Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Christianity at ground level

A while back, atheist philosopher Keith Parsons had a lengthy exchange with Thomist Ed Feser. But Parsons is still an atheist!

Atheists like Parsons don't really care about the mere theism or classical theism of people like Feser. Parsons had a Christian upbringing, and that's his frame of reference. 

In a sense he's right. Christianity is a Bible-based religion. You can't just pole-vault over that to classical theism. Classical theism is about the attributes of God rather than the acts of God (other than God as Creator). It's a common denominator view of God shared by some Christians, Muslims, and Jews (e.g. Aquinas, Maimonides, Al-Ghazâlî).

In the nature of the case, it doesn't include the acts of God (beyond creation), because Christians, Muslims, and Jews differ on what God has done in human history. Christians agree with Jews regarding OT history, but Jews disagree with Christians regarding NT history. Both Jews and Christians disagree with Muslims regarding Koranic history, and Muslims return the favor. 

By the same token, you have many Christian apologists who defend particular events in Scripture rather than defending Scripture itself. 

These approaches are naturally unsatisfactory to many atheists because it's too abstract. At some point the debate has to touch ground. Come down to the level of the God depicted in the Bible. What he does as well as what he is. 

1 comment:

  1. I read a comment by Dr. Kurt Wise that said he would never change his mind on YEC even with all the evidence, and I saw all the backlash he got from his secular peers and atheists. His belief being scripture is inspired, studying the origins of the universe is to a degree highly speculative and involves extrapolation, and thus the words of the creator would be more apt and trustworthy in detailing how the earth came to be.

    Yet when atheists reinterpret facts and evidence through their naturalistic and materialist lens it's not a problem. The hypocrisy. Especially in regards to the resurrection, miracles and scientific experiments which show a duality in nature.

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