Churchwork
02-02-2008, 09:28 PM
Antony Flew said the reason for his not accepting the resurrection of Jesus, thus being God, is because it goes against everything he has ever known about the natural laws of the universe.
Gary R. Habermas responds by saying that multiple eyewitness settings prevent any possibility of group hallucinations of these eyewitness accounts since there are no known cases in human history. Hallucinations are individually experienced without an objective reference.
If the resurrection did occur supernaturally no natural explanation is required because God would have intervened on a level that man would not know the natural method God employed, for some things God will not reveal to man. And, there are some things mankind could never fathom, just as a goat could never understand how to do calculus. Note: the natural method employed not understood by man would be effected by supernatural means.
Yet Antony has no alternative explanation while still not accepting Jesus was resurrected.
My response at that point would be that Antony Flew is contradicting himself, because he said the resurrection goes against all natural elements he is aware of, but his not accepting Christ as the resurrected Savior also goes against all known natural laws because natural law tells us there is a cause to things so if no known natural explanation arises to explain away the eyewitness group testimonies then Antony Flew is contradicting himself. He is saying we should not accept something that goes against natural law, but he himself is going against natural law by not accepting the conclusion to the fact he can't find anything wrong with the minimal facts approach.
The only possibility therefore is if nobody in human history could come up with a natural explanation for the eyewitness claims of the resurrection in weighing the evidence, then we must accept the only possibility that remains that Jesus was resurrected because He is God.
Antony is no longer an atheist and has accepted that God exists (the uncreated Creator), but I am unclear whether he has actually repented of his sins and come to the cross as a helpless sinner to receive Jesus as his Lord and Savior. If he has not, he would be unsaved and going to hell. Perhaps someone could let me know if he ever did give his life to Christ. I would suspect not, because the last I heard he said he had an "industructible belief" against the resurrection and against Jesus being God.
Gary R. Habermas responds by saying that multiple eyewitness settings prevent any possibility of group hallucinations of these eyewitness accounts since there are no known cases in human history. Hallucinations are individually experienced without an objective reference.
If the resurrection did occur supernaturally no natural explanation is required because God would have intervened on a level that man would not know the natural method God employed, for some things God will not reveal to man. And, there are some things mankind could never fathom, just as a goat could never understand how to do calculus. Note: the natural method employed not understood by man would be effected by supernatural means.
Yet Antony has no alternative explanation while still not accepting Jesus was resurrected.
My response at that point would be that Antony Flew is contradicting himself, because he said the resurrection goes against all natural elements he is aware of, but his not accepting Christ as the resurrected Savior also goes against all known natural laws because natural law tells us there is a cause to things so if no known natural explanation arises to explain away the eyewitness group testimonies then Antony Flew is contradicting himself. He is saying we should not accept something that goes against natural law, but he himself is going against natural law by not accepting the conclusion to the fact he can't find anything wrong with the minimal facts approach.
The only possibility therefore is if nobody in human history could come up with a natural explanation for the eyewitness claims of the resurrection in weighing the evidence, then we must accept the only possibility that remains that Jesus was resurrected because He is God.
Antony is no longer an atheist and has accepted that God exists (the uncreated Creator), but I am unclear whether he has actually repented of his sins and come to the cross as a helpless sinner to receive Jesus as his Lord and Savior. If he has not, he would be unsaved and going to hell. Perhaps someone could let me know if he ever did give his life to Christ. I would suspect not, because the last I heard he said he had an "industructible belief" against the resurrection and against Jesus being God.