I think that there are basically 4 reasons why people believe in Christ 1) The bible told you so. 2) Other people told you so. 3) Something happens in your life and you think Jesus did it. 4) It feels right.He then went on to explain why all of these reasons are, in fact, unreasonable. I can summarize his arguments as follows:
1) The Bible has inconsistencies, hence it is not reliable
2) Where did the other people get their faith? And since there are more non-Christians in the world than Christians, we should follow the majority.
3) Whatever happened in your life may be due to other causes that do not involve Jesus, so how can we be sure that it was Him.
4) This is not a good reason to believe something is true or good.
I totally grant my friend the last point. Believing in something because it feels good is
extremely dangerous. It is one of the center-points of Mormon's evangelizing and it has lots of appeal. We all seek happiness and feeling good is a sign of it, but a confusing one. It reminds me of the theologian who asked "what is faith?" and to the answer "It is a feeling we have inside" replied "Like indigestion?"
In fact, the message of Christianity is not at all feel-goodness. Jesus asks us to carry our cross, not to indulge in our pleasure. He forecasted persecution, not happiness. The result of Christianity is joy, not physical or psychological well being. As for what joy is, I will refer you to CS Lewis "Surprised by Joy"
However, the other three explanations do not hold water and, overall, he is missing the target of his question, he is missing the main reason. People do not believe in Christ because of those reasons, although they may come to know Christ in that way. The believe in Christ because of a whole life story that has confirmed to them in many ways the reality and the trustworthiness of Christ. That can occur through intellectual study and reflection (for those who have the mind for that) or through spiritual experiences or sometimes in other ways. But it is not a matter of blindly going where we are pointed. That is a pathetic and distorted vision invented by critics of Christianity to dismiss what they do not want to accept.
What about the vacuity of the first three explanations?
I talked in my previous post about the so-called biblical contradictions. Here I just want to add that very few people meet Jesus through the Bible, and those who do, most likely have received it from someone they trust and who found the Bible valuable. So, it is not really a primary way to meet Christ, only a way to get to know and understand Him better.
As for the second explanation, we get all our knowledge from people who give it to us. They may have it wrong, but we then have the choice to accept it blindly or go and look for confirmations or denials through proper channels and sources. Look at the important role played by Snopes here on the web.
So the point is not whether this is a viable mechanism to transmit knowledge: it is and we use it all the time. The point is whether what is transmitted is true.
As for the reliance on the majority, just play this little game: ask people around how many random guests are needed at a party so that the probability of at least two of them having the same birthday is 1/2. Unless they have studied probability, they will come up with 183 or some high number like that, much higher than the correct number of 23. The fact that a majority of people hold an opinion does not make the opinion right. There are countless issues on which most people have the wrong idea. I am not a Christian because it is the largest religion (it is) and I am not a Catholic because the majority of Christians and Catholic (they are). I am a Catholic because the evidence I have in front of me, practical, intellectual and spiritual, all converge to tell me it is true.
As for the third (did Jesus do it or something else?), it is an argument that shows a deep ignorance of philosophy, an ignorance that is quite widespread these days. It ignores the meanings of the word "cause" and the many different types of causes that exist. When one says that either God did it or it was a virus, one displays a total misunderstanding of what and who God is. I do not believe in a god that would make such a question valid any more than any atheist.
And to conclude, I would like to ask my friend: what do you mean by "believe in Christ?" Would you mind explaining to me who you think Christ is and what believing in him means? I suspect that you and I have different answers to this question. Time to look for other reasons and other explanations.
I believe think that to "Believe in Christ" means that you should be a good person, and try to do the right thing. This is why i think that a good muslim, a good buddhist, and a good samaritan are all good Christians. I think that the name Christ is irrelevant to being a good Christian. Many (most?) Christians do not feel the way that i do.
ReplyDeleteYou are expressing a perspective that seems to be common these days among non-Christians. From a Catholic perspective it is partly correct, though it misses a key element of what it means to be a Christian. From an evangelical/fundamentalist perspective it is totally wrong. I will try to explain briefly, although it would take (and it does) entire books to do it justice.
DeleteChrist is not a concept, but a person. Just like I cannot claim to believe in my wife by doing nice things to my students, I cannot claim to be a Christian, to believe in Christ, unless I do believe that he is God made flesh and all the other key things we claim about Him. The one thing that non-Christians seem to have a lot of problems with is the idea that we "experience" Christ, that we have a relation with him, just like I have a relation with you or with my wife. And just like my relation with you is different from the one I have with my wife, so is the relation I have with Jesus. But maybe I digress.
Good Muslims, Buddhists and even atheists can be good people and, in Catholic theology can even get to heaven (who are we to place limits on God's love?). We just don't know. But their path towards that destiny is way more difficult, because they refuse the help given to us by God himself through the Church.
But in order to be a Christian, you must deal with who you think Jesus is and arrive at the conclusion that he is, indeed the son of God. Otherwise you can be a great person, but you cannot claim to be a Christian.
I stop here, but if you are interested, there are tons of books on the subject. And, I am sorry to say, your definition is unlikely to become widespread.
I am glad that you agree with my fourth comment. I totally agree with what you said up in your original thread, so i am not going to talk about it any longer.
ReplyDeleteFor 2) I admit that the "The majority of people believe in it, so it is true" is wrong. I was using this because i think that most Christians, only talk to other Christians about their religious beliefs, and therefore they may feel like the majority of people are feeling the same way.
For 2) I was more focused on "Other people are wrong" defense. I said that other people come to Christianity based on what the bible told them. This isn't true because of the inconsistencies of the bible. Another way how Christianity is passed down, is through the people who were there during Jesus' time, told their children, and so on. I then compared this to the telephone game. (The one where you whisper a secret word and by the time it gets to the end its hamburger, instead of walrus.) The last way was the majority thing.
For 2) I am unsure on your point on this. I think you are agreeing with me, saying that this isn't a reliable method to transmit ACCURATE knowledge, and we need to use other evidence to support this. Please correct me if i am wrong on your viewpoint. If this is the case then i completely agree.
3) I think what you are saying is that i do not understand how god works. I think you are saying that god works in mysterious ways, and that just because i say a virus did it, doesn't mean that god couldn't have used a virus to do it. Please let me know if I am on track with this idea.
1) Can we just push this one off to your topic "On biblical contradictions"? I feel that this topic is much too big to talk about in just one comment.
I also want to emphasize that i was merely arguing that Christians have to take a bigger leap of faith than atheists. Not that Christians are wrong for doing so. In my comment, I was trying to show that there is a leap of faith for Christians. I think that ultimately there is no way to prove gods existence, and that we just need to get as close as we can through evidence, then jump the rest of the way.
For 2) I am saying that this mode of transmission (person to person) is the common way we learn and not an unusual and unreliable one. It can go wrong, and that is why the message must be checked. In the case of Christianity, there is an incredible amount of checking and rechecking that is done and has been done for the past 2000 years. If you are interested, once again, go look for it. You say that the Bible has changed over the years like in the telephone game. Well, it so happens that there are many documents supporting the fact that the version we have is as close to the original as anything else. There is more evidence for it than for Caesar's writings. To claim that there is no evidence because you do not know of any is a big logical fallacy. Do not confuse what YOU KNOW with what IS KNOWN.
DeleteAs for the philosophical issue of "cause" I am saying that you do not seem to understand that issue, let alone God. You are in good company, as recently both Dawkings and Hawking (spelling?) have made the same blunder and have been reproached by more philosophically knowledgeable atheists.
I disagree with your statement that it takes more faith for a theist than for a atheist. Do you have any evidence for your claim?