Last week, Brad posted a link to an interesting discussion that started over a critique of believers often circular reasoning in arguing for the faith. As so many unconvinced people will say, "please don't quote Scripture to prove Christianity to me."
It is true that the Scriptures have excellent historical witnesses, and textually speaking we can vouch for what the Evangelists wrote with more certainty than we can, for example, say what William Shakespeare wrote. With that in mind, along with other ancient authorities, we can argue for the existence of a man named Jesus and a kingdom named Israel. What we can never do is prove that Jesus is God incarnate or that Israel was God's chosen people using that methodology.
As I have said before, Calvin and Barth both understood this quite well, and emphasized grounding Scriptural authority in God's revelation to us through the Holy Spirit. Christianity is ultimately a relational faith -- it springs from God's relationship with us -- and so we ought to place our foundation squarely there.
While rational grounding is good and necessary, and relational grounding cannot prove an iota to someone who has never felt the presence of God, the latter is the only grounding that can provide a reason to believe the extent of Christianity. Perhaps we are embarrassed of this grounding and that is why we constantly seek to prove Scripture (and Christianity in general) with Scripture, but let's get over the embarrassment and admit it: our faith comes from God reaching out to us. Any other basis simply won't work.
If we admitted that, would we have any annoyed atheists tired of circular reasoning? Likely not -- perhaps they could even understand why we believe what we believe a bit better.
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Any more, I never bother to “reason” with anyone about faith. It’s enough to declare the truth in context.
Hmmm… a very good analysis. The problem with that is that it is totally irrelevant and illogical to proponents of the scientific method and divorce from anything emotional or supernatural. Ours is a holistic faith requiring equally the mind and heart.
Our faith is a relational faith. Our witness should be a relational witness. As Ed said, I never try to “reason” or debate or argue with someone. I don’t try to convince them of my belief or faith as if I needed to justify it. I simply share it. It’s our job to plant and water. It’s the Holy Spirit’s job to convict and cause to grow.
I think that it is still important to “reason” with them… Acts says that Paul “reasoned” with people in the open-air markets. And yes, it was definitely FAR more relational than an online community, but it is an avenue that I don’t think we should ignore either. The hope is more for the witness than in convincing them. For every comment on a post, there are between 15-20 people who read it but do not comment. It is those skeptics, doubters, and seekers that I write for. It just happens to be directed to the very vocal ones.
Never limit or underestimate the Holy Spirit in mediums such as this either. God works wonders in ways we may never expect.
I think you are right, Brad, but I also agree with Ed and Jason. I think my view would be that it is fruitful to demonstrate the internal coherence of Christianity, as well as perhaps reason with those who already accept the foundational beliefs of theism but are trying to sort things out.
The big problem comes when trying to reason an atheist/agnostic into belief, which won’t work.
Well, I should say in most cases, at least.
I think the thing that too few people recognize is that unless God is working in a person’s heart, all the reasoning in the world won’t work.
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