I simply can not understand why anyone would not WANT Christianity to be true. Now, that does nothing to suggest whether it is true or not, but even in my most deeply doubtful, existentialist periods of life, I have still clung to the hope that Christianity is true, because I find that a world in which Christianity is true to be a far better one than if it is not. I wish I could shed all doubts. I wish that the evidence was indubitable, and that I could just know. My biggest problem is that I have never had an experience of God; or at least if I have, I am unaware that I have. Despite all my prayers and asking, I have never fully been able to believe. I can understand if someone doesn't want God, then he will leave them alone, but I cannot understand that if someone DOES want God, that he will not somehow make himself known. I can ask and ask and ask, but my world keeps being the same a world where I wake up everyday and just hope. It drives me insane sometimes but I suppose ultimately, perhaps God (if he exists) has good reasons for hiding himself from me. I simply may never know the truth, but I still maintain that it would be a better world if Jesus was really the way, the truth, and the life, but like I say, i simply can not know for sure.
God so loved the world he drowned all except 8, this is a all knowing God's way of dealing with his mistakes that he knew would happen and did it anyway. yes I want this to be true.
@@skolldog I am not sure what you mean. Let me ask you a question, are we as people, as society justified to take the life of people who do evil? (Rapists, Murderers, etc.) If the answer is yes, then why would God be unjust for removing those people? The story in Genesis clearly states that these people were only ever evil continually and deserved to be killed.The God of the bible the way I read it is too loving to allow such evil to continue on, so he does what needs to be done. What is remarkable to me is that when I examine my own life, I am also evil like those people and deserve the same fate. I am bad. I deserve hell. I deserve death. Yet, here I am trying to be good. Thats why I want christianity to be true. It means I could be redeemed for the things I have done and have meaning a goodness in my life. I wish it was true.
Happy Bowser Guy, I so very much agree with your post. Thank you for sharing something so personal, for I too share the same sentiment and ask similar questions. Regarding the question posed by the other posters comment on the Noah’s ark analogy; if souls are eternal, and viewed from the perspective of eternal beings, a reset like the flood could be a minor learning event judged from a very long term perspective, as long as the corrupted souls who drowned were not permanently terminated. I think we do not have the perspective or context to make a value judgment on the actions of a super being (if the story is true) given the limitations of said perspective and our limited scope of understanding.
@@jasminebeth5328 exactly. we have a limited perspective. I am in no position to criticize the design, because I don't know the purpose of the designer. It would be silly to say that a shovel that can't do advance mathematical computation is a bad shovel, because that is not what it was made to do, it was made to move dirt or sand. So of course if we want to say the universe is "bad" we would need to know what standard to which we would compare it. What I DO know is that if I have a purpose, I am not very good at fulfilling it. The alcohol, the pornography, the anger, and the jealousy that I fall prey to every day are obviously wrong. If I am going to be critical of any one else, even God, I have to fix myself first, but I can't. So what then? If christianity is true there is hope.
This is a very personal issue but if you'll allow me to attempt to assist you in it I'd be very happy to. First, I full-heartedly agree with your first sentence. For me, nihilism results for atheism. I would be utterly outraged, at what I'm not sure, if atheism turned out to be true. Christianity is so beautiful and seems like it OUGHT to be true to me. But unfortunately, this, of course, does not mean that it's actually true. Now in regards to your problem of indubitability I want to clarify something. You most definitely do not need to be certain that God exists to be a Christian. For example, are we certain that electrons exist or that the outside world exists? Absolutely not. Now its most definitely extremely probable that electrons exist. Furthermore, it's definitely the reasonable position to say that the outside world exists even if there is no way of actually proving this. However, the lack of certainty does not mean we that we are unreasonable to claim that we know these two statements to be true. All one needs to claim that they know something is when they have properly functioning cognitive faculties that produce true belief and true warrant for that belief. Warrant meaning evidence or an argument. Moreover, remember that premises in any philosophical argument, even those arguing for God's existence, need only be more plausibly true than not to be considered a successful argument. Moreover, we aren't certain about almost anything. So why apply certainty to God? Personally, I myself did and still sort of am going through a phase of doubt. However, when I started my doubt I too was always so concerned with certainty. I thought that in order for me to be at peace I needed to know for certain that God exists. But, then I started using reason on my emotions. As Dr. Craig has explained in the past, when people experience certainty they mostly experience it as merely an emotion. For some people, they experience this emotion of certainty in regards to God. God may actually use this to help people in difficult situations where few if any resources for knowing that He exists are available to them. For example, people in countries like the Soviet Union when it was around. The only way they could learn about God was in books that tried to refute His existence. So, I realized that in order to know that God exists all I needed was to know was that it is merely more plausible than not that He exists because in so far as that statement of His plausibility is true I would only be rational if I agreed that God does in fact exist. And if I'm wrong, what do I lose? If I'm right what do I gain? Eternal life with the God I know and love. Furthermore, after all the research I've done if I were to say that God does not exist then I'd be forced to say that practically everything and I mean pretty much everything, I know is false. Because I have found such a high probability that God exists that the consequences of denying His existence are extremely severe. Note also, that the reason it's so difficult, emotionally speaking, for us to accept that God exists as opposed to other things is because of how consequential God's existence is to our lives. Think about it. If I accept the belief that an electron exists as true and as knowledge then so what? However, if I accept the belief as true and as knowledge that there is a transcendent personal reality beyond everything who created me, whom I am responsible to obey, whom I have sinned against, and who has Himself died for me then I'm going to have a lot more emotional baggage to carry and deal with in making that decision. Especially given that we're talking about a personal being and thus a personal situation. In any case, I had to learn to be satisfied with knowing that God exists even if I'm not certain. Moreover, I do very highly recommend looking up Alvin Plantinga's Reformed Epistemology on RU-vid. Dr. Craig does a great explanation of it. Basically, Dr. Plantinga (who by the way is the world's leading philosopher and is, in fact, a devout Christian) argues that we can know that God exists even without evidence or an argument. I also recommend visiting Dr. Craig's website: Home: www.reasonablefaith.org/ Question of the Week (found under the "Writings" tab): www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/ Finally, note that you're not alone in not experiencing God. There are some people like that. In my phase of doubt my experience of God's presence can be sometimes so mynute I sometimes question if I'm still a Christian. But of course one needs to notice that whether or not we are a Christian is not dependent upon how they feel. Its dependent upon whether or not one has willed and chosen to accept that God exists, that Christ is God and has died on the cross for their sins, has risen from the dead, that they have sinned and asked for His forgiveness of their sin, chose to repent of their sins, and (although I'm not sure if this last part is necessary for salvation though it probably is, I know that it is necessary to be a truly committed and fully realized Christian) have chosen to continually love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength which includes centering Christ in their life and is committed to changing their self in every way to be more and more like Christ. In other words pick up your cross daily, deny yourself, and follow God. The important thing to note is that even if you don't experience God you can still be a Christian. Moreover, the more you pursue Him the more likely you are to experience Him. Hope this helps!
@@petermetcalfe6722 WLC has debated all the best atheists and no answer. Has really made the evidence for God so impeccable that you are without excuse.
No, that's a *great* story “Bill” and we *all* have one. You can see your love for Jesus as much when you are recalling an emotional memory as when you make your best argument. Your personal motivation is not all that different from many scientists who have searched for answers to better understand their Heavenly Father. We just don't often learn that part of *their* stories.
When Jesus says “from the Beginning” he is merely citing a scripture reference; we in our modern culture have Bible chapter and verse divisions which did not exist in Jesus’ time. Instead, they referred to the books of the bible by their opening words, which in the case of Genesis, is Bereshit, “In the beginning”. So here, Jesus is saying that “from” (the beginning) “the book of Genesis” we learn about the exemplar couple, Adam and Eve. There is no implication of time sequence in what he is saying. As D Craig says neither Jesus nor the gospel writers are trying to give a lesson on cosmology nor are they teaching anthropology....the subject is divorce.
How can we know that God exists? Wow, Craig says, "I am guilty...." I was raised atheist humanist and first got curious about world religion and liked scholar Huston Smith's description of the Chinese Dao-Tao as "a creative continuum that is always accessible." Unitarian Universalist interfaith supporting spiritual seeking. I went on sampling and studying lightly, and learned psychology, read self-help, meditative kung fu, visited a Buddhist temple, and more. Later another round of despair and in the 12 step groups like Al-anon for relationships, I learned much and how it was developed inspired by a Christian group. I learned about using the term Higher Power, a loving one, and then found a Reading Room of a loving Christian denomination. I later realized that Jesus taught love, so I didn't need to reject good things in other spiritual paths. Jesus teaches "go and learn..." no less. Christians used ancient Greek philosophy and modernized it to create modern University education. Modern democratic freedom of religion also follows Luther, for interfaith Christianity. Jesus is the truth which he taught, and that is for us to live God's love and God as Truth. Islam may not be what I want to embrace fully, but it teaches me some good things, like fervor and prayers for syncretism. Christian hypocrites also need to learn love from Islam. Muslims won't all convert, and will want to reform Islam. And so on.. . Thank you Dr Craig, and yet I know your own limits in doctrine.
Does God have morally sufficient reason to permit evil? Where is the basis of human free will? It´s only about God in terms of people drawing on God through Jesus to create the necessary good. There is a point of view that addresses the fact that most people think they are doing good, so that ignorance, with psychological issues, is a primary transformational interpretation.
God so loved the world he drowned all except 8, this is a all knowing God's way of dealing with his mistakes that he knew would happen and did it anyway.
@@sigmar_heldenhammer1776 Yes. He killed innocent children, which in my personal belief system is wrong. I guess in the Christian belief system, it was perfectly acceptable.
@@markb3786 In the Christian belief system, it was perfectly acceptable for GOD to do it, since he is not bound to the commands He subjects us to. He is the Divine Moral Law Giver, The Moral Obligator, not some sort of moral agent who is capable of 'choosing the evil option'. We all forget that he is not under a moral code as we are, there is no 'evil option' for Him. Especially regarding taking life. He gave each and every one of those people life, and He could take it from them if He pleases. It is likely they were alll already hardened in their hearts and dammed as well.
If say God exists, which I believe since recently. He must have been lonely so he thus created humans in his own image. How would you feel if everyone hated y9ou and were atheists then? You would get mad and the most perfect being might also be virnable. So humans were created with "flaws". And why would goodness count if we don't have the choice to be evil.We have duties because god wanted company of people with personality. He didn't want to be alone in the world. So why would there not be hell and suffering in the world. I had a nightmare that there was an apocalyps of monsters and humans were chanceless. Then after a while god came to the rescue. And the dream felt real so I couild feel christs precense and that was the start of a relationship with christ for me.
AN ANSWER TO QUESTION - "In light of strong evidence for god.. how can we know for sure who God is?" ...................IS... “We living beings all belong to one another, we are all actually members.. or aspects.. of a single Being, which we may in western terminology call God, while in the Upanishads it is called Brahman.”- Erwin Schrödinger Or.. to put it more poetically.. the Bible says.. "Do you not know that you people are God's temple, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? The temple of God is holy, which temple you people are." ULTIMATELY.. The Bible teaches.. we ourselves are gods.. yet we.. somehow.. fail to understand this.. even in our times.. Nevertheless.. this concept is common place in philosophy.. and has been for many centuries.. it seems...... GOOD ADVICE IS - Read good books.. by wise writers.. and you cannot miss it.. "So in this idea, then, everybody is fundamentally the ultimate reality. Not God in a politically kingly sense, but God in the sense of being the self, the deep-down basic whatever there is." - wrote Alan Watts "The end of life is to be like God, and the soul following God will be like Him." - Socrates AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE BIBLE TEACHES.. “They have not known, and they do not understand; In darkness they keep walking about; All the foundations of the earth are made to totter. I myself have said, 'You are gods (CREATORS), And ALL of you are sons of the Most High.” - Psalms 82:5 Jesus quoted Psalms 82:5.. in his defence.. when he was attacked for becoming a god-man.. “Once more the Jews lifted up stones to stone him. Jesus replied to them: "I displayed to you many fine works from the Father. For which of those works are you stoning me?" The Jews answered him: "We are stoning you, not for a fine work, but for blasphemy, even because you, although being a man, make yourself a god." Jesus answered them : "Is it not written in your Law, `I said: "You are gods"'? - I John 10:31 Jesus was leading us by example..... But then.. we have the god-man concept that was spoken of by Friedrich Nietzsche… the The Übermensch ("Beyond-Man") ..........“Every church is a stone.. On the grave of a god-man: It does not want him to rise up again.. under any circumstances.” - Friedrich Nietzsche SO.. what is needed to... "know God".. is a good understanding of what the word GOD means.. a CLEAR definition.. FOR EXAMPLE - All of Existence is Itself a part of God - God is the Sum of ALL Natural Processes - The Ground of ALL Being - Omnipresence, the Supreme.. or Ultimate.. Reality. The Creative and Controlling Force in the Universe - The Life Force - The Force regarded as causing and regulating the Phenomena of the World by the Universal Natural Laws - God is both Outside.. and Inside.. Space-Time. Not subject to the cycle of Birth and Death - The Ultimate, the Absolute, Infinite and Eternal….. ENERGY and FORCE… The ONENESS - The monistic Substrate, an underlying substance or layer that which we cannot understand. "Formless" - "Eternal" - "Invisible" or "Unobserved". ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-gjba6y-h89c.html -
@@Deathlock61 Dandigi replied: “We aren't gods it clearly says there's only one God in the bible. Not 1 billion In one JUST." - Jesus answered: "Is it not written in your Law, `I said: "You are gods"'? - I John 10:31 - ...Jesus was quoting Psalms 82:5 Dandigi replied: “If we are Gods go create a planet." Isn’t that exactly what we are doing.. creating.. and destroying.. our planet? We create cities.. gardens.. art.. drama.. amazing ways to pass our time. We create a history.. fictional stories.. religion.. and wars… and we also create heaven and hell.. And we create the Spirit that either exists.. or doesn’t exist.. in human hearts and minds.. known as Loving kindness, Righteousness, Justice, Peace, Wisdom, Truth & Freedom.. the 7 Spirits of God within.... Jesus - the god-man - was leading by example.. and clearly taught - “God IS SPIRIT (and spirit is what animates us.. IT IS.. the LIFE GIVER). When the Bible speaks of there being only ONE God.. since God is the INFINITE.. how could there be more? ...THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE INFINITE.. and each of us is a part of this INFINITE.. not something separate.. and this is what the poet means.. when he writes.. "WE ARE GODS".. meaning... WE ARE ONE WITH THE INFINITE. If you study the religious philosophies of Hinduism.. Buddhism.. and the Bible comparatively (Islam missed the boat on this one) you will see they are all singing from the same hymn sheet... God.. or Brahman.. as a metaphysical concept.. is the Single Binding Unity.. behind the diversity.. in ALL THAT EXISTS in the universe. The Unchanging.. Permanent.. Highest Reality.. or as the "creative principle which lies realized in the whole world. We are that reality.. The "Ultimate", the "Absolute Infinite", the "Transcendent”.. that which we cannot understand. “The Ground of all Being”. We are connected to EVERYTHING THAT EXISTS.. .. even beyond space-time.. without beginning.. and without end… Our (metaphorical) - FATHER.. the Source of ALL THINGS. "The multiplicity is only apparent. This is the doctrine of the Upanishads. And not of the Upanishads only. The mystical experience of the union with God regularly leads to this view, unless strong prejudices stand in the way.” - "The plurality that we perceive is only an appearance; it is not real. Vedantic philosophy... has sought to clarify it by a number of analogies, one of the most attractive being the many-faceted crystal which, while showing hundreds of little pictures of what is in reality a single existent object, does not really multiply that object.” - Erwin Schroedinger - 'The I That Is God' & "The Oneness of Mind" We are one and the same.. with the FORCE that created the universe.. that is generally understood.. METAPHORICALLY.. and personified.. as Mother NATURE.. or GOD the Father. “In itself, the insight is not new. The earliest records, to my knowledge, date back some 2500 years or more. The recognition ATMAN = BRAHMAN (the personal SELF EQUALS the OMNIPRESENT, ALL - COMPREHENDING ETERNAL SELF) was in Indian thought considered, far from being blasphemous, to represent the quintessence of deepest insight into the happenings of the world.”
@@Deathlock61 Actually, it doesn't say that there is only one god in the bible. God himself says in Exodus that if you are Jewish, then you shall not worship other gods before him. He didn't say anything about non-Jews not worshipping other gods first in there, either. What makes you think that god created the planets? We know today that gravity creates planets. Dude, you need to acquire more than a third grade education.
@@lepidoptera9337 The word GOD is multi-dimensional in the Bible.. it can mean many things. The writers were masters of ambiguity.. so the same words could mean different things to different people. “Modern history is the dialogue between two people: one who believes in God, another who believes he is a god.” - Nicolas Gomez Davila Both of these concepts can be found in the Bible.. and it is possible to unite them.. by understanding MIND as fundamental. The old concept of a solid-state material universe has been consigned to history.. by existing theories of physics.. who now tell us.. there is nothing there.. matter is an illusion. “We live in illusion and the appearance of things. There is a reality. WE ARE THAT REALITY. When you understand this, you see that you are nothing, and being nothing, YOU ARE EVERYTHING THAT IS..... That is all.” ― Buddha The concept that the human race is itself God.. manifesting.. is central to religious philosophy.. but ignored by organized religion.. because it is not good for business.. I guess. As for the creative process.. The gravity part is an easy ride. The stars mostly create the material that forms the planets. They take simple atoms.. and transform them into the complex building blocks needed to create life.. along with a platform (planet).. for it to evolve on.. and lots of water.. of course.. to add the finishing touches.... Stars are SMART. According to my own thinking - THE BIG PICTURE - Everything that exists.. including consciousness.. AND A MULTIVERSE.. WITH NO BEGINNING OR END.. is simply field activity.. in a single Primary Field.. that all the other fields are a diversification of.. rather like waves.. currents.. tides.. mist and rain are all a diversification of an ocean. This quote below is Einstein speaking to Schwinger.. (one of the founders of quantum field theory).. about what he saw as a problem of having six quantum fields…. instead of just ONE.......... (Primary Field). “This is indeed a beautiful theory, but it seems there are six separate fields - four force fields and two matter fields. As you know, my hope was to find a single field that comprises all forces and matter. This theory of yours does not meet that objective.”
I don't think the answer to #1 is the correct way to look at it. WLC says that unless you can say god didn't have a good reason to permit, then who are you to question god "we're not in a position to make those kind of judgments with any sort of confidence". He says the theist can provide a sufficient reason why god might permit evil and suffering: "That god has so providentially ordered the world that an optimal number of people would come freely to receive his grace and forgiveness and so find eternal life and eternal happiness, and it may well be that only in a world which is suffused with evil and suffering that the optimal number of people would freely come to know god and find eternal life, and the atheist would have to prove that somehow that is impossible or improbable - and there's simply no way that he could do that - it's pure conjecture". I find this thinking absolutely absurd. It's pure conjecture? Your suggestion that god would set these things up this way is what pure conjecture is. Go ahead and start listening at 3:25 and set the playback speed to 0.5x and listen to everything he says there. Does this sound like a rational person talking? Additionally god doesn't simply "permit" evil and suffering from the Christian worldview, he is fully responsible for it - god _creates_ evil. Yes, this is his short response, but if this is the best he can come up with as a start, I highly doubt it gets better from here. I could go on, but answers like this are why people leave Christianity. The answer is completely unsubstantial.
The question is adequately and exhaustively addressed elsewhere. Plantinga’s free will defense is foundational, for example. Google Logical Problem of Evil. The argument is that 1. Evil exists, 2. God is good, 3. A good God would not allow evil, 4. Thus (1) And (2) are inconsistent (from 3), 4. Therefore God does not exist. What the arg assumes, as a deductive case, it is IMPOSSIBLE that God could have a good reason for allowing evil to exist, at least temporarily. That is patently false so (3) is indeterminate and so the argument fails. This is elementary. It’s much more compelling to retreat to an abductive argument to show that it’s very UNLIKELY that the existence of a perfectly good, just, loving and omnipotent God is compatible with the grossly egregious amounts of evil and suffering we see in the world. However, most of these probabilistic arguments are unconvincing in that they import worldviews and ontologies that don’t allow for the very resolution of the dichotomy they are arguing from, IMO. These would be a denial of: the value of free will; the contribution to suffering made by human selfishness and greed; the implications of an available eternal blessed state for those who temporarily suffer; and the limiting effect on human oppression and depravity which disease, war and death, say, can have. In short, WLC is correct that one cannot prove an inconsistency between God and the existence of evil. One can say, however, that one finds God unlikely, but a lot depends on what type of universe on already believes in.
@@kevinwells7080 If God is good why wouldn't he allow evil to exist? if he didn't and only allowed those that believed and follow his/hers laws for living a balanced and peaceful life to exist wouldn't he then come across as a totalitarian dictator who allows absolutely no dissent in thought or action?. Though I am new to Christianity I still appreciate the Taoist concept of Yin and Yang. Taoist(who believed that there is a spiritual dimension to reality,) would say that just as there is darkness and light, Heavens and the Earth, male/female and hot and cold counterbalancing each other, there also has to be Good counterbalancing Evil. In short, how would we recognize and understand Light and Goodness if their was not Darkness and evil?
Hi pearl, I don’t think dualism works bc if good and evil were equal and balanced, how would we know which was which? We have to have an ultimate standard by which to judge both, and that standard has to be ultimate, not merely an opposite. Just as black is merely that absence of light, evil is merely the absence of good. The Bible asserts that evil is a very temporary feature of the world. It doesn’t have to exist, hasn’t always existed, and soon will be permanently quarantined so as to have no more effect at all. When we make a dualist allowance for evil as a necessary feature of the world, we are in danger of saying that horrors like the rape of a child are actually part of the basic structure of the world, rather than a perversion of God’s intention in need of God’s redeeming Love and Justice to heal and restore.
Kevin Wells I don't think the problem of evil negates the possibility of a god or gods existing. I think it negates the common conception of the Christian god though. If god created nothing at all, if all that existed was god, would evil be present, or exist? I think the obvious answer here is, no. Did god create and that act of creation resulted in the presence of evil in some way? The obvious answer to that question is yes. Did god find that only this particular creation could result in the "optimal" amount of people coming to know his grace and love and yada yada yada as WLC proposes? If so, you have a problem and if not, you have a problem.
Those passages are what scholars call “imprecatory” meaning they invoke a hyperbolic curse on others, motivated by great emotional distress of the writer. Remember the Bible does not hide from real-life emotions. Just because the poet writes “You hate people who I am mad at, oh God!” does not mean God agrees with such a sentiment. Also remember that Love/hate in Hebrew poetry was rarely about emotion, but rather practical treatment. The poet hear is frustrated at injustice he sees, so he is crying out to God to protect and prosper the righteous AND make the oppressors pay for their crimes, neither of which he sees happening to any great degree in the ‘real world’. In short, we’d better distinguish between God’s description of Himself as recorded in scripture, and human description of how God should be when part of a poetic cry for justice, even when the poem is part of scripture.
You don't really mean "reasonable faith" is an oxymoron, do you? An oxymoron isn't a contradiction. Rather, it's an apparent contradiction. For example, somebody can report having a "bitter sweet" experience. No inherent contradiction there. If you maintain that "reasonable faith" is contradictory, then you'll have to justify that claim. Also, it isn't fair to say that WLC "never gives any evidence". Did you actually watch the video and listen to his evidence and arguments? You are free to evaluate and refute his evidence, but you can't claim that he doesn't provide evidence for his claims. If you're going to engage in evidence and argumentation, at least play the game right.
