Consciencebound

Below is a conversation that I had via email with a friend of mine from the past that i have not talked to in a long time. He had just heard that I had left the faith and I believe him to be a very sincere man. I wanted to try and point out how easy it is to be blinded by our own beliefs that we do not listen to people who are opposing us. I know that I have done this myself and am probably guilty of still doing it but I want to try and be as open as possible to what the truth is and that means truly listening to people’s questions and thinking them through. This can be a hard thing to do especially when you have built your whole life on a certain belief.

I don’t think that the arguments that my friend is using are the best that the Christian point of view can give and I do think there are plenty others who can do a better job of articulating it but I chose to post this conversation here because it shows what kind of reasoning lay church people are given to when they are not taught that it is OK to ask questions that are critical of Christianity. There is a fear of asking questions which might undermine the faith and although many churches like to welcome people’s questions, my experience has all too often been that when questions start getting difficult, answers stop coming.

I have changed the name of my friend here and any personal information which might have been discussed in the emails to protect his privacy. The first handful of posts are longer and then they get shorter as the conversation goes on.

Bill: Well Jeff, I can’t imagine what happened to you in regards to your faith. All I know is that God placed you
on my mind to get in contact with. I heard from … that you had this web site and I wanted to see for myself where you finally descended to. It sure appears that you definitely left your first love which is Christ for another Gospel. Your website is full of worldly wisdom which you know is foolishness with God. I find it hard to understand how you could give up Christ for this. As Paul stated in the book of Galatians: Who put a spell on you that you should believe another Gospel. Evidently when you first started to slide into apostasy you didnt remember that your faith should have held you up. It is my earnest prayer that the Holy Spirit will convict you of your sin and lead you back to the Saviour.

Jeff: Hi Bill, I hope you are doing well. I sincerely appreciate you concern and interest in my well being and thank you for contacting me. I put together that web site to help articulate what my thoughts are and where I am at but I am by no means committed to a certain position. I feel as though I am constrained by the facts to not be a Christian but if it can be shown that there is good reason to be a Christian or that I am missing something here, I am more than happy to listen and look into those reasons. This is something that I have been working through for many years and is not something that just happened over night.

Were you actually interested in hearing what my reasons were for leaving the faith and discussing them with me or were you just wanting to preach to me? I don’t intend that to be mean and I am not trying to be an arrogant jerk and challenge you or something, but I am sincerely interested in talking to anyone who would like to talk with me about these subjects because I feel like logic, science and history all point away from the Christian faith when looked at in an objective manner. I find that many people are really not interested in hearing objections to the faith which seems to show to me that they are really not interested in truth but only in their own opinions or what they perceive to be the Holy Spirit. I still have a few solid Christian friends who are very learned men and woman and some pastors and I talk to them whenever I get the chance. I have a few close friends that I have lunch and play golf with regularly who are reformed Christians and are very knowledgeable men. I am also always interested in reading any books that you might recommend which you think might help me in this time of doubt and questioning. If the Gospel and the Bible as it is understood by modern Christians is true than I want nothing more than to believe in it and give my whole life to Christ as I have done in the past. If it is not true or can be shown to be highly improbable, than I honestly want to search and try to find what is actually the truth.

I welcome any thoughts or input that you might have and will truly consider any points that you would like to bring up. Feel free to call me as well if you would like to. I appreciate your prayers and thoughts.

Bill: I didnt expect such a hasty reply. Yes we are all doing quite well here…. It really grieves me that you think that truth can be found in any other way other than Christ who said that He is the way, the truth and the life. It seems to me that you have to suppress the truth that you already know for a worldwide view of science falsely called. Would you read Vincent Cheung’s book on Presuppositional Confrontations and let me know what youvthink about it. His website is Vincentcheung.com.

I will close with this thought though and ask you what good would my prayers do for you being that everything points you away from the truth?

Jeff: Thanks for your reply. it is good to hear that you are doing well…

I have actually read quite a bit of Vincent Chung before and I will check out his web page again because it has been a while. I had really high hopes reading his views a few years ago but ended up being disappointed to see his arguments fall short of what they were trying to prove. What book are you referring to btw, a lot of the links on that site seem to be broken and he has a few books. I remember reading a PDF file version a few years ago on presuppositional apologetics. Is that the one that you are talking about?

I guess my contention would be this: How is it that you understand and know the difference between truth in this world? If Christ is the way, the truth and the life then that is great, but how do we know that? Do we just assume that the protestant canon of scripture (our 66 books) is correct or do we have to show some kind of evidence that we should believe that these books are authoritative? How do we distinguish between competing religious claims when they all appeal to an authority that is to be taken on faith? I used to be a staunch presuppositionalist because I believed that the transcendental argument (TA) PROVED that Christianity was teh only possible option out there that one could believe on rational grounds. What I came to see though was that the TA not only failed to do this, but it can easily be used by almost any other faith to prove that it also is true. You can argue with the TA that Mormonism is true in teh same exact way that you do for Christianity. You can also use it to prove Islam is true. This seems to demonstrate that it is an ineffective argument and that it actually does not prove anything. We have a limited amount of knowledge in this world and that makes it extremely difficult to “know” for certain about many things. There are also many competing religious claims out there that we must distinguish between adn the only way that we have to do that is to use reason, logic, history and science to know which one is true. When we look at Mormonism, we count it as being false because it seems to hopelessly contradict itself and it not consistent with what we know about history. The problem that I ran into personally was that when I looked at Christianity from an unbiased perspective, it also died the death of hopeless contradictions and problems that left it untenable to me. I of course can and very well may be mistaken, but it looks like Christians are really not interested in trying to prove Christianity to be true by appealing to any “facts” because they already believe it to be true and they are just looking for a way to demonstrate that point. Most Christians are not even open to the POSSIBILITY that they might be mistaken on their views and this seems to betray a disconcerning assumption that makes the claims of Christians to be less than credible.

When I started on my change of thought, I began with the following premises:
- I am fallible
- I make mistakes
- My own spiritual experiences are not authoritative
- The above applies equally to other human beings
Therefore
- I cannot be certain that when someone says that they are speaking for God that they truly are.
- There are many people who have claimed to speak for God over recorded history
- I must therefore question anyone who claims to speak for God and try to test whether what they say is true or not
- This includes questioning my own pastor, religious leaders, early church fathers and the writers of the Bible itself.

When I did question these things, I found that my reasons for faith were much weaker than I once thought. because I am fallible, I had to admit that I could be mistaken. It would seem pretty arrogant for me to contend that there is no possibility of my being wrong. The more I looked at Christian arguments from an outsider’s perspective, the more I saw that there was just as many problems with the Bible as there are with the Book of Mormon or the Koran.

If anyone is opposed to questioning that would seem to make them a suspect of propagating falsehood. it does not guarantee it but it makes me skeptical of their claims. The premises above seem to even be based on Christian presuppositions from what I can tell. Based on what we know of man from the Bible( i.e. fallen, dead in sin, deceived by his own nature as well as deceived by the devil) we should be very careful of people who claim to speak for God. It would seem that it is impossible for us to just “take on faith” that a certain book is from God and that we should question it and see if there is any evidence to support that idea.

If you can help me get around these points above I would really be interested to see how a person comes to a level of certainty about an ancient text that we actually have very little early representation of historically.

Forgive me if I seem like I am blasting you here. That is truly not my intent. I am very interested in this subject and think of it often and so I have a lot of opinions on it but I am truly interested in what you have to say. I will look over Vincent Changs writings and give some specific references to what seem to be problems to my admittedly flawed perspective.

I said that I value your prayers because I would hope that you would pray that God would show me the truth and not just pray that He would make me agree with you. It may be that you have the truth, but it also may be that God is wanting to show you the truth through another person. If God is real and is as the Bible says that he is, he can lift the scales from my eyes and show me that any reasonable person should accept Christ because it is obviously true and the evidence supports it. I don’t think that God would want people to check their brains in at the door of their church and not ask critical questions. That is in fact what I loved about the reformed (Christian) faith to begin with, that they encouraged people to think and use logic and not be afraid to ask questions. The truth has nothing to fear from investigation and questioning.

Thanks again Bill. Looking forward to your reply.

Bill: Hi Jeff: I was disappointed to find out that you read some of Vincent Cheung’s articles and they fell short of your opinions. Vincent Cheung has debated many of the worlds agnostics and atheists and has proven the truth over and over again. Jeff you know from being a part of the reformed faith how that anyone can go into the internal evidence of scripture and prove from the internal evidence that the bible is true. From reading your article I get the idea that you are not interested in the truth even though you say you are. We could go on and on dialoging back and forth and all you would have to say is that it falls short of your opinions. Like you said you have only been studying this for a few years, but there have been people like Vincent Cheung who has been studying for 20+ years and you dismiss him by saying he falls short. I sense a spirit of arrogance and pride in you that you would think that you are so much more intelligent than someone like Vincent Cheung. As to regards the truth and how can we know it. By faith that you dismiss so lightly. You only have the logic you have because the Logos is trying to get you to see the foolishness of it. Like I said you have to suppress the truth to arrive at your inconsistencies. You know as well as I do that the other religions of this world is not developed from Jesus Christ but the founders of their religions. Jeff maybe you dont want to accept the truth because that would make you accountable for your actions. With this atheistic belief of yours who are you accountable to. From the way you said you look at Christianity from an unbiased perspective you prove your ignorance. How can you say that is unbiased when you hold this atheistic belief. As Vincent Cheung says in his articles you act like a moron to say that Christianity has died by contra-
dictions.

As for you not knowing when someone is speaking for God if they really are……that is what truth is all about. Like the bible says the word of God is sharperthan any two edged sword and it is able to destroy lofty speculations and everything that exalts itself above the things of God. You try to sound so intelligent by your many words and you probably think that you prove your point over and over again but really all you are proving is how ignorant you are.

As for as your blasting I dont count it as blasting I count it as ignorance. The only forgiveness you should be interested in is not mine but Christ’s. As far as you showing anyone the truth, that is the heigth of arrogance. Like I said you are not interested in the truth because then you would have to be acountable for your actions. If you are interested in the truth read Vincent Cheung’s book on Presuppostional Confrontations with an open mind and not with pride and arrogance.

Jeff: I expected more of you than that. If it makes you feel better to call me names and to infer that I am trying to keep myself from being accountable for my actions than I guess you can believe what you want about me. That is not at all what I am doing. These are honest questions that I have struggled with for years and I did not lightly give up my faith nor did I want to. I left the faith kicking and screaming and wanting to find a way that I could still believe. I feel compelled to by the evidence and I don’t know what else a person is to do when it comes to that. Lets take this one step at a time. Is there any of the following that you would disagree with:

- I am fallible
- I make mistakes
- My own spiritual experiences are not authoritative
- The above applies equally to other human beings
Therefore
- I cannot be certain that when someone says that they are speaking for God that they truly are.
- There are many people who have claimed to speak for God over recorded history
- I must therefore question anyone who claims to speak for God and try to test whether what they say is true or not
- This includes questioning my own pastor, religious leaders, early church fathers and the writers of the Bible itself.

Bill: What did you expect when you say that Christianity died the death of hopeless contradictions. As far you expecting more of me than that, that really does not interest me at all. That is pure condenscension on your part. Everything you asked proves that we are all totally depraved and that doesnt take too much thought does it. All of this dialogue proves that your only hope is in the person that you are constantly as the Lord told Paul you are kicking against the goads. You really need to stop all of this poison on your website that you are trying to desperately to convince people that you are right. Your condemnation is just.

Jeff: Do you think that it is ok to ask questions about the faith? Or are we all just supposed to accept what we are told by those teaching us as fact and assume that they are correct?

Bill: You are supposed to accept what the word of God says. After all it is the truth. People who are supposed to be gifted
in knowledge from the worlds point of view has been trying to disprove Christianity for centuries to no avail. What makes
you think that you can disprove it.

You really need to read the book that I suggested to you.

Jeff: But is it ok to question what we are taught?

I have already read it and I am reading it again right now…

If I have any points of disagreement with him will you hear them or will you just say that I am being arrogant to think that I know more than he does?

Bill: 1 Cor: 1:18-21

For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saves it is the power of God.
For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where
is the wise? Where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.

It is my hope that God would save you as well.

Jeff: So you aren’t going to answer my question to you then?

Bill: You can agree or not it makes no difference to me. You can agree or not agree that the
Word of God is true or not. Like I said when all is said or done all that you have left is your
disagreements. The word of God stands true regardless of what you believe or not.

Jeff: Whether you would like to believe it or not, I am a sincere person seeking after the truth. If the bible is true than I want to believe it. I have honest questions about how it is that i can know that the Bible is true. I am asking you to help me with my questions and help me come back to the faith if the faith is true. Is that something that you are interested in doing?

Bill: I already know you disagree with him. You talk as if you are going to convince me of what you
think is the truth. I already have the truth because I have Jesus in my life. Knowing the truth has
set me free. Are you free?

Jeff: If I disagree with him and I disagree on grounds that are not logical and sound, I am only trying to be corrected. Yes, I believe that my opinions on Christianity are right at this time, but I am open to the possibility of my making a mistake in my thinking and that is all I am asking of you. Can you help to show me where I have made a mistake in my thinking?

Bill: Your thinking is stinking because it is not based on the word of God.
The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.

Jeff: I guess I will take that as a no. You are not interested in helping me to realize the errors in my thinking that is stinking. I only want you to help me understand how a person can know what the word of God is when there are so many people claiming that their “revelation” is from God. Which one and I to believe and why?

Bill: All scripture is inspired of God. It is God breathed. Is God a liar. By you saying the Bible is
not true you are making God out to be a liar. The truth is in the Word. Do you have the Word

Jeff: How is it that you know that the Bible is the word of God and not just the word of man?

Bill: Are you void of understanding the scriptures. What did I just say. All scripture is inspired of God.
Are you calling God a liar?

Jeff: Bill, I am asking an honest question and I really don’t know any other way to ask it. You are saying that the 66 books of the protestant bible is the word of God and I should listen to that. If it is the word of God then I want to follow it. My question is how do you know that it is the word of God? Is the apocrypha part of the word of God? Is the roman catholic church authoritative in what they say? Is the Eastern Orthodox church’s canon of scripture correct? I only want to know how it is that you KNOW that the 66 books of your bible are the word of God since other traditions claim other things are also the word of God.

Bill: Faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen. As many as were ordained to eternal life believed. Ask the Lord to reveal the truth to you

Jeff: So I guess you basically have no good reason for believing that the Bible is true or is the word of God? In answer to my simple and honest questions the only thing you can do is quote Bible verses to me and not even attempt to give a reason for the hope that is within you? You certainly have not believed that the Bible is the word of God since birth have you? You had to at some point go through reasons for why you should take it seriously and that is all I am asking for. For a person who is standing outside the faith and sees all kids of different claims as to what God has told us to do and believe, how are we to distinguish between then?

I have asked God to reveal the truth to me and I saw more and more problems with the Bible after that. What am I to do with that? Did God answer my prayer?

Bill: You act so irrational it is pathetic. I cant believe the stupid questions you are asking. You are an enemy of the cross of Christ and you are trying to spew out your poison to people that dont know the difference. Why dont you act intelligent for a change and realize that your questions are void of any meaning. You arent interested in the truth no matter how sincere you act. When the Holy Spirit convicts you that you are a sinner then and only then will there be any hope. You are unregenerate and therefore you are not seeking after God.

Unless you are of the elect God is not going to reveal anything to you. There is none that seeks
after God no not one

Jeff: Thank you so much for all your help doug. I see that you care for my soul and want to help me to understand. I guess I will stop asking questions since you have no intention of trying to answer them.

The conversation ended at this point.

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