaningful way (that is, in a way that follows the reasoning of the moral argument, e.g., Islam) just posit that God can and does arbitrarily forgive those sins. But that goes against divine justice. So on this count, only Christianity is internally consistent.

Beyond that, the person of Jesus Himself demands explanation, and only the Christian explanation makes the best sense. The fulfillment of biblical prophecy demands explanation, which mandates that we take seriously the biblical message. And still further, I think a good argument can be made for the plurality of persons within the Godhead, and that by reason alone. While I don't think you can necessarily get to the Trinity, if reason can show that, if God exists, there must be a multiplicity of Persons within the One being that is God, then you exclude ALL religions save Christianity. The argument, by the way, runs in a simplified version as follows: If God exists, He is perfect; A perfect being can love; But a perfect being can lack nothing outside of itself; love, by nature, is others-oriented; thus, God must have someone to love perfectly, and that necessarily by His nature; but that someone to love cannot be outside of Himself, or else He would need something outside of Himself and thus not be perfect; thus, there must be a plurality of Persons within the Godhead that share in perfect divine love.

In short, any view of God that is not Christian is deficient and likely irrational.

I do like that Jac but my question would be what about his love for us? Does that stem from his will rather than the necessity of his nature?

[Jac3510]

I would say God's love for us stems from His will and not the necessity of His nature. As I pointed out in the other thread, God was under no obligation to create us. That is, we are not necessary. Only God is necessary (so, strictly, we can say that God wills Himself, and that necessarily, and, in fact, that God only necessarily wills Himself). If God does not will us necessarily, then He cannot love us necessarily, for one cannot necessarily love what does not necessarily exist. I would add, though, that since we are created, God does love, because for God to will is to love. So, once again, I would say God loves us necessarily by supposition, whereas He loves Himself necessarily absolutely.

In short, if God had not created us, there would no "us" to love, and thus, we cannot say God loves us necessarily absolutely. But, having created us, God does love us, because to create/will us is to love us, and thus we can say that God loves us necessarily so long as that necessity is a necessity of supposition. We cannot say that God created us but does not love us. That, which was the old Deist position (which seraph claims not to adhere to), would be incoherent. (To refer once again to Aquinas on this, see ST Ia.19 and 20).

[Seraph]

That, which was the old Deist position (which seraph claims not to adhere to), would be incoherent.

The idea that Deists believe God is unattached and unloving is actually a much more modern idea and is not what the old Deists believed. Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and Ben Franklin were Deists but believed God is a loving friend to humanity. Classic Deism is simply belief in God based on ones own intuition and reason and not through supposed revelation through prophets/apostles/people claiming to speak for God. The idea that Deism says God "created the universe and left because he doesn't care" is somewhat of a modern caricature of Deism, although some Deists (the Modern Deism denomination) do in fact believe this.

Anyway, showing that God both exists and loves us, is not sufficient to single out Christianity as the truth.

[Jac3510]

That, which was the old Deist position (which seraph claims not to adhere to), would be incoherent.

The idea that Deists believe God is unattached and unloving is actually a much more modern idea and is not what the old Deists believed. Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and Ben Franklin were Deists but believed God is a loving friend to humanity. Classic Deism is simply belief in God based on ones own intuition and reason and not through supposed revelation through prophets/apostles/people claiming to speak for God. The idea that Deism says God "created the universe and left because he doesn't care" is somewhat of a modern caricature of Deism, although some Deists (the Modern Deism denomination) do in fact believe this.

Not really. I am aware of the work of Sheehan, Porter, Young, etc. that is attempting ot make that case. Suffice it to say that where they are correct insofar as they argue that we ought not paint classical deists with broad strokes and that there were some who either considered themselves or were considered by others to be deists who yet believed in an interventionalist god, those exceptions are not so great as to overturn what you write off as "a modern caricature of Deism." Perhaps you've been persuaded, though, by the revisionism going on. And, if so, then fine. I'll just say, again, that I wasn't impressed by it, and beyond that, I'm not terribly interested in it. The point I was making still stands even if you want to insist on your "clarification," and I'd rather not get distracted by a red-herring.

Anyway, showing that God both exists and loves us, is not sufficient to single out Christianity as the truth.

That's a nice little assertion that both misrepresents what I said and the same time as it ignores that force of what I really did say. A subtle combination of a straw man AND proof by assertion, all while closely following the aforementioned red herring. Well done, seraph-son. Perhaps you should consider a legal career.

[Seraph]

I put the last line in a different paragraph because it wasn't addressing your post.

Not really. I am aware of the work of Sheehan, Porter, Young, etc. that is attempting ot make that case. Suffice it to say that where they are correct insofar as they argue that we ought not paint classical deists with broad strokes and that there were some who either considered themselves or were considered by others to be deists who yet believed in an interventionalist god, those exceptions are not so great as to overturn what you write off as "a modern caricature of Deism." Perhaps you've been persuaded, though, by the revisionism going on. And, if so, then fine. I'll just say, again, that I wasn't impressed by it, and beyond that, I'm not terribly interested in it. The point I was making still stands even if you want to insist on your "clarification," and I'd rather not get distracted by a red-herring.

I don't care if you're interested in it. It has no bearing on what is true. And you certainly seem confident that your definition is the truth while other definitions are just revisionism. Just for the heck of it, lets look at the intro to the wikipedia page for Deism:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism

"Deism (Listeni/ˈdiː.ɪzəm/[1][2] or /ˈdeɪ.ɪzəm/) is the belief that reason and observation of the natural world are sufficient to determine the existence of a Creator, accompanied with the rejection of revelation and authority as a source of religious knowledge."

But hey, thats just revisionism at work. I don't have the inside knowledge that you have.

[Jac3510]

Maybe you don't. Deism isn't a monolithic concept. I gave an admittedly simplified concept that I intentionally distanced you from. There's no reason in my mind to go through the history of the debate--especially to talk about English Deism and the so called Christian Deists vs. Enlightenment deists, to look at the debate over whether or not Herbert was a deist, much less the father of the movement, Leland's Deistic Writers (which is absolutely foundational to a proper understanding of this), yada yada yada.

I repeat, I distanced you from a notion you didn't hold. Your attempt to offer a "correction," especially when you are correcting an idea that was offered in charity, raises serious questions about your own understanding of the history of the idea.

As I said, it's one I'm not going to waste my time with. I've already studied it. It was one of the more boring things I've ever done. Terribly uninteresting. But maybe for you it is interesting, and that's certainly fine. And maybe you'll side with the revisionists. Reasonable people can disagree. If you want a few names to go read with some papers to look up, feel free to ask and I can point you in that direction. All I'm saying is that I am aware of the debate and I have concluded that your "correction" is no correction at all--it's historical revisionism, and that for largely political reasons--people who have a vested interest in a broader revisionism of American history, at that (and it comes from both the hard right and the hard left, by the way).

edit:

By the way, the Wikipedia reference doesn't help your case. It would help mine, but then again, that would require going through the debate. Look at the references (3-7), and then look at the emphasis on "revelation" in your own quotation. In historical context, revelation cannot be separated from miracle, not traditionally was it.

I FEEL MYSELF GETTING SUCKED IN. I'LL SAY NO MORE (on the history of deism)!

[Seraph]

Correction? I've been consistent in my position since the start of this thread. You're right, Deism is not monolithic, it is divided mainly into two major camps, Classic Deism and Modern Deism. The Classics believe in a personal God while the Modern don't. This is consistent with everything I've said, I've never had to revise my definitions or anything.

But regardless of what the Enlightenment era Deists believed (though I do agree with them on points often), I didn't become a Deist by researching these old Deists and their positions, I came to the conclusions on my own and decided that Deism was the best label for it.