4 Step Proof for God of the Bible

[Churchwork]

Churchwork,
Your constraint in Step 3 is meaningless, because its perfectly conceivable that god exists, but the very specific and particular Christian God does not exist. Steps 1 and 2 could be true and prove the existence of God, but they even constraining all discussion of your proof to the Christian God doesnt actually make the Christian God more plausible than all the others; the constraint is irrelevant. A deistic conception of God could be correct, where the deistic god (for some reason or another) creates the universe and abandons it to move along at its own devices, where the existence of humans is merely an unintended consequence of creation. God could create the universe without making human beings into a special creation, or even caring about humans or knowing about them at all, and it would be completely consistent with your first two steps in your proof.

Is it really a constraint to ask that you stay on topic which is what Step 3 is for? For example, let's say you try to disprove the god of mormonism. How does that relate to the Bible? It doesn't. Since mormons believe God is gods, you would be trying to disprove tritheism of mormon gods being one God, but Christians don't believe in that heresy anyway. So we say, hello mcfly! Hehe.

Whether another god exists is irrelevant, since the proof is about whether God of the Bible exists, and so far as we have seen Step 1 & Step 2 solidly show us the uncreated creator is God of the Bible given Christ and His resurrection given by the mercy of God the Father.

Step 3 does not say not to talk about other gods, not at all, only that if you are trying to disprove God of the Bible, don't do so by thinking you are arguing a point against Him but is really arguing a point against some god that is not God. Such a simple step should not be so complicated for you unless you are just being belligerent.

Deism has already been proven false since God is not vain. You don't just create something for no reason at all. Though you might, God would not. Nothing God does is unintended. Since we are created in His image and the most intelligent beings on earth we are more than merely a passing thought. The probability of life on other planets is so remotely small, it is very unlikely. A reaonable person says, humans stand out as something extraordinary.

The very fact that the universe can move along could not have been possible if it was not accounted for to be able to do so by God. Moreover, God if He could, would not stop at just some natural elements, but He is going to create a creation to the fullest, including making man in His image. It is so unfortunate for you that you prefer to go to hell; that is, you like being a bad person.

It would be completely inconsistent with the first two steps that God would abandon His creation, since along the 4 Steps is the principle of a caring God who wants to walk with His creation, not an evil god that leaves to fend for yourself. The latter would be quite unreasonable, unrighteous and unholy of the God. In recording the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and comparing all know proclamations of God, we see none can compare to Christ.

The constraint that we should only talk about the Christian God is artificial, and if you were trying to prove any other god, you could use the exact same arguments to prove the truth of every religion, so long as you changed Step 3 ever-so-slightly so that a critic is only permitted to talk about whatever god another wants.

The assumption you make that only the Christian God can be talked about is your misreading. Remember, step 3 doesn't say you can only talk about God of the Bible, but rather if you are going to try to disprove God of the Bible, it would not serve any purpose to do so by trying to disprove a point of some god that Christians don't agree with anyway. Do you see the error in your thinking?

You can't use the 4 Step Proof for every religion for only one religion has Christ embedded in it, and that is Christianity.

Do you see how you are reaching in your arguments to misreading the Proof?

[Churchwork]

Churchwork,

Finally, Step 4 is just another example of irrelevance:

Once the person appreciates step 3, they provide their one last stand at the ok corral-Step 4. They say, well why can't there be gods created gods for an eternity of the past so that your God is created also? This is just an offshoot of step 1, but instead of dealing with things in nature, it proposes gods created gods in the supernatural to explain our existence. This violates the principle proven in step 1 which say if there was an eternity of the past of cause and effects, whomever the constituents are, you still would have had an eternity to be perfected due to our observation today of the exponential progression cited. Try yourself to think of some more examples of exponential progression of our conscience in the saved. Note the unsaved do not want to change so that is why hell is created. In eternity hell takes care of them, and Juliet.

You havent actually connected the creation of the universe or any other gods with the creation of humans; there is no contradiction between there is an infinite regress of gods who have created each other, but humans were only created recently in history rather than created an infinitely long time ago.

Step 4 is most relevant, for it addresses not the natural cause and effects (Step 1), but any supernatural cause and effects that may be out there in gods or otherwise; so, since we still sin, you know there was not an eternity of the past of causes and effects in the supernatural arena. We would have certainly have been without sin by now!

What seems like a perfect proof to you is actually an extremely poor, non-academic proof that could easily be mistaken for a parody. You need to seriously address the problems in Steps 1, 2, 3, and 4, because it fails to stand under its own weight, otherwise you will have taken the almost elegantly written Kalam argument and mangled it beyond theological repair. You do not have a proof of god, and definitely not a proof of the Christian god.

What else can you do but mindlessly accuse of parody or non-academic since you don't rely on any evidence yet. On the contrary the parody and the non-academic is the idea of puff the magic dragon that you propose or disregarding sin. Your approach is in the scholarly community considered absurd and of no account. No reasoning scientist would ever suggest to you that things happen all by themselves or that there is nothing to this evidential exponential improvement in our conscience these past 6000 years. Your approach is extremely poor and of no substance. And may I say that of a dullard!

However, after you restated your proof, you wrote the following:

I never restated my proof. It is the exact same proof for many years now. Nothing has changed of the basic 4 step proof. Something so consistently strong says something, don't you think?

Such God would necessitate His mercy and that mercy is revealed when Jesus entered into creation to die on the cross for your sins to give you eternal life if you were willing to receive it. None compare to the love of Christ, He said He is God and proved it, fulfilling 62 prophecies (probabilities less than 1 in a trillion for any mortal man to get lucky), surrounding 40 writers over 1500 years, in a historical-religio context, showing God's redemptive design, and the apostles died for testifying to His resurrection and ascension. The resurrection of Christ is unique and best testified. No person is more well documented in antiquity. There are 42 writers, both Christian and non-Christian speaking of Jesus in the first 150 years of his death. This far outweighs the number of writers about the Emperor of Rome who died 11 years after Jesus died by a margin of 4 to 1. Skeptics have no considerable valid explanation against Jesus being God.

If it means anything to you at all, I wanted to get my degree in New Testament history (however many odd things lead to others, and I earned degrees in Business/Finance instead), so I know about the history of the bible, when it was written, and so on, and I'm 100% positive I know more about the bible than you do.

Lots of people know more about the Bible on details of various kinds than me and lots of people know less, but it is knowledge for knowledge sake alone that NOT is the salvation of Christ, but in coming to the cross to receive Christ as your Lord and Savior for the forgiveness of sins and receive eternal life. If you believe in this man who was also God so shall you be saved. If you are willing to stand up for the one who died for you, so shall you be saved. Since you find no problem with the Bible, then you should accept it. Why sit on the fence? A degree in religion is not going to save you. Anyone can be saved, for it is the simplest thing in the world. There is one thing though may I say, I don't know anyone alive today that knows the depth of the Scripture on spiritual truths revealed in the 5 Deeper Truths and the 37 questions in your profile to this extent, which are things that really count and spiritually motivate you to overcome in Christ! Take a look.

Long story story short, here are some facts to digest:
- Israelites did not exist anytime before 1000 BC, and didnt begin to write down their stories until 900 BC.
- We dont know how any of the apostles died, apart from Judas. The martyrdom of the apostles is something of an extra-biblical addition that isnt actually recorded in the bible or history, so much as it circulated by word of mouth until it became "accepted" as a fact.
- We dont know anything about the life of Christ. We are fairly certain he existed, but his life is completely lost in myth and legend. Was he a good person who preached that people should humble themselves to God? Probably. Did he feed 5000 people with a few fish and two loaves of bread? Probably not. Was he crucified as a political criminal? Probably. Did he reanimate from the dead and begin preaching to people in the streets? Probably not.

Abraham was born about 2091 BC, Isaac born about 2066 BC, Jacob and Esau born about 2006 BC. Jacob fled Haran around 1929 BC. Joseph was born 1915 BC. Moses was born about 1526 BC. David became king of Israel 1010 BC. So you can see the Israelites that Jacob became existed long before you propose.

The real life events Moses recorded himself. If writings existed this old in other cultures, there is no reason it can not also be true in the promise land of Israel. There is no reason to suggest otherwise. This has long since been accepted and no change of view has ever arisen. We can place some trust in our forefathers for the integrity that stands. Have you ever thought why this information remains with us today in the most popular book ever sold? It is because of its truths.

James who is a brother of John is recorded in the Bible as being martyred. For you to say otherwise indicates how out of touch you are. Since there is no reason to doubt the recordings of the martyrdoms by those who knew the apostles such as Polycarp and Clement and so forth in good conscience, and various other writers of which there are many, to suggest otherwise is really without foundation. These are recordings of history, not by oral tradition. What starts off by witnessing through the eyes is transferred orally and then onto written paper. They are actually documented in the earliest church fathers just as you might expect who would take responsibility in sharing this data. I recommend you get Gary Habermas' "The Case for the Resurrection for Jesus Christ" (2004). Awesome proof texts of the primary writers in the first and second century. There is direct connection from person to person from the earliest apostles to the second and third generation of apostles.

There is no possibility of legend, for Paul writes about his meetings with Peter and James and so does Luke for the Jerusalem council in which they agreed on several things. Not only this but Paul was saved about 2 years after Christ died, he saw Christ resurrected as did 11 different group settings. Within 3 years after Paul being saved, he came to Jerusalem to meet Peter and James, so these were very early creeds he taught such as in 1 Cor.15. He was with Barnabas and his travels are recorded on 3 missionary journeys with Timothy, Silas and others.

Since the Stephen and James were put to death in the Bible, and Paul nearly died several times it is recorded, it is not unreasonable to believe early church fathers in the first and second century documenting where and how the apostles died. Nearly all of them were put to death in various ways. Get that highly recommended book.

Jesus made in clear and in no uncertain terms He is God. Jesus said He is the Son of Man and the Son of God. Jews new this to mean He is God, so they killed Him. The apostle are in agreement, saying In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word was God.

We know so much about Christ. We have 42 writers within the first 150 years of his life who wrote about him. Did He feed 5000? Of course. Being God, it would be no problem for Him to intervene in His own creation, just like someone who owns a computer can upload software.

Was he seen resurrected as testified by Matthew, John, Paul, Peter, James and Jude (his two brothers)? Remember these are eyewitnesses accounts who knew Jesus personally: the 12 apostles saw him resurrected, Paul saw him. These are not second hand stories passed down as in other religions. James did not believe his brother was God until after Jesus died and was seen resurrected by his own two eyes. Paul was killing the saints, but they miraculously one day Jesus appeared before Paul in Person, and he could not but be repent and give his life to Christ. Isn't that wonderful? The disciples and the women could literally touch Jesus.

Paul even said that if what he and the apostles are saying is false then the many who know of these events could prove otherwise and write about them and make a laughing stalk of them. But none ever did. Nobody denied the empty tomb. Nobody before Christ had a resurrection. Copycats came after His resurrection and they are not well evidenced or with much context. How wonderful that God enters into His own creation to provide salvation. Imagine! Lets say Christ doesn't even return for a billion years. What will always be the most cherished document that gives us comfort? The 66 books of God's Word. Millions of books will be written on Christ, but one book remains. How wise, righteous and holy He is to make Himself so easily known! Thus, leaving you without excuse!

This same power of resurrection is available to all of us who are saved and is a sure promise of our salvation.

[Churchwork]

Churchwork,
The supernatural elements of Jesus' life make it so difficult to believe. 2000 years ago, people were very superstitious, and they lived in a world where the supernatural was readily observable and obvious. You think that, with all the technology we have now, if the supernatural used to be so plainly evident to people without the aid of scientific instruments, then surely we could detect the supernatural even more readily with instruments!...
... but we dont. Precisely the opposite: the more we study the universe, and the more sensitive our scientific instruments become, we see the universe is really a system of interacting mathematical equations. Billions of experiments are performed every year, some with the expressed purpose of uncovering psychic and supernatural powers, but not even once have we reliably observed any instance of the supernatural. From the point of view of skeptic, its very difficult to believe that the records of Jesus's miracles and displays of the supernatural are actually genuine or even happened at all, simply because the growing implausibility of supernatural powers.

If one is supernatural, then he is outside the natural. Therefore, supernatural occurrences are not surprising events at all. They may even be daily routine. Daily one may be taken aback spiritually by the manifestations in one's life in their spirit being uplifted by Christ.

The supernatural occurrences are deemed objective visions. They actually saw angels. Today people actually see angels through visions. They aren't subjective. An hallucination can not be seen by 11 different group settings. It's not possible, so you know it was real. They did not live in a world where the supernatural was regularly obvious anymore than today. However, we can say that the mind today is more scientific and heady, so it may because of this be less receptive to supernatural communications apart from revelation in the spirit. As the mind has developed in human kind a case can be made for more receptivity to angelic communications. I see no problem with this observation. It is no less real. They obviously saw something and it is conveyed what was seen and heard and felt.

It would not stand to reason that you could detect supernatural events anymore today than before, since instruments ought to never have the power to seep into God's heaven. This would place God somewhat under our observation and intrusion in our microscopes. I don't think God would ever allow that.

Just as in antiquity, the universe is full of equations no more or less today. It is the same universe, the same supernatural events. Often an event is so miraculous not because of the event itself, but the timing of the event that became so saving and precious or was a judgment. For example, if you read the Miracles of Exodus by Colin J. Humphrey's we can explain the cause and effect (I know you are not a big fan of this, lol) of the 10 plagues, how one affected the other like a chain reaction.

Many times too we have seen through scientific observation supernatural occurrences. There are recorded events of people seeing things that had no brain activity in NDE-Near Death Experiences. They describe things outside their body that they could not have known otherwise. This has been documented extensively and can not be overlooked. Again see The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Habermas.

The most convincing proof you will find is to rely on the minimal facts approach of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We have 11 different group settings which record the seeing of a physically resurrected Jesus and the apostles went to their deaths on this account professing having seen Jesus resurrected.

People don't just die for a lie, but for what they actually believe in and see. And it is one thing to die on second hand knowledge, but a completely different matter to die on first hand eyewitness attestations.

It does not make it difficult to believe at all. Is it so hard to believe that if the human race is going to continue on for millions and billions of years that God would not give a point of ultimate reference for His design. He has done that in the 66 books of His Word which is from my findings 100% all genuine truth.

Considering all these facts it makes it very difficult to be an atheist or agnostic or a believe of any other religion except Christianity. Deism doesn't cut it either because it would be utterly vain.

[Churchwork]

Churchwork,
- The most respected, mainstream scholars believe that Jesus existed, but that his life is exaggerated by a few zealous followers. If you want to know more about the historical Jesus, and certainly learn a lot more than you would learn reading second-rate apologetics all day, go to your library and pick up A Marginal Jew by John P Meier, The Historical Jesus by Gerd Theissen, The Historical Jesus by John Dominic Crossan, and for a little more background on the development of the bible its worth the time to read Truth and Fiction in the Bible by Robin Lane Fox.

Most respected scholars don't believe Jesus life was exaggerated, but accept that:

1. He died by crucifixion and was buried
2. the disciples sincerely believed that He rose from the dead and appeared to them
3. the church persecutor Paul (outsider skeptic) was suddenly changed
4. the skeptic James (family skeptic), brother of Jesus, was suddenly changed
5. the tomb was empty
6. the disciples were in dispair, lost hope, but in seeing his resurrection, they became bold proclaimers
7. the resurrection was the central message
8. the church was born and grew from Jerusalem

The early documentation to support this is substantial. There has been no contrary account proposed by skeptics that have been deemed viable to explain the eyetwitness accounts of Jesus and the martyrdom of the apostles in their claims of the resurrection of Christ.

Though not everyone accepts Christ, the scholarly community agrees on these points and for that matter, they can find no logical explanation to provide a natural explanation. That is why Antony Flew who is considered himself the leading scholar in the world for atheism has turned to believing in an uncreated creator, though he still fights with believing in Christ.

All of those books, I recall, you mentioned are in the references and used and quoted by Gary Habermas in The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus. He addresses all those books' major concerns. So you need to uplevel yourself to the response to their ideas by reading this book. He is most comprehensive and thorough, and who is considered by many to be the leading scholar on the resurrection. You will love taking the Resurrection Challenge on CD that comes with the book. This book is like his consummating work of many previous books. It is so precise in its delivery I highly recommend it.

Have you heard of the lawyer in the guiness book of records who is reported as having won 245 cases in a row. Well he said that he has never seen a better case than for the death and resurrection of Christ. In other words, if the resurrection is true, you won't be able to provide better evidence than the evidence that has existed these past 1900+ years.

The religio-historical context fits by 40 writers over 1500 years, the miracles, fulfilled prophecies (62 with amazing odds that only God could fulfill) and the reasonableness of it all that we are sinners and sin leads to death and the second death because our souls can't be annihilated in being made in God's image. Therefore, a redemption is needed and no better redemption can be achieved than the salvation of God Himself entering int creation to provide the perfect sacrifice for sins. If you believe in this man who is also God, you are going to be recruited by God into His kingdom to receive the glory of His eternal blessings.

For Christ to enter into His creation now for the first time would be utter confusion and logistically impossible. He would be killed in an instant, cutting short his 3 year ministry which was short enough as it was. I think in those days in Judea and Galilee at least Jesus could escape for a short while those who were trying to kill him. I have talked to a lot of non-Christians about Christ if He were to first enter creation today, and they say to me they feel the world would kill him right quick. What does that say of humanity, their sin nature, hostility to their creator and love for the god of this world who is Satan? Islam for example would kill him the first chance they get.

[Churchwork]

Churchwork,
I honestly dont expect you pick up any of those, but I would really appreciate it if you knew a little more about your religion. Believe me, I've seen the pattern of belief a million times, and you are just a textbook example of someone who believed the bible was true long before you even had the faintest idea of why you thought it was true or even knew about it from an academic point of view.

I would appreciate it, if you do respond, to learn a little more about your religion as well as my religion. So do get that book (The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Gary Habermas, 2004) for it talks about your religion and my religion in the most precise detail possible so you can see the fullest evidence.

Actually, I am quite unlike most people you meet who say they are Christians. I believe God chose me in this way, so I could not be accused effectively like you would accuse others in the way you think they came to Christ. Logically I know that the uncreated had to have created given the 4 Step Proof for God which you have nothing against, so the only question becomes, who is the Creator? Where does He reveal Himself in creation? That answer existed in the One that none could compare to, who is Christ. All the other major religions fail in their logic and conscience. Atheism is utterly destroyed since puff the magic dragon theories of quantum mechanism is utterly mindless. Agnosticism is pretentious, for Jesus said, if you are not for Him, you are against Him. Also if you are agnostic, understand this principle. By saying you are not sure if Jesus is God or if there is no God, what you are doing is at the very minimum, exposing yourself because at the very minimum, you know nothing in nature happens all by itself, so therefore, to deny the uncreated creator, whoever he is, is intellectually dishonest and really atheism in disguise. I love being able to see this. There is in fact no such thing as real agnosticism. All agnosticism is, is atheism.

The pattern you hoped to see fails you since it is dependent on your assumptions which are false in hoping I am like those who you perceive. The evidence for Christ wins out, so any person who wants to be reasonable will receive Christ. Anyone who doesn't want to be reasonable is free to reject Christ. Since there is no better alternative of reality, Christ wins.

[Churchwork]

Churchwork,
I'm not trying to be condescending, but you're just a garden-variety fundamentalist who believes first and tries to prove later, essentially no different from the fundamentalists of every other religion who do the exact same thing, and you're beliefs are no better off than theirs. Jesus fulfilled just as many prophecies as Mohammed, and there is no argument that you can provide to disprove that claim. Why? Because you're making categorical statements without qualifying them, and there is fundamentally no reason to prefer your categorical statements above a Muslims unqualified categorical statements about his own religion.

You are not unlike any other agnostic or atheist in the same overassuming position of claiming the universe has forever been going on without a cause. I call this the puff the magic dragon faith. Since all things in nature have a cause, then it is not logical to believe that which has a cause is the ultimate cause. This is the lie in your heart, and now you try desperate to prove it by picking the most complicated subject (quantum mechanics far beyond your capacity to understand) to say that therefore it happens all by itself. This is not intelligent, but the big assumption, just like the Roman Church has the big assumption they call Mary being sinless (even though I count no less than 5 time Mary sinned in the Bible alone). Christians have the first hand testimony of those who saw Jesus resurrected and gave their lives to Christ on the cross. What do you have? Puff the magic dragon or a meaningless universe, so you are compelled to do anything you like such as nuke 10 cities without conscience. Christians are constrained by the Holy Spirit to walk by the spirit to the glory of God.

It's not difficult to compare the what the right choice is. I also don't think it is so wrong to receive Christ even though you don't have the best evidences out there like I have of His death, deity and resurrection. It really is quite enough to look at the overwhelming aura of Christianity, the death of Christ for forgiveness of sins and eternal life. To stand up for someone who said they were God, lived as God, and died as God is so compelling, it is very difficult to deny. The most encompassing religion that ever was remains as the guiding beacon in a world of darkness. Many in the faith, especially spiritual Christians testify the deeper their life in Christ gets the more they prayer and study and walk by the Holy Spirit, the more faith increases and proofs are rounded out. Once saved always saved!

Did Mohammed fulfill any prophecies at all? What prophecies? The OT existed centuries before Christ. Mohammed has no documentation before his cave experience and rejection by Israel, no prophecies about him at all are of the need of his hostility to Christ. Jesus fulfilled 62 prophecies dating back before 1000 BC. Mohammed comes along six and a half centuries later and calls Jesus a liar. Does Mohammed all by himself in a cave have any credibility for this claim? The same problem exists for the Mormons, JW's, 7th Day Adventists. Mohammed was a murdere before he wrote the Koran and after. Christ never hurt anyone before or after His Ministry.

I can show the prophecies fulfilled in Christ and I can show testimony of 40 writers about those prophecies over 1500 years in complete harmony. If you think Mohammed can equate to that, I will let you try. Not only is this your big challenge, but you have to account for how Mohammed could alter the Word of God, by claiming something completely opposite about Christ than does the writers of the Bible (eg. see Isaiah 53). Remember, Jesus said He is God, so to say He is not six and a half centuries later doesn't hold much weight now does it?

So Christians have all this tangible evidence (corroboration among people who had the Holy Spirit), but what does Mohammed have? He was a murderer and a pedophile. He alters the Bible six and a half centuries later and none of his miracles are said to occur until over a century after his death. The NT was written within a few decades of Christ's death.

[Churchwork]

Churchwork,
Of course, if you're like me, then it should be fairly evident that all the gods of religion are false. They are made in the image of man, put man in the center of the universe, and give man an special place above any other animal; these kinds of gods are so obviously manmade fictions that they just cannot be believed. Even worse, the moral prescriptions these gods make are so completely naive (I could give a long long long list of naive morals if you like) that they just cannot come from a being who presumably has all the knowledge, all the wisdom, and the most perfect morals of any being in the universe; but it makes perfect sense if those naive moral commands come from egocentric, superstitious humans. A god might exist, but he certainly doesnt look like the gods of any religion.

Yes, all the gods of religions including yours are false except one. Only Jesus is God. He is God the Son with God the Father and God the Spirit - The Trinity of the Godhead. God's Triune Being is How God reveals Himself to us. When we pray, we pray to the Father through the Son by the Spirit indwelling. When the council of the Godhead created the Father spoke, the Son created and the Spirit executed and renews creation today.

Just like all religions are made in the image of a man or their particular idols, so do you have a religion in the image of your idol which is that puff the magic dragon, which stems from your independency and disobedience to God. Think of it this way: if you believe in puff the magic dragon then you can believe in yourself as entering into existence without a cause and making yourself a god. It's all selfish.

The myths of old are quite unlike the resurrection of Christ and His walking on earth. Myths of old were just myths, not actually God on earth in His creation. Most of these gods were created gods, not question where they came from. You must remember none were claiming a resurrection on parallel with Christ before Christ was resurrected. This was a new turn of events. Moreover, gods of old myths are shoddy in their documentation, sparse at best and their earliest known parchments are a thousand years divorced from their events, so they are of no consideration on pare with Christ. Of all the major religions none can compare to Christianity. Hinduism and Buddhism say if you are sinner you can come back a dog, but if you are a good dog, you can come back as a man again. There is no accountability for sin in this idea so you can keep on sinning because you know you can always come back as a man. Islam says you get to have I think 72 virgins. This is making sex an idol. Christianity says in eternal life there is no procreation for those who have resurrected bodies.

There is really is no legitimate faith than faith in Christ. Faith in self is self-exalting a sinner of agnosticism and atheism.

The only God that could exist is revealed in the Bible, for you can see none more righteous, holy and true. Now that you can see all this evidence and sound reasoning leaves one no choice but to accept Christ, if you don't realize Hell is for you to keep you eternally separated from God and His sons and daughters.

With love, in Christ :)

[Churchwork]

Summary

For a quick summary this is my finding. No new idea was introduced by the atheist Juliet that I have not heard before. It comes down to this. We have substantial evidence for the resurrection of Christ using just the minimal facts approach from James the brother of Jesus to Paul, written and oral tradition, the earliest creeds in 1 Cor. 15 and Acts, Peter and John's testimony. All these first hand eyewitnesses wrote about the resurrection in a total of 11 different group settings, witnessing the resurrection of Jesus Christ themselves. There are the other accounts as well in the NT. The apostles all went to their death we are fairly certain given the documentation in the first and second century. Nothing in antiquity is more well documented that the death, deity and resurrection of Jesus. Place this in the backdrop of a very timely religio-historical context, it provides wonderful meaning and purpose among 40 writers from the New and Old Testaments over 1500 years, 62 prophecies in Christ fulfilled, miracles performed that are really unmatched in their work and depth. In my experience, I still have not found any mistakes in the Bible and hundreds it seem have been attempted in being thrown at me. Really no religion compares to the resurrection and deity of Christ to atone for sins. In fact, no religion has even made quite such a claim for their god to enter into creation to provide salvation. And skeptics can find no naturalistic explanation for the resurrection of Jesus. Other religions can be found at fault very easily, but nobody can find anything wrong with bare bones Christianity.

Compare the above substantial evidence to the idea of the atheist Juliet who says the universe has always been existing in the eternity of the past and she or he argues for the possibility of something in nature causing itself. Most scientists give no support or consideration to such an idea for in our experience in human history nothing we have ever seen in nature is without a cause. All effects precede a cause. So, if all things have a cause, then what is the ultimate cause if it cannot be something in nature? The only known answer to this question is the uncreated is the creator of this intelligent design. Who is the uncreated? That answer is revealed in the paragraph above.

Now what is said here is perfectly reasonable, so we can easily surmise the cause of some people not accepting the reasonability of this information is because they are bad people. They are trying far and wide to find some cunning rationalization for why the universe has always been existing in the past to rationalize their rejecting God of the Bible which of all the adherents in the world none can compare. And in my own experience before I was saved I was just too interested in the world to give salvation any consideration. I can imagine both groups of people. Those who are too busy in the world, but also those who go the ends of the earth to rationalize their hostility to God of the Bible. Both groups are equally unsaved, but the group that goes to the ends of the earth to rationalize God away is more likely in trouble because they have be one on one against God for some time, formulating their rationalizations against him. It does not take that long to be born again after first considering Christ.

One major, and perhaps the biggest, problem in thinking by the atheist is in their misreading the Proof. How can you even begin to deal with the Proof of God of the Bible if you misread it at the start and don't know its exact intricacies? If you conceive it to be something other than what it is, you are arguing against something else, and not the 4 Step Proof, which ties in well with Step 3, not to try to disprove some god, for this is the God of the Bible we are dealing with. If they could only just read the 4 Step Proof as is and let go of their preconceived notions of the Proof, this would go a long way to deliverance. For example, people have their ideas about some cosmological argument, but as you read the 4 Step Proof in its simplicity, you realize it is not like cosmological arguments. The 4 Step Proof is unto itself the Perfect Proof for God and is the same Proof God gives in the Bible. While the Bible proves itself with this Proof, the Proof also by itself proves the Bible.

Conclusion: for someone to not accept Christ into their life is sure death and I don't mean only physical death, but also spiritual death to live out one's conscious existence in hell for all eternity in their separation from God's own people. Some hope they can just cease to exist, but this would mean there are no consequences even though you are made in God's image. Spiritual life is never so complicated as people think, but also never so simple. Ergo, how you respond to Christ today will determine how you live out in eternity.

And that is that!

[Juliet]

Churchwork,

Usually, I like to respond to posts in full, but your 14 lengthy replies are too much (I have a day job and a life outside of the internet). It would take me literally days to compile a thorough reply to everything, so in the interest of time saving, I'm going to reduce down your comments to something more manageable.

On the whole, your 4-step proof is a cosmological argument, and although it really has 4 steps, it can be condensed into two blocks:
1) The cosmological argument, described in steps 1 and 2, to prove that a god exists.
2) The superlative information, described elsewhere on your site, to show that the god is the Christian god.

(Steps 3 and 4 are really just pre-rebuttals to critics, not entirely necessary for your proof.)

Thats all it really is, and from the abstract point of view, that style of argumentation isnt much different from the arguments that apologists have been using for centuries. But from the technical point of view, your arguments in the cosmological block are just bizarre, and from the superlative block they arent academic.

There is at least one comment I want to address upfront:

Be intellectually honest with yourself that the real reason you like being in sin and reject God is because you don't want to enter His new creation and receive eternal forgiveness.

I was Southern Baptist for 20 years, more or less devout. I used my time at college as a spiritual journey, in the hopes that learning more and more about religion would make me a better Christian, so I learned about my religion, learned philosophy, learned mathematics.
Shortly afterward, I figured out that "Faith" stopped being a rational justification for belief, because every religious person has faith in their own religions, but not all religious beliefs are equally plausible. Without faith, my only two rational avenues of belief were science and philosophy. Looking toward science, I couldnt find any room for god, for miracles, or the supernatural; looking toward philosophy, I couldnt even define the properties of god (well I could, but I couldnt justify them), and stripping away all of the properties of god that I couldnt justify, I was left with nothing. Atheism was just the end of the road of my spiritual journey.

But you're wrong, I dont like living "in sin". If you'd ever seen my posts on other forums, you'd know that I'm extremely principled and morally motivated:
- I became a vegan in '99 out of principle, in the interest of protecting animals' rights, even when theres no legal consequence for murdering them for the most trivial gains. [removed advertising to your own forums].
- [removed advertising to your own forums] even when theres no legal consequence for ignoring others' misery and suffering.
- To the best of my ability, [removed advertising to your own forums] even when its so much more convenient and cheap for me to save a dollar at the expense of others.

I dont think I come off as a person who loves to live in sin, I go far far out of my way and inconvience myself to an extreme, just so I can minimize the harm I cause to feeling beings, because its the right thing to do. God has nothing to do with it.

So to start, I'll address your cosmological argument:

Step 1: The universe has a beginning.

My initial problem with your argument was that you havent connected the existence of humans to the age of the universe, because theres no contradiction in saying that human existence is finite but the universe is infinite. Your reply was bizarre, with two major problems:
How are humans intrinsically connected to the age of the universe?
How is moral progress intrinsically connected to the age of the universe?

I'll explain what I mean in detail below:

The universe is intrinsically connected to humans since our body was created from the "dust" (Gen. 2.7) of the stars. Scientists all agree to this finding. It took time for the dust to create man's body in God's divine providence, so this took place in the universe's time and part of its age at least.

While that might sound good to you, its not logically sound. Its a variant of an undistributed middle fallacy that logicians call a composition fallacy, meaning that you deduce facts about a whole object based on its constituent parts. "X is made of Y. Y has property P. Therefore X has property P."

If you arent sure why your argument is wrong, here are some logically equivalent arguments:

- You are made of atoms
- Atoms are unconscious
- Therefore you are unconscious

^^^ the argument above is demonstrably false, because you are indeed a conscious being. You have a different set of properties than your component parts.

Another simple example:
- You are made of cells
- Cells reproduce by folding their membranes into a cleavage until they divide into two identical cells.
- Therefore you reproduce by folding your membranes into a cleaveage until you divide into an identical copy of yourself.

^^^ another mindboggling argument that is demonstrably false, because your sexual reproduction is nothing like asexual cell reproduction, which shows that you do not necessarily possess the properties of your component parts.

Of course, theres something else to take into consideration, and its dives into a little more abstract* realm of philosophy related to being and essence, specifically talking about emergent properties. An emergent property is a property of an object that does not exist in any of its constituent parts, for example all of the pixels on your computer screen are just points of light, but when they are put together in a particular pattern they form a picture; the property "picture" is an emergent property of the pixels. Similarly, something that is musical (any song on the radio) is composed of notes, but the property "musical" isnt a property of any single note...

...with that in mind, you really have to wonder if humans composed of star dust are really "intrinsically connected to the universe". I dont think you could look at star dust and call it a human; the elements that stars create are just elements, and those elements have to be arranged in a certain pattern before it can be called a human. The property "human" emerges from that pattern, and the property "human" never existed in the universe before that time.

So by now, you should understand why that rebuttal is no good, you havent shown that sinfulness of humans is connected to the beginning of the universe, its only connected to the beginning of the human species.

* Emergence is "abstract" because its defined mostly in semantics, and that makes distinctions between emergent properties and their constituent parts very blurry sometimes. See the Sorites paradox for a little more detailed explanation.

The second problem has to do with how exactly you deduced that moral progress really actually inherits from form to form. You said this:

It is not possible for the universe to stretch back into infinity because of the very fact, as was shown, if you had an eternity of the past in the universe, then our existence now would have had an eternity to exist in all its previous forms, so that today there would be no sin.

The question begging is glaring, gaping, and almost taunting ;) Theres no explanation for why a being inherits all of the moral virtues from its previous incarnations (<--- oh my, that sounds a lot like hindu reincarnation!), as opposed to each incarnation being created completely new without inheriting any of its predecessors moral characteristics.

If I understand your argument correct, it should imply the following: given that humans are made from parts of the universe, then their moral characteristics are intrinsically connected to the universe. That means, when a human dies, decomposes, and their nutrients nourish other plants and animals, those plants and animals inherit all of the moral progress from the human, and animals would clearly exhibit the properties of a moral human...

... but, that is nonsense. The moral characteristics a human has are not etched into the fabric of the universe, at least not in an eternal sense; the moral characteristics of humans exist in the structures of their brains, and when their brains are destroyed, so are those moral characteristics, so those characteristics have no possible way of transferring to another being simply by recreating that being from a humans remains. This probably explains why a person cannot "become keen like the crow" just by eating crow, or other stereotypical native america beliefs.

In this case, your whole proof rests on a very bizarre explanation of how we progress morally, it apparently states that the moral characteristics of people are preserved across forms just by recreating new forms from old ones, which we already know is false.

Of course, there are three more related problems in Step 1:
How do you calculate moral progress?
How do you prove all progress is upward?
How do you prove all progress is really progressive rather than regressive

Another issue that you've never addressed is exactly how you deduced that human beings would progress to a sinless state given an infinite amount of time. You used the concept of a limit, however your comments that "humans would have been created approximates eternity itself (as calculus teaches)" tell me that you really dont have a good understanding of even high school level pre-calculus. Why? Because not all limits tend to infinity.

The main problem with you argument that "we would have had an eternity to be perfected" is that you dont state how you calculated anything. Whats the equation for measuring moral progress?

As far as I'm concerned, you're stating that whatever calculation you're using tends toward infinity, but you havent shown you're work. For all I know, the calculation could be a convergent series, or it may not exist.

A very simple example, if we imagine the moral progress as the sum of all previous moral progression, and we can state that each year we progress morally by a factor of (1/3)^n (where n is the year), then we have something like this:

Final term in series:
 
  limit         (1/3)^n = 0
n = infinity
 
 
Moral progression:
 
 infinity
    __                   1
    \      (1/3)^n =  -------   =  1.5
    /_                1-(1/3)
   n = 0

The example above should be self-explanatory if you actually have more than high school introduction to calculus, in that even having an eternity to perfect a being at an exponential rate doesnt imply being sinless. So, I'd just like to see whatever math you performed to arrive at your conclusion. Until then, you havent shown that morality actually drifts unward toward infinity rather than converging on some real number.

Another problem I've noticed is the fact that you havent shown that all moral progress is upward. Its not obvious that all progress is an upward direction, I'd heavily argue that most progress is random walk. Our progress could be completely aimless for eternity, always oscillating between varying degrees of righteousness and abomination. We might then imagine that moral progress is a different kind of exponential growth:

            infinity
               __
f(x) =         \    ( (a^n) * cos( (b^n) * (pi * x) ) )
               /_
             n = 0

(The function above looks something like this, which to me looks like a stock chart.)

The function above is defined at every point and continous, where -infinity < f(x) < infinity for each point on f(x), but it doesnt have a limit (it doesnt even have a first derivative ;) ). You havent really provided a reason why moral progress drifts in an upward direction toward infinity, and I dont think you've explained why it drifts upward at all, rather than drifting aimlessly (<--- note: the function above does not drift "aimless", but I'm using the term loosely.)

You havent provided an explanation for why we are being perfected, rather than just modified in trivial and apparently random ways.

While you say that there are definite strides in moral progress, I dont think you've actually questioned that they really are progressive. For example, in 1850, women and non-whites had a diminished percieved value, and certainly there are a number of people from 1850 who would argue that women in the workplace and equality between the races is actually indicative of moral decline where you would call it progress. Similarly, we can take the acceptance of homosexuality in the mainstream as both moral progress or moral decline, depending on who we ask (if you ask me, its progress, but if you ask James Dobson then its decline).

I am not arguing for subjectivism, however its just not clear to me how you define progress. Theres no real indication that our society is more progressive than any previous generation.

Of course, theres something else you've overlooked: when you say that we'll become morally perfected over the course of eternity, how is that even possible? In principle, it sounds ok, but in practice is limited by quirks in psychology:
Human minds cannot store an infinite amount of data.
The limit of moral progress to infinity is measurably less than infinity.

Human beings are very diverse, not a homogenous whole. Some people are just very ignorant or just very uncaring, and their moral choices will reflect their ignorant and uncaring minds. Theres no obvious argument that, given an infinite amount of time, because quite simply, people are born as blank slates, and it is impossible to accumulate the total sum of all the moral values stretching back to eternity. There is and will always be room for ignorance, and we can never purge that out of society, it may not even be possible to achieve moral perfection by your definition in the first place, even if we make the presumption that moral progress tends upwards. We may be constrained by a ceiling, where over time we get closer and closer to perfection, where we are 99% perfect, then 99.99% perfect, then 99.999999% perfect and so on.

At the very least, you might be thinking that you show that 99.999(repeating)% = 100% using a simple geometric series, but that would make the presumption that ignorance can be partitioned into infinitely tiny parts, but that would also make the dubious presumption that minds can hold an infinite amount of data. But more importantly, some forms of ignorance, such as the mind of a newborn child who has no moral knowledge at all, cannot be partitioned at all; their ignorance is discrete, and the most morally perfect society can only achieve (100 - ignorance of one child)% perfection.

The aforementioned reasons provide a good explanation of why your principle that people will tend toward perfection given an infinite amount of time are, at best, an idealistic fantasy, but not obtainable in the real world due to some practical limitations of mind and psychology. It would only be achievable in a hypothetical world where all beings are born with an infinite amount of data already in their heads, which I hope you would agree is impossible.

At the very least, your method of proving that the universe has a beginning, based on the methods you outlined, need serious reconsideration. I was generous enough in my last post to provide an explanation of how the universe is finite, based on the fact that heat death is inevitable, but you replied that its not known whether the universe is a closed system. I admit that we really cant know with a great amount of certainty, because there are other models of the universe, such as multiverse and string theories, that do not imply a heat death, but at the moment we dont have a lot of evidence for those theories, we dont know if they are true or not. The best model of the universe, General Relativity, is observed directly, so at the very least its justified to be more partial to GR than the other theories, and justified to be more partial to the implications of GR such as the eventual heat death. However, if you reject GR and other sciences as a method for proving its finititude, and substituting your own "limit of moral progress to eternity" method, then you cant prove that the universe is finite for the reasons I've already explained above.

So, I have to reiterate: your Step 1, that attempts to show that universe has a beginning, is not wrong per se, but just your way of showing that the universe has a beginning doesnt work. There are too many unaddressed issues in Step 1, such as how you calculate moral progress, how you define moral progress, how you determine that progress is an an upward direction, how you determine that the upward direction tends towards infinity, how you respond to the people who believe that we are actually on a moral decline, and finally you need to explain how moral characteristics are transferred and conserved between forms rather than recreated anew. You have only proven that humans have sinned for a finite amount of time, and nothing more.

Step 2: "The universe has a cause."

At the very least, I think the claim that the universe has a cause might be the strongest argument for theism, however that argument would have had a lot more persuasive force 500 years ago than it does today, simply because of the leaps and bounds in scientific progress we've made. The claim "everything has a cause" isnt as obviously true as it used to be. I provided two reasons, a theological reason (namely that free will is not bound by the rules of determinism), and a scientific reason (namely the fact that scientific determinism breaks down at the quantum level).

- Theological objection:
This has probably never occurred to you, but if Step 2 is true, then your religion is false, even if God exists or not, because the statement "nothing in nature happens all by itself, there is always a cause and an effect" is a fundamental denial of free will, on the basis that the cause of all of their actions must come from a prior effect, which in turn must come from a prior cause, ad infinitum until the first cause which you believe to be God. If God is the ultimate cause of everything, he is the ultimate cause of all the evil in the universe, and people never actually made a free choice to believe or disbelieve in God, because all events were set in motion and determined from the very beginning. (Some people have no problem with predestination, but I think that view of God is extremely offensive to religion, because a god who predestines people to go to hell is a monster and not worthy of worship.)

On the contrary, if people do have free will, then we have at least one example of something in nature happening outside of the laws of cause and effect, which serves to falsify Step 2.

Because all things have a prior cause including free-will, this poses no problem for the fact that God created. The free-will cause is that God made us in His image and since God is uncreated, this is acceptable. The finding is that the uncreated is the only thing that does not need to be caused since all things in creation are caused.

God did not create evil, but those beings that existed chose to be evil. God did not force them to be that way, they chose it. Similarly, in God foreseeing all events does not infringe on our free-will. We still choose. To set in motion events is not to pre-program robots, but to allow the free-will to choose freely to receive God or not. God predestinates by foreknowing (Rom. 8.29) our free-choice (John 3.16, see Abel's free-will offering).

There are two kinds of predestination. One is false, one is true. The one that is false is the kind you describe which is under calvinism. Calvinism is not Christianity. God's way of salvation is to predestinate us by foreknowing our free-choice: a conditional election, unlimited atonement, resistible grace, for preservation of the saints. This is called OSAS Arminian.

So as we see here your argument failed you.

Unfortunately, you didnt reply to my argument at all. My argument was that the process of free will is not bound by determinism, which falsifies Step 2; my argument said nothing about the origin of free will. So essentially, you changed the subject and replied to something I never said, then preceded to say that my original argument was false.

As I was never talking about the origin of free will or where it comes from, but rather the process of actually making free choices, your rebuttal amounts to nothing.

So, I must reiterate, you stated, "nothing in nature happens all by itself, there is always a cause and an effect", and if you believe that people make genuinely free choices (which are not explicable by the rules of determinism), then free will choices are obviously the exception to the rule that all events have a cause and effect, so your statement is false. In fact, you conceded this fact yourself, in your very own words, you said, "Similarly, in God foreseeing all events does not infringe on our free-will. We still choose.", so are free will choices actually determined or not? If not, then Step 2 is false, just as I said it was in the beginning.

Your reply to my scientific argument was weak, because you insisted that the trillions of events that have a cause and effect implies that everything has a cause and effect. However, that statement isnt true in a technical sense, simply because we have two seperate theories in physics that describe movement in the universe: general relativity referring to the movement of matter and bodies of matter, and quantum mechanics referring to the movement of particles smaller than matter. The first one is what we see everyday, and its deterministic; the second one may not be deterministic.

You spend all your time focusing on the trillions of cause and effects on the macroscopic world, but you completely ignore all of the trillions of acausal events in the quantum world. In fact, we have a whole branch of science called quantum mechanics which studies these acausal phenomena, formally called quantum indeterminancy. You come across this phenomenon everytime you come in contact with any substance that goes through radioactive decay (on the long-term scale, this would be C-14 decaying into its daughter elements, on the short-term scale this would be phosphorescent paint where the light emitted is a byproduct of decay). For a long time, the process of radioactive decay was very confusing for scientists, because it didnt appear to be a deterministic process, refer to this article on the subject; the decay of atoms isnt correlated to anything, the radiation is more or less the same no matter what the temperature of the substance or its interactions with other substances. In all conditions, and in all tests, a substance will decay with the same rate; however, interestingly, it is not possible to point to any single atom and state that it will decay or not over a half life with more than a 50% certainty (which indistinguishable from chance). And famously, the movement of electrons whizzing around a nucleous appears indeterministic, because as we all know from the uncertainty principle, there is no way to determine the exact position and momentum of an electron simultaneously.

At the very least, its worth mentioning that quantum physics need not be necessarily indeterministic, see the wikipedia article on the subject:

Even before the laws of quantum mechanics were fully developed, the phenomenon of radioactivity posed a challenge to determinism. A gram of uranium-238, a commonly occurring radioactive substance, contains some 2.5 x 1021 atoms. By all tests known to science these atoms are identical and indistinguishable. Yet about 12600 times a second one of the atoms in that gram will decay, giving off an alpha particle. This decay does not depend on external stimulus and no extant theory of physics predicts when any given atom will decay, with realistically obtainable knowledge. The uranium found on earth is thought to have been synthesized during a supernova explosion that occurred roughly 5 billion years ago. For determinism to hold, every uranium atom must contain some internal "clock" that specifies the exact time it will decay. And somehow the laws of physics must specify exactly how those clocks were set as each uranium atom was formed during the supernova collapse.

Exposure to alpha radiation can cause cancer. For this to happen, at some point a specific alpha particle must alter some chemical reaction in a cell in a way that results in a mutation. Since molecules are in constant thermal motion, the exact timing of the radioactive decay that produced the fatal alpha particle matters. If probabilistically determined events do have an impact on the macro events, such as whether a person who could have been historically important dies in youth of a cancer caused by a random mutation, then the course of history is not determined from the dawn of time.

The time dependent Schrödinger equation gives the first time derivative of the quantum state. That is, it explicitly and uniquely predicts the development of the wave function with time.

[image here]

So quantum mechanics is deterministic, provided that one accepts the wave function itself as reality (rather than as probability of classical coordinates). Since we have no practical way of knowing the exact magnitudes, and especially the phases, in a full quantum mechanical description of the causes of an observable event, this turns out to be philosophically similar to the "hidden variable" doctrine. [...]

Asserting that quantum mechanics is deterministic by treating the wave function itself as reality implies a single wave function for the entire universe, starting at the big bang.

Of course, the above statement has an interesting consequence with respect to the first cause problem:

- The first being, that if quantum physics is indeterminstic, then at the very least, the beginning of the universe is acausal but also compliant with the laws of physics. I explained this in a little more detail in my last post.

- The second being, that if quantum physics is really deterministic, and that it is described by the Schrodinger equation, then the universe doesnt need a cause at all, at least not in the explicit sense. The fabric of the universe is a consequence of mathematics, and the energies which fluctuate, including the energies that give rise to those virtual particles, are just a consequence of mathematics; the universe would be no more "caused" than any of the other rules of mathematics. In every possible universe, it is true that pi =

pi = 4 - 3/4 + 5/4 - 7/4 + ...
 
           infinity
             __   (n*2 + 1)^(-1^n)
pi = 4  +    \    ----------------
             /_           4
            n = 1

The rules of math are necessarily true, they dont need a creator. The universe then, starting from the beginning where it had no space or time, basically a 0-D point, came to exist because the principles of mathematics are necessarily true. God cannot create necessary states of affairs; If you'd like a partial explanation for why this is relevance, there is a short blurb in this article which discusses omnipotence and necessary objects:

One sense of ‘omnipotence’ is, literally, that of having the power to bring about any state of affairs whatsoever, including necessary and impossible states of affairs. Descartes seems to have had such a notion (Meditations, Section 1). Yet, Aquinas and Maimonides held the view that this sense of ‘omnipotence’ is incoherent. Their view can be defended as follows. It is not possible for an agent to bring about an impossible state of affairs (e.g., that there is a shapeless cube), since if it were, it would be possible for an impossible state of affairs to obtain, which is a contradiction (see Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Ia, 25, 3; and Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed, Part I, Ch. 15). Nor is it possible for an agent to bring about a necessary state of affairs (e.g., that all cubes are shaped). It is possible for an agent, a, to bring about a necessary state of affairs, s, only if possibly, (1) a brings about s, and (2) if a had not acted, then s would have failed to obtain. Because a necessary state of affairs obtains whether or not anyone acts, (2) is false. As a consequence, it is impossible for an agent to bring about either a necessary or an impossible state of affairs.

The rules of mathematics obtain whether or not God exists or not, and that includes the mathematics that gave rise to the universe in the first place.

Just as I said originally, the statement "everything has a cause" is very intuitional, but you still havent shown that its true. You merely state that its true without going through the rigors of proving it scientifically, you dont show any of the math you used to arrive at your position (in fact, given that you dont even have a good understanding of calculus, I dont think you even could). This is a profound weakness in your argument, something you never address any further than your own intuitional introspection.

Of course, all of this is on top of the initial issue I brought up regarding virtual particles. If we accept that the Schrodinger equation is true, then the origin of virtual particles becomes obvious: they are pertubations in the fabric of space, described by mathematics. The rules of mathemathics need no creator, and as the whole quantum universe is just a sea of mathematical equations, then the origin of the universe is unspectacular, its just math. The univese was no more "created" than the rules of math.

If the Schroding equation is true, then the existence of the universe is necessary, not contingent, so the existence of the universe would obtain whether God exists or not.

So, this ends my rebuttal to the cosmological block of your proof. By no means is my reply comprehensive, but I simply dont have the time or endurance to write out 14 lengthy posts. I think it should be evident that your cosmological argument isnt persuasive because you're just a laymen, with an extremely limited math background and extremely limited scientific knowledge, and you make a seemingly endless number of presumptuous remarks that undermine the entire proof process; you need to seriously reconsider your argument from the ground up.

Of course, we both know that even if the cosmological argument is true, stating that the universe has a cause does not prove that Jesus walked on water, so a further reply about the veracity of Christianity is necessary on top of the rebuttal against the cosmological argument.



However, out of all that I've written above, I want you to specifically notice at least one sentence I've written:

"the existence of the universe is necessary, not contingent, so the existence of the universe would obtain whether God exists or not."

That statement does not rule out the existence of God. The universe can exist necessarily, but God can exist and Christianity can be true as well. For this reason, I've only disproved your cosmological argument (that is, if you accept my arguments as valid), but I've not disproved the rest of your proof that Christianity is true.

For that reason, I will write an additional reply in my next post, and I will respond to your specific claims about the historical accuracy of the Bible. Please do not reply to this post until I have completed my second post. I will continue my rebuttal tomorrow.

(Oh, and by the way, I searched for Habermas's book that you've recommended, and I was unable to find it at my library. Instead I found a book called Beyond Death: Exploring the Evidence for Immortality, which I looked through briefly, but it didnt look like it had any relevant information that you mentioned, so I didnt bother to pick it up. I will try another library tomorrow.)

[Churchwork]

Churchwork,
Usually, I like to respond to posts in full, but your 14 lengthy replies are too much (I have a day job and a life outside of the internet). It would take me literally days to compile a thorough reply to everything, so in the interest of time saving, I'm going to reduce down your comments to something more manageable.

Surely, if you have the time to post your own lengthy replies, you can respond to the same. That would only be fair. Try not to overlook anything.

On the whole, your 4-step proof is a cosmological argument, and although it really has 4 steps, it can be condensed into two blocks:
1) The cosmological argument, described in steps 1 and 2, to prove that a god exists.
2) The superlative information, described elsewhere on your site, to show that the god is the Christian god.

(Steps 3 and 4 are really just pre-rebuttals to critics, not entirely necessary for your proof.)

On the whole, it is not strictly a cosmological proof, for other elements are involved such as sin, being perfected, atonement, eternal life and the supernatural cause and effects which necessarily need to be covered also. Moreover, since all gods can be disproven, leaving only God of the Bible, this further gives evidence that God of the Bible is the only One this Proof is referring to.

Step 1 and Step 2 are not proving only a god exists as you think, but the God, God of the Bible. Hence, Step 3 is involved about the Proof to say if you are going to argue against just some god, you are not directly dealing with God of the Bible.

Within the 4 Step Proof is much discussion that only Christ fulfills these conditions due to His sinlessness, eyewitness testimony of His resurrection by the apostles, their martyrdom for this testimony and of Jesus claiming He is God, the 62 prophecies fulfilled, His unparalleled miracles and the knowledge of our need for atonement for salvation. The only One that walked on Earth and proved He is God was God. Only God could provide the perfect sacrifice in forgiveness of sins and make us eternally presentable to God.

There is much information on the site as well for a full complex of proofs of God of the Bible, as I said, there is more than one way to prove God of the Bible.

Step 3 is essential, because almost every single time the person trying to argue against the Proof, he or she is not arguing against the Proof at all. They are just arguing against some god who is not God of the Bible. Step 4 is essential as well, for it intricately does the same thing Step 1 does, except it addresses the supernatural realm. However, I am repeating myself because you are not listening. Do respond to me specifically about this, otherwise you are just behaving belligerently in mindless repetition which is showing you are being disingenuous.

Thats all it really is, and from the abstract point of view, that style of argumentation isnt much different from the arguments that apologists have been using for centuries. But from the technical point of view, your arguments in the cosmological block are just bizarre, and from the superlative block they arent academic.

There is no abstraction in Step 1. If there had been an eternity of the past of cause and effects, then you would have had an eternity to be perfected and without sin given the exponential progression we see today in our conscience these past 6000 years, and all this is quantifiable in the several examples we have shown. On the other hand, it is very abstract to just discount this obvious observation in nature. The same goes for Step 2. Since we see nothing in nature happening all by itself and only things in nature have themselves a natural cause, then there is no other logical choice we know of than the uncreated created, and in which Jesus Christ none can compare. To deny these truths in their reasonableness is your own abstract confusion. These truths have always been known, so they are nothing new at all.

For people who don't know what superlative means, it means of the highest kind, quality, or order; surpassing all else or others. Of course Christ has this quality in the Proof of Him.

Notice your arbitrary self-declaration when you said "just bizarre," but you give no reason for your accusation. I find this bizarre. Satan is the great accuser and mindlessly accuses without any justification whatsoever. You can see your similar traits. I am going to have to award you an Infraction for violating Board Etiquette #6. Stop trying to self-declare things without any meaningful evidence.

What has been said here is not only academically accepted, but it is a spiritual response. What is spiritual comes out as proper logic and emotionally fulfilling.