new church life: september/october 2014
epitaph
On the day that Robin Williams died, the obituary pages were filled with
countless others who left the world that day, known only to family and friends,
but no less loved and mourned.
It is worth remembering the words of Greek statesman Pericles: “What
you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is
woven into the lives of others.”
(BMH)
the agnostic fallacy
Agnosticism sounds so sensible. After all, agnostics say, neither of the
alternatives – belief in God or belief that there is no God (atheism) – can be
proven. Theists and atheists alike claim to know something which is obviously
unknowable. The only rational position is agnosticism because God (if there
is a God) is by definition infinite and our minds are finite, and therefore
incapable of grasping the Divine.
But the agnostic argument fails to take into account the fact that our
Creator, who well knows our limitations and abilities, has gone to great lengths
to make Himself knowable to us by revelations accommodated to our finite
understanding. In fact, God created our minds for that purpose (knowing
Him) above all else, and implanted in human nature an intuition that there is
a God and a desire to know about Him.
Agnosticism is not just a neutral position on the question of God, but a
choice not to accept the knowable form, which we call “the Word,” in which
God has revealed Himself.
If God came to earth as a Man, would agnostics then be convinced? We
know the answer because He did just that. Some were convinced, others were
not. There is no way in which the Lord could make Himself knowable to us
that would be convincing to those unwilling to believe in Him, except by
destroying their free will and reason, and thus their very humanity.
(WEO)
no evidence?
When people say there is no evidence for God, what they mean is no scientific
evidence, as if nothing is real except what can be detected with an instrument.
When they say there’s no proof of God they mean no evidence that can’t be
interpreted in some other way. But evidence can always be interpreted in
various ways. Rightly interpreted, all the facts of science are “proofs” (or
confirmations) of the truth that there is a God.
Logic also leads to belief in God, provided it begins with valid premises.
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