Bobinius

John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

I think that this verse captures the essence of Christianity. The only way to be saved is through Christ, the Son of God, who died for our sins (or original sin). Without this belief, even if one believes in God, he is not a Christian.

The Argument Against Christianity

This argument is a reductio ad absurdum. I will show that by presupposing that Christianity and its central message is true, and the God that Christianity describes exists, we obtain an inconsistent set of propositions, a contradiction: therefore our presupposition is false, and Christianity is false and its God does not exist.

Let's presuppose that Christianity is true. Therefore:

[1] It is necessary that one believes in Jesus Christ as God and his message in order to be saved.

[1.1] If one does not believe in Jesus Christ as God and in his message won't be saved and will suffer eternal tornment. (from [1])

Before Jesus Christ was born, him and his message did not exist (Jesus has a human part, and that was necessary for his sacrifice and message to be realized). It was impossible for the people that lived before Jesus Christ to be aware of Jesus Christ and his message. Therefore:

[2] It was impossible for any human that lived before Jesus Christ to believe in Jesus Christ as God and his message.

[2.1] All the people that lived before Jesus Christ did not believe in Jesus Christ as God and in his message. (from [2])

[2.2] All the people who lived before Jesus Christ were not saved and suffer eternal tornment. (from [2.1] and [1.1])

The next premise follows from the definition or concept of the Christian God:

[3] God is perfectly omniscient, omnibenevolent, omnipotent and the creator of the world. (the God described by Christianity in the Bible)

[3.1] God wants only good for his creatures and is capable of actualizing it. (from [3])

He had foreknowledge (perfect omniscience) that the people who will live before the coming of Jesus Christ and the actualization of his message, will suffer eternal tornment and won't be saved. And knowing all this, he wanted to create the world. Therefore:

[4] God wanted to create the world knowing that all the people that lived before Jesus Christ will suffer eternal tornment. (from omniscience above, omnipotence and [1.1])

[4.1] God wanted that the situation when all the people that lived before Jesus Christ suffer eternal tornment to be actualized and actualized it. (from [4])

[4.2] God does not want only good for its creatures and is able to actualize it. (from [4.1])

Contradiction with [3.1.].

Therefore our presupposition is false: Christianity is not true.

The argument is formally valid. So one can attack its conclusion by attacking the premises:

Attacking premise [1]

If one considers premise [1] to be false, this means that it is possible to be saved if one does not believe in Jesus Christ as God and in his message. It means that there are other ways of being saved, and one does not have to believe in Jesus to be saved. Clearly this contradicts the christian doctrine and ends up the defence of Christianity by denying Christianity. Self refuting.

Attacking premise [2]

This one is true in virtue of the fact that Jesus did not exist as a man before he was born and no one was aware of his message because it did not exist before Jesus preached it.

Attacking premise [3]

This is pretty much agreed about God of Christianity. He is perfect. The Bible pictures him as all powerfull, all knowing and all good. One has to attack the Bible in order to defend Christianity, and Christianity rests on the Bible. Self refuting.

Attacking premise [4]

From omniscience God knows in advance these facts. He created the world (from Creator). He wanted the world to be actualized knowing all that (denying this would turn God either into an unconscious creator or an ignorant - both contradict his properties).

So, the premises are true and the form is valid (reductio). Christianity is false.

Bobinius

PinkPanther_04

I thought that before Jesus sins were forgiven through animal sacrifices and things like that, and Jesus was meant to be sort of the "ultimate sacrifice," so people wouldn't have to do that old animal sacrifice thing anymore. Maybe I'm way off base (I never could pay much attention in church), but I thought that was the general idea.

JANTZEN

The above is also my understanding of the Old Testament's method of atonement.

Bobinus, surely you don't mean to suggest that Moses and David and all the other Old Testament heros are going to hell?!

mdarus

I can offer something simple. Premise 2 is clearly false. It lacks cohesion with premise one because of the change in tense from what is true since the time of Jesus to what was true before the time of Jesus. There is a premise that could be used that would not violate the tenses. "The righteous shall live by faith" is common to what Christianity affirms as the basis of belief both before Christ and after.

It is false in another sense. One of the things that Jesus taught his disciples to do was to recognizes references to the Messiah: In this sense, it was possible to believe in Jesus before he was born. Faith was was the belief that God would send a Messiah. This message can be traced back to the creation story. Be careful of the straw man.

pharoah

You have a good argument, but you're using the wrong time frame. Christian theologians have come up with all sorts of rationalizations (dispensations, Age of Grace, etc.) to explain away this awkward problem. A better approach IMHO is to focus on the multitude of people since Jesus who have never heard the Word, dead infants and children, mentally challenged, etc.

John A. Broussard

Actually, all those nice people had pre-cognitive awareness of Jesus so all of them, including even those like Moses and David who may never have existed, had the chance to take advantage of Christ's sacrifice well ahead of time.

I'm not sure how this all works, but there's a magic word that explains it all. It's "miracle."

Bobinius

Let's see what premise 2 says:

[2] It was impossible for any human that lived before Jesus Christ to believe in Jesus Christ as God and his message.

This is false only if it was possible for people that lived before Jesus Christ to believe in Jesus Christ as God and in his message. And this is not possible since no one was aware that god had an incarnate son that died for our sins and no one knew his message because it was not spoken yet. Did Jesus Christ appear before he was born in order for people to become aware of his message? Really? Can you give me just one example of a man prior to Jesus' birth who believed in him as God and in his message? Pleeeeeease

The violation of the tenses is in your head only. The situation is similar with someone believing in the Prophet Muhammad and his message in the 5th century.

See premise [1]: Jesus clearly speaks about himself, not faith in general, as the path to salvation.

What you are arguing is that Jesus's coming and sacrifice were useless, since people already believed in him and were saved before his incarnation and crucifiction. This refutes Christianity.God sacrificed his son for nothing: the path for salvation was already available.

Same incoherence. Believing that God will send a Messiah is not the same as believing in Jesus Christ and in his message. Your twisting of meaning turns all the Jews into christians without them even knowing. No one holds an explicit belief in Jesus Christ (there is no Jesus) before his coming. No one knows his message before his coming (his life would be useless).

If faith that a messiah will come is sufficient for salvation, of course, Jesus' sacrifice was useless and loses all its meaning. Again, you are refuting Christianity, not defending it.

Bobinius

Jesus makes it clear that only through him we can reach the Father. Only. If we can be saved by killing pingeons, of course, it is useless and futile to believe in Jesus. Christianity is not necessary for salvation.

Bobinius

Indeed. This can turn into a more general argument against Christianity, by including all these categories that are in the impossibility of being aware of Christ's message and be saved.

All those rationalizations say that faith in Christ is not necessary for salvation.

mdarus

I don't think Paul was refuting Christianity either:

6Consider Abraham: "He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness."[a] 7Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. 8The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: "All nations will be blessed through you."[b] 9So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. Galatians 3


"Faith in Christ" is a more interesting concept than we sometimes appreciate. It may take more and less than we think. I am pretty sure it does not mean saying a prayer (although I have done that and it was an important turning point in my life).

There is a very old joke about a group getting their introductory tour of heaven. They are cautioned to be quiet passing the door marked (fill in your favorite denominiation). "They think they are the only ones here."

There was successful faith in God before Jesus. I suspect that there is more successful faith in God than we imagine. I also suspect that some of what looks like faith in Jesus, is not.