Theists, Agnostics, and Atheists, OH MY!
February 27, 2016 2 Comments
Your Rent-A-Friend starts a long walk through the Metaphysical Map starting with God. When it comes to God, there are only three positions anyone can take: They know He’s there, they don’t know, they pretend He isn’t. Every religion on earth, from Atheism to Zen fits in here somewhere. But your view of the world will remain cloudy, and your metaphysical map will lead you astray unless you begin with the true God, Jesus Christ.
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are you quite sure those are the only three options? are you very sure that jesus is the only true god? are you quite sure that we can really know anything about the god or gods that there may be?
-KIA
Hello Kia, and thanks for your question. My Philosphy of religion is what I can the Mythbusters Philosophy. God’s existence is either Confirmed, Plausible, or Busted. If you can find a category other than or between those, do let me know. As for Jesus, yes, I am very sure he is the only true God, and I do know we can know about God and gods, etc. Obviously I can’t explain it all here, but let me sum up.
Someone once said that the difference between Christian Apologetics and those of any other worldview including atheism is that Christianity can create big and wide explanations for itself in terms of scripture, history, philosophy, and science, where as most others primarily spend time trying to poke holes in other worldviews. There is, just as one obvious example, no positive defense of atheism, which is why professional atheists will try SO HARD to avoid the “Burden of Proof” and so much time trying to find alleged contradictions in the bible. But of course, even if an atheist could disprove every religion on earth, that would not actually prove that God doesn’t exist, but merely that no existing description of God is accurate. As a metaphor, if a defense attorney could get every alleged killer off free, that would not itself be evidence that the victim died of natural causes.
As for Jesus being the only True God, again there are only so many options. Jesus claims very clearly to be the only true God, and the old testament foretells the messiah to be divine, and his resurrection (among other things) proves him to be trustworthy. However, The god of Islam says Jesus is not divine, but merely a man (a prophet of Islam) and thus Christianity and Islam cannot both be true. Muslim apologists will say the Bible has been corrupted, but the Quran itself says that the gospels are the word of God and that God will never allow his word to be corrupted, so for the Muslim Apologist there is a double edged sword. Either the gospels are reliable, in which case the Quran is wrong, or the Gospels have been corrupted, in which case the Quran is wrong. And further, we have more existing manuscripts for the new testament than we do for all of antiquity combined, as well as old testament copies from before the life of Jesus showing that the prophecies of a divine messiah were not added after the fact. As CS Lewis said in Mere Christianity (A book I recommend highly for just this question) Jesus was either a liar or a lunatic, or he was and is Lord God. The evidence in all cases points toward his being, as he claimed, God.
Like I said, far too much to explain here. But let me recommend the works of William Lane Craig as for the existence of God, the evidence for the resurrection, and also the works of Josh McDowell for these topics in print and youtube videos. For a dense yet short read, I highly recommend Josh McDowell’s More than a Carpenter. It’s a summary of Christian apologetics, but with far more and better details than I’ve given here, and yet still a short easy read. That and Mere Christianity by CS Lewis are the top of my recco list. If I can be of help in finding specific answers, feel free to let me know. And thanks for letting me be your Rent-A-Friend.