I wouldn't say so. I am interested in dialogue, but this conversation is more about "Why is Christianity different?" That only answers part of what my first post addressed. Not only must you answer the question "What separates Christianity?", but also "Why does this belief give more merit than every other belief system?"
Absolutely true (if I am indeed playing "offense" / trying to persuade you, which would rightly place the onus of proof on me).
I do suppose my premise was a bit shaky given that I lumped in monotheism, polytheism, and spiritualism. Since monotheism seems to be the main topic of debate and is more on target with Christianity, we can stick with that.
Great! That really helps clarify the debate. Incidently, I'm fine if you want to "zoom out" and ask if there is, actually, a monotheistic God (of the sort conceived by Islam, Judaism, Christianity, etc.) - I was just getting frustrated at feeling like I was debating a moving target.
Also, and this kind of works as an overview of this entire post, I'm in the process of moving across the country and, in my stress, my tone turned much harsher than I had intended in my prior post. I apologize.
Apollo is not the sun, but he is a son, he also had siblings.
Sure - since we aren't debating polytheism it isn't as relevant at this point, but my issue was more that Apollo is (really)
just a god-of-the-gaps (and a finite one) such that, once the gap is gone, the whole reason for Apollo is gone. The monotheistic deity certainly has been used to fill gaps, but given the infinitude (in concept) of such a deity, that God also transcends those gaps and so, even once those gaps are filled the belief in that deity is not fully defeated.
The Christian God can be seen as a god of the gaps, the gap to explain existence.
I actually have an argument, if we want to turn back to discussing monotheism's merits, as to why the cosmological question (i.e. "why is there something rather than nothing?") and teleological question (i.e. "why is there order in the universe?") are, as fundamentally metaphysical questions, unique from merely physical questions. Physics questions can, conceivably, be answered by the scientific method given a large enough data set. The above questions are not, however, gaps in scientific knowledge, but rather fundamentally different questions - ones which, I think I could argue, science actually cannot (ever, in a non-speculative way) answer without entering into circularity or equivocating on its terms (i.e. redefining "nothing").
Jesus is not God though, he is the son of God. Perhaps I'm just uneducated in this area, but I don't see why God would call Jesus his son and place him at his right hand. Why not just call him for who he really is, God?
To say He is the Son of God is to say that He is God by nature. It is the difference between someone's
creation (i.e. if I'm a woodworker, I make a bench - the bench is not the same as me by nature; it is a different type of thing from me) and their
offspring - their
begotten (i.e. the woodworker's child would be, by nature, a human being the same way the woodworker is a human being).
Now, for every created species we know of (e.g. humans, horses; heck, even rocks or other inanimate objects), two things of the same nature are distinct from one another and, therefore, have separate existences. IE) just because the woodworker and his/her offspring share a human nature doesn't make them the same person.
That's how we say the Father and Son (and Holy Spirit) are three persons.
But God is not a creature. So we cannot perfectly analogize our human experience of personhood to God. Rather, we must ask "What is this divine nature that the Son of God - God's begotten - inherits?"
Humans have some attributes - things that make them human (that's "human nature"). The divine nature are those things that are universally God - that all three of the persons possess by virtue of having the divine nature.
What are they? It is difficult to say what God IS, since we have very little brains and God is rather big, but it is, to an extent, possible to say what God is not by virtue of either argument or revelation (i.e. I can arrive at the following list through deductive argument, if you'd like to see it; it is also a list consistent with the revelation of God in each of the monotheistic traditions that I'm aware of):
The Divine is
not mortal (immortal)
The Divine is
not finite (infinite)
The Divine is
not changing (beyond time)
I will stop with those three, as I can expand them quite nicely. God is immortal because in part because God is beyond time. We cannot, properly, apply
chronology to God (again, if you like, I can provide the argument as to why that is or, if you like, the prooftexts from Islam / Judaism / Christianity).
Change is, by definition, being something at one point in time and then another thing at another point in time. Change demands chronology - time. Without time, God is without change.
God is also infinite. We cannot limit God's power, knowledge, location, etc.
Now, and the following does not stem from deductive philosophy but directly from revelation, we also say that God is a few things: God IS (i.e. has existence / life in Himself - God is life), and God is LOVE (i.e. He doesn't have love, or fall in love, but is, in and of Himself, love itself). I know I've not argued those two things, but as I'm specifically trying to explain the relationship of the Father to the Son (something specific to Christianity), I hope you'll grant me this context just for the purpose of this explanation.
So what, then, can we say of the Father and the Son (and the Holy Spirit, who also has this self-same divine nature)?
The three persons did not, at any point, come into existence. The Father does not pre-exist the Son or the Spirit, as that would subject God to TIME and would subject the Son and Spirit to FINITUDE (a limit on their being).
So, they have always been - they are IN all the same "times" (and mutually beyond all time).
They also, being mutually infinite, are in all the same "places" (and mutually beyond all concept of place) with all the same omnipotent power.
And they also, being mutually LOVE, have the same motive and do, therefore, the same things (though they, acting in concert, may take different roles in accomplishing the same thing). They have one will - love.
So what do you get if you've got something(s) in the same times and places with the same motives and abilities doing the same things? You have a thing(s) one in essence - essentially one.
And that is what we say: the Father and Son and Spirit are one in essence because they share the one universal divine nature.
I hope that helps with the explanation - I'll present a couple of arguments for WHY we say that below (i.e. I'm aware that the above is just an explanation, not an argument).
This is where you lose me. People of any other monotheistic faith would argue that Incarnation and a Triune God do not make that religion valid. They are just characteristics that other religions don't share. Judaism for instance requires no Trinity or Incarnation for their religion to be valid to them
Right. This is exactly why the debate centers on these two doctrines.
The syllogism would go something like this:
P1: There is a monotheistic God.
P2: Christians claim that Christ is God.
P3: All other monotheists claim that Christ is not God.
P4: God and "not God" are mutually exclusive.
C: Either Christianity is right and Christ is God (such that all other monotheistic religions are wrong) OR Christianity is wrong and one of the other monotheistic religions is right.
See? It isn't that Judaism is invalid because it doesn't have an Incarnation (though I will make that argument, I haven't yet). It is that, having CLAIMED an Incarnation, Christianity rises and falls on the TRUTH of that claim.
IF (big if) the Incarnation is TRUE, then EVERY OTHER monotheistic religion is false because every other monotheistic religion claims that the Incarnation is not true.
The same logic works for the Trinity. Because ONLY Christians, of the monotheists, believe in a Trinity THEN, it follows, that if the Trinity is TRUE (big if) that the other monotheistic religions are FALSE as they do not teach the Trinity.
Christians say "Trinity!" and every other monotheist says "Not Trinity!"
By the principle of mutual exclusion, only one of those groups can be right.
So IF I can argue "Trinity" THEN I've disproven the other monotheistic faiths by virtue of the fact that they don't teach a Trinity.
It isn't that, in concept, they need a Trinity to be valid (though I'll argue that later); it is that, IF it is true, the fact that they DON'T teach a Triune God would make them false.
Does that help clarify at all?
Its just like saying that atheists and theists are mutually exclusive. IF there is a God, then atheists are wrong. If there isn't, then theists are wrong.
If Christ is God, then Christians are right. If He's not, then we're wrong. If God is Triune, then Christians are right. It God is not, then we're wrong.
That's all I'm getting at so far.
But the relevance of Christ is entirely personal. To a person of any other monotheistic faith (in which Christianity is outnumbered), Christ means and does nothing.
Do you care about emotional relevance or truth? I can argue either way, so just let me know. You seem, to me, to care about truth; in which case, how other religions FEEL about Christ wouldn't matter if, in fact, Christ is God.
The truth, remarkably, doesn't care about our emotions.
I agree, but I'll also state that Jesus has not been proven to be the THE God Incarnate any more than Muhammad was proven to be THE prophet/messenger of God. If Muhammad is the true, factual messenger of God then what he says is true and Islam is valid.
Yes - you are absolutely right on this point. Muslims, Sikhs, and Baha'i all claim that Mohamed is God's prophet, but Muslims ALONE claim that he is the final and culminating prophet of God. If that claim is true, then every other monotheistic faith is false.
So any argument I use to demonstrate Christ's Incarnation would have to FAIL to work at proving Mohamed's status as prophet (i.e. I have to use the same methodology for Mohamed's claims that I do for Christ's).
If you're with me this far, in the next post I'll attempt to do that. I actually and really do think that I can accomplish this - I think the arguments for the Incarnation do NOT work in a similar fashion for any other faith. I'm not going to commit special pleading (or, at the least, I promise to try really really hard not to and to own up to it if I'm called out for committing special pleading).
I guess I misinterpreted your arguments, I kept asking why Christianity is more valid and you were replying with "Incarnate" and "Holy Trinity" again and again. Since these things cannot be proven or disproven, I assumed you were saying these characteristics are what validates Christianity over other religions.
A fair misinterpretation. It appears, at this point, that we've moved past it (yay for a discussion that progresses!).
I don't have belief, I have disbelief based on the reality I experience.
Now that IS special pleading. I'm sorry, but disbelief IS a belief. A belief, of any sort, is an attempt to interpret our experience of reality. Your interpretation leads you to deny the claim "Christianity is true" - that's a belief. You believe the statement "Christianity is untrue" OR you believe the statement "We don't know if Christianity is true." Somewhere in there, your doubt constitutes a belief.
We may have to agree to disagree on this, but on a philosophical level I point blank refuse to grant agnosticism or doubt some special status as a non-belief belief - I think doubt has to play by the same rules as faith. We're all just a bunch of people doing our best to understand the world around us - we should treat one anothers' beliefs on a level playing field.
It's not really doubt, it's just lack of proof.
Used to justify doubt. IE) the lack of proof leads you to doubt the truth value of Christianity.
Proof is how I determine what constitutes reality. While Christianity may make different claims, it offers no proof to these claims. Like all other religions, it is faith based and rightly so (because no proof can be given).
I think you're making a false assumption here, but I'm ok with letting it go as, at the moment, it isn't interfering in our dialogue and I'm more interested in taking the next step in discussing the Trinity and Incarnation (as I discuss above).
I'm doing my best to not hide silently in the corner. I'll say that asking a Christian to question their faith over this may have been a bit arrogant and completely unnecessary to the thread; which is about my own personal question and disbelief.
Cool. That helps clarify the discussion for me. I now understand that you aren't trying to disprove Christianity so much as asking Christians to make their best attempt to justify Christianity to you (i.e. you want us to go on "offense" and view the onus of proof as squarely on us).
Makes sense to me.
If you're speaking of "public" in the same terms as "objective", then yes that's the stance I would take.
By public I meant only that it was available to the public - that is, something outside the realm of my personal experience (which you can only access via my testimony).
I cannot believe something (on the level of religion) that has no objective basis or proof, I see no reason to.
Again, though, that's a self-referentially incoherent statement. It cannot pass its own test. You cannot provide reasoned argument nor evidence that ONLY public / objective proof can be used to gain truth.
Even in the above quote, you say "I see no reason to" which is, in a way, circular (for example: you are saying you must have reason to believe something because you don't have any reason not to say you must have reason to believe something - your assume that reason is the only valid way to gain knowledge as part of your argument that reason is the only valid way to gain knowledge).
So either it cannot pass its own test (and ought not, therefore, be believed) or it begs the question / uses circular reasoning.
Evidentialism (the name for the view you provided here) has a popular following in our society, but is generally rejected by philosophers for exactly the reasons I outlined above.
Now, to clarify, that doesn't mean evidence isn't REALLY REALLY useful for gaining knowledge / warranted belief / truth. It may even be the MOST useful thing for gaining truth. But we cannot say it is EXCLUSIVELY able to gain truth or the very idea of evidentialism itself cannot be known as true (since we cannot provide evidence for it).
So we must be open to other means of knowing as well.
In short, I would amend your quote to say "Given its usefulness, I prefer to look for proof / evidence / reason before believing something." That accurately communicates, to me, the grounds on which you'd like to see me satisfy Christianity's onus of proof, but it leaves open the possibility that I may KNOW (validly - that is, as a warranted belief) Christianity in a way that is not presentable in argument or evidence.
Sorry to be picky - but the subtle difference does matter (in the long run) for how these discussion go.
Your case for private evidence proving Christianity is no stronger than the Muslim who has his own private evidence for Islam. A person in my shoes here is completely twisted around and since nobody has anything objective to offer, I'm left spinning and confused.
Yeah, that's true. I'm not saying my experience satisfies the onus of proof that you need satisfied in order to believe Christianity. But it does satisfy the onus of proof that I need for me to believe Christianity - that's all I was saying.
Hope that helps clarify.
I suppose not, religion is quite a powerful drug.
A rather unfair and loaded analogy.
Honestly, I kind of need to call you out on something. You are REALLY quick to accuse Christians of failing to respect the religious experiences of other people, but then you pull stuff like calling OUR experiences the results of drugs, or calling all of us delusional.
Its like you're playing by your own set of rules - you get to dismiss all of our experiences as delusional, drug induced, ignorant (all your words I'm using here), but I (who have said nothing negative about the religious experiences of others) am the one who supposedly doesn't respect the validity of others' experiences.
Just a wee bit hypocritical, my friend.
No? They say "prove there is a green chair". At that point, I walk over to the chair, pick it up, and then ask them to sit in it. If I walk to the chair and there is nothing to pick up and nothing to sit on, then I am delusional in believing a chair was there. If it's just one other person accusing me that the chair isn't there, I would call in more people and have them verify that.
And let us say THEY were delusional - such that when you picked up the chair, and (let us say) physically hit them with it, they still refused to see the chair / believe it was there. Let us even say that 20 other people agreed with this delusional person (perhaps they are all delusional). Would you still be warranted, in your own self, with asserting the chair exists?
Also, its an analogy - I was just pointing out that personal experience constitutes a valid ground for belief. Obviously, if someone can present positive evidence or reason AGAINST what I perceive through personal experience then I've run into a legitimate defeater for my belief and ought to change it.
But I cannot conceive of any way for you to demonstrate or argue that the Incarnation is false. I mean, you can show why arguments in favor of it aren't persuasive to you - but the failure of a given argument doesn't make the truth it was pointing to false. I could make a TERRIBLE argument for why 2*2 = 4 and, in reality, 2*2 would still equal 4.
Anyhow, given that a chair is physical and God is not, the chair analogy breaks down rather quickly. My point, granted above, was that my personal experience warrants belief for me until such a time as I have a warranted cause to disbelieve that experience.
Subjective experiences do indeed matter for belief. Belief is not truth.
Personally speaking, I have had many subjective experiences of God and was a born again Christian for about 5 years (regular Christian for 20). I concluded that I was delusional.
Then isn't your doubt also subject to the same worry? IE) if you believe yourself to be delusional, have you sought medical help? I mean, delusions aren't metaphysical things - they are legitimate disease of the mind. Go see a truly delusional person - someone suffering from clinical delusions - they are not, generally, lucid.
On what grounds did you conclude that you were delusional? If you were delusional, how could you trust the experiences / grounds that led you to think you were delusional?
Perhaps this would help: please define "delusional" as you're using it in this conversation.
Again, I have a disbelief in religion, not belief. I believe that all religions are wrong,
You seriously don't see the contradiction / double standard in those two statements?
"I don't have belief because I BELIEVE all religions are wrong"
Your belief is that all religions are wrong. That's a belief. You even used the word "believe" as the verb for stating your view that all religions are wrong.
Why does your belief that religions are wrong get to play by one set of rules, but my belief that a religion (Christianity) is right have to play by another, much more rigorous, set of rules?
That's special pleading. Its the very fallacy you keep implying that we, as Christians, commit. Again, I'm sorry to call you out, but you're being a hypocrite here.
and I base that on the proof that there is no objective proof for religions.
That's an actual logical fallacy - no joke. Its called an "argument from silence."
The absence of proof for something does not necessarily mean that said thing is false. For example, for millenia there was no "proof" available to human minds that black holes existed. Black holes still existed. The absence of available proof does NOT constitute a PROOF that the idea in question is false.
Your assertion that religions are false because of an absence of proof does not, in and of itself, work.
Also, see above for why the underlying epistomology here is self-defeating. You say that religions lack objective proof and are therefore false. Your statement, though, implies a major premise that ideas which lack objective proof are false. You cannot provide objective, airtight proof that the statement "ideas which lack objective proof are false" is, in fact, true. Therefore, according to your own argument, that statement is false and your conclusion (that all religions are false) cannot be warranted by the argument you are currently using.
Written as a syllogism, it would look like this:
P1: Ideas which lack objective proof are false
P2: Religions lack objective proof
C: Religions are false
Your conclusion works IF both premise one and two are warranted. I think both are absolutely false (and I'll attack premise two in a later post - again, see above), but premise one itself is also false. Without the statement "ideas which lack objective proof are false" your argument falls apart.
But there is no objective proof for premise one. Premise one, then, IF TRUE, must be FALSE (as there's no objective proof for it). That is, obviously, nonsense. Something cannot be True and Not True simultaneously (law of non-contradiction). Premise one, literally, contradicts itself. It is false. Without it, your argument fails.
Your conclusion may still very well be correct - but the argument you are currently using is, on an objective level, a failing argument.
Subjective proof alone is simply not enough to make something true, no matter how convincing it is.
How do you know that statement is true?
It's deluded because your belief that is not based on proof is somehow more truthful than every other religion out there. Belief is subjective, truth is not.
And again, suddenly my experiences are invalidated and dismissed.
See above for why this appears to be highly hypocritical on your part.
Well I think we've at least finally accomplished step 1.
Excellent.
How can you explain a persons religious experience in any religion outside of Christianity?
Any number of ways. Generally, I believe that while God has revealed the highest degree of Truth within Christianity (specifically Orthodox Christianity), that God has also been (and is) present and active in all cultures and all peoples. Their experiences of God are expressions of God's universal love for all people - something I fervently believe in.
I'm not a universalist, but neither am I an exclusivist (i.e. thinking that the Church, somehow, has a monopoly on grace). God does what God wills to do. If God wills to reach out to a Muslim, then praise God. If Buddhists are in heaven (and I really hope they are) then praise God.
Truth matters. But I'm not interested in invalidating others' experiences OR accusing them of being hell bound. That's a bunch of pride I just don't need.
I'm interested in doing the best I can with what light God HAS given me. Given how much I struggle to repent of even the smallest sin, that's plenty enough for a lifetime.
What is this experience of God/religion they have? They will tell you with all their hearts and minds that they believe what they feel is real. But it cannot be real if Christianity is true, so it must be delusion?
I dearly hope God is transcendent above our human errors and pettiness. Otherwise, even IF I'm right about Christianity, I'm still pretty well on the losing end of that deal as I am still, in many things, petty and in error.
And lest you think I'm going off the deep end away from Christianity, the view I'm expressing here has been WIDELY held by Christians for the last two millenia. The exclusivists (the type of Christian you seem to be more accustomed to arguing with, just based on some of the assumptions you appear to carry) are not the majority - in fact, they are a recent invention in the history of Christianity.
Christians believe in Truth. They believe it matters. They also believe God is merciful, and that God is love. Put those together and the fact that others have experiences of God isn't all that surprising. In fact, I'd be surprised if that DIDN'T happen.
In Christ,
Macarius
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