Harbal wrote: ↑Tue Dec 13, 2022 3:20 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Dec 13, 2022 3:15 pm
so even if (as I maintain) the Bible is the word of God,
How can anyone be absolutely sure of that?
"Absolutely sure"? Well, is that our epistemic demand? Is that reasonable? Is there anything we are ever "absolutely sure" about, outside of things like maths, which are closed systems?
Consider that science itself is empirical. That means it's probabilistic, not absolute. The scientist who has done a thousand experiments to prove his theory has still never done the one thousanth and first experiment; so he's not absolutely sure no data can ever appear to contradict his theory. But he thinks it's improbable that such thing would happen, so he goes with the theory. Still, scientists have been definite about theories that later turned out to be wrong before; so he's never absolutely sure.
Human knowing is never "absolutely sure." Human beings are creatures that rely on probabilistic estimations. If something seems to them highly improbable, they don't invest belief (or faith) in it. If it seems very likely, they do. That's the basis on which you get out of bed in the morning; it seems immensely probable to you that you won't be subject to a painful accident or savagely murdered today, if you do. So you do. But there will be people who will be injured, and some will die. And you know that. You're just pretty much certain it won't be you; so you invest your faith in the day.
So I don't think you can mean "absolutely sure." Don't you mean, "Sure enough to warrant my belief," or "sure enough that, as a rational person, I'm not left in significant doubt"? And if that's what you really mean by "absolutely sure," I don't think you're asking too much.
I'll tell you what I know.
When I wanted to know for myself, what I did was this: I decided to take Jesus Christ seriously, and investigate. I was not at all convinced yet; but I was wanting an answer badly enough that I thought that I could at least listen to Him, consider His way, and then, if nothing appeared convincing to me, reject it for good reasons. Reject Him, essentially. I would say I was in a state of considerable skepticism; just not so skeptical that my search was inauthentic or that I had closed my mind completely before I began. I was prepared to be convinced, but not easily, not for no good reasons. I just thought there was a
chance He had something to show me.
What had set me off, ironically, was an encounter with skeptical literature and thought. I was at university. But one question had been bothering me for a long time: why was this world so screwed up? I might have added, in all honesty, "Why am I so screwed up?" And I wanted a serious answer, because the question was very serious to me: really, I wanted an explanation for evil. It wanted to know how the world I was expected to live in could be so bad, so disappointing, so morally corrupt, so confused and so anxious.
The skeptics got me going. And it was because their answers to that question were so bad. They all said some variation of something like this: "Your problem is that the world isn't actually bad; see it another way, and it won't bother you." I knew that was a dodge. Or they said, "The world is screwed up because you were born at the wrong time in history; and it's inevitable, so just accept it." I found I could not. Some sad answer like that was all any of them seemed to have. I was impressed most by the stoical types who just said, "Yes, the world is screwed up, but just shake your fist and die." They were at least honest about what I was seeing, but their counsel was cold...it seemed I was fated to misery, and these men (and women) were telling me I'd run out of prospects.
Their emptiness convinced me I had to take one shot at figuring out if Jesus Christ was any different. I had to investigate, if only to eliminate that possibility; because if I put him in my rear-view mirror before knowing if He had anything to say, I realized I could doom myself by failing to consider a possibility that
might turn out to be right. And I didn't want to make that mistake; the stakes seemed too high. I really did want answers.
So I thought I would read one gospel, one time, and for the first time in my life, take careful consideration for what He said, which I remembered sounded somewhat different from the skeptics and cynics I had been reading...thought I couldn't really tell you how it was different, at the time.
I had that little an amount of faith...just enough to squeak me through, as it turned out. For the more I read about Him, the more inclined I became to think about Him, and then to speak in my thoughts, informally, as if sort of addressing Him. I know now that was the beginning of prayer; but to me, it was not much more than an impulse for Him to show me more than I had at the time...a kind of inchoate yearning, more than an assemblage of prepared thoughts. But I began to "pray" in that fashion and to read...a chapter a day, from the gospel of Matthew. And then I went on with my regular day, and consciously didn't think about it again, for the most part.
What I found is this: if you start talking to God, He starts 'talking' to you. Not in an audible way, I mean, but in the private chamber of your own heart. You begin to "live with" Him...He begins to "speak back" into your experience. And dipping into that pure stream of moral clarity starts to change you...you start to think about Him more, putting your life in context of His thoughts. And things start happening in your life; things start changing, both in you and in the way you view the world. And you start to "see" God in things. You begin to indwell His life, and He begins to indwell yours.
The time comes when you have to make a decision, then; will you live His way, or the way you were living before you met Him? And that's the moment of conversion. That's when either you turn and walk away, or you walk out into the wide field of the activity of God...not merely as an observer but as a participant in that life. And it changes you utterly; not all at once, of course, because
becoming always takes time. But you start
unbecoming yourself, and becoming a new and better person, as your knowledge of Jesus Christ expands.
That's when you know. That's when you become sure that you absolutely will not be going back to where you came from. That's when your suspicion God might exist converts into a deep conviction that He does, that He loves you, and that He walks with you. That's when you really start to grow.
That's when the Bible really speaks to you, and speaks in a way that nothing else does. I've read a variety of other "holy books," just out of a desire to know if my experience was reproducible in them. I found it's not. Nothing like the Bible exists...I'm now quite sure of that. Only the Bible has Jesus Christ. In Him, I find God. And in His Word, I hear the voice of God.
Am I certain? I might even say "absolutely."
That was my process. I think it may be the process that others find. Some come to God by a more spectacular route, I know. Paul, they say, got a light from Heaven on the road to Damascus. I don't have any such experience, myself; but I know many a person converted straight from alcohol or drug abuse, from violence and crime, from sexual deviancy and mental illness, from all sorts of dramatic things. My experience has been more subtle; and whichever route works for you, that's the one you need to take if you want to find certainty.
But my suggestion would be simple: start talking to God. Just start. Take maybe five minutes a day, and talk to Him honestly, informally, in your own words and way. And read a bit of what He has left us to read in the Bible. I started with the gospels: maybe that's a good kind of starting place. But I'd try it for a month or so, just as an experiment, and see what you get.
And if it's nothing, you get your full skepticism back, no charge.
But at least you've eliminated one possibility, right?
I see little evidence for that belief. Christianity borrowed heavily over the centuries from the Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, Plato, Aristotle, Cynics, and Pagan traditions, among many others.
