antifundamentalist vs. grebel

[Antifundamental]

You guys... I am so sorry to do this to you, but my wife has just pointed out to me that I am spending far too much time on these debates.

I really love doing this, and I really appreciate your providing a forum for this discussion.

We are in the middle of launching a window business. It's pretty cool actually - I have invented a type of double paned window where, if fog ever develops between the two panes, the homeowner can easily open up the space between the two panes and clean off the fog. We've got a manufacturer for it, and we are just now setting up our sales strategy and creating our sales materials.

At the same time, we are also moving to another house, and we have tons and tons of old construction projects on our current property that I need to clean up - it's gonna take many many hours of labor to get it all done.

Soooo, at my wife's rather urgent request, I must bow out of this debate for the time being. Hopefully I will be able to resume this discussion in about two months, when all the other craziness in my life is a little more settled down.

Grebel - thank you so much for letting me post here. This conversation has been quite elucidating. I wish you well in your spiritual pursuits.

I will talk to you guys again in a couple months...

Yours with hope,

Jonathan Dawson Lynch

[Brandan Kraft]

Col 2:8, (NKJV), Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.

Jonathan, you've basically stated in your posts, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that nothing can be true to you unless it can be shown to be true by your independent thoughts. Your commitment to your independence is so important to you that every reason you give to support your commitment actually rests on your commitment to your independence. You argue that your experience has informed you of your independence, but your trust in experience for a criterion of truth is in fact founded on your allegiance to your independence. Basically, you are trying to lift yourself up by your own bootstraps! You are supporting your commitment to your independence by arguments founded on your commitment to independence. In other words, your philosophy is like a building whose roof is its foundation; there is no solid ground for it.

When you rejected the God of the Bible as your source for truth, and committed yourself to your independence, you ruled out all possibility of acquiring true knowledge. You were then thrown into a dilemma which you cannot see; but I'd like to point out to you. And it's a dilemma which you could not avoid.

When you turned from God and declared your independence from Him, you basically said, "Hey, the bible is false, I don't get my knowledge from God, but from my independent faculties." The result of this decision was that you asserted that you are ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that the bible is false. However because of your commitment to your independence, you are completely uncertain about the things of God. Yes, you claim to have an idea of how things operate, but in reality, you really don't know. You claim you're reasonably certain that reincarnation is true, yet, you can't claim it without absolute certainty because you can't observe it with your independent faculties (seriously have you seen someone reincarnated?). So in effect you're uncertain that the teachings of the Bible are false because you're not certain reincarnation is true and you haven't actually experienced Christian life. You are caught in a dilemma of absolute certainty and uncertainty. You are neither certain or uncertain of anything. I pity you because you really don't know anything for sure.

When you say that men are good even if they aren't a Christian, you are making a claim of absolute certainty. Because, however, you depend on your mind and your faculties to determine truth, you really can't determine this for certain. Can you take the role of God and see this to verify it? Can you see men as God sees men? You're not God, so no you can't. So if you are dependent on your independent faculties to determine truth, yet you cannot see men as God does, then you also must claim that you are somewhat uncertain about men apart from Christ. And there is no such thing as "somewhat" uncertainty because in end it's total uncertainty. You may claim to have probably knowledge, but "probable" doesn't mean anything... You're just certain you're uncertain, or vice versa.

Consequently, because you are neither certain or uncertain about anything you have no right to say anything about God, the world, or men. Your philosophy is based on your commitment to independence; and your commitment has left you with nothing but futile imagination and hopelessness.

Eph 4:17-19, (NKJV)
17 This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind,
18 having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of their heart;
19 who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to licentiousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.

[Brandan Kraft]

Jonathan, I hope you think about this conversation in the coming months. I hope that God will reveal to you the futility of your thought and show you how hopeless your situation really is.

I would also plead with you one more time - your ONLY hope is to forsake your commitment to your worldview and throw yourself to the mercy of Christ, the author of faith and salvation.

Sincerely,
Brandan

[Fredman]

I was actually interested in this discussion, but it seems as though the fellow either got too busy with his new work, or just plain bailed. Has anyone, Grebel perhaps, heard back from this anti-fundamentalist guy? I was hoping to read some of his interaction with Grebel's responses to his reasons for not being a fundy.

Fred

[Brandan Kraft]

Fredman,

I am disappointed, but it appears antifundamentalist just completely dropped out of the discussion.

You guys... I am so sorry to do this to you, but my wife has just pointed out to me that I am spending far too much time on these debates.

I too really enjoyed our interaction, and it would have been nice had jonathan answered my posts point for point as I did his posts.

Brandan

[countrymouse]

Originally posted by Antifundamental
Here's the thing - my prayers lead me towards much inspiration. I feel compelled to do good by the world. I feel compelled to pursue my dream of building a social movement that might plant the seeds for creating a society with much greater happiness and much less strife. I feel compelled to abandon personal pride, and to find motivation for my actions in the joy of creating beautiful things and making others happy.

I hesitated to post this, since apparently anti-fundamentalist isn't planning to return, and won't around to defend himself. But the above statements are really disturbing, coming from one who will not accept an objective standard for truth.

You see, this is essentially the same justification that Hitler, and others like him, have used in the past for the paths they decided to take.

[Brandan Kraft]

http://www.5solas.org/mp3/Answering_the_Atheist.mp3

[wildboar]

I found it interesting when speaking with Muslims, their main argument seems to be that they cannot understand how God could take on a human nature.

The argument is basically:

I don't understand x.
Anything that I do not understand cannot be true.
Therefore x cannot be true.

Now take some time and insert various things into x and I'm sure we could all come up with a very long list of things that don't exist. Electricity, computers, women...lol

Man has lied to himself so much. He tells himself that he is god everyday and that anything outside of his comprehension does not exist.

On the Fundamentalist issue, I'm not much of a fan of Don Fortner, but he wrote one article that I thought was excellent which can be found here: http://www.go-newfocus.co.uk/article..._the_faith.htm

Sola Gratia,
WildBoar

[Fredman]

I appreciate Brandon posting the link to the Unchained Radio and Gene Cook's webcast. I look forward to listening to some of the other archived programs in the future. However, the one that was posted here, a webcast in which Gene Cook answers the common objections by atheists, was a tad fustrating for me.
Overall, I would agree with his presuppositionalism, and even his approach in quizzing the worldview of his various atheistic callers. The problem I had with his responses was that he tended to completely shy away from providing any meaningful evidence. For example, one caller, I believe the the second one, kept prodding him to give evidence for the truth of the Bible. Cook's answer, that the Bible gives the only reasonable foundation for morality was good, but it seemed as though that he attempted to avoid providing any historical evidence on purpose. For instance, he could have asked the fellow what evidence would satisfy him (he asked the first caller this question, but the caller terminated the conversation, which was unfortunate). Moreover, Cook could have pressed the fact that the Bible's truth claims are proveable with historical evidence, archaeology, and the like, and then provide some examples. But, it seemed to me that he intentionally avoided this issue altogether.
Perhaps I need to be more exposed to his style of broadcasting, or perhaps I misinterpreted some of his comments. Whatever the case, I believe a Christian in an apologetical encounter does not abandon his presuppositions if he provides meaningful evidence to his inquistor. Whether or not the inquisitor agrees with or accepts that evidence is irrelevant, but the Christian cannot be charged with dodging the question.

Any comments from anyone else who may have listened to the webcast? Am I rushing to judgment against what I heard?

Fred

[Brandan Kraft]

I just listened to the conversation in question on the mp3 again, and I don't think Gene did anything wrong. The caller hung up before Gene could expound. Gene was in the middle of the question, "what kind of evidence would satisfy...." and the man hung up. I think that had Gene been given enough time to talk to this man, I think he would have gotten into some of the details.

And yes, I agree, evidence definitely has a place within the presuppositional apologetic Fredman!

Thanks for the post, brother!

Brandan

[Brandan Kraft]

whoops, that was just the first caller, now I'm listening to the second caller

[Brandan Kraft]

Gene said the following...

"although I could cite Josephus, which was a roman historian that supports many of the things we find in scripture.......The bible is not without its extra biblical sources that lend and support its validity; but at the same time, why would I want to appeal to secular testimony when I can appeal to the word of God which is the ultimate authority?"

"when you ask for proof, you are asking me to give you some evidence that you can examine so that you might come to the conclusion of my claims - but the moment you might ask me to give me some evidence that proves my assertion - you have assumed my world view....

my proof is this... the bible is a precondition for the ability to make logical claims....."

I don't think there is any amount of evidence you can give an atheist that will convince him of the truth.... Sure, you can use evidence, but it is my opinion that as an apologist, you need to continue to knock down the sinner's world view.

To be honest with you, I was frustrated with the caller, lol.

You do bring up a good point though Fredman.