About God and Jesus Christ
ABOUT GOD In determining why Christianity seems to have done so much harm in society (the crusades, the inquisition etc), one has to distinguish between people who have a relationship with Christ, and the institution which calls itself Christian. An institution can never be Christian. Suffering comes about mostly because of the gift God gave us, "free will", which is the gift that allows us to choose whether to love, or hate, which if the latter is chosen could cause much suffering. Without free will, however, we could not really love voluntarily. And without voluntary love, you just become a robot who cannot possibly love. Also with free will, God chooses to limit Himself as to His power as well as to His foreknowledge of an individual's future, although He does know the over-all beneficial future of society. As I say, most suffering is caused by our use of free will, but some suffering is also caused by creation limitations, and spiritual warfare (because you can't see this really taking place, doesn't mean it's actually not taking place). But this free will is also somewhat limited for the individual in that one's free will is greatly influenced by generation after generation of free will decisions made by their ancestors. And from looking at the world around us, one can see that many of these decisions went in the wrong direction. But then how do you know that there really is a God overseeing all this? It's in the creation. It's illogical to assume that chance really created rationality, so since we were actually created with a desire for meaningfulness, which is a part of rationality and a creator is always greater than his creation, our creator must be greater in personhood (a God) than we are. And our physical smallness compared to what's out there in the universe should be no criteria for our importance to God. After all, we do have rationality. Another arguement for God's existence is that we being imperfect as we all know, but continually striving for perfection, must have developed this idea of perfection from someplace, and the most logical place that we developed this from seems to be from a higher power (a God, for instance). And finally, can you imagine a planet spinning around the universe in perfect unison allowing human life to evolve as it has for as long as it has without completely breaking up with all its earthquakes and volcanoes taking place without a God being in control. So if there is a God, why doesn't He seem to answer prayer? This is a difficult question to answer, but it's probably due to the consequences of sin and spiritual warfare taking place around us, although in our prayers one can experience God being with us to comfort and heal us in any of the suffering we're encountering. The basic function of prayer, however, is to build a faith relationship between God and ourselves, and petitionary prayer is only a small part of this faith relationship. But with petitionary prayer being the crux of the problem as to whether prayer works or not, you can never scientifically prove that petitionary prayer really works, because there are so many interconnected variables to look at in God's scheme of things. Sometimes prayer seems to work, and sometimes it doesn't, but here you have to realize our loving God has a much broader perspective as to what is really needed for society's betterment, than we do while we're here on earth. And as I said above, you also have to take into account the consequences of sin, and spiritual warfare ABOUT JESUS CHRIST Who is Jesus Christ? According to Christians, Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He is also our Savior in that He saved us from our sin by suffering and dying on the cross and being raised from the dead. He was God's sacrifice for us. It was like perfection saving imperfection. But we actually have to believe in all this so that we can then become wrapped up in our belief, or Jesus Christ, just like a Christmas package, so that when God looks at us, all that He can see is His Son (perfection), or Himself as if He were looking into a mirror. Now how do we know all this? By reading the Gospels. But how do we know that the Gospels are really trustworthy. To go into this, you have to look at the Gospels, not as the literal Word of God, but as historical documents. In doing this, you have to ask certain questions about these documents . 1) Do the documents portray eyewitness accounts. The Gospels do. 2) Do the documents contain irrelevant material not pertinent to the eyewitness accounts? Yes, they do. 3) Do the Gospels contain self-damaging material? Yes, they do. For example,the boldness of some of the women during this time period, and the statement Jesus made from the cross when He cried out" My God, My God, Why have You forsaken Me?" 4) Do all 4 Gospels have a consistency as well as a divergency in perspectives? Yes, they do. 5) Do the Gospels increase their legendary exaggeration? No, they don't, even though they do have some supernatural events in them. 6) Is there any indication that the writers of the Gospels have an ulterior motive for writing them? No, there isn't. In fact they could have faced persecution for writing them. 7) Can outside sources from that time authenticate the Gospels? Yes, they can and do. 8) Do archeological findings substantiate many of the Biblical events related to us in the Gospels? Yes, they do. And 9) Were there many opponents of the Gospels at the time that could disprove the Gospels, but couldn't? Yes, there were. These are all questions that should be asked to determine whether a document has historical merit or not. And if the answers are all in the affirmative, except for questions 5 and 6, then the document has historical authenticity. In this case from the answers given above, the Gospels appear to be authentic historical documents and can be used as historical evidence for the life of Jesus Christ. But there still seem to be many historical discrepencies within the Gospels. This actually can be explained away by realizing that the Gospels were never intended to be a biographical sketch of Jesus Christ, although there was much biographical material contained therein. The purpose of the Gospels was really to convey a message of salvation for the readers. In doing this, the discrepencies then become irrelevent. And finally the authorship and date that the Gospels were written are not essential elements to the credibility as to what the Gospels actually say, although from the Book of Acts it does seem to say that at least the first three Gospels were written before 60 AD, and that the authorship of Luke is almost a certainty, whereas the authorship of the other Gospels are closer to a certainty than not. But the bottom line is that there is enough historical authenticity in the Gospels to make them worth-while reading. As I say, in general, the Gospels are historically reliable, but how about the resurrection? Here too, you have enough historical criteria to indicate that the resurrection actually took place. For instance, 1) There are 5 independent sources to indicate that the event took place (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul),with each giving individual eyewitness accounts of the occasion. 2) Jesus's tomb was empty with His burial clothes neatly folded inside the tomb. This could have been easily checked out at the time by those opposed to the story. 3) The church's sudden growth a few weeks after the resurrection. 4) The resurrection accounts also have many irrevelant material and some self-damaging material (such as the role of women in the event) that are common to early eyewitness based accounts. 5) There is a total lack of theological reflection in the narrative which is not true for most legendary accounts. 6) The conversion of Paul is unexplained without the resurrection. 7)Paul lists over 500 witnesses to the resurrection (1 Cor 15) who could always be cross-examined. 8) The transformation of the Disciples which was a miracle considering their character before the resurrection. And 9) There is no motive for the authors to fabricate the story. They had nothing to gain, and everything to lose (their lives). Now does the resurrection prove that Jesus was also God Incarnate? No it doesn't, but if you can take the Gospels as reliable historical documents, you find that Jesus does make such statements in them as, "I and the Father are one", "If you see Me, you see the Father", and "He who believes in Me, believes in the Father who sent Me". This seems to show that Jesus really believed that He was God incarnate. And if the Gospels were fabricated, wouldn't the story have ended differently before the crucifixion?
