Round Four.
This is Mr. Thomas' fourth reply.
Matt,
You've blatantly mischaracterized what the Bible teaches. It teaches not to ignore truth, but to embrace it. You know, "The truth shall set you free". But, sadly, you see truth and call it lies. Somehow your intellect trumps God's sovereignty and Satan's deceptions. You and your fellow TH-ers have it figured out...just haven't been able to implement it all yet, is that it?
Although you keep ascribing ownership of the Bible and Christianity to me (YOUR bible, YOUR religion), that gives me far too much power. I am but a humble servant. The Bible is God's Word, not mine. Jesus Christ as Savior is God's truth, not mine. I believe by faith...a faith rooted in truth.
And, so do you. You believe, by faith, that the TH approach is correct. Yet, that is not proven. Nobody, yet, is immortal. Promising biotechnologies fail, or come up short of promise, all the time. You reason. You use your intellect. You examine evidence. And, at the end of the day, you put your faith in a process and technology that simply does not exist. You believe it will some day. That's faith.
The question..."the heart of it"...has nothing to do with faith vs. reason. We all live by faith. It has to do with in what, or in whom, you put your faith.
Faith does not replace hope, it is the reason for hope. I admit to being a party to the bumper sticker that says, "God said it, I believe it, that does it." It's much more comforting than, "The only sure things are death and taxes". Except, the "I believe it" part isn't relevant. What I believe, what you believe, does not change the truth. Truth is not relative. Truth is absolute.
The absolute truth is either God exists or He doesn't. We don't get to choose our gods. Either God exists or He doesn't. If He doesn't, then there's no point in trying to deal with Him or what He says. If He does, then it is folly to try to argue with what He wants.
You ask, how can only one religion be correct? In the same way there is only one answer to the equation 2+2. The answer is 4. Not 4, if you add it this way, but 3 if you add it a different way. Not, "You might believe it's 4, but I have the right to believe it's 19". If mathematics does not change, then 2+2 always equals 4. It's absolute. In the same way, if God exists and is unchanging, as He says He is, then there is only one True way to follow Him.
You're free to believe otherwise. But, that does not make you correct.
Nevertheless, if you're right, I'm no further behind in the continuum. I will ignorantly, but joyfully, live my life of faith, only to find that joy was only for this stage of my existence, and I'll go on to whatever's next, and at some point in the future, you and I can argue about something we can't even imagine now. On the other hand, if I'm right...
Your choice. Just keep in mind, the God you don't believe in, created you, loves you, and wants you to be with Him forever. The way to do that is through faith in Jesus Christ. It's the only requirement and it's free. As free as your ability to reject it. It's clear you've chosen to reject God. Unless you change your heart and mind, you better hope that your technology pans out before your heart gives out.
I'm praying for you. It would be kind if you'd hope for me. (I apologize for any sarcasm. It's a coping mechanism because my heart is breaking for
you.)
ST
This was my response.
Mr. Thomas,
several clarifications are in order. Just as with the abortion issue, we have more areas of agreement than you may think. I will assert these things to make clear what my position is, not to argue them satisfactorily, because trying to pin you down only escalates mutual resistance. I'm sure you would prefer I go back to a style of encyclopedia-entry descriptions into someone else's thinking which made our exchange more profitable.
First, I do not "believe" in what the twenty-first century will bring, I hope. I do not claim to know for sure, it just seems likelier on balance than other outcomes if we work for it by human effort. My claim is only that it's desirable to try; then we'll see how it turns out. I already told you that I have, and need, no more assurance than that. Besides, almost any proposed future is more probable than biblical eschatology.
Second, I do not see how contradictory alternatives for looking at the world can simultaneously be true. Here is where you and I are allies of convenience against the postmodernism of too many of my liberal progressive friends. I agree that there exists such a thing as objective reality, outside of our heads. Reality is the set of conditions that exist whether I know it or not, whether I like it or not, whether or not I (or you) decide in advance of observations by faith. This is why faith is so unwise. Where we differ is that I acknowledge that on ivory-tower topics like religious metaphysics it's difficult to perceive reality because we lack empirical access. In the physical world where actions are measurable by their tangible effects on real people, we do not have to choose between world views by faith. If one of them is more reasonable than another, then reason alone has chosen between them, not faith. It cannot bring the level of infallible dogmatic certainty, but that is unnecessary for adults. There's no profit in closing off inquiry into physical world by pretending to have a message from Perfection Personified. I believe in absolute truth in the sense of objective reality, whatever it may turn out to be. But I reject the other definition of absolute truth in the sense of perfect knowledge which is immune to improvement.
Third, the position you take later in your letter is a version of Pascal's wager. If you believe your life on this earth is better for being a Christian even if your beliefs are untrue, this would be contradicted by the Apostle Paul. (I almost said "your" Apostle Paul but I'll respect your request not to do so. I refer to these things because they hold weight with you, which is why I phrase them as pertaining to you.) Paul said that if Christ is not resurrected, we (meaning followers of Christ) are of all men most miserable. Even he acknowledged that it is you to whom I could say, "you had better turn out to be right, for your sake." What does it profit a man, if he gains another world that doesn't exist, and loses his one and only life here and now?
Until the end of your letter, we had run along a tediously well-rehearsed track. In all my encounters with preachers, door-to-door evangelists, and church discussion groups, none have asked me to hope for them before, since none wanted the outcome of my hopes for them. Perhaps it was sarcasm, but it inspires me to think more kindly on you and in so doing to better acheive my highest ideals for discourse. Thank you.
-Matt
Comments
cosette-valjean on Dec. 9, 2004 9:54 AM — This is getting exhausting....
just too read anymore. It's almost painful watching him hint at the hell fire of his "loving" god. "Better believe me or my god will roast you, ha!" It is his complete lack of acknowleging that he might be wrong in his perceptions of truth that is the most sad and scary. Humanity's blind trust in their own innate perceptions can be very scary indeed. Just about all the world's violence and evil stems from it. Man's perceptions are faulty and easily askewed.
He uses math to say that a man-made religion must be true. Yikes!!!
I can't believe that he says essentially you are "free" to think differently but you are wrong!!! He has no sense of his own faultiness and yet he would probably call himself a sinful creature worthy of punishment. Ha. Why is it that such "sinful (faulty)" people must always be right about everything.... My father is the same way.
I hate his loose use of the word "faith" to mean an idealogogy you believe to be good. People using faith to mean something the live their life by is not helpful in debates like this with someone who uses faith as an excuse to not think for themselves.
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