The Reasoning of a Relativist Breaks Down

What do you think of this reasoning (just listen for 4 minutes)?

http://www.garyhabermas.com/audio/ha...s_approach.mp3

12 things most non-Christian scholars concede from which we prove the resurrection, atonement and deity of Christ since there is no naturalistic explanation (e.g. group hallucinations are impossible, swoon theory is impossible, and people don't willingly allow themselves to be martyred for what they know is a lie):

1. Jesus died by crucifixion.
2. He was buried.
3. His death caused the disciples to despair and lose hope.
4. The tomb was empty (the most contested).
5. The disciples had experiences which they believed were literal appearances of the risen Jesus (the most important proof).
6. The disciples were transformed from doubters to bold proclaimers.
7. The resurrection was the central message.
8. They preached the message of Jesus’ resurrection in Jerusalem.
9. The Church was born and grew.
10. Orthodox Jews who believed in Christ made Sunday their primary day of worship.
11. James was converted to the faith when he saw the resurrected Jesus (James was a family skeptic).
12. Paul was converted to the faith (Paul was an outsider skeptic).

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Originally Posted by Relativist

Many bright, sound-minded Germans conceded with Hitlers belief that non-arians were inferior and even more were convinced that the Jews were the enemy and they caused all of Germany's problems, including losing world war I.

Many scholars believed at one time in the US that blacks were intellectually inferior to whites because of innate biological differences and these "findings" where used by the US govt. as an argument for immigration restriction and segregation.

My point is, just because a lot of powerful or educated people believe something, doesn't prove that it is true. This seems to be the main "reasoning" of the fellow on the audio clip. I think that if you (the royal you) want to believe something badly enough you will and from my perspective, as long as it helps you lead/have a better life and be kinder to the people you interact with than it doesn't really matter whether your belief is true or not nor is it important to get others to believe your truth.

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If you believe something badly enough, but that thing is wrong, eventually it will break down and be harmful to you and others even though you can't understand how right now. Therefore, your teaching of relativism and a belief that is not true is acceptable is really centered on the royal you - on self. One group thinks such behavior or belief is being kind and helpful while another group considers it just the opposite. Who decides? Evidence that wins out should decide. It would be quite careless to vaguely lump all claims into the same stirring pot which you have done. Personally, I would not consider that kind or helpful.

By the way, Aryan's follow Hitler; whereas Arians are people who believe Jesus is not God. You might have got the terms mixed up.

Comparing educated racists in Germany and USA to educated non-Christian scholars about the resurrection claim seems to be a false comparison because most scholars would agree those educated pockets of racists in Germany and USA are the minority. Therefore, since most scholars agree they were racist that is consistent with the fact most scholars who do peer review work on the resurrection claim of Jesus believe the Apostles truly believed they had seen Jesus alive from the dead in various group settings.

Your comparison additionally fails because you are comparing delusions with hallucinations, and they are not the same. The latter involve the eyes whereas the former involves ideas. Scholars are virtually universal based on the evidence that the Apostles truly believed they saw Jesus alive from the dead in various group settings for which there is no viable naturalistic explanation. Effectively, this becomes irrefutable evidence, because all possible scenarios have been exhausted to explain away their testimony and remains a conundrum to non-Christian scholars.

We are led inextricably to the gospel of salvation that Jesus died on the cross for the sins of the world, resurrected the 3rd day and nothing exists that exists without Him having created it. Convincing others becomes paramount because to not accept the gospel of salvation eternally separates you from your Creator and nothing could be worse. Out of love by the Holy Spirit indwelling us Christians, we give you the truth that sets you free. But like any free gift, you have to be willing to freely receive it.

Scholarly consensus should never be accepted blindly, but the evidence by which they form their conclusions should be considered and compared to competing ideas to determine what is true or not. As the Bible says, "test the spirits" (1 John 4.1) and "prove all things" (1 Thess. 5.21).

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Originally Posted by Relativist

Well I know that it would be harmful to me if I tried to make myself believe that Jesus (who likely existed and was likely a good man who's likely dedication to helping others was admirable) was resurrected with no actual, tangible evidence. All we've got is dead people having said that they saw something. This group vision probably happened because these people had been selling Jesus as the Son of God and when he died it didn't very well support the notion of his Godliness so they had to think quick and come up with a story that would still support Jesus=God. Their story was then passed from Christian to Christian and I can't help but wonder if this was partially to encourage continued devotion to a specific religion which serves the church and the men who might be invested in maintaining their power over others and continued influx of money, status and control over abortion, views on homosexuality, gender equality, marriage and therefore new little Christians.

It does not sit well with me or serve me in any way to believe things just because ancient word of mouth said so. I follow my intuition and rely on my own observations and experiences over time to form beliefs. If your interested, I believe that God is a universal energy that flows through me and everything on this planet because this has been my experience and how I've interpreted those experiences. I love that the word God, as far as any linguists and researchers can determine, originally came from the Sanskrit word hu which means to call upon or invoke. God is not a Christian word nor do Christians "know" God more than a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Yogi or a Hindu does.

I am not a Christian, nor will I ever be one. Organized religion in any form does not work for me. I choose to believe that I am supposed to follow my own path and ideally form a very personal, spiritual bond with God so that I am not alone when I suffer in life, so that I will devote myself to helping others suffer less, so that I'm inspired to live a healthy, happy, grateful life and so that my life has meaning through this interconnection between myself and everything else. If this brings into question my sanity, intelligence or makes others think I'm on crack so be it but really it has nothing to do with anyone else.

My belief is just as valid to me as yours is to you. Most importantly to me, my beliefs have never caused harm to anyone, but the same can not be said of most religions. Even though I have expressed my frustration with Christianity I would never pro-actively try to get you to change your view point so that I can "save you" from eternal damnation or declare that if you do not accept my beliefs that you will be forever separated from God so why on God's green earth (but not for long if we don't get our heads out of our arses, stop over consuming and help the planet) would you assume that you know what is best for me. Last time I checked I have never sought salvation at the alter of Troy.

By the way, when you pointed out my mistake of misspelling the word Aryan when you knew what I meant because of the context of my sentence you came across to me as pretentious and belittling. Not sure if that was your intent but wanted to give you this feedback. My different outlook from yours in no way makes me like or care for you any less. I love that you are so passionate about your beliefs but wish that you could be more accepting of my right to choose and respectful that my beliefs are just as valid as yours.

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Nobody wants you to force yourself to believe anything, but simply let the evidence lead you where it may. My response may run a little long because I conscientiously wanted to address each and every one of your points that if you are unwilling to look at now may you do so in time.

Jesus likely existed? We need to be honest with the evidence firstly. Did you know that there are more sources written about Jesus within 150 years of his death than any 10 figures combined from antiquity! Therefore, if Jesus did not exist then Aristotle, Plato, Julius Caesar and Tiberius Caesar never existed, and nobody thinks that even with only a couple sources for each of them and dated centuries after their lives.

Why start off with the mistaken assumption Jesus was "likely a good man" and was just performing good works and that there is no tangible evidence? Let us start, rather, without assumptions and let the evidence lead us where it may. For example, we have 45 ancient sources within 150 years of Jesus' death, 17 of which are non-Christian (see The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, Ancient Evidence for the Life of Jesus, and The Historical Jesus by Gary R. Habermas). Of those 17 non-Christian sources, 12 refer to his death, 7 to his "alleged" resurrection and 7 to his "alleged" deity. You really can't ask for better evidence than this to prove the life, death, burial, resurrection and deity of Jesus. The approach used in that audio is called the Minimal Facts Approach which states most scholars (for good reasons) concede Paul really wrote 1 Cor. 15, Gal. 1 & 2 in which he testifies to spending time with the eyewitness Apostles who gave him the gospel of salvation, and Paul would have converted 2 years after the cross. So it goes right back to the cross.

Your argument is "all we have are dead people having said they saw something." No! That's not all we got. Yes, they are dead, but they multiply attested to seeing, being with, touching and talking with Jesus after he died on the cross. And they went to their deaths as martyrs never changing their view. Therefore, the burden is on you to find a naturalistic explanation to account for their eyewitness testimony. You have provided none so nobody should side with you. If you can't find figure out an explanation then realize the reason is because no such naturalistic explanation exists which proves Jesus created you and died on the cross for the sins of the world and that he was not just a good man, but God incarnate. This is why the Pharisees wanted to kill him for forgiving sins because the ultimate forgiver of sins is God. Jesus was making himself out to be God. He knew no sin.

You claimed they had a vision and then made it up? How do they have a vision together and then make it up if they had a vision? Do you see the contradiction on your part? Moreover, group visions are group hallucinations, but no such thing has ever happened in human history nor found in the DM-4 psychology manual. The burden remains on you to find a naturalistic explanation to account for their eyewitness testimony in various group settings otherwise you are holding onto something untenable and is hurtful to you and others especially those closest to you receiving misinformation, blocking them from making an educated decision.

As the Church was born and grew in the first century they had no power in the worldly sense. They were martyred. Whatever corruptions that may come by men operating in their flesh like the rest of the world does not cast a shadow on the good conscience of those who are born-again. It only shows how hard Satan is at work in the world as well as the kingdom of heaven to deceive.

As the OT teaches so the NT teaches. Any issues you have with homosexuality are issues you have with the word of God. God created you in His image and in the garden of Eden one man with one woman. No other arrangement was provided for. You called us 'new little Christians.' How right you are. Luke 12.32 says we are a "little flock". Before the foundations of the world God has chosen a people for Himself far fewer than you might think. I am grateful to God I am one of them! And my salvation can never be lost. Those who are born-again "they shall never perish" (John 10.28). Other religions allow for losing salvation.

Don't believe ancient truths that are still true today just because they said so, but because of the evidence for which you are unable to overturn. We all have an intuition to be utilized, but sadly the intuition of our spirit has been corrupted and the evil spirit resides in those inner recesses until a person is born-again. This leads to many false ideas in your life, as your intuition, as it were, is not holy and cleansed by the precious blood. God, in turn, provides us with sufficient grace to have the free choice to search Him out with all our heart and soul, and when we have done so He promises we will find Him. Therefore, the reason you are not born again is because you have not searched Him out with all your heart and soul. You remain standoffish, independent and disobedient like the fallen angels and all before you have refused His love, mercy and saving grace.

You speak highly of your own observations, but your own observations suggest group hallucinations are impossible, so why do you create a scenario of "group visions" but your observation deems them impossible? The Bible says be "not doubletongued" (1 Tim. 3.8) or doubleminded. In other words, don't have a standard for others you do not have for yourself. This unethical approach of yours hurts others and yourself because it brings down your moral standards and those around you.

God cannot be less than His creation, so God cannot be merely some electrical current. Because you have a mind, God must have a mind. Because you are a moral being, God has the highest morals. A mind is needed to create a mind. God is omnipresent, but His Holy Spirit does not dwell in your inner woman because your spirit is dead to God. In other words, due to the fall of the first Adamic man, you are born into sin. Notice nobody has never not sinned. Your dead spirit refers to loss of communication. This is the Biblically meaning of dead. To restore this communication with God no amount of works on your part could satisfy God since He is infinitely greater than you and you are full of self and sin. Sin leads to death and the second death which is Hell. So what God does is He enters His creation to bridge the gap, provides forgiveness for every wrong thing you ever did, gives you power over the flesh placing your old woman on the cross and regenerates your spirit to give you eternal life, and the Holy Spirit then enters through the window of your conscience to reside in your intuition.

I think you also tried to imply legends theory, but this breaks down because the NT was written before the Neronian persecutions in 65 AD (other than who John wrote Revelation 95 AD) by those original Apostles who spent 3 years with Jesus, and you can quote the entire NT from the writings of the church fathers in the 2nd century except for 11 verses. Furthermore, Paul said he spent 15 days with Peter, John and James, and the gospel he received was from those original eyewitness Apostles. 1 Cor. 15, Gal. 1 & 2 go right back to the cross. The earliest still surviving papyri we have of the NT are from the late first and early second century and are closest to their events than any other documents in antiquity by far. Do you see how the standards of the Bible are the highest? We have 40 authors who wrote the 66 books of the Bible across 1500 years in total agreement. Praise the Lord! It's a miracle how God not only brought it all together but kept it all together for us to understand His redemptive design down through the generations. In terms of legal evidence, the lawyer in the Guinness Book of Records who won 245 cases in a row said the best case he has ever seen was for the life, death, burial, resurrection and deity of Christ. The lawyer who was said to produce more jurisprudence than all the lawyers in Europe at his time gave the rule evidence applied to ancient texts:

And so he became a believer that Jesus was God and was converted. He wrote, "In requiring this candor and simplicity of mind, and those who would investigate the truth of our religion..." He sees that Christianity is, in fact, the only evidential historical religion in the world, and the whole things rests upon evidence which he finds so compelling and so overwhelming that any honest person with an open mind examining the evidence would be like himself inescapably drawn to accept it. And so he sets forth his first rule of legal evidence and for any other ancient document.

"Every document apparently ancient coming from the proper repository or custody and bearing on its face no evident marks of forgery, the law presumes to be genuine and devolves on the opposing party the burden of proving it to be otherwise."

"This ancient document, the Scripture, has come from the proper repository, that is, it is has been in the hands of the persons of the Church for 2000 years almost and it bears on its face no evident marks of forgery, and therefore the law presumes it to be genuine, and those who would presume otherwise upon them devolves the responsibility of proving it to be false. We don't have to prove it to be true. They have to prove it to be false. That's what the law says."

(Simon Greenleaf, The Testimony of the Evangelists: The Gospels Examined for the Rules of Evidence)

God is uncreated. He existed before time and space. He has a mind. He is personal and all-knowing. You know Muslims are wrong, because their entire faith is based on a guy in a cave six centuries later who claimed Jesus did not die or even go to the cross, but Mohammad had no evidence for this claim, contrary to the multitude of evidence we have that Jesus did die on the cross in those sources I mentioned. Muhammad was just expressing his hostility to God as you express yours but in a different way with a different agenda. Hinduism claims you can come back as a chicken if you were too sinful, then when you become a good chicken you get to be human again. That's silly. It never effectively deals with sin in this one life. Hinduism also teaches that its God is amoral, but again, how can God have standards below our own? That which created us is greater than the created. Buddhists believe in Nirvana to shut their minds down which was a way for them to try to cope with all kinds of suffering, but the Christian God is totally opposed to such action, because God gave us a mind to be used, intuition to be heeded, emotions to be harnessed, physical senses and a free will to be employed. Moreover, all these other religions and faiths you mentioned have something in common which is salvation by works and self-strength. Whereas Christianity teaches that no man can bridge that gap by his works or self-strength. It is God Himself who must enter His creation to atone for sins and provide reconciliation whosoever is willing. God does this not only for us, of course, but Himself, because He can't fellowship with sin. He needs a redeemed man to bring into His light and countenance. This is how we know God is Christian, the one true religion, and Jesus is God both from a moralistic and evidential perspective. "In the beginning was the Word [Jesus], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1.1). Based on this reasoning, only one religion is true. Among the 3 or 4 religions that are accessible with at least a billion adherents each as God is accessible only one is true!

Let me point out a contradiction you have because you teach pantheism. Muslims do not believe in Pantheism, yet you claimed Islam was no less true. I am all too aware of each time you contradict yourself and pray that you can see that too. A faith that contradicts itself or is contradictory with other faiths clearly shows the error of a faith.

The Bible teaches that you may yet be a Christian one day if you were willing to come to the cross as a helpless sinner to receive the Lord Jesus as Savior. You have not blasphemed the Holy Spirit. Know that God gives your lifetime to decide. The Bible defines religion: "Pure religion and undefiled before God...and to keep oneself unspotted from the world" (James 1.27). Religion is the way to God so when you oppose religion, you're opposing the way to God and to be saved from your sins. You love your flesh too much. What I can say about your condition is great loss will have to occur in your life before you would consider reality and question your beliefs. This is how many people come to Christ when it seemed impossible in their far gone condition.

As far as fellowship of the body of Christ, the reason why Christians get together, pray together and worship together is because we are God's children, we love God and have been chosen before the foundations of the world to be a people He has chosen for Himself to be pillars of the New City. He chose those who choose Him. So when you throw around the term God as though it is actually God, nothing could be further from the truth, because in reality, you are rejecting God who entered His creation to pay for the sins of the world. Thus, you have fellowship with some evil spirit according to the Scriptures. You've propped up some idol whatever that may be in God's place. Satan fashions himself as an angel of light: "But I am not surprised! Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light" (2 Cor. 11.14). This angel that you worship is one that says you can be saved by your own strength and power. Pride begets the fall. Whereas the Bible contrasts faith and works. Works are unto rewards not to receive initial salvation.

While you may not care enough about me to lead me to your salvation, I care enough about you to lead you to the salvation that saves you in Christ. Jesus says to spread the gospel to the nations. You say you shouldn't help others this way. I am with Jesus. Your beliefs do harm others, because it is selfish to reject what Jesus did for you, leading people down a false path. Since Christianity is proven to be true, and your faith is proven to be false yet don't want to repent, what is left for your but the Lake of Fire and to be blotted out of the Book of Life.

Jesus never hurt anyone so the religion of Christianity has never hurt anyone. False religion has hurt people and your faith has hurt people, and pantheism has hurt people because it has an amoral God, thus, deemphasizing morality for blithe energy claiming yourself a part of even to call yourself God. My God is not sparks. He is conscientious and caring and has a mind. He is Spirit. Making God just blithe energy is a reflection of a decrepit and immoral condition.

Nobody is belittling you. How else is someone to tell you that the word is Aryanism and not Arianism? However, I don't think you ever even realized this was a mistake till now which tells me something of you and how little you put thought into what you said. You could have just said thank you. If I had made the same mistake, I would be thankful you corrected me. Pride takes it personally when a mistake is pointed out.

You said I am not accepting of your right to choose. Why assume that? Perhaps if you understood what a Christian believes you would not make that accusation. A Christian believes God created us in His image with free will, but that will has fallen due to sin. However, God has a plan always. He responds by giving us sufficient grace to have the free choice, fully capably of accepting God's provision though His only begotten Son. Since we can't save ourselves as no works would satisfy God (Cain gave an offering of works, Abel an offering of non-works), He enters His creation to pay the ransom for us for those sins that must be righteously and justly punished. Even one little sin eternally separates us from God. So you can see how prescient God's solution is. No other religions explains this reality because they are all based on self-strength to bridge the gap between yourselves and God. Ultimately, all other religions, faiths, world-views are of Satan. "In whom the god of this world [Satan] hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them" (2 Cor. 4.4).

Christians know who are going to Hell. I know that you are going to Hell as part of the gospel because you admit you refuse what God did for you on the cross. But I don't think you are all too clear on your own view, leaving contradictions unchecked, as you are busying yourself in the world and not God's desire for you. Perhaps you are a universalist which claims everyone is saved in the afterlife. Perhaps you think you will cease to exist and decay into the particles of this universe and that that is all there is for you. Not very comforting nor realistic since you are made in God's image as a sovereign being; therefore, you could never lose your identity, but that identity must be eternally separated from God if you refuse to be with Him.

Sounds like a fair deal don't you think? Personally, you wouldn't want it any other way in this grand design of His.

God gives you what you wish. C.S. Lewis said you lock yourself in Hell from the inside.

I was just thinking to myself in agreement with Simon Greenleaf. Relativist has no evidence for her belief in pantheism, universalism and relativism. Whereas Christians do have evidence, substantial evidence. Would a loving God ever ask you to believe in something you have no evidence for?

Here's an interesting question you could ask yourself. If God were to enter His creation, fashioning Himself in the likeness of men to atone for sins and relate to us so we could understand Him, what evidence would you require to substantiate His doing so? Before answering this question, make sure your answer is realistic, sincere and genuine in context of this vast universe that you already know God created and took at least 13.7 billion years to form. This salvation would need to reach out to us to save the most and damn the least, and those who have never heard the special grace of the gospel at least would receive God's common grace that leads to the special grace of the gospel.

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Originally Posted by Relativist

Oh Troy you did not understand or wrongly judged so much of what I said. Just to name 2, I knew I spelled the word Aryain wrong but didn't care enough to look up the spelling assuming you'd know what I meant. I'm not used to people who are my friends scrutinizing everything I say or write and I'm certainly not aiming for perfection in a casual conversation, life's too short. I should have put quotes around "group vision" to denote sarcasm which to me was obvious since I put this phrase in the same sentence with the apostles (don't know if I spelled this right, irrelevant to me either way) having a purpose for their "vision", i.e. coming up with a "vision" and "story" to try to prove to the masses that Jesus was God after he did such an ungod-like thing such as dying. For the record, I think it was tragic and terribly sad how he died so I mean no disrespect to the deceased.

I read part of what you sent and thank you for making the effort but I'm sorry to say, I realized part way through that I was not getting anything useful from it. We shall just have to agree to disagree and stick to topics that don't involve you trying let me know that your way is the only right way towards true salvation, which I don't require anyways.

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You know my responses are just to show you your mistaken assumptions how you put up a wall between you and God. For example, you claim there are multiple ways to salvation, but two alleged salvations that contradict each other cannot both be true. How could you be comfortable with accepting what is obviously erroneous universalism? Ultimately that becomes the reason why a person goes to Hell, because they harbor some blatantly false idea and they hold that up as an idol against the one true God. I encourage you to drop false beliefs such as universalism or pantheism since they are self-contradictory. When you do that you are exhibiting a form of repentance which may lead you to Christ.

If you had a friend who held a false belief would you not take the time to help them? Perhaps we all need more friends who would be caring enough to do that. All I was doing was giving you the correct spelling of a word you misspelled. How is that misjudging? You've given up on my responses that it is not doing anything for you, but ask yourself why you would do that, because each step along the way you raise an argument and I respond to that argument showing why it is problematic. What the worldly do is they shut their minds down and enmesh themselves back into the world while forgetting what is most important: salvation.

It doesn't seem like sarcasm even now after I read what you said: "​This group vision probably happened because these people had been selling Jesus as the Son of God and when he died it didn't very well support the notion of his Godliness so they had to think quick and come up with a story that would still support Jesus=God." Remember what we talked about how group hallucinations are impossible? So I take it now you don't even believe there was this multiple eyewitness testimony of the Apostles in various group settings even though there are a dozen accounts very well recorded in the NT and most scholars concede based on that multiply corroborated eyewitness testimony at least they truly believed it that they saw Jesus alive from the dead. Do you have a reason for rejecting this, because as far as evidence is concerned this is as good as it gets in antiquity? It would be the equivalent of all the records we have that 6 million Jews died in the holocaust. I go with the overwhelming preponderance of evidence. If you take the latter part of your sentence, it is problematic also because you are accusing the Apostles of being liars, but as has been expressed before, people don't willingly die for what they know is a lie, so it is unclear from your perspective how you get around that other than outright shutting your mind down. Consequently, the burden remains on you to find a naturalistic explanation to account for their eyewitness testimony or give your life to Christ. That's exactly where God places the burden - on you - because God is a God of evidence.

You mentioned it was unGodlike for Jesus to die. Since Jesus died for the sins of the world to save sinners how could that be any less Godlike? Moreover, Isaiah 53 prophesies the Messiah would atone for the sins of mankind so Jesus fulfills that prophecy: "he was wounded for our transgressions" (v.5). I highly encourage you to read this chapter. Jesus prophesied His own death and that He would raise Himself the 3rd day. Jesus is fully God and fully man, "the fullness of the Godhead bodily," but the fully God side of Jesus did not die as that would be unGodlike since God can't die. Do you see how you keep giving me new material to respond to about your mistaken assumptions? You would think if you were wrong that much point after a point that you would begin to question yourself.

Imagine yourself before time and space with infinite foreknowledge to see that man who is created would rebel against his Creator. Since all sinners are doomed to perish because sin leads to death how would a loving God find restoration of His creation? He would have to intervene and enter His creation and take that penalty upon Himself for forgiveness of sins. You wouldn't want it any other way because this is the perfect redemptive design. For example, let's say you had a child who committed a crime and had to go to jail. Would you not take that penalty upon yourself to release your child from punishment instead of having to be there for life? This is what God does for us. And it is the only way acceptable for God. It makes one shed a tear for there is no greater love.

Some people paint pictures. I like to paint a Christian response like a masterpiece and save it for posterity.

TO SUM UP

The petty self prevents us from seeing God's redemption for mankind. People pick inconsequential things to argue about that are periphery items compared the central resurrection proof of Jesus.

The Holy Spirit put on my heart to say this individual who rejects Christ has very little value for people who don't live in her own time which is a very self-centered view. But why should what they have to offer be any less than those who live today just because they did not have a printing press or WiFi connection? Oh the vanity and pride of life! If you fail to heed the past, you will continue to err in the future.

God chose the perfect time period to enter His creation after the law was given to permeate man's heart that gave power to sin, showing we are sinners, born into sin, and in need of salvation.

Lovers of the world are insensitive to this fact. They don't appreciate so much evil that goes on including in their own hearts and the necessary solution to the problem.

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Originally Posted by Churchwork

Scholarly consensus should never be accepted blindly, but the evidence by which they form their conclusions should be considered and compared to competing ideas to determine what is true or not. As the Bible says, "test the spirits" (1 John 4.1) and "prove all things" (1 Thess. 5.21).

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I agree the most imporant thing we need to remeber is to be a scholar does not mean they follow Jesus but just studied about Him.

I discovered recently this same person 'Relativist' actually has a deeper seated reason for rejecting God of the Bible that was never mentioned previously in the above discussion and not brought to my attention until now. As a young child in school she had a confrontation with a teacher about God being a man, and she thinks it is offensive that God is a man.

My response would be that God is spirit, neither man nor woman, before time and space of the 3 Persons of the Godhead. However, in order to atone for the sins of the world God must enter creation and does so being Christ Jesus, the 2nd Person of and fullness of the Godhead bodily. Interestingly, the Holy Spirit who is the 3rd Person of the Godhead has some feminine qualities in the Hebrew and at other times masculine pronouns are used. The 1st Person takes on the role of the Father from the Holy Trinity.

The question would be why did God choose to be a man to atone for sins of the world instead of a woman? Any ideas? As I ponder this question, I would say the reason is because men seem to be more sinful and selfish than women so who better to come in the likeness of sinful flesh as a man. Were not wars, rape and crime committed by more men than women? I am sure there are other reasons if you can think of some. It seems more powerful and effective seeing a man up on a cross than a woman as man sins profusely in this world with his hands, feet, brow (mind), heart, back and mouth. All these sinful parts of our old man that died were pierced entirely for those who gave their lives to Christ died on the cross with Him.

An additional point. Her brother believes Jesus came in different forms in other faiths and religions, but that is easy to disprove because self-contradictory faiths cannot both be true. It shows you God is no respecter of persons. How can someone so smart be so wrong? Because his guiding principle is hostility to God. I bet her brother has a more deep seated reason for rejecting Jesus than just this surface rationalization of pantheism. Perhaps it is due to the hurt from the incredibly evil nature of the divorce of her parents when it was found out their father allegedly was having an affair for decades with a woman they never knew about. That is quite disturbing. It makes their upbringing seem like a lie and not a loving family as was thought because their father was like Satan the father of lies. And the fallout is that though they are forgiving of him, consequently they reject Jesus and His Father. We should not make excuses for their free choice though, because we have all received sufficient common grace which is why the Bible says we are "without excuse" (Rom. 1.20).