Hello all. To start, I appreciate this forum and how it gives the ability to respond point by point.
Back in the 80's and 90's I studied the bible as a conservative Trinitarian Protestant. Couldn't listen to enough Walter Martin tapes! I kept suppressing academic questions, thinking they were just Satan's clever way to steal my joy in the Lord. I was a Calvinist. After several years of debating Christians and others, I grew irreversibly tired of the "god's ways are mysterious" excuse, and accordingly gave up the faith.
My approach is different. I do not "prove God doesn't exist", I don't prove Jesus stayed dead and I don't prove that biblical inerrancy is a false doctrine. Instead, I prove that I can be reasonable to see theism, Jesus' resurrection, and bible inerrancy as false doctrines. There's a world of difference between "this doctrine is false" and "in my opinion, this doctrine is false".
My goal is to convince fundamentalists that in their zeal, they may have overlooked key realities, and in the process, falsely started thinking that there is simply no way anybody who heard the gospel could possibly be reasonable to reject it. If they are true Christians, have the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:9) and yet end up conceding that a person who hears the gospel could possibly be reasonable to reject it, I'll be willing to take the risk that this is also what the Holy Spirit was conceding through them, and therefore, God will not be giving me any different story on any "judgment day". Fundamentalists throw around "you are unreaosnable to interpret the bible that way" as if their opponent were on the level of dolts who deny the existence of trees. If we knew just how broad and forgiving objective criteria of reasonableness really are, many fundamentalists would probably stop acting like quoting Paul on Justification by Faith is equal to proving the existence of cars by pointing to traffic.
I have no problem with Christianity per se. My problem is the fundamentalists who cannot seem to set forth the apologetics case without overstating how wonderfully powerful it is. I specialize in addressing the Calvinist form of apologetics called presuppositionalism (but my posts here will presume Evidentialism unless specified otherwise).
Here's a list of some of my approaches:
1 - Reasonableness is far less exacting than "truth", therefore, there may be times when the view of the unbeliever will achieve reasonableness even if it is ultimately false. It can only be a bigot who pretends that unreasonableness necessarily inheres in all ultimately false beliefs.
2 - I agree with fundamenalists on the correspondence theory of truth.
3 - I reject the canonical hermeneutic, aka "rule of faith" aka using inerrancy as a hermeneutic. This also appears under the rubric "we need to take in the whole counsel of God and not merely one little part". If my interpretation of a bible verse appears reasonably consonant with what can be known about the verse's grammar, immediate context, and the ancient Semitic context he wrote in, I'm not going to abandon such interpretation merely because it would conflict with something the bible says elsewhere. That's why I find open-theism to be supported in Genesis 6:6, and I'm not going to abandon that interpretation merely because another part of the bible says God is infinitely wise.
4 - A strong case against apostle Paul's credibility and apostolic qualifications can be made from the bible.
5 - For any ancient historical source, including the bible, when I accept parts of it, I have objective reasons for this. When I consider other parts to be unreliable, I have objective reasons for this too. "You either believe all of it or reject all of it" is not an argument but an assertion. It might be rhetorically effective on Sunday morning, but what causes fundamentalists to clap rapidly, doesn't always equal effective argument.
6 - Just like you can be reasonable to ignore a theory that has only weak supporting argument despite the fact that it might ultimately be true, I can reasonably reject theism, Jesus' resurrection, biblical inerrancy and most of the exclusively Christian doctrines, despite the fact that they may prove ultimately true. Once again, reasonableness can possibly exist even where correctness doesn't. If then fundamentalists realize that not everything they deem "unbiblical" must be automatically unreasonable, the hateful insinuations so characteristic of Christian v. Christian and Christian v. unbeliever dialogue, and the splitting of one denomination into two, would probably occur less frequently.
Back in the 80's and 90's I studied the bible as a conservative Trinitarian Protestant. Couldn't listen to enough Walter Martin tapes! I kept suppressing academic questions, thinking they were just Satan's clever way to steal my joy in the Lord. I was a Calvinist. After several years of debating Christians and others, I grew irreversibly tired of the "god's ways are mysterious" excuse, and accordingly gave up the faith.
My approach is different. I do not "prove God doesn't exist", I don't prove Jesus stayed dead and I don't prove that biblical inerrancy is a false doctrine. Instead, I prove that I can be reasonable to see theism, Jesus' resurrection, and bible inerrancy as false doctrines. There's a world of difference between "this doctrine is false" and "in my opinion, this doctrine is false".
My goal is to convince fundamentalists that in their zeal, they may have overlooked key realities, and in the process, falsely started thinking that there is simply no way anybody who heard the gospel could possibly be reasonable to reject it. If they are true Christians, have the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:9) and yet end up conceding that a person who hears the gospel could possibly be reasonable to reject it, I'll be willing to take the risk that this is also what the Holy Spirit was conceding through them, and therefore, God will not be giving me any different story on any "judgment day". Fundamentalists throw around "you are unreaosnable to interpret the bible that way" as if their opponent were on the level of dolts who deny the existence of trees. If we knew just how broad and forgiving objective criteria of reasonableness really are, many fundamentalists would probably stop acting like quoting Paul on Justification by Faith is equal to proving the existence of cars by pointing to traffic.
I have no problem with Christianity per se. My problem is the fundamentalists who cannot seem to set forth the apologetics case without overstating how wonderfully powerful it is. I specialize in addressing the Calvinist form of apologetics called presuppositionalism (but my posts here will presume Evidentialism unless specified otherwise).
Here's a list of some of my approaches:
1 - Reasonableness is far less exacting than "truth", therefore, there may be times when the view of the unbeliever will achieve reasonableness even if it is ultimately false. It can only be a bigot who pretends that unreasonableness necessarily inheres in all ultimately false beliefs.
2 - I agree with fundamenalists on the correspondence theory of truth.
3 - I reject the canonical hermeneutic, aka "rule of faith" aka using inerrancy as a hermeneutic. This also appears under the rubric "we need to take in the whole counsel of God and not merely one little part". If my interpretation of a bible verse appears reasonably consonant with what can be known about the verse's grammar, immediate context, and the ancient Semitic context he wrote in, I'm not going to abandon such interpretation merely because it would conflict with something the bible says elsewhere. That's why I find open-theism to be supported in Genesis 6:6, and I'm not going to abandon that interpretation merely because another part of the bible says God is infinitely wise.
4 - A strong case against apostle Paul's credibility and apostolic qualifications can be made from the bible.
5 - For any ancient historical source, including the bible, when I accept parts of it, I have objective reasons for this. When I consider other parts to be unreliable, I have objective reasons for this too. "You either believe all of it or reject all of it" is not an argument but an assertion. It might be rhetorically effective on Sunday morning, but what causes fundamentalists to clap rapidly, doesn't always equal effective argument.
6 - Just like you can be reasonable to ignore a theory that has only weak supporting argument despite the fact that it might ultimately be true, I can reasonably reject theism, Jesus' resurrection, biblical inerrancy and most of the exclusively Christian doctrines, despite the fact that they may prove ultimately true. Once again, reasonableness can possibly exist even where correctness doesn't. If then fundamentalists realize that not everything they deem "unbiblical" must be automatically unreasonable, the hateful insinuations so characteristic of Christian v. Christian and Christian v. unbeliever dialogue, and the splitting of one denomination into two, would probably occur less frequently.
