FYI, I've answered all comments you few dear, wonderful people have made on my blog. For those of you who just lurk, read, and don't say anything...let me hear from you!!! ;o)
In other news, I'm still reading Lee Strobel's The Case for a Creator. It's not exactly "light" reading, so, to my shame, I've been reading it sporadically. But, my fickleness aside, here's something I read yesterday that got me all excited to share some more of this great material with you:
"In arguing for the existence of God, thirteenth century Christian philosopher Thomas Aquinas always presupposed Aristotle's view that the universe is eternal. On the basis of that difficult assumption, he then sought to prove that God exists. Why did he take this approach? Because, Aquinas said, if he were to start with the premise that the universe had a beginning, then his task would be too easy! Obviously, if there was a beginning, something had to bring the universe into existence.
"But now, modern astrophysics and astronomy have dropped into the lap of Christians precisely the premise that, according to Aquinas, makes God's existence virtually undeniable.
"Craig [William Lane Craig, PHD, PHD] offered that story to punch his next point. 'Given that whatever begins to exist has a cause and that the universe began to exist, there must be some sort of transcendent cause for the origin of the universe,' Craig told me.
"'Even atheist Kai Nielsen said, "Suppose you suddenly hear a loud bang...and you ask me, 'What made that bang?' and I reply, 'Nothing, it just happened.' You would not accept that." He's right, of course. And if a cause is needed for a small bang like that, then it's needed for the Big Bang as well. This is an inescapable conclusion--and it's stunning confirmation of the millennia-old Judeo-Christian doctrine of creation out of nothing.'"
--from Lee Strobel's The Case for a Creator, p. 107-108
7 comments:
I'm a commenter and a lurker, and this case probably would have just been a lurker if not for the command issued in the first part of the post. So here goes...
He makes several excellent points.
...see why I was just gonna' lurk? :)
Wow, Bri. The profundity of your observation frightens me. *grin*
Okay, okay, I won't be pushy about telling people to comment. But I still wnt feedback! ;o)
I wish that book had existed when we were in Honors. It would've made for some interesting discussion. (Not that we needed much help with the discussions- we always seemed to have plenty of those!) But I really enjoy Strobel's writing- he proves you can be an intelligent, well-informed Christian. We need more people like that on our side!
We do indeed! And even if we "Honorable" students were able to come up with great discussions even without Strobel, his stuff would've made great reference material for papers.
One thing about his writings disappointments me, though. From what I've read in his books, Strobel and most of the experts he interviews believe that you can be saved simply by "asking Jesus into your heart." It would be so encouraging and powerful if these intellectual, believing men would apply their rational minds and analytical abilities to the Bible, specifically to immersion and to the authority of scripture.
I wonder if Strobel could be persuaded to examine the “case for baptism” as closely as he does the cases for faith, Christ, and the Creator. He has gone so far in his search for truth...I wonder if he's willing to go a step further and find the truth about the case of salvation.
Thanks for the visit, Val! :o)
I feel that I must come back to this post and defend myself...
Some days with a three year old and a 18 month old words just don't form in my brain right anymore. So I just lurk.
Bri, I'm sorry I made you feel like you had to defend yourself! I didn't mean to. You know it's in my contract somewhere to give you a hard time! ;o)
I can definitely understand how kids do something to your verbal skills. If I listened to "weeul weeul liil STAR" all the time, I might have trouble thinking, too. ;o) (I do hope he sings that on Saturday! I can't wait to hear it!)
hey, could you possibly give the reference to Nielsen's comment on the bang that was made by nothing? I need to reference it in my essay and I cannot find the source of this quote. It would be an immense help for me!
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