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Can One Argue for God's Existence without assuming the Bible is true?


Uber Genius

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Can we gain knowledge of God based on observed facts and experience apart from divine revelation?

50+ years ago in the US, the culture still accepted the truth of the Bible. Evangelists like Josh McDowell or Billy Graham could expound truths in the Bible to lead people to the gospel message.
Today no such assumptions are held by our culture. Trying to convince them that the Bible is a legitimate source of knowledge, let alone "truth," meets with derision or at best, suspicion.

And yet we spend our entire lives gaining knowledge about our world by using our faculties.

  1. Memory
  2. Testimony
  3. Sense perception
  4. Rationality
  5. Introspection

These faculties are all potentially defeatable (fancy term meaning they can be wrong from time to time). Despite the fact that a stick appears to bend when we put it in the water, through the use of our other faculties (memory, rationality, and introspection) we overcome our misunderstanding of our sense experience alone.

When we perceive that the universe began to exist what does that imply?

When we recognize that nothing can't possibly produce something, what does that imply?

We perceive desires such as the one to live a meaningful existence, again what does that imply?

When we experience natural beauty do we stop and ask why is anything beautiful? What would create a universal standard of beauty?

When we are upset that someone mistreated us do we ask why is there a moral value or duty to treat people a certain way? What is the origin of that duty? To whom do we owe that duty?

There are dozens of similar questions that lead one to the inference of a Creator. 

Please feel free to comment on other features of our world that appear, upon some careful reflection, to be transcendent in their origin.

Or are these just brute facts? Or perhaps accidents or coincidental to evolution and therefore not actual features of our external world but rather delusions?

Edited by Uber Genius
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We can know and argue for the existence of a god (an uncaused causal agent, a being outside and greater than spacetime) through the evidence found in nature. Of course, that only goes so far. Only the Bible shows us the true God.

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Guest shiloh357
18 hours ago, Uber Genius said:

Can we gain knowledge of God based on observed facts and experience apart from divine revelation?

You can understand the presence of an all-knowing, all-powerful Creator who is everywhere present from created order.   The created order would not reveal the Person God the Father, or the Trinity of the Godhead, but all we see in terms of nature has the signature of the Creator written upon it. 

There are two types of revelation:  General revelation (nature) and special revelation (the Bible).   Nature reveals the existence of God, but the Bible reveals His Person and His character/attributes. 

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Let's not be naive though. Belief in God is not the same as being saved! The devil believes in God.

H also might know more about him than we do. One cannot merely believe in a creator, one needs to understand that we are sinners, and sin separates us from God but that God made a provision, a way to deal with that separation.

Once an if a person acknowledges the one true God one still needs to accept God's will and submit to God not jast as the creator, but as the Lord over their life. Apart from that, we are still in rebellion and eternally separated from God.

The message then, should be Christ centered, millions believe in a creator, but are still lost.

Apart from the Bible the specifics of the message go unnoticed for most people.

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On ‎11‎/‎6‎/‎2018 at 3:45 AM, Uber Genius said:

Can we gain knowledge of God based on observed facts and experience apart from divine revelation?

 

 

Hi Uber Genius,

1. The power of the Godhead is displayed primarily in the creation of the world, and appeals to the human reason.

2. The purpose of the Godhead is declared particularly in the revelation of truth, which appeals to the human conscience.

3. The presence of the Godhead is disclosed perfectly in the manifestation of the Son, and appeals to the human heart.

 

These facts express a personal Creator, a personal Revealer and a personal Manifester. All three are realised and recognised in Christ.

Marilyn.

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I think there is too much assumptions made of thoughts of 50 years ago.  The power of conviction that lead people to Christ was never just the truth in the bible. The conviction of mens' hearts to turn from sin will always be from the holy spirit.  The scripture is for the believer not the unbeliever. Because it is the believer that delivers the word of GOD to the unsaved.  The Holy Spirit is the same today as he was in the day of Pentecost. 

Throughout history there was always people that did not believe in the bible. The enemy has done a good job in deceiving the hearts of many or altering the word. 

 

 

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On 11/5/2018 at 9:45 AM, Uber Genius said:

Can we gain knowledge of God based on observed facts and experience apart from divine revelation?

Yes!

Just study how a bat can fly through a dark room filled with wires in all directions by use of his radar without touching a single one.

Or how about the dauphin surfing on the bow wave of a container ship using his sonar to spot his next meal underwater.

Even better, the extreme complexity of the human eye, understanding the rods and cones, and... the eye doesn't really see, the light images are sent electronically to a flat screen in our brain which translates them into the picture.  

The nose detects an odor that is again sent electronically to our brain and the brain not only interprets it for us, but stores it in our memory, wanna test it, ...just think of your favorite flower. 

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On 11/5/2018 at 10:45 PM, Uber Genius said:

Can we gain knowledge of God based on observed facts and experience apart from divine revelation?

50+ years ago in the US, the culture still accepted the truth of the Bible. Evangelists like Josh McDowell or Billy Graham could expound truths in the Bible to lead people to the gospel message.
Today no such assumptions are held by our culture. Trying to convince them that the Bible is a legitimate source of knowledge, let alone "truth," meets with derision or at best, suspicion.

And yet we spend our entire lives gaining knowledge about our world by using our faculties.

  1. Memory
  2. Testimony
  3. Sense perception
  4. Rationality
  5. Introspection

These faculties are all potentially defeatable (fancy term meaning they can be wrong from time to time). Despite the fact that a stick appears to bend when we put it in the water, through the use of our other faculties (memory, rationality, and introspection) we overcome our misunderstanding of our sense experience alone.

When we perceive that the universe began to exist what does that imply?

When we recognize that nothing can't possibly produce something, what does that imply?

We perceive desires such as the one to live a meaningful existence, again what does that imply?

When we experience natural beauty do we stop and ask why is anything beautiful? What would create a universal standard of beauty?

When we are upset that someone mistreated us do we ask why is there a moral value or duty to treat people a certain way? What is the origin of that duty? To whom do we owe that duty?

There are dozens of similar questions that lead one to the inference of a Creator. 

Please feel free to comment on other features of our world that appear, upon some careful reflection, to be transcendent in their origin.

Or are these just brute facts? Or perhaps accidents or coincidental to evolution and therefore not actual features of our external world but rather delusions?

Sorry. you repeat knowledge, knowledge.  That applies strictly to exact sciences that deal with discrete countable  elements. All other spheres defy scientific approach due to their extra complexity and consequently subjective approach that reflects a certain group interest at best, that is as against  exact science. As you know in exact sciences there is for humans such thing as absolute truth that is in the comparison of quantities (three chairs in this room is absolutely more than two chairs in the next room). There were attempts to treat social subjects as sciences some centuries back and in the recent past but they failed  for the reason mentioned above. Nothing has changed so far. You can never apply science to humanities so that they would be universally accepted.  Belief is a different thing. If you don't believe, don't. God gives this gift to some people. Regard that as talent. If a person has not got it, it is o.k. but why fight others who have this talent or strictly speaking gift. If I am tune deaf why tell everybody that all music sucks. And remember belief is not hinged to the number of followers. They may be few. So when you speak about derision it makes no sense. It is not the number of believers that matters. It is not winning elections or anything like that. All what you have written is just parallel (that is missing the point). Sorry for my frank reply if it hurts you.

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23 minutes ago, vlad said:

Sorry. you repeat knowledge, knowledge. 

I have no idea what this sentence means. Please rephrase.

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