Catherineanne
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- Sep 1, 2004
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Burden of proof that Christian doctrine is correct. In that I suppose the starting point would be proving that the Bible is the inspired word of God.
Christian doctrine is only correct for Christians. Any proof you are presented with will, pretty well by definition, appear circular to anyone outside our faith.
As an example, the Bible is the inspired word of God because that is what it says in the Bible. If you take the Bible to be the inspired word of God, then you believe what it claims of itself. If you do not, then it doesn't matter what it says about anything, because you will always want evidence from outside to substantiate any claim whatever.
You will not find such evidence for everything in the Bible. You will find it for some parts, but I suspect that a sceptic will then find himself doubting those sources too. Josephus writes of Christ. But perhaps Josephus is mistaken, and who backs up Josephus? Tacitus does, but who backs up what Tacitus says? And on it goes.
Somewhere, at some point, you have to trust someone.
If you want to substantiate our faith, the only way to do it is to leap in. You cannot prove that we are right, and that everything we believe is correct, while standing on the outside.
It is like someone on the edge of a swimming pool, saying, prove to me that water is wet. We can say all we like, 'look you can see it is wet. We know it is wet, we can feel it, we can experience it.' You can still say, 'I do not know for myself about how wet it is, therefore it might be dry.'
You have to jump in to find out for yourself.

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