philechat

Well, perhaps you could move to a non-Christian culture just for a look? These miracle stories are found in all religious traditions and not only Christianity. To assume that there is only "sufficient evidence" for the Christian tradition is the result of living in a primarily Christian society.

HRG

Occam's Razor is a heuristic tool, not a demonstration. I'm sure you are familiar with the concept of a demiurge (separation of the roles of "supreme being" and "creator of this universe"). We should also note that in human societies the roles of designer and maker have become quite separate.

BTW, shouldn't we assume at least two separate designers/creators/makers - one for the cheetah and one for the impala ? They seem to be at cross-purposes.

Regards,
HRG.

Brian63

When I was writing the previous posts, these arguments didn't even cross my mind, but you are right that they should be included.

Quote:

The metaphysical arguments are important first to establish the existence or likelihood of existence of the generic God. This gives us something to evaluate the historical and current evidence against.

I am not entirely clear on what this means (especially the last sentence), but ManM's explanation for the inclusion of the metaphysical arguments seemed satisfactory to me.

Some of these apologists (McDowell, Strobel) seem to believe that a conclusive case for Christianity can be established solely by the historical apologetics (although in their respective books they both also touch upon their alleged personal revelations, as I recall).

I do not see that the metaphysical arguments directly add anything to the case for Christianity itself, but instead to the presentation of the case for Christianity to a non-believer.

A non-believer may have a bias against the supernatural, and the metaphysical arguments would help to reduce or eliminate that bias, but those arguments do nothing in themselves to establish Christianity in particular.

On the other hand, a completely open-minded and non-biased unbeliever (although there probably is no such person) would be convinced by just the historical apologetics that Christianity is true, at least according to what I think McDowell/Strobel are saying, but because such a person is rare or non-existent, apologists must also use the metaphysical arguments. Again, they do nothing to add to the case for Christianity, but rather the presentation of the case for Christianity.

Brian