So now, having explored "faith" and "free will" and even answered your question in two different ways, I'd like to try illustrate how one might logically arrive at Jesus being God.
Much has been said about an Atheist belief system in this thread, but let us here define some thought in the Christian belief system. Of crucial importance according to Christianity is what must one do in order to be accepted by the Father (i.e., God). Think John 3:16 and the many passages like it:
- “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
Belief, is of crucial importance right? You can’t have Christianity unless it is possible
for us to believe in Christ? This entails that we are able to freely exercise belief in some respect.
Jesus says in John 14:1, “
Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me” soon after declaring, “
I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” (John 14:6)
From passages it is clear that for the Christians belief system, “belief” and indeed our ability to have “faith” in this or that, all these concepts are central. If it could come down to one thing being advocated in these concepts it is this:
Free Will.
So then, with your belief in “free will” (heck belief even in "belief" as my last post covered), well I too believe such concepts are most obvious and intuitive for us to embrace. You know, they're as clear as the Sun to me that such are true. With this in mind, which belief system in most logically coherent with accommodating such truths?
1)
A Christian, Judaist view, where God imparts and allows for our free will so much, that He places decisions in our path to consider so we can decide to go this way or that (like the tree of knowledge of good and evil found in the Genesis story, whether one takes such as real or allegorical – the principle of “free will” absolute saturates Judeo-Christian theology).
2)
An Atheistic view where the material/physical world just is. A world wherein our beliefs and decisions are based upon random influences and physical processes over which we have no control, rather than us being the conscious subjects and author of our beliefs and life.
Now given I accept “free will”, I opt for #1. Right? The choice seems obvious to me. Now, with this comes a whole host of other beliefs that I also just intuitively believe in, they seem obvious to me. For example, love, true love, can only be had when one is free to express themselves for another in thought or action.
As a side, this is one main reason why I believe God created humans as free intelligent agents, having the real possibility to commit the most atrocious and evil acts. Without the real option for us to choose evil, then equally we could not choose love. Creatures who cannot make a decision from at least one of two ways would merely be robots, even if acting in accordance to some sophisticated set of random principles. What is necessary is the ability as truly conscious subjects to author ourselves, otherwise any “love” is merely a pseudo-love.
So now given I accept “love”, I opt for #1 again. Right? Now there are a host of other beliefs too, including concepts of fairness and justice, good and oppositely evil, responsibility and the irresponsibility and the like that all fit in with #1 where such can’t really fit in with #2 once true “free will” is cancelled out.
Now you might be asking how this all gets us to Christ being God? Well, understand what I'm doing here. Rather than a purely foundational approach to truth, which I believe is beneficial for giving us some first obvious truths, Coherentism is also very beneficial. You know, I intuitively accept free will, it fits well with a Christian belief system along with a host of other beliefs. In saying it fits well, I mean it is logically coherent with and doesn't contradict other beliefs within that system.
IF we settle upon a Theistic belief system as the more fulfilling of foundational truths that we accept, then our next task is to work out which one seems most correct. Now there might be other tests which make Judaism appear weaker to its Christian offspring (or vice-versa). One might also want to consider Islam, or get more particular within subsets of each belief system (i.e., the Catholic Church or this or that Protestant denomination). Just working forward however, I'd think one should initially just deal with the broadest representation of such belief system, particulars can come later.
So now Judaism and Christianity, I think for you Kenny given your previous response, that the answer is quite settled. You respect Christ and his teachings of love, and identify Israel's God as one of war. You believe in the truth of Love so much, that Israel's God seems preposterous to you. Perhaps so much, that Christ just seems a better fit. You may not be able to understand why Christ points back and claims to represent Israel's war-like God, but nonetheless His teachings ring true, true enough to garner closer attention perhaps? (or re-attention)
Now this reasoning seems a little emotionally driven rather than logically driven, right? To base it upon which belief system represents "love" the best. This is though your own foundational truth, and if Love is a foundational truth that you embrace as true, then any belief system that denies your understanding of such --
to be logically coherent with yourself you must deny too! Nonetheless, Christ still points back to Israel's God right? So you might need to explore other aspects.
Others like Stan Telchin (who authored a great book called
Betrayed!) used a similar process of elimination as I'm here describing, and eventually converted from Judaism to Christianity. You might find you go the other way, I guess that's where our freedom comes in right?
In any case, we do enough deducing and eliminating, then we reach via reasoning an eventual logical conclusion. Such a conclusion might just seem odd and strange. But as Sherlock Holmes is famously quoted of, “
when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” Therefore, eventually, I arrive at Christianity.
Now looking at my end beliefs, it would only look absurd to someone who also doesn't hold them. It leads many to think such beliefs can only a matter of pure faith that any rationally sane person would believe Christ to be God incarnate. Yet, any well-reasoned person who reached such, didn’t just wake up one day saying, “
Ahh makes so much sense, I now believe in Christ!” No, it is a process, and indeed there is often emotion attached too (humans are after all both logical and emotional creatures), but there can be (and I'd obviously argue "are") also rational reasons.
Before ending, I don’t want to present such a cold picture of Christianity, that one would arrive at this position via merely a process of reason alone. That such methods of verification can be had and gone through, doesn’t mean it is what many do indeed go through. There are some who in overcoming their intellectual objections, did follow a process of elimination if you will to Christ (like Telchin previously mentioned).
However, the other part of the Christian belief system is that we believe in a living God who can touch lives, even our own. You know of that which many Christians speak, that which makes them look deluded, some more so than others. Consider John Newton who sung in Amazing Grace, “
I once was blind but now I see.” Really, blind to what? The truth of God, truth of Christ? Now you see, how, what are you talking about, I don’t see anything? Right? You think us bonkers, and no doubt that's often the way it looks looking at the resulting end beliefs.
But, then consider whether it isn't bonkers to deny beliefs like "free will", even that "we" believe? "Love", "fairness", "justice" -- are all these just shadows being cast and mirages at best? I can't bring myself to believe such absurdities.