Bridging the Gap

Speaking as a Platonist rather than a Christian apologist, the problem here is that you want to bridge the gap from the God of Aristotle to the God of Fundamentalist Protestantism, and that can't be done. You can't get from a First Cause to a literalist inerrant Bible. They are two completely different starting points.

That said, there are questions that come up for pure philosophical theists:

1) Is revelation out of the picture? Do we really believe that God would create a universe and then remain utterly aloof from it?

2) The Problem of Suffering. What answer can we give to the question of why evil exists and are there better ones available if one accepts revelation?

One thing that you have to understand is that philosophical theism is not just naturalism with a God tacked on. Signing on with Thomas Aquinas alone requires an immense change in worldview, and the sorts of objections that an atheist might make largely become irrelevant. The philosophical theist cannot consistently deny the possibility of miracles, the idea that history is in some sense a fix, or the likelihood that there really is a point to existence. These are all concerns that come up when assessing the claims of the various revelatory religions.

There are paths from philosophical theism to Christianity, though you will need to go back to the Patristics period to see people really wield them against the pagan world. Or at least pick up Catholic rather than Protestant apologetics--they usually lean more in that direction.

cvanwey said:

When looking at ALL such claims from the Bible, as a whole, does such a collection of texts seem to explain known reality?.?.?.? My contention is no. So even if creationism is the final concluded argument, then the Bible does not appear to fit, in any viable concept, as a conceivable conclusion.

Your thoughts?

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How are we conceiving of the Bible "as a whole"? If we're assessing the possibility that Christianity might be true, then we need to focus primarily on the New Testament as the full revelation and reinterpret the Old Testament through that lens. As far as I can tell, this gives us a God who communicates primarily in parable and narrative, which eliminates the need to take the Old Testament literally. There are any number of approaches to inspiration that can be defended in this situation. (I prefer progressive revelation.)

Assessing Judaism would require a different approach, I think, since the major revelation there is the Torah, which... at least seems to have some issues. The only context I can see Judaism itself being true is if Christianity also is, since there's a lot of stuff in the Old Testament that really screams out for transformation, or at the very least clarification. (Judaism also tends towards a bit of Mysterianism, given the way we see it struggling with suffering in Job and Ecclesiastes. I don't think it offered a good answer before Christianity came along.)

Silmarien said:

1) Is revelation out of the picture? Do we really believe that God would create a universe and then remain utterly aloof from it?

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I find it hard to believe He wouldn't be completely aloof. Do we have any interest in communicating with bacteria? If we're talking about anything close to the Omnimax God, He would seem to be so far above us as to be unrelatable. Unless we assume from the get go that we are centrally important to His decision to create. But I see no good reason to assume that.

Nicholas Deka said:

I find it hard to believe He wouldn't be completely aloof. Do we have any interest in communicating with bacteria? If we're talking about anything close to the Omnimax God, He would seem to be so far above us as to be unrelatable. Unless we assume from the get go that we are centrally important to His decision to create. But I see no good reason to assume that.

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Why would an omnibenevolent God be completely aloof to what he had created? Why sustain something in existence if you have no interest in it? The deistic picture is a little strange if you start really thinking about it.

I honestly think there's a lot of anti-humanism inherent in the idea that we could not possibly matter. If we have a concept of goodness, then why would an Omnimax God be completely unrelatable? Why think that bringing about rational creatures able to actually wonder at Creation wasn't part of the divine plan? If you don't think consciousness and rationality are cosmic accidents, then you have to start moving in a different direction instead.

Like I said before, philosophical theism is a very different framework than naturalism. If you accept the God of Aristotle, then the way you look at everything starts to change. If you look at the sort of objections that philosophical theists have to Christianity, they're very different than the normal atheistic ones.

cvanwey said:

Now all theists must do, is to bridge the giant gap... Just to recap, there now exists little controversy to the conclusion that the universe(s) were formulated by a prime mover, or monolithic God force.

Now demonstrate that this force originated from the God, as represented by the Holy Bible. And please, I implore one to do so only after watching the following ten minute video:

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Well, you assume that Biblical narrative exists to describe some nominal reality of God as opposed to communicate relevant metaphors through some form of oral narrative.

How would you describe a color to a blind person? You could associate it with certain familiar concepts like "water is blue", or "red is hot". A blind person can only indirectly understand the concept of color.


Biblical narrative is an attempt at describing a color to a blind person. It doesn't reflect the nominal reality of that description, because it's not something that we can see. All it does is paint some loose conceptual relationship for the sole purpose of structuring human behavior.

And my response to Theoretical BS would be that he can't understand Biblical narrative except through the cultural lens of the writers that penned it. It's a completely different mode of thinking that used very different frames of reference.

What you are asking is ... from my frame of reference... show me that Biblical narrative makes sense when it comes to painting a God? Again, see the "kids describing color" to the blind video .

Hi So, the one on the tape is claiming what must be true if the Christian God is the real God.

I am not going to answer every item, but a few which stand out. Others are already familiar to me and dealt with in the Bible, though explanation would be complicated; so I am arbitrarily answering just a few simpler ones. Of course, I can not absolutely guarantee that I have rightly understood the speaker; below I have how I represent and answer things he seems to be saying >

The speaker on the tape says the accepted God of Christianity has ruled that only animal sacrifice will rectify wrong things; and the speaker says this is the senseless killing of animals. Yes, God required blood sacrifices of animals during the Old Testament times. But it is clear how only the shed blood of Jesus and His death can get us right with God and forgiven. Possibly, the speaker is a vegetarian. People ate the sacrifices, by the way; so they were not wasted; so, unless you feel eating animals is senseless, those sacrifices were not practically senseless.

The speaker claims that God's rules are mainly about pleasing God. Of course, if you make something, you are going to do it to please yourself, somehow. And you will judge and evaluate whatever it is that you make, and you will have your exact purpose for making it. So, what else is new? Also, in case you are a mommy creating a meal, and if you are responsible and know how to cook, hopefully you will make it in the way which satisfies you yourself that it is done right and is good for everyone. God is the One who is so superior; so it is good that He has not made rules only in order to please us humans who we can see have not done very well in how we take care of resources . . . and our marriages and children. So, it is foolish to criticize God for making rules which do not fit with how we humans have been and done things!! Of course, included is how a mother will try to make a meal nice so it is enjoyed and she is praised. But what pleases her, hopefully, is not only that the family will like it, but it will be responsible financially and nourishing. And God's rules are designed for our good > this includes that God knows which spiritual being will have us doing different things; if He knows an evil being (Ephesians 2:2) will have us doing something, of course He will say not to do it. It might seem ok, but deeply the person will be degraded while doing it. For example, there are men who can not function in kind and tender sharing with a sweetly affectionate lady; and so they can not get into union with such a woman and instead they let their pleasure drives take them elsewhere. Therefore, God commands that we men become able to function in tender and affectionate love with ladies so we can reproduce with them and feed our children our example of how to relate in God's love. But there are evil spiritual beings who are contrary to this and would have us only using people for pleasure. So, God has rules so we know what is not God in us.

The video speaker says that God had a Son born who was God. Yes, God did. But the speaker seems to be insinuating that it is selfish of God to want a Son who is His own Self. But this was God sharing His very own best with us humans; so it is not selfish. He did not go through some inferior being; why try to do God's thing by means of what or who is inferior? We see from early scripture how well humans have been able to do things apart from how God has us loving. Only Jesus who is God could show us, truly, how God is, so we can know God from fakes and fake loving which has a way of being a preference for how to get pleasure.

The speaker in the video then says God as His Son altered rules which had been in the earlier scriptures. Jesus . . . speaking for Himself . . . says He did not alter rules but came to fulfill them. Altering and fulfilling can be very different. If you have rules, for example, for putting plumbing in a house, what you actually do fulfills the rules. This includes how once certain rules have been done, they no longer apply now because now you have plumbing in your house You do not need rules for how to put in the plumbing, because now the plumbing is in. There are many animal sacrifice rules in the early scripture, but now that Jesus has given Himself for us, He has accomplished all which those rules never could do > but they were a template, a foretelling of what Jesus would do > they were symbolic. So, they are no longer needed, because Jesus has done what they represent. What you need, now that the plumbing is in, are rules for how to use the plumbing. Jesus came to change us from sin to loving; the rules which apply are for how to relate personally with God and one another in the nature of Jesus' love.

The video person says God deliberately made sure the originals of the Bible would not continue to now so they could be evaluated without any second-hand passing on of God's message. Well, I understand that the originals of our New Testament were written on paper and animal skins. These would not last well, while being passed around and copied. And God is now able to have us get His understanding; in each of us God is able to make us able to tell the difference about what is His message and what isn't. There is the overall meaning we can get, even if we are not sure about what certain words mean. On the overall, we are saved by Jesus, and God is correcting us so we become like Jesus and love in sharing with Christ, pleasing our Father while tenderly caring for and sharing as family with one another, while also having hope for all which God is able to do for even our enemies. This is the basic, I will offer; and all scripture somehow can fit and help with this.

The speaker says that God in His plan has it that in our history religious people have oppressed variations from what is God's word and Bible. But God has not been distant. In spite of how certain groups have done variant translation works or details, we have God personally sharing with each of us and personally speaking to each sheep and guiding each of us, while using His approved leaders to feed us into more and more of this.

The speaker claims that God's way includes how He does not make it clear that He is here.

"Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us." (Romans 5:5)

So, yes in us who have trusted in Jesus (Ephesians 1:12) God is sharing His very own love with each of us, right "in our hearts" < this is very personal of God, to personally so share with each of us. But if one has a selfish nature, one can not at the same time experience God's own love which has us caring for any and all people. We can not experience how His love is except as much as He in us makes us become how this love is gentle and quiet (1 Peter 3:4) and all loving (Matthew 5:46).

So, God is very clear, in our hearts, not merely in giving people appearances which they claim to be evidence. Outward things are not God; His love in us is. He is not about giving people only what is not even second-best, such as mental mind-game arguments, among other things.

So, Satan is the one who is not making things clear. The speaker to some extent has God and Satan mixed up. Much of what he says has a slant and prejudice to representing how Satan is, not how God is.

The speaker claims that God plans to put people into hell regardless of their "character", if they do not believe. Only people with the character of Jesus will be in Heaven. And there are people who show that they have very nice character, yet they claim they don't need Jesus. This can mislead us to suppose we can make our own selves nice enough to get to Heaven, which is false. All of us have come short, we all need how God alone is able to change us into the likeness of His Son so we are so pleasing to our Father and we benefit from being able to love like Jesus does, and be strong in the almighty power of Jesus so we can not be tormented and ruined by fear and anger and arguing and complaining and dictatorial drives for pleasure and frustration and unforgiveness and ongoing suffering for decades about hurts. Jesus shares His almighty immunity with us, "and you will find rest for your souls." (in Matthew 11:28-30) It is not at all nice to trick people into trusting that they don't need Jesus who can do all this with us. If ones have the character to feel they are too good for Jesus God's own Son who suffered and died on Calvary's cross for us, such people have a major conceit problem.

cvanwey said:

A slow arduous journey from fundamentalism to skepticism...

I'm raising this topic because I feel, in the past, I have received little to no response to such inquiries. Hence, I'm making this (the) topic. Which is...

Let's all assume the common 'educated' consensus, or conclusion, was that the universe had a 'primer mover' or 'unified/singular creator'. Let's also assume the scientific community, from all unrelated disciplines, somehow all concluded that a singular unified 'creator' sparked everything into existence, in which we conceptualize as humans. In other words, the 'creationism' debate is over... The creationists win... Thomas Aquinas and friends are right...

Now all theists must do, is to bridge the giant gap... Just to recap, there now exists little controversy to the conclusion that the universe(s) were formulated by a prime mover, or monolithic God force.

Now demonstrate that this force originated from the God, as represented by the Holy Bible. And please, I implore one to do so only after watching the following ten minute video:


Thank you in advance

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Showing that Jesus Christ rose from the dead would essentially seal the deal, at least in my mind... even without the premise of your thread here where creationism has been vindicated.

How do Christians go about showing this? Good question. I don't think they even know what they're doing.

There's the "Why die for a lie?" argument, which is terrible because it is never actually shown that a single supposed eyewitness of the resurrection was given the chance to recant and go free (this detail is central to the whole argument and instead of showing it's true they just assume it is). For example, Herod simply had James killed (according to Acts, that is) and there's no indication that recanting his faith would've gotten him off the hook. Aside from Peter, the "sources" for all of the other martyrs are documents that the church itself won't even accept into canon. When you push them for a martyr who was explicitly given the chance to recant and go free, they throw Polycarp at you... a guy who was obviously not an eyewitness to the resurrection as he was born after it supposedly happened. Seeing as how the argument makes a point of saying that the 9/11 hijackers wouldn't fit a "Why die for a lie?" argument to further Muslim apologetics due to the fact that the 9/11 hijackers of course didn't actually claim to have seen Muhammad (FBUH), the same criteria rejects Polycarp. In summary, there is not a single person in the Christian version of history who saw the resurrected Jesus, then was given the chance to recant his faith and go free, but instead faced torture or execution. There is not a single person who fits this criteria even if we grant every single thing ever written down in the first 500 years of Christianity's existence.

As for evaluating the gospels themselves, the resurrection is obviously a later insertion. It's indisputable that Mark was written first, and was used as a "source" for Matthew and Luke. This is because they often copy Mark word for word. Further, it's indisputable that the ending of Mark (the part where the resurrected Jesus was actually seen) was added later as a forgery. Even Bible Gateway acknowledges this. The copy of Mark which was used as a "source" for Matthew and Luke most probably lacked the ending with the resurrection because Matthew and Luke obviously disagree wildly not only with one another but also with the resurrection narrative later added to Mark. Also note that Mark listed no genealogy of Jesus, so it should be no surprise that Matthew and Luke also differ wildly on that. So basically what we see is that Mark is often copied nearly word for word by Matthew and Luke (occasionally they might say "don't take a staff" instead of "take only a staff" but it's essentially word for word). When Mark isn't copied word for word, usually that entails either Matthew or Luke including something that's left out by the other. Apologists wiggle around here by saying that it's just one witness describing A, B, and C but not D while the other describes A, B, and D but not C. But there's good reason to think these are insertions by one, and not omissions by the other, because when they both do describe the same event, such as either the genealogy or resurrection of Christ, they simply cannot seem to agree even on a single detail. This is obviously best explained by each of them independently using Mark and then absolutely fabricating details out of thin air. Why did they both include the resurrection in the first place? Because Paul et al had hammered home the resurrection in the epistles long before any gospels were written, but what Paul didn't do is include details. That left the authors creative license to invent anything they wanted.

Nihilist Virus said:

Showing that Jesus Christ rose from the dead would essentially seal the deal, at least in my mind... even without the premise of your thread here where creationism has been vindicated.

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Holy smokes! I'm more skeptical than NV?!

How do you connect a man coming back from the dead to the creator of the universe? Have we somehow eliminated all other sources of "magic" if we start believing in the existence of the supernatural?

Silmarien said:

Why would an omnibenevolent God be completely aloof to what he had created? Why sustain something in existence if you have no interest in it? The deistic picture is a little strange if you start really thinking about it.

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I didn't say he would have no interest, just not an interest in communication. He could just be a voyeur. We have plenty of interest in creatures that we have no interest in communicating with or having a relationship with.

Silmarien said:

I honestly think there's a lot of anti-humanism inherent in the idea that we could not possibly matter. If we have a concept of goodness, then why would an Omnimax God be completely unrelatable?

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Woah there! You're getting ahead of yourself. Since when do we have a concept of goodness? Do you remember my thread "The Evil God Challenge"? How do we know that such a god likes kindness and hates torture and it isn't the other way around? For the sake of argument, I'll accept that an omnimax god is the source of objective morality, but how do you know that what you think is good is actually good unless he tells you?

Maybe we just made it all up and he disagrees, but doesn't care to correct us.
Maybe he likes us choosing for ourselves what we should and shouldn't do, but doesn't care what we pick.

Silmarien said:

Why think that bringing about rational creatures able to actually wonder at Creation wasn't part of the divine plan? If you don't think consciousness and rationality are cosmic accidents, then you have to start moving in a different direction instead.

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None of that has anything to do with a relationship with this god, though.


I'd also like to point out that we're already jumping way ahead from what @cvanwey proposed. We never established that the creator of the universe is omnimax at all. Maybe the creator created accidentally and isn't even aware we exist. I'm not trying to shift the goalposts back, I want to continue our discussion from the point we started, but I did want to point out that the gap between "creator of the universe" to "Yahweh" is bigger than even the OP seems to think.

@cvanwey, that video you posted makes a lot of assumptions too and jumps even further ahead in the gap than Silmarian and I are discussing. It seemed to really be not much more than an argument from evil, to be honest. Also, that guy is a douche. I don't disagree with everything he says, mind you, but it makes for a terrible presentation. He is way too full of himself.

Nicholas Deka said:

Holy smokes! I'm more skeptical than NV?!

How do you connect a man coming back from the dead to the creator of the universe? Have we somehow eliminated all other sources of "magic" if we start believing in the existence of the supernatural?

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Is there a valid logical connection? No. I'm just trying to be reasonable and I'm saying it would be good enough. At the very least it would be something. As it stands, theists and Christians have exactly nothing going for them.

Nicholas Deka said:

I didn't say he would have no interest, just not an interest in communication. He could just be a voyeur. We have plenty of interest in creatures that we have no interest in communicating with or having a relationship with.

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If we're taking as a starting place the God of the Philosophers, then we need to rethink what we mean by God, being, and relationship. To put it briefly (almost criminally so), God is not a particular entity, but Being Itself, the ground of all things. We need to abandon materialistic assumptions and reconsider what it means for us to exist as individual selves--if you look at world religion, it is exceedingly common to identify the self with God (Hinduism is particularly famous for this). Christianity takes a relational approach instead, but even there you could view the self as divinely given and argue that we enter into relation with God (even if a broken one) by the mere act of existing.

Nicholas Deka said:

Woah there! You're getting ahead of yourself. Since when do we have a concept of goodness? Do you remember my thread "The Evil God Challenge"? How do we know that such a god likes kindness and hates torture and it isn't the other way around? For the sake of argument, I'll accept that an omnimax god is the source of objective morality, but how do you know that what you think is good is actually good unless he tells you?

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How do you know that being healthy is good for you and being sick bad for you? The concept of goodness goes deeper than morality itself--it rears its head even in the most basic of situations, since we can recognize that certain states or outcomes are objectively better or worse for us. So yes, we have a concept of goodness.

How can we know for sure that what we think is morally good actually matches up to Goodness itself? That's a good question, and one I've failed to answer so far. So I have to say that without the Incarnation, I'm not sure we can. This is one of the major reasons that philosophical theism might lead someone to accept Christianity in particular. Moral Exemplar Theory of Atonement.

Nicholas Deka said:

I'd also like to point out that we're already jumping way ahead from what @cvanwey proposed. We never established that the creator of the universe is omnimax at all. Maybe the creator created accidentally and isn't even aware we exist. I'm not trying to shift the goalposts back, I want to continue our discussion from the point we started, but I did want to point out that the gap between "creator of the universe" to "Yahweh" is bigger than even the OP seems to think.

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The OP invoked Aquinas. So the natural theology of Aquinas appears to be the starting place. It's actually pretty robust.

It's true that we could start with a more passive approach to Absolute Reality--with the God of Neoplatonism and Vedanta Hinduism, for example, reality seems to emanate from God rather than being an intentional act of creation. Interestingly, we still end up in a somewhat relational situation with God here, either because we must realize our inner nature which is identical to God, or because our greatest good is to reunite with him.

This is what philosophical theism is. It has very little in common with an atheistic worldview, so you need to adjust accordingly if using it as a starting point. Like I said, it's not naturalism with God tossed in for good measure.

Nicholas Deka said:

@cvanwey, that video you posted makes a lot of assumptions too and jumps even further ahead in the gap than Silmarian and I are discussing. It seemed to really be not much more than an argument from evil, to be honest. Also, that guy is a douche. I don't disagree with everything he says, mind you, but it makes for a terrible presentation. He is way too full of himself.

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Yeah, I only got about 10 seconds in.

Anyway, I'll be out of town for the next couple days, so won't be replying again here for a while. But my initial point stands--I'm not sure you guys realize just how much is involved even in philosophical theism. If you've invoked Aquinas, you're already in the deep end, and the deep end without revelation can actually look a bit odd at times.

cvanwey said:

The entire point of the video was to demonstrate all such claims made from the Bible. When one adds them all together, do such claims match with later actual discovery and reality? Or, are such claims instead mythology to a lesser or greater degree? If being intellectually honest with one's self, it would appear the later seems a better fit.

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Silmarien said:

This is what philosophical theism is. It has very little in common with an atheistic worldview, so you need to adjust accordingly if using it as a starting point. Like I said, it's not naturalism with God tossed in for good measure.

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It's a difficult point to make when we live in a culture that:

1) Has a history of adhering to a strict Biblical literalism, especially in post-revival American Christianity
2) Has since exited and now likening that form of fundamentalism as the only Christian game in town

Maybe a bad analogy, but it's similar to Derren Brown (English magician), who makes you believe that he is using hypnosis and psychology, when in fact he is using the standard techniques every other mentalist is using and dressing it up as a more "magical" hypnosis and psychology.

Here's an example:


He makes up a story for audience to believe in (magical hypnosis using "NLP" ), but it's a typical variation of a mentalism trick, which could be done in any number of ways to swap the original writing "Red BMX Bike" with the "leather jacket". To the audience, it looks like hypnosis, and Derren structured the presentation with an appearance that he hypnotized him. The trick is on audience who thinks that's what hypnosis is.

Does that mean that hypnosis as a concept is false? No. Just the magical version that Derren presents. But, the real subjects of hypnosis are the audience, since "conceptual suggestion" that bypasses rational mechanisms is the broad basis for hypnosis. The story behind the story is that hypnosis does work... just not in the way people expect it to.

But, the NLP got such a broad use in the sales word, and ironically, Derren's videos like the above are used to popularize it as a sales tool.

NLP & The Trouble with Derren Brown • Notung

The point of the analogy is that institutionalized religion has done a great deal of disservice for the "Philosophical God" you are describing. Not all institutionalized religion, but I'm not going to point fingers to make this point here.

Much of the atheistic objections I've encountered revolve around the concepts akin to Derren Brown's type of "hypnosis" nowhere to be found in controlled scenarios. But the point that's ignored, is likewise akin that Derren Brown only uses this performance as a tool for better understanding of how our own minds work in certain situations.

Thus, it's very difficult to argue with people who expect you to present the God of Biblical Literalism, when you are not arguing for such God.

cvanwey said:

Thank you for the response. But unfortunately, this appears to be a false analogy of sorts. It's one thing to try to explain color to a blind person, explain math to an insect, expect an infant to grasp economics, etc....

However, there exists many stories from the Bible, which axiomatically either happened or did not happen. Let's start simply with a flood claim, which 'Jesus' seems to state did happen. The reason I use His name in quotes is to represent a point. That the author portrays Jesus as acknowledging such a claimed event actually happening in history. And yet, later discovery demonstrates how such an event most likely could not have happened. How might one reconcile such a scenario as 'truth', when the evidence leans to the contrary? (i.e) No flood - the opposite of a direct claim from Jesus.

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Does any given narrative have to be literally true in order to communicate truths?

cvanwey said:

Well, Jesus seems to 'think' or suggest that a global flood happened, according to the NT. So if such an event could not have happened, then we might start to have the beginnings of a problem - (in stark contrast to claimed truth).

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No. The writer seems to think that Jesus seems to think. You are missing the point again. It's a story.

The point of that story doesn't revolve around historic and scientific accuracy. It revolves around "holistic principles" that communicate transcendent concepts.

Take any children's stories. Let's say the 3 pigs and a big bad wolf. The point of the story is not that animals can talk. It's about steady structures being better and worth the extra effort.

The reason why people still listen to religious wisdom to this day is precisely because there is parenthetical concepts that transcend time and space and communicate truths that can't be told in a language of scientific reductionism.