A Case For Christ - Strobel

[Karla & Paul DeYoung]

After some of the discussions at Pub Theology I was prompted to get out this book to refresh my memory and learn some new things regarding the origins of the new testament. It has given me some new insghts into the credibility of the scriptures. Do you think the "arguments" presented by Strobel hold up in the skeptics' mind? Or are there equally convincing contradictory matierials? Any thoughts out there? For me the book makes sense.
Paul

[Brian]

Peter,
Prescribing Ritalin is not a scientific standpoint, it is a drug that is prescribed (IMHO) on the subjective opinion of the doctor. The science actually comes down AGAINST prescribing it because it has no long term benefit... www.guardian.co.uk/news/2007/nov/12/uknews.health


There may be supernatural things outside of reality... but by their very definition, they are outside of the natural world. The moment a "supernatural" force acts in our reality, it becomes measurable and knowable... and therefore "natural".

I would say that in the matter of your family, you might actually be using a type of scientific method in your interactions. How do you know when someone loves you? I would say through their actions. The way they look at you, they say they love you, they bring you gifts, they smile when you're around, etc. How do you know that means love? Don't you think it is possible that you have a type of theory in your head that those actions demonstrate affection & love?

If a gold-digger seduces a gentleman and acts in all the ways that one would associate with the word "love"... does that woman actually love the gentleman? How would the gentleman know? I would again answer, through her actions. If he finds her cheating on him, that would confirm that she probably doesn't love him... i.e. she failed his theory of "love".

[Peter Payette]

Brian,
My point with ritalin is it was developed using the scientific method, prescribed by people presumably trained in that method with confidence in its sufficiency to account for reality and bend it to meet their expectations and desires. I'm glad capital-S science is opposed to ritalin. But I think a better development would be to lower our expectations of such knowledge in the first place and subject them to other forms of knowledge, like wisdom.

Now I see what Mark meant by rabit trails.

Happily, your coment about supernaturalism actually brings us back to the topic Paul started that we have all mainly ignored. (Sorry Paul.) I don't agree that all supernatural events will be measurable. For instance, the ones Christians are most concerned with cannot be measured because they are historic. Lazarus being raised from the dead can only be analyzed using historical information. History is an art, not a science.

Best,

Peter

[Brian]

I would disagree slightly with your statement that history is an art & not a science. It is a little bit both, but as science advances, it gains more and more prominence.

We can use methods like carbon dating to determine age of parchment or bones... letting us find frauds or to accurately place the time of where something came from. For example, we know that the Shroud of Turin was created during the middle-ages and that it was a fraud.

We also have things like demographics, histiography, etc.

BTW, can you give an example where science dictated one course of action and wisdom a different one?

[Peter Payette]

Well, I'm not sure science ever dictates a course of action. As far as I understand the scientific method, it can observe facts about something and make informed projections about potential results of a certain course of action. Can it say what ought to be the case? What's good?

My concern is specifically with modern faith in the power and sufficiency of science. Thus, my example of the widespread use of psychotropic drugs. Another example of this sort of faith being problematic might be the general attitude of society toward energy consumption. My sense is the average person in the U.S. is not unsettled by the prospect of peak oil for a number of reasons. One of these, undoubtedly, is faith--even unconscious--that scientific innovation and technology will come through and allow me to keep living my current lifestyle at the same price. Scientists provide very useful data here about the unbelievable amount of energy we have consumed in the last 50 years compared to the rest of human history. But it is in wisdom that I might ask, even without the data, whether the unrestrained use of cheap oil and the subsequent reorganization of society, including its food supply, are good for me and my neighbors in space and time. If we really took seriously psalm 24--The earth is the LORD's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein--we might not be in the position we are in now, a potentially calamitous one. Instead, we might have moved more slowly, like the Amish, not rushing to restart construction on the tower of Babel. When the Lord is portrayed confusing language on the plain of Shinar, he has our best interests in mind. Being able to do anything we plan may actually be a curse.

I'm not blaming science for the blindness of the human race or the misuse of resources. I'm only saying too much confidence in science can encourage foolishness and greed and other lusts. The problem is compounded if science elevates itself as the only source of knowledge and impugns all other approaches to reality as superstition or mere preference.

[Brian]

Peter,
but don't you think that it is a little strange that it is the majority of scientists that are screaming about the dangers of resource depletion?

I would think that if anyone was going to have confidence in science, it would be the scientists and yet they are the ones who are giving us the most warnings.

I would also like to point out the vast numbers of people who think Jesus will return in the next 50 years and that we therefore don't have to worry about the environment. James Watt (former Secretary of the Interior) believed in just that.

[Sam Vorhauer]

Hi Brian,
Great video, short, simple, clear, well organanized. Seems to be a good way to teach the scientific method.

Thanks, Sam

[Karla & Paul DeYoung]

Thanks Mark for your two cents - and more -
I think I'll hang my hat on 1 Cor. 2
"
And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.
1Co 2:2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
1Co 2:3 I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling.
1Co 2:4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power,
1Co 2:5 so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.
God’s Wisdom Revealed by the Spirit
1Co 2:6 We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.
1Co 2:7 No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began.
1Co 2:8 None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
1Co 2:9 However, as it is written:
“What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived— these things God has prepared for those who love him”
1Co 2:10 for God has revealed them to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.
1Co 2:11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit within? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
1Co 2:12 We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.
1Co 2:13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.
1Co 2:14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.
1Co 2:15 The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments,
1Co 2:16 for,
“Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?”
But we have the mind of Christ.
"
I particularly hang on to 2:14
Paul

[Brian]

Two links for skeptical responses to the Case for Christ

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/strobel.html (recommended)
http://www.bidstrup.com/apologetics.htm