I am wondering how Christianity is considered "true" as a faith, while Islam, for example, is false? I am well versed in the Christian/Jewish bible and have read the Qur'an as well, though my knowledge of the Qur'an isn't as good.
I am wanting to know some hard evidence why Christianity is true over other religions. The more detailed sources the better. I am a serious seeker and investigating the truth, historically and factually behind these faiths.
Thanks for replying, I will try to address every point if I can.
1. First you may have to understand what "witnessing" is.
All human history is laid in a form of human witnessing, that is, we have to rely on other humans to write history down for us to believe what had happened. This is how a historical truth is conveyed from a point in history to humans till today.
For us to validate a historical truth, we need to cross reference multiple accounts of history written from the various source of various historians. We can thus say that a certain event most likely to be a truth (historical truth) if the majority of a bunch of historian writing consistently saying the same about that event.
Plus that in terms of a court case, the more witnesses testifying about a certain event, the more the event is believed to be the truth.
That's the way how we humans are approaching a truth happened in the past, especially in the case that evidence can hardly available that we have to rely on human witnessing to approach such a truth.
From a certain perspective, the Bible is considered to be a human witnessing of God's existence and His deed. It is composed of more than 40 accounts (from God's prophets as His witnesses). They consistently witness the same God about how He appeared to them.
And the Jews had the tradition that if one is to accuse someone of a crime, he needs at least 2 human witnesses to testify for him. (the situation in a court case).
From this perspective, the Quran is a one man witnessing about a god called allah. It's thus not trustworthy to stand a court case and as valid account for human witnessing. To put it another way, if God is truly behind Quran, and He would like to be witnessed in a valid way, He's needs multiple accounts to support the witnessing. To simply put, a single account can hardly be considered as a valid human witnessing.
2. You may need to understand why the Second covenant is an eternal covenant that it is the final and permanent one that no other prophets are required to write another Bible.
Here is what a covenant is and why the Quran/Mohammad is never needed.
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The big picture is that, if Adam failed to keep God's Law, when he's inside the Kingdom of God (living with God), it is expected that no humans can actually keep God's Law. This simply means all humans may have to die (second death) in front of God's Law ever since Adam. This is what Roman 5:14 trying to say. That is, even before Mosaic Law was put in place, death reigned over everyone including those who didn't break an obvious command as Adam did. It is because God's Law is always in place. And sin at anytime is a breaking of God's Law (the various forms of God's Law) one way or another.
At the same time, it says that God's Law is not completely equivalent to Mosaic Law. Mosaic Law is a covenantal Law. A covenant is composed of basically 3 important parts. 1) Law (covenantal law) and commandments, 2) Grace, and 3) a scope covering a certain group of humans. Mosaic Law is such a covenantal law attached to a covenant with a scope covering the Jews.
It is because humans ever since Adam cannot keep God's Law in complete (as witnessed and proven in the period between Adam and Noah), a covenant is needed for humans to be saved at all. A covenant simply means "You don't need to obey God's Law in complete, but you only need to obey the partial law specified in a covenant" such that you can be saved. Humans don't need to keep God's Law in full but only the covenantal law to be saved because God has grace for humans through each and every covenant. God doesn't need humans agreement but enforce a covenant to a group of humans simply because humans can only be saved through a covenant.
And the Grace part of a covenant is usually in the form of Faith, that is, God's Grace is usually granted through faith. And faith can save because in the end Jesus Christ will make a sacrifice. To simply put, humans don't need to (and can't) keep God's Law in full to be saved. They just need to keep what is said in a covenant. It is so because each covenant contains God's Grace through Jesus Christ.
As a result, the New (Second) Covenant is a far more advanced covenant. Whoever covered by this covenant no longer need to subject himself to the judgment of Law. The Grace through Christ is complete in this covenant. This covenant is permanent and eternal. The Law/Commandment part of this covenant is kept to a minimal while its Grace is maximized that mostly you need only Faith in Christ to be saved.
The same verse also reflect the fact that after Adam being driven out of Eden, humans are no longer inside God's Kingdom and no longer living with God directly as Adam did. Under this circumstance, humans will be more and more sinful as time goes by, and generations after generations. In effect more and more humans will be "sentenced to death" in front of Law (covenantal Law). However, God will increase the "Grace" portion and decrease the "Law/Commandment" portion through each of His successive covenant, until the final one - the Second Covenant which is permanent and eternal! (with the Law/Commandment portion minimized and the Grace/Faith portion maximized).
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To summarize:
From the perspective of how a truth is conveyed via human witnessing, a single account such as Quran/Mohammad is hardly a valid account. (similarly Buddhism is just yet another single account witnessing). Only multiple accounts can efficiently identify such a truth. If God exists He will employ a more efficient way for conveying a truth.
From the perspective of God's covenants. There is no room for another "prophet" like Mohammad to write another "bible" like the Quran.