To what extent is training in apologetics necessary to be fully convinced that Christianity is true?

[TruthSeek3r]

If a person is not enabled to receive the gospel, all the clever arguments in the world will not affect them.

If they are enabled to receive the gospel, the gospel is all they need.

How can a person become enabled to receive the gospel? How does the transition from "unable" to "enabled" happen?

 

[grasping the after wind]

Is in-depth training in philosophical and historical arguments for the veracity of Christianity a necessary condition for someone to be able to reach an extremely high level of confidence that Christianity is true?

No

What about people with busy schedules or who do not have access to scholarly literature? What hope do they have to achieve the same level of confidence in the truthfulness of Christianity as someone who does have access to these intellectual resources?

Every hope possible. Scholarly literature is in no way helpful in building faith. First comes the faith then one might become interested in the scholarly literature. One comes to confident faith in Christ as a child does to its parents.

Mark 10:13-16 ESV /
And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them.

 

[aiki]

Do you make a distinction between "feeling" and "qualia"? See Qualia - Wikipedia

Back to your example of memory, when I remember something, I have a conscious experience of remembering something. I have a conscious experience of hearing a remembered version of the sounds in my consciousness, awareness, mind, whatever you wanna call it, same with images, emotions attached to the memory, etc. A memory is essentially a collection of sounds, images, thoughts, emotions, etc. that were recorded in your brain and that you "make alive" again by bringing them up to your conscious awareness (you remember them, you perceive again the images, the sounds, etc.).

So for me, perceiving something through my physical senses or remembering something or whatever, they all produce conscious experience, they all produce qualia.

Is there a distinct benefit to including the notion of qualia in my conception of personal experience? Not that I can see. The idea of qualia seems to me to be just another point of argument for philosophers.

My observations to you in my last post weren't denying experience but just making distinctions between types of experience. There are both physical, sensual experiences we have and mental and spiritual ones. Unfortunately, there isn't always a clean, clear demarcation between the two kinds of experiences. The mental event of remembering, for instance, evokes all sorts of emotions, being strong enough at times to make a person believe they are tasting, or smelling, or hearing again what they've remembered.

But the mental event of a memory, say, of an explosion, where the person remembering was badly injured, is, we understand, very different from the actual physical experience of the explosion the person endured. None of the physical, sensual features of the explosion are endured again: the force of the impact of the explosion, the damage to the person's body and resulting pain, perhaps being flung through the air, etc. In the experience of the mental event of memory, all of these physical elements of the first, physical experience being remembered are absent, which is why, in part, we distinguish memory from the actual event it recalls.

In any case, I set spiritual experience apart from physical, of-the-flesh experience, too. Such experience, like an experience of a mental event such as memory, is immaterial in its essence, and, Scripture indicates repeatedly, in sharp tension with physical, fleshly experience.

Sensual Faith: Oh, God, You Make Me Feel Sooo Good!