HelenM

Christian apologetics attempt to convince people that it's reasonable (logical, etc) to be a Christian...

And then evangelism and the Bible strongly emphasize that conversion is a spiritual thing, that it's by faith people come to believe, that God has to open their 'spiritual eyes' or whatever...

If it's reasonable then why do you need faith?
If it's by faith then reasons aren't going to convince anyone...



love
Helen

babelfish

I can see why you're confused. Those are very excellent questions. But Helen, I thought you were our resident non-troll Christian. Now I'm confused.... <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

IvanK

The Pope's latest take, in Fides et Ratio, is that reason can take one just so far toward the Truth; to get the rest of the way one needs faith. Of course in Catholic epistemology that which is true is already known and consists exactly of Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition and the Church's Magisterium; i.e., ipse dixit. The Church is equally opposed to pure reason and pure faith as ways of knowing.

cloudyphiz

haha helen. you hit on a huge issue, that's for sure.

there's a pentacostal engineer/minister that i work with in florida. for a while, he tried to 'witness' to me. naturally, i knew much more about the bible than he did, and subsequently asked him an endless stream of questions for which he had no answer.

his response? when i read the bible, i'm not doing it 'with the presence of the spirit' so i cannot understand it. well, i told him there was no difference between him & a mormon then, because they believe their 'burning bosom' lets them know their scripture is truly and absolutely the word of god. in physiological terms, both undergo the exact experience. being a fundy bibliolater, he just loved to hear that.

his response? he of course is led by the true spirit of god, and the mormons are led astray by demons who would decieve them. so i told him that if his god allows demons to provide a spiritual experience that's exactly identical to the one that the "true" believers experience (fundy christians, of course), yet fundies go to heaven while the well-intending mormons head off to eternal and unimagineable punishment, then i want nothing to do with such a shithead.

needless to say, he hasn't brought up the issue of religion since.

-gary

Dark Jedi

She started that way, but her outlook seems to be slipping toward rationalism.
Conversion? Nah, likely she was questioning when she showed up. We just help articulate the feelings and thoughts that they already have.

babelfish

Wow, if this website helped Helen to think Rational Thoughts, maybe there's a glimmer of hope for <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=58&t=000557" target="_blank">Tricia</a> yet!

dennis/innomen

What a great line of debate. I especially like the shithead conclusion.

<img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

2xhelix

HelenSL:

Becoming a Christian, and believing that it is reasonable to become one are two separate things.

If something is reasonable, it does not guarentee that I must proceed with it. Since we cannot ultimately prove the existance or non-exstiance of God, there will always be an element of faith involved.

HelenM

I do have questions about Christianity - my post that started this thread is an example.

But I'm not willing to say I'm not a Christian just because I have questions.

babelfish and Dark Jedi: I certainly have learned a lot of interesting things on these boards - I don't deny it

love
Helen

[ May 15, 2002: Message edited by: HelenSL ]</p>

ManM

Helen,
I believe there is an element of faith in everything. Reason can only be used to judge whether a system is coherent. But our powers of creativity can make just about anything coherent. And so the important decision of worldview is always a leap of faith. This step is a nothing more than a value judgment, as reason cannot honestly choose between two consistent intellectual systems. Most of the people here grant simplicity a high value, hence they use Ockham's razor to justify their faith in naturalism. I do not value simplicity as much as they do, and so I choose God.

So, if a system is reasonable, then it is an option for belief. The choice between two reasonable systems is where faith comes into play.

Hence reason can only disprove systems by showing them inconsistent. At best, that may convince someone that they are wrong in their belief. However, by using reason to show the consistency of your system, you make it an option for faith. Before someone can be convinced of Christianity, they must first believe it to be a valid option.